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- [00:00]
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- [01:02]
Jack Armstrong
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty.
- [01:25]
Joe Getty
It's like, you right now should come out and be like, you know what, the young man who's about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports, that's. That. That shouldn't happen. You, as the governor should step out, say, no, no.
- [01:36]
And I appreciate, but, like, would you.
- [01:38]
Do something like that? Would you say no? Men in female sports.
- [01:40]
Jack Armstrong
Well, it's, I think it's an issue of fairness.
- [01:42]
I completely agree with you on that.
- [01:44]
Joe Getty
What are you talking about? He didn't even say anything there. How did it become controversial and he got attacked from the left for betraying the transgender community. He didn't. He, he went wishy washy on that.
- [01:58]
Jack Armstrong
Well, although he broke ranks, it was like the, the far left, the intersectionality crowd. It's like, you know, the, the Russian soldiers on the front in Ukraine, if they so much as turn in the wrong direction, their own people shoot them. And Gavin showed signs of betraying transgender women. And you can't betray anybody. The Eskimos need to stick with the transgenders need to stick with the, the immigrants need to stick with the Palestinians need to, you know.
- [02:25]
Joe Getty
Now, I heard he walked that back over the weekend. Do we have that anywhere? Has anybody written or audio form? I. I should. I meant to look that up that he walked that back after getting blasted by a number of your more woke Democrats in the country. And again, he didn't even make a strong declarative sentence there. He just said, oh, no, I agree. It's an issue of fairness. Okay, and you think it's fair to what, Allow transgender girls?
- [02:51]
Jack Armstrong
Unfair.
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Joe Getty
Yeah, exactly. You still haven't said.
- [02:55]
Jack Armstrong
Right, right. Yeah. And yet that was way too much for their crowd. But anyway, that whole, you know, NATO of intersectionality, whatever you want to describe it, that's how you end up with something as patently absurd as queers for Palestine. I mean, what, what could be more idiotic than, you know, people who would be immediately tortured, killed, thrown off buildings, et cetera, rallying in favor of Islamism. Anyway, speaking of Gavin Newsom, his State of Cal unicornia, how did it rank? And U.S. news and World Ranking of the States. Now, U.S. news and World Report appears to exist only for ranking various things these days. Um, and their methodology is certainly worth griping about. But I think generally speaking, if you're ranked, say 47th in education, you're not great at it. Can we all agree on that? At least broadly speaking. But you're, you're your top state overall, ladies and gentlemen. Think about it. Lowish crime, solid economy, good education that's probably not real woke infrastructure, great natural environment. I give you Utah. New Hampshire took the number two spot overall. Nebraska came in at number three overall. This is an article from an Orlando outlet. So they talk about Florida. Fair amount. Florida placed number nine, partly because the Sunshine State ranked highest among all 50 states for higher education and the economy. Anyway, you know, we could do the overall rankings if you want, you want your top 10 bottom 10 for overall, all criteria. Yeah, your top 10 mass. Counting up to number one. Massachusetts, Florida, Washington, Vermont, Iowa, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Utah.
- [05:04]
Joe Getty
A lot of really small and or low population states there. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
- [05:11]
Jack Armstrong
Yes, I would agree. Yeah, yeah. And some right, some left, some center, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Again, we. You could certainly quibble with the various methodologies.
- [05:21]
Joe Getty
Yeah, I always thought you dug into it.
- [05:24]
Jack Armstrong
I mean, because if you have, for instance, like Illinois, let's see, where do they rank in education? Because Illinois's got a number of eminent universities. They rank quite high, 16th in education. But I guarantee you elementary through high school education is unforgivably, horrifically.
- [05:44]
Joe Getty
Yeah. And that's what I want ranked.
- [05:46]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, yeah. Really, in a lot of ways, because there's a direct correlation between that and whether they're teaching the basics.
- [05:53]
Joe Getty
Absolutely.
- [05:54]
Jack Armstrong
Here are allegedly your worst states, and these might surprise as well. Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Alabama.
- [06:06]
Joe Getty
Leading the country and shooting criminals in the chest.
- [06:09]
Jack Armstrong
Right. Well, and population growth as a percentage, so it ain't that crappy. Alabama, Alaska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico. And Sad Marty got a grand trombone for Louisiana. It's a funny punchline if I hadn't stumbled over it. But some of these numbers, I mean, like South Cackalack, which I know pretty well, is 19th for environment. What does that even mean?
- [06:39]
Joe Getty
I don't know. See, that's the trouble I have, especially if you get into overall ratings. You throw in a whole bunch of squishy numbers and come up with one big, giant squishy number. The environment. I don't know. And it's quite possible that I would rank them completely upside down on their criteria for whether I want to live there or not. You know what I mean? If they say that they rank it high because they have better recycling programs at the garbage, I don't care. So I would have an inverse relationship with that.
- [07:09]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Let's see. Yeah, I'm looking. Actually, I think the. The whole. Looking at their methodology might be interesting than. More interesting than the actual. The results.
- [07:24]
Joe Getty
You know, I'm on this. I have been for a long time. This, this kick of public education and how we're. We're failing so much that that should be. We should be talking about that all the time. How many people are graduating from your local grade school or high school that can read or do math? That should. Everybody should know that off the top of their head. Those numbers.
- [07:48]
Jack Armstrong
Right. Yeah. I would agree. I would agree completely. Who's doing the measuring and what are their standards? That's what you need to know. Oh, that reminds me on a completely different topic of the skyrocketing rate of autism diagnosis in the United States. And Alicia Finley, I think it was. Yeah. Wrote a really interesting piece. And I have a kid, an adult child now who's autistic, and I'm fairly up on this sort of thing, and I certainly have a sympathetic view of it, but this is a classic example of trying to understand what's happening in the modern world and pawing through the layer after layer of statistics and trying to figure out what's true and not. I believe firmly that there is a rise in autism in the United States. I have no idea what's causing it. Without a doubt, actual cases of kids with the characteristics that describe autism. Okay. On the other hand, there have been all sorts of changes in diagnosis and in the financial rewards for school districts. For instance, for kids being diagnosed, they get extra money. And so to rely on any of the statistics. Well, Trump threw out the other day that we've gone from 1 in 10,000 kids diagnosed with autism. Now it's 1 in 36. There's something wrong. 1 in 36. He said a large measure of that statistic is just changes in incentives and diagnosis, but not all of it. And so I'm not leaping to some fist pounding, angry talk show host conclusion here. I'm just saying it's really difficult to figure out what's actually going on and to what extent.
- [09:35]
Joe Getty
Yeah. And then if I'm going to be fair, even though I complain, we complain constantly about how many layers of administration they've added to schools clear across the country, which is also true. All kinds of people that don't need to be there making a living in your school, getting the tax money as opposed to it getting into the classroom. If you got way more kids with autism and all kinds of different issues, you're gonna need more support. Just a regular teacher only can't handle a class if you got five autistic kids in there.
- [10:13]
Jack Armstrong
Right, Right. It's a classic example of. Both are true. I think there's a rise in autism and a skyrocketing rise in the diagnosis. They mention in the Wall Street Journal here that one kid out of six in American public schools were diagnosed as having a disability. One out of six and five in every class of 30 kids. But do they really?
- [10:35]
Joe Getty
Yeah. And then if you. I know, I know a lot about this, but it. Once the infrastructure to deal with that is the human infrastructure is huge and very expensive.
- [10:48]
Jack Armstrong
Right, Right. And where it's needed, a beautiful example of a compassionate society, in my opinion, where it's legitimate.
- [10:56]
Joe Getty
Yeah. Well, you know, you don't need all those layers of DEI chieftains and their. And their armies. That's a completely different thing. But what was I gonna say? I was gonna say we're talking about the. You got down there kids and then the teachers and you got all the. I don't remember. I forgot what I was gonna say.
- [11:17]
Jack Armstrong
That's a problem with being out, Trump.
- [11:20]
Joe Getty
I mean, the upside is I can hide my own Easter eggs. You know, I could watch the same sitcom over and over again, laugh every time because I never heard. I don't remember the joke. The downside is I don't remember. I was about to say maybe we.
- [11:33]
Jack Armstrong
Could get an official diagnosis out of you and get Some government money for the show. Michael can be your minder. Michael, we'll cut you in on the profits. We're fair. That sounds fine. Fair minded.
- [11:44]
Joe Getty
This is really bothering me that I can't think of this because this is an important topic.
- [11:49]
Jack Armstrong
It was a complex and layered discussion.
- [11:51]
Joe Getty
Certainly diagnosing more kids with more things. And so you got to have the humans there to deal with it. And I don't know.
- [11:59]
Jack Armstrong
One more thought. Bill Cassidy is a doctor, medical doctor, not a fake doctor like Jill Biden. He's a Republican senator and an RFK junior And he were disagreeing leading up to RFK Jr's hearings. Right. It's. What do they call it, you know, consent hearings. And RFK kept saying, hey, you show me the science that says these inoculations are not related to autism and I will change my tune. I will believe it. And Bill Cassidy says, I brought him absolutely sterling silver science, huge studies, carefully controlled, peer reviewed, blah, blah, blah, that made the case. And he dismissed it out of hand and said, no, I don't believe that stuff.
- [12:49]
Joe Getty
Oh, really? I didn't hear that.
- [12:51]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. And so Cassidy's really frustrated. Frustrated with him. That and one of the reasons RFK Jr said I don't believe that because of this paper here. Cassidy said that that paper has been discredited in every which way. And I have no horse in this race. It's just, it's. The methodology was terrible, but RFK just wouldn't believe it. So it's, you know, tough to get to the truth these days.
- [13:14]
Joe Getty
Yeah, it is. And I have spent a lot of money and a lot of time, including this past weekend, on dealing with one kid that's got a variety of the problems that exist in this world, but I'm not concerned they came from the vaccines. So that's just me. Send your emails to Joe if you have a different thought on that. More on the way to here.
- [13:35]
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty.
- [13:37]
Howard Lutnick
If fentanyl ends, I think these will come off. But if fentanyl does not end or he's uncertain about it, they will stay this way until he is comfortable. This is black and white. You got to save American lives. So with respect, with respect to fentanyl, this is about the border and fentanyl.
- [13:58]
Jack Armstrong
As Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, talking about the tariffs, the fentanyl, the precursor chemicals, at the very least, which come from China, then flow through Mexico and to a lesser extent Canada in the United States. And speaking of China, really interesting analysis I came across and troubling From a handful of the writers and analysts in the Wall Street Journal umbrella. It's about China's projection. They're waging a gray zone campaign, and here's what they mean by that. And it's, you know, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, even up into the Himalayas. They're operating in the hazy zone between war and peace to extend their power. Here's what it looks like. Beijing carefully calibrates each move with the aim of staying just below the threshold of action that could trigger outright conflict. But step by incremental step, it is pushed deeper into contested areas, exhausting opponents and eroding their strength with a thousand cuts. What they're talking about is probes by warplanes maneuvered by Coast Guard ships or the creeping construction of new civilian settlements. They push you in the region right to the brink of war, over and over and over again. And they carefully calculate what's going to bring a shooting war on and calibrate just below that over and over again. And it's interesting. This article is illustrated visually in a way that I wish we could show you. We'll post it@armstrongandgetty.com under Hotlinks. It'll probably get paywalled, I don't know. But it shows the actual tracking of ships, for instance, as little lines. And where there have been a bunch of ships circling an island or whatever, it becomes a very thick, heavy line. So you can look at what China's doing physically, satellite images and plane tracking equipment and that sort of thing. But it is so obviously increasingly aggressive in ways that are indefensible by the rhetoric. Like they're pushing closer and closer and closer to the coast of the Philippines and claiming islands and taking over islands or so heavily patrolling those islands and ramming ships. We've seen that recently. Sometimes it's the Chinese Coast Guard, sometimes it's this militia of private fishing vessels which they've deputized to just make life living hell for, for instance, Filipino fishermen or their navy or whatever. And so bit by bit by bit, they're pushing everybody back and staying just under what would trigger a shooting war.
- [16:30]
Joe Getty
I'm endlessly fascinated with the whole China thing, and I think everybody should be, because, yeah, they're hell bent on taking over the world. Do you think there would be. You could have. When do we have the Beijing Olympics coming? Somebody Google that real quick. When we had the Olympics of Beijing wasn't that long ago. I remember I was shocked that it happened.
- [16:50]
Jack Armstrong
I didn't think like 2012 or something like that. But anyway, we can look it up.
- [16:56]
Joe Getty
That'll never happen again. What do you got there?
- [16:58]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, no, no.
- [16:59]
Joe Getty
The Winter Olympics, either.
- [17:01]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, Putin promised he wouldn't evade during the Olympics. It was what, 2020, 2022? Yeah.
- [17:07]
Joe Getty
Okay, so it was right before the war in Ukraine. But I remember thinking then that I can't believe we're participating. I mean, the whole world is going to China and acting like they're just a regular country. Surely we wouldn't now, but maybe we would. I don't know. The UN Is ridiculous.
- [17:22]
Jack Armstrong
Yes, it is. And it's worth reviewing that whole system of little islands they created in the South China Sea, where they built them up, but swore they wouldn't militarize them, then built, you know, landing strips and said, but don't worry, we won't put weapons systems on them. And the reason that's been even more important than anybody realized is because now all those islands are like little military bases. They're stopping points so they can patrol in a much wider area and not have to come back home. So they can refuel, refeed the guys, whatever, and project their power much more efficiently over a much bigger zone. And so they have militarized a huge section of the ocean that never was before.
- [18:05]
Joe Getty
That is really interesting. I have things to say about that. But maybe some other time, because this topic will be around for a very long time.
- [18:12]
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty.
- [18:15]
Now, look, I can't have you two at each other's throats, okay? After all, I have a perfect record. Everyone who's ever worked for me has left on good terms and gone on to write a book called the man who Ruined Everything. So you two need to start acting like mature adults. Okay, so let's begin with Marco Polo. No, Elon, I'm trying to talk to Marco Polo.
- [18:43]
What is that? What's this? What's this? He keeps doing this. What's this?
- [18:47]
Nobody knows, okay? It's his little dance.
- [18:49]
We let him do it.
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Joe Getty
All right? It's his least unsettling trick. So that's from Saturday Night Live, which, weirdly, I'd like to actually talk to Lorne Mark Michaels about this. I mean, he's a genius of keeping that thing relevant over a half a century. But the opening thing is always so off putting to those of us who don't agree with his politics. Then the rest of the show is sketch comedy. But you got, like, a big chunk of the country that can't get past your open every week. So you. You're. You're sketch comedy. That's just about any topic. It's nonpolitical. The show is mostly non political, but for a whole bunch of Saturday Night Live haters in this country, it's a political show because they only see your opening segment. Stop with it. Would you just stop?
- [19:29]
Jack Armstrong
Well, when your opening segment is a loud declaration of you're not welcome here every week, it's an odd marketing maneuver, right?
- [19:37]
Joe Getty
But anyway, Elon being portrayed by Mike Myers. And I come back Saturday Night Live, and just the idea that Elon is now such a villain of the left is. Man, who saw that coming 10 years ago? Nobody.
- [19:53]
Jack Armstrong
Nobody, nobody.
- [19:55]
Joe Getty
I mean, he was the leader of we need to go electric with cars. Climate change is our biggest problem. You know, all that sort of stuff. And hero of the left. And, you know, I live in a part of the country where people buying, were buying Teslas, even though they didn't make sense, were way too expensive, virtue signaling. Now it's flipped completely the opposite direction. As we all know, over the weekend, hundreds of New Yorkers swarmed and shut down the Tesla dealer in Manhattan. They shut down a major car dealership, an electric car dealership. Six were arrested after occupying the showroom and shattering all the windows and everything. And then they said, had to post police at the big Tesla dealerships and a whole bunch of other cities around the country to try to try to protect them. I saw a video. I mean, it was just one nut job. But running out into the street and pounding on a cybertruck in traffic, I don't know what this is going to do to the value of Teslas. I almost want to buy a cybertruck now. Just as a giant middle finger to the people who hate Elon so much because it's such a noticeable thing. Just like I'm with Elon.
- [21:01]
Jack Armstrong
So the folks who pull this sort of thing back in 2022 found that 22% of car shoppers surveyed said they would definitely consider a Tesla for their next vehicle purchase. 22%. By last summer, the percentage had dropped to 7%, dropped by more than two thirds, roughly in line with Lincoln.
- [21:22]
Joe Getty
But it's now more popular with Republicans than Democrats. Even though they're not actually probably going to buy the car, their view of it is higher.
- [21:34]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, yeah. It's definitely an unprecedented alignment of a product with a political point of view in a way that, you know, it's not like, I mean, Target was selling repugnant items for confused adolescents during their whole up with Trans thing. Okay, Tesla's just. You get in it, you go to the store and then you come back home again. It's not like it's, it plays Trump speeches and that you can't turn them off or it'll, you know, it'll only take you to the va, you know, and not to the ballet or whatever.
- [22:13]
Joe Getty
Or the self driving system runs over government workers if it sees them.
- [22:18]
Jack Armstrong
It's an agnostic product. It just.
- [22:21]
Joe Getty
But. Well, more on that in a second. There's a, we got some sort of protest locally. You have Katie. There was a protest at the Tesla dealership on Arden Arcade on Saturday. More than 100 protesters showed up and they lined both sides of the thoroughfare. 100 is a pretty good turnout on a Saturday for a third for a car dealership because you don't like the politics of the guy who started it's now a publicly traded company. I mean, it's just, I mean, boycotting Bud Light because they had the trans person on there, you know, yeah, okay, I'll drink a different beer that tastes exactly the same or whatever. I mean, it's just there's so little. But selling your car or attacking the dealership just seems so, I don't know.
- [23:06]
Jack Armstrong
I don't know where we are. The other aspect of it that we point out many times and we'll continue to, is that the Trump voter is about half of America or at least, you know, conservatives, Republicans, whatever, it's half of America. So you're saying that something that is aligned with half of the country is so repugnant and outrageous I won't even be seen in it. Even if it's a fabulous product. The whole up with trans thing is a tiny percentage. So again, it's just a poor comparison, I think.
- [23:35]
Joe Getty
Yeah. And then you have the weird aspect that's unique that Tesla's main appeal was to progressives to start with.
- [23:43]
Jack Armstrong
Right.
- [23:44]
Joe Getty
Because it was more of a gesture than a reality of you are perfectly okay with the car you had before. You're not actually affecting climate change by getting a Tesla. But you know, that whole thing. So the Washington Post has an article. Anger at Elon Musk turns violent with Molotov cocktails and gunfire at Tesla dealerships. And here's one of the breakdowns of the story. Anger at Elon Musk is turning violent. People are burning his cars and shooting his stores, leaving frontline Tesla workers and ordinary vehicle owners to bear the brunt of the anger incited by Musk's politics is how they write it. He incited this. They, they, they have no. What am I supposed to do? He incited me.
- [24:28]
Jack Armstrong
And that's in the New York Post.
- [24:31]
Joe Getty
Washington Post.
- [24:32]
Jack Armstrong
A Washington Post. Okay. Yeah.
- [24:35]
Joe Getty
Elon Musk's, because he is a fiscal conservative and supports Trump, has incited you to shooting up a Tesla dealership. That's an interesting way.
- [24:47]
Jack Armstrong
Left wing journalism right there. Yeah.
- [24:49]
Joe Getty
Unbelievable.
- [24:50]
Jack Armstrong
See what they did? Well caught.
- [24:52]
Joe Getty
Yeah. I said, well, I should dig this up because this is really good. Go ahead.
- [24:56]
Jack Armstrong
In a way, it's kind of ironic that, and we've been saying this for a long time and I think this is proof that the whole electric vehicle thing is not clearly a net positive for the environment. Even if you are staunchly in favor of doing whatever is best environmentally, it is far, far from indisputable that electric cars do anything good because of the battery and the weight and the tires and, and the excavation of the materials and the rare earths and the mining and blah, blah, blah, blah. We've all gone over that many times. But isn't this proof that since it was just symbolic anyway, well, you might as well stop buying them because it was just symbolic anyway, right?
- [25:35]
Joe Getty
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Tesla was the most. Is, is the most valuable car dealership in the world because of symbolism, not because there are no numbers to back that up. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It's such a tiny number of cars.
- [25:48]
Jack Armstrong
That's a fine motor car indeed. But.
- [25:53]
Joe Getty
Somebody made the point. I don't remember who it was. Can you imagine if MAGA was vandalizing electric vehicles across the country? What a news story it would be. And how it would be portrayed, Right, as a bunch of science denying poltroons. But when lefties are attacking an electric car dealership, they were incited by the evil Hitler wannabe Elon Musk.
- [26:17]
Jack Armstrong
They are incited into mostly peaceful protests. Yes.
- [26:20]
Joe Getty
Oh, and we mentioned this earlier in the show. Tesla's stock has dropped 45% since December. That is extraordinary. Moving down.
- [26:34]
Jack Armstrong
And it's still valued at $847 billion more than any other car company, which is inexplicable. Yeah. The percentage of Democrats who'd said they'd consider buying a Tesla declined from 23% last summer to. I guess that was two summers ago. 23% to 13% recently. Over that period, the percentage would be. Republican buyers grew from 15 to 26%. That's funny.
- [27:05]
Joe Getty
Isn't that something? And again, that is a would consider because I don't think Republicans are going to buy Teslas. Most of the places Republicans live is not that handy a vehicle for them.
- [27:17]
Jack Armstrong
Is this the inevitable fallout of a society that's gone from hardly thinking about politics at all to obsessing about it all the time and identifying ourselves as one thing or another?
- [27:27]
Joe Getty
Might be.
- [27:28]
Jack Armstrong
So it is worth telling you I gotta start, you know, Joe's Star Spangled breakfast cereals. Then we'd expand to gym shoes. Of course, Trump has already kind of done that, but Joe's Star Spangled would be the brand. We'd have star spangled posters, pens, clothing. This reminds me of nasal spray for allergy season.
- [27:48]
Joe Getty
I'm stealing this from Sarah Isger of the Dispatch. So all credit to her for bringing this to my attention. I'm not pretending I caught onto this on my own, but she was talking about it on the Dispatch podcast the other day. So, down in Texas, this guy pranked one of his friends and it worked, which gets to your point. So this. This dude claimed to a bunch of people there is a Texas chili cook off going on sort of thing, and claimed to the friends that, you know, beans in chili is a woke thing, and how real chili only ever had meat in it. And back in the day, the wokester is trying to get us off of meat and convince us that we needed to eat beans. Got it into chili and made all this different sort of stuff. But anyway, so this chili guy started taking beans out of the chili, making the declaration that, I'm not. This is not woke chili. And then the dude had to go to the other dude and say, I was just kidding. That was a joke. I was. That isn't true. And then he got very, very angry. But the fact that it worked is the thing it gets to your point of is it just mean that we've become too obsessed with politics now that you're gonna choose how you make your chili or which car you drive or whatever, based on how it aligns with politics. Yeah.
- [29:07]
Jack Armstrong
If somebody convinced me that only progressives like tomato sauce on pizza and that grape jelly is really the conservative way to go, I'm still eating the whole. Okay, that doesn't make me transgender or whatever, or WOKE or, you know, sanctuary city. I'm for good pizza in cars that run. And just. What's the matter with everybody? Calm down.
- [29:27]
Joe Getty
Yeah. Makes it difficult. Makes it difficult. Oh, I know I should mention we're not a stock show, but this is, in all fairness, the way that Tesla could drop 45% since December is he had a huge bump after the election. Tesla stock shot through the roof after the election. It was already high, but. So that has been erased since the election. And now it's back to where it was already very, very high before.
- [29:50]
Jack Armstrong
So, ah, ooh, an important asterisk right there.
- [29:54]
Joe Getty
Yeah, fair to mention. But that other stuff about how popular it is among Republicans and Democrats, that's all true. We got a lot more in the.
- [30:00]
Jack Armstrong
Ways to hear Armstrong and Getty.
- [30:04]
Keir Simmons
There are battles, I mean, intense battles taking place. There's video of Russians making their way through abandoned gas pipes to try and get to the Ukrainians to fight, of drone strikes on Ukrainian tanks in that area of Kursk. Why is that so intense? Why is it so important? Because Ukrainians hope to hold that ground in order to negotiate a swap of some kind of territorial swap. I mean, that's what we perceive Ukrainians want to do. Now, if they lose that ground, and the Russians are clearly determined that they will, then that obviously changes the negotiation. And that's all important, too, going back to your question, because ultimately, if you are the Kremlin and you think that you are winning in Kursk and you think that you will get that ground back in the weeks, but maybe months ahead, why would you agree to a ceasefire?
- [30:52]
Joe Getty
Now, that's a very good question, Keir Simmons of NBC, and where I don't quite understand some of the strategy. Russia really went hard at Ukraine over the weekend. Probably worth playing this back and forth with Trump and a reporter. Do you, Mr. President, think that Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of the US Pause right now on intelligence and military aid to Ukraine?
- [31:19]
Jack Armstrong
I actually think he's doing what anybody else would do. I think he's. I think he wants to get it stopped and settled, and I think he's hitting him harder than. Than he's been hitting him, and I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now. He wants to get it ended, and I think Ukraine wants to get it ended, but I don't see. It's crazy. They're taking tremendous punishment.
- [31:43]
Joe Getty
I don't understand that position at all.
- [31:49]
Jack Armstrong
Nor do I. Doesn't make any sense to me. Well, the Ukrainians resisted the invasion of a hostile neighbor so they wouldn't die. Anybody else would have died and live.
- [31:58]
Joe Getty
Under the thumb of a dictator. And so his. So we stopped. Now, today, Trump has said, oh, we're going to start the intelligence sharing up real soon again. So maybe we are, I don't know. But we stopped sharing intelligence, which I guess is more important than practically anything else. You know, several days back, sharing intelligence with Ukraine, Russia attacks the bejesus out of them. Trump's asked about that. He Says, well, Putin's doing what anybody would do. He wants to end this thing. So he's gonna kill as many innocent Ukrainians as possible. So they'll submit and he gets to take as much as their country. I don't get this at all. I know a lot of you, I don't know if a lot of you, but some of you are really in favor of that. Some, I don't understand the philosophy in any way whatsoever.
- [32:46]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I was kicking around social media over the weekend, always a mistake. But, and it, it was funny because there was kind of like an overlap between the situation in Syria right now, where the new regime, which is the former Al Qaeda guys are fighting tooth and nail and all sorts of people are being killed in the streets as Assad loyalists are fighting, loyalists are fighting them. Then allegedly some of the Syrian regime, Islamist fundamentalist guys are killing minorities and Christians and whatever. And then the Ukraine. There's this weird element of American, I don't want to call it conservatism that's got this, the Jews are in charge, Putin's a good guy, the US is a bad country, we've fallen under the sway of the global something or other. Then it gets back to the Jews and getting any sort of reliable information is getting harder and harder because they've all got, you know, completely diametrically opposed spins of what's happening and why it's happening. And just the conversation on the conservative side of things has gotten very, very weird, in my opinion.
- [33:52]
Joe Getty
If at some point it becomes clear that we're really sticking it to Putin behind the scenes or about to really stick it to Putin, and this is all part of a strategy or whatever, I will openly admit that, I promise. But right now, when you ever gonna say anything that even hints at Putin being a bad guy or he did something he shouldn't have done that is awful. As opposed to. Well, Putin's doing what anybody would do. He's trying to end this. I'd like to see a little more effort outta Ukraine in trying to end this. So the guy who's bombed a, a, a hotel over the weekend and killed people is trying to end the war. The side that is continuing to defend itself and doesn't want to just give up is the problem.
- [34:43]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I read one analyst trying to explain how that was five dimensional chess to bring Putin to the table or something, but the idea that weakening Ukraine will bring Putin to the table sooner is bizarre to me.
- [34:55]
Joe Getty
Right. I don't understand why. And so far there's been no real word out of Putin's side that he, he. Everybody likes this idea but Putin. Why would I, if I'm Putin? Stop now.
- [35:06]
Jack Armstrong
Okay.
- [35:07]
Joe Getty
United States is finally tired of this with all their support.
- [35:10]
Jack Armstrong
Cool.
- [35:11]
Joe Getty
Now I got a chance to actually get what I originally wanted. The whole damn country.
- [35:15]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Well, this guy's point of view is that Putin is so much weaker, domestically speaking, than people are talking about. That ending, it would be great for him. See, there you go.
- [35:25]
Joe Getty
That, that, that's the sort of thing. And if that turns out to be true, I'm more than willing to say Trump knew things we didn't know. It was three dimensional chess. Brilliant. Blah, blah, blah. But I don't know that that's the case. And again, you got this whole giant idea of China, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, Greenland, everything that big spheres of influence.
- [35:51]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah.
- [35:51]
Joe Getty
That people keep talking about. Are we gonna be allowed to have a national debate about that at some point or. I don't know how that's gonna play out now.
- [36:02]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Don't know, man.
- [36:04]
Joe Getty
If you miss a segment or an hour, get the podcast or if you got any thoughts on this, text, please. 415295, KFTC. But the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.
- [36:13]
Jack Armstrong
Coming up, Keeping trans athletes out of sports is state sanctioned genocide according to the lunatics. Next hour. You get it? Armstrong and Gettysburg. 30 seconds later.