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Jack Armstrong
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Jack Armstrong
Ugh.
Joe Getty
Come on.
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Why is this taking so long?
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Jack Armstrong
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Jack Armstrong
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Jack Armstrong
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Jack Armstrong
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Cindy Crawford
Broadcasting live.
Joe Getty
From the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at.
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The George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Joe Getty
Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. This year, Trump's been to the super bowl, the Daytona 500, the World cup, two UFC fights, and a wrestling championship.
Jack Armstrong
Eric and Don Jr. Were like, still couldn't come to one of our little league games.
Joe Getty
I don't think that. Well, I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't think that's true. I just wanted to mention this because I've heard it several times, in fact. Jimmy Fallon makes a joke about it. Does he? We have that joke. I don't know if we do or not. So the US Open tennis championship. Trump went to that the other day on Sunday, I guess it was, and he attended. And the U.S. open made an announcement to the media outlets to not air any cheering or booing. But all of the mainstream media outlets, including Jimmy Fallon's joke last night, have said. And they said you weren't allowed to air any booing of President Trump. No, they said cheering or booing, but they all make it booing to make it sound like there's some sort of. Obviously Trump gets booed everywhere he goes and there's a cover up to squash it. That sort of thing makes me angry. It just makes me nuts. It also is why you keep losing, by the way, because we all see it.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I guess I'm just so used to it, I don't even. Doesn't upset me anymore.
Joe Getty
Israel has just hit Doha Qatar with a couple of rockets in an attempt to wipe out a couple of senior Hamas officials. And my guess would be they were probably pretty successful. It just happened. So we don't know the details, but they've been pretty good at this in the last couple of years of knowing where somebody is and getting like that floor of that building and making sure they're dead.
Jack Armstrong
Right. Yeah. Their intelligence is spectacular. Yeah. This, I think the Abraham Accords are going on the. The top shelf in your pantry where you put the serving dishes you only use on Thanksgiving Yeah, it's going way back.
Joe Getty
As details come in on that, that's a big story. We will get them to you. The national report card came out today that officially the National Assessment of Education Progress, the naep, but they call it the national report card where they look at 8th grade science scores and seniors math and reading scores. It's all down. It's all down out there. Everything's down. Eighth grader science scores have fallen four points and it's among high achievers or low achievers. For 12th graders, math and reading scores have fallen 3. The low achievers are the lowest they've ever been. And the most important piece of news out of this whole thing as far as I was concerned, was that if you go way, way, way back. We are now down 10 points for 12th grade readings since 1992 when they first started doing this. So in the last 33 years we've dropped 10 full points as people scream and yell about throwing more money at schools. And we have thrown more and more money at schools and what we've got as a result is we've gone down 10 points for reading. Moving down. It seems to me that you have two different crowds on this whenever you hear about it. You got our crowd, which is the correct crowd, which says our schools are diseased.
Jack Armstrong
Correct.
Joe Getty
Not you individual teachers who many of whom are like the greatest people I've ever met in my life, but the whole structure of having layers and layers of administrators that who knows what the hell they do. They didn't used to exist when our scores were higher. That all the different wokeness that you jam into all the classes.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. More on that to come.
Joe Getty
All the different things you do that aren't science and reading and our scores go down. You got our crowd who say that that's the problem. And then you got the other half of America who thinks it's all about you just need to throw more money at it. More money. We'd get better results. Why are you cutting funding? We need more money.
Jack Armstrong
Right, Exactly. Don't do any reforms, don't do any charter schools, don't do any education vouchers, no school choice, anything.
Joe Getty
We're on the right track. We just need more money.
Jack Armstrong
Right? Yeah. So just to bottom line it for you, the 12th graders, these are the kids heading either to college where they don't teach anymore, either or out in the workforce. The percentage that are proficient in reading, 35%. Just over a third. And that's the good news, folks. Math is less than a quarter, 22%.
Joe Getty
How could we you graduate? How could you have a high school graduating class where only a third can read it? Proficiency. And they're not setting the bar very high for proficiency by the way. We keep lowering it over the years. That's left out of the story. In lots of places across the country. We keep lowering the bar for what's proficiency.
Jack Armstrong
Well, they do have a measure of just basic skills. Do you at least have basic skills? And it's under 70% for reading and about 55% for math.
Joe Getty
There are myriad reasons that we got problems in our public schools. One of them is they pass everybody along. You can't do math and read as a first grader and they move you on to second grade, you're doomed. And that teacher is doomed because they just inherited a kid into their second grade classroom that can't read or do math at a first grade level. So they can't catch them up. I mean, what am I supposed to do? And it just keeps continuing. Who thought this was a good idea to keep passing kids along from grade to grade? You're doing such a disservice to these children. I hate it so much. I dealt with it with my own kid. I won't get into the details because it wouldn't be fair to him. He's a special needs kid, blah blah blah. But I caught them numerous times claiming that he could do things that he couldn't. How do you think you're doing him a favor? Oh, that makes me so angry.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, yeah. So ready a piece.
Joe Getty
That's a nice, a nice thing to do. What is nice about telling a kid.
Jack Armstrong
You got nice for them?
Joe Getty
You got an A on that when they can't actually do it? How is that nice? I don't get it.
Jack Armstrong
It's sick. It's sick and self serving. We read you part of a piece the other day from Dan Lerman. I think his name is about the. The. The stone sounding high school teacher who didn't teach math. He just prattled on about woke crap. And he goes through a bunch of examples like in 2021, the state of California unveiled a draft of its new mathematics framework calling for districts to abandon tracking practices and delaying algebra 1 until 9th grade in the name of equity. In doing so, they stunted the students who may well have soared. All while affluent families bypass the system through private options led to the recall elections, removal of three board of education people. But you've got students in blue cities doubling down on that stuff. Portland Public Schools, portions of la, San Francisco United have explored or piloted These grading for equity reforms where they eliminate penalties for missing work or cheating. They exclude homework attendance, behavior and participation from academic grades, permit unlimited retakes of tests and essays. And, and the, the results are just absolutely clear. This is, you don't need Sherlock Holmes. When a guy is standing over the victim with a smoking gun. It's, it's just unbelievable. And he goes into scientists talking about how it's just absolutely clear what's going on. Uh, the new the National Review had a great piece recently about textbook bias. The textbooks these kids are reading from are left wing indoctrination.
Joe Getty
And in my son's class, the teacher held up that left wing book and said this book is full of lies. Meaning it wasn't woke enough.
Jack Armstrong
Right.
Joe Getty
But another one of the numbers that is out, the percentage of kids that missed three or more days of school, the absenteeism is through the roof. Since COVID kids just got used to not going to school or, or, or, or, or parents realized you could get away with your kid not going to school or whatever is causing it. So that obviously doesn't help the scores because it's pretty hard to learn when you're not there for all the obvious reasons. The guy who runs this whole organization that does the national report card said that this has been a trend for many years. My predecessors predecessor said we need to keep our eye on this trend. It's going the wrong way. Then my predecessor said it, now I'm saying it. We're all saying the same thing. It keeps going down, down, down again. There's a 10 point drop in reading since 92. 10 points is a lot.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, yeah. It's shocking. And hey, rampant illegal immigration plays a role in this. It absolutely does. But that's another progressive. Well, that's, it's a little more complicated than that. It is a progressive policy, but there are plenty of people on Wall street who love it too. Europe will tell you the same thing. No doubts.
Joe Getty
I've had the experience, I've talked about this with teachers who have had to use the Google Translate on their phone and they do something in English and then they do the Google Translate thing for the kid who speaks whatever language happens to be in the class. And you have to do that for a couple of different kids. Obviously that's going to drag down the whole class.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. So your, your summary statement I think is that we've been, we Americans, kids, parents, all the society suffers. Everybody has been betrayed by the government class and the government unions, which include teachers unions multiple times in multiple ways. Including the illegal immigration thing. And there's just, it can't be allowed to continue to handle that part of our lives. In my opinion. The brilliant Roland Fryer. Do you know Roland Fryer?
Joe Getty
He's.
Jack Armstrong
He's an economist. He is teaches and works and researches and writes out of Harvard. He happens to be a black man. He has solved these problems actually in real life, in real schools solve these problems and the educational establishment has no interest in it. More on that next segment. A quick word from our friends at Prize Picks. I was just looking. They have this thing they call clicking on again in front of me. They have this thing they call their max discount squares. Because the idea of price picks super easy. You just pick two or more players and say more or less on their stat projections but they give you a couple of max discount like no brainer squares like this week's Travis Kelsey of the Chiefs. If he gains one receiving yard and you said over the 0.5 receiving yards, you win.
Joe Getty
What did you have for J.J. mcCarthy of the Vikings last night? Man, keep an eye on him this whole season. Wow, that was quite the display. Anyway, it's a fun way to take your opinions and turn them into money with prize picks. You want to download the app today and use the Code Armstrong to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's the code ARMSTRONG. Get $50 in lineups after you Play your first $5 lineup. Price picks. It's good to be right and it's fun.
Jack Armstrong
It's easy. You don't have to run a team all year. Love it. Price Picks. So that Roland Fryer stuff coming up in a moment or two. I am a conservative. Proudly. I don't believe in wild radical change suddenly because what is is where it is. Because it's worked and been time tested and government schools had a period of where they're pretty damn solid depending where you were, but overall pretty damn solid. A lot of dedicated people who are there teach children. It is now a government jobs program. Our government school system layers and layers.
Joe Getty
And layers of administrators that didn't used to exist and we're getting a worse result. I mean the math. Speaking of math, the math seems pretty easy on me on this.
Jack Armstrong
For me, yeah, it's more like patronage jobs like Pete Hegseth and Trump have said the Pentagon became. It's just a jobs program as opposed to a war fighting force and it's got to be cleaned up.
Joe Getty
Any thoughts on this text line 415295 KFTC Armstrong and Getty.
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Tickets Shout out to Sonos for supporting today's show. I just added the Sonos Arc Ultra to my home theater and folks, it's a game changer. The surround sound is so immersive, I swear I heard the turf crunch during kickoff. And the bass. It hits like a powerhouse running back in the open field. Plus, it looks clean, sleek design that fits right in with my setup. Whether I'm watching live games or catching up on film, Sonos makes it feel like I'm in the stadium. If you want sound that performs like a first round pick, Sonos Arc Ultra is the move. Explore the lineup@sonos.com hi, I'm Cindy Crawford.
Cindy Crawford
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Joe Getty
So the nation's school report card is out. No surprise. Down again. Keeps going down. Been going down for decades. We keep throwing more money at it and adding more layers of administration to all our schools, getting worse results. But I don't think they actually care because as Joe said, it's more of a jobs program than about educating kids at this point anyway, and an indoctrination.
Jack Armstrong
Camp into leftist ideology. So Roland Fryer, who is a brilliant economist, researcher, writer, he happens to work at Harvard and he happens to be a black guy, he wrote a piece. I'm just going to read you a chunk of it, he said. This is personal to me. In Houston, a research project I led called Apollo 20 showed it was possible to erase the racial achievement gap in less than two years by applying simple reform principles to the worst performing schools. Today, the tools we used sit on the shelf not because they failed, but because leaders failed to act. We are watching temporary setbacks calcify into permanent inequality, even though we know how to reverse them. I've been obsessed with fixing American schools for most of my career. In 2009, I told my team of research assistants and project managers that we could do it by 2025. It was part optimism, part arrogance, part youthful naivete. But he mentioned a number of leaders who believed that nothing was impossible and fueled my optimism. Fifteen years later, many of the ideas that once filled our conversations are gone. Not because they failed, but because the system walked away from them. And. And he I'll just read it. In 2012, my graduate student I collected unprecedented data from nearly 50 New York City charter schools to see which practices truly boosted student learning, class size, and teacher credentials. Political obsessions for decades mattered little. What mattered most were five concrete replicable practices more instruction time, high expectations, frequent teacher feedback, data driven instruction, and high dosage tutoring. Together, these five tenets explained roughly half the difference between effective and ineffective schools. Then they found a superintendent in Houston who was like the only one who was interested in in putting what they learned to work. And so together we applied the five tenets in 20 struggling public schools serving nearly 20,000 students. We lengthened the school year by 20%, brought in hundreds of tutors, replaced 95% of the principals and half the teachers while retaining the rest, embedded and retraining the rest, I should say embedded data and instruction, and built a culture of high expectations. It was one of the most ambitious social experiments in American public education and the results were astonishing. Astonishing. It was an enormous complete success. He mentions that reading was a little tougher to turn around and they didn't do as well because of the unique state of kids brains when they're very young.
Joe Getty
Yeah, up until like age 8, your brain is just unbelievable. And then it changes after that. Your ability to learn prior to that age is incredible. So it's really hard. That's why it's so hard to pick up, pick up a foreign language as an adult or whatever.
Jack Armstrong
Right. Unless you have that special talent. Anyway. He says in elementary school math students gain the equivalent of four extra months of learning each year. Enough to erase the racial achievement gap in less than two years. And he's looking at it through the lenders of race, obviously, but any kid who's not achieving because their schools are crappy would benefit from this. In secondary schools, where skeptics said reform was impossible, students gained nearly eight additional months of learning in a nine month school year.
Cindy Crawford
Wow.
Jack Armstrong
These were bigger effects than those produced by some of the other great success stories in education. So the Houston schools doubled these gains year after year. By the third year, elementary students had accumulated the equivalent of an extra academic year.
Joe Getty
That's incredible.
Jack Armstrong
Blah, blah, blah. Results were jaw dropping. Then he talked about reading and then he says by 2013 the project was finished, not despite its success, but because of it. Even so, the funding was pulled from the schools because they were no longer the worst in the district and they probably. And they predictably backslid. And the education industrial complex has no interest in these programs.
Joe Getty
None.
Jack Armstrong
They don't profit the teachers union, they don't reward the administrators. They have been rejected even though they worked like penicillin on an infection. An amazing success story rejected by the educational establishment. Which is why I say there. I don't think there's any fixing it.
Joe Getty
No, I don't think there is either. And I don't understand why it's not more of a conversation. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but whenever we've talked about them, it's amazing. The number of administrators to teacher that went from like 1 to 1 to like 100 to 1 in the last several decades.
Jack Armstrong
All of every level of education.
Joe Getty
All of those people. Yeah K through getting a PhD.
Jack Armstrong
Every level of education.
Joe Getty
All those people didn't used to exist and now they do. They don't need to.
Jack Armstrong
Right? And the equity based teaching of every topic. It's not about your kids learning, it's about indoctrinating them into a far leftist politics, Neo Marxism. It is. It is a huge crisis I'd say.
Joe Getty
But like I said, half the country is gonna demand more money. It's just gonna say the problem is we don't have enough money. If you gave us more money, we'd get a better result.
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Gettys Foreign.
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Learn more@probane.com the 2025 NFL season is underway. Don't miss your chance to be a part of the action. Tickets to all regular season games are on sale now. Be there live to support your favorite team. See every epic showdown, every classic rivalry and Every primetime game. 17 games for all 32 teams. Visit NFL.com tickets to purchase tickets today. Verified tickets are available through the NFL Ticket Network, including Ticketmaster, seatgeek and Sports Illustrated tickets.
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Cindy Crawford
Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabbah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty. Which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist. It's efficacious, you're going to get results and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful Beauty Confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.
Jack Armstrong
I do want to give you the Qatari reaction. I reached out to a Qatari official in Doha who responded with a statement from the spokesman for Qatar's foreign minister saying in part quote, the state of Qatar condemns in the strongest terms the cowardly Israeli attack targeting the residential headquarters.
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Of several members of the Hamas political.
Jack Armstrong
Bureau in the Qatari capital Doha. It's quite a lengthy statement, but it goes on to talk about the state of Qatar and their condemnation of these strikes earlier today.
Joe Getty
So Israeli officials now for almost two years, we're coming up on the two year anniversary, have been vowing to kill any Hamas leaders who were involved in the planning of the October 7 attacks. They may have taken out a few more of the planners in Doha in their residential dwelling there in Qatar with a couple of rocket strikes. Now Doha and Qatar are couple of those areas, you know that they exist in the Middle east where it's just super fancy high rises and everything like that and it's supposed to be a, a, you know, a safe haven for business and tourists and whatever away from the other craziness of the Middle East. We don't have that sort of craziness here. You can come here and just do business and be safe. And then our rocket attack on the residential headquarters of Hamas today and the Qataris are saying it violates all international law and blah blah, blah, blah blah. And as often as the case with these stories, it's quite possible that the Qatari leaders are happy as hell that Israeli Israel has taken out these Hamas leaders From their midst.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I don't know. Or if you want to pronounce it however you want. I don't care. They really like being the middleman. They like being the A.
Joe Getty
We're calm.
Jack Armstrong
We're the brokers. We listen to everybody, all sides. We profit from everybody. We donate generously to your lobbyists and colleges to Curry favorite. And we like being the middleman. So on the other hand, they really don't have a military presence worth speaking of, so. That's bold, though, man. Israel is not kidding around. This is not. We're going to knock them back and then negotiate. No, this is our new plan. Our new defense plan is to defeat our enemy.
Joe Getty
Well, one, somebody made this point the other day, a smart person, and I thought it was wise. One of the downsides of the whole world, except for the United States being against Israel and decrying every single thing they do is they have an attitude of, well, everybody already hates us. What difference does it make? We'll do whatever we gotta do. It's kinda like when I heard this, I thought of it as parenting, which I think about a lot. The teenage order. You know, if you go too hard on your kids for too much stuff, they can get an attitude of, I get in trouble for everything, so I don't even care anymore. I'll just do whatever I want. Yeah, And. And that's kind of where Israel is.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting take. I think you're probably right.
Joe Getty
Plus, what, are you gonna vote against us in the U. N. Or something because we struck some apartment buildings.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, exactly. Some phony international court that nobody recognizes is gonna call somebody a war criminal. Oh, no. Uh, yeah. Yeah, well. And so much of the criticism is posturing. It's either, you know, leftists who believe the whole, you know, colonial whatever, the crap, postmodern Marxist stuff, or it's governments who think, all right, I gotta be seen condemning this, so I condemn it. All right, whatever. Do what you're doing. Anyway, speaking of politics, I found this very interesting.
Joe Getty
I have a prune update on the way.
Jack Armstrong
Oh, no. Oh, good. Oh, I could get it over with real quickly.
Joe Getty
I was supposed to add in one per day. According to the doctor, I started at one, then I went to two. I'm now up three. Still no results, so we'll go with four today. We'll try four prunes today.
Jack Armstrong
Wow. Wow, wow. Okay, so I wish you well in your endeavor. I can't believe. You know what? I'm sorry. You've sucked me in and I resent.
Joe Getty
It.
Jack Armstrong
I can't believe your doctor started you on one prune.
Joe Getty
It's like nothing. Well, it is. I say. I don't know, is it? Well, how many would you eat?
Jack Armstrong
Well, they help with regularity. Certainly.
Joe Getty
I was going to leave it unsaid. Why I'm taking the prunes, please.
Jack Armstrong
Now you're Mr. Decorum. That's hilarious. Yeah, just. But, but one. Well, what would be small?
Joe Getty
Where would you start? Would you have started with 3?
Jack Armstrong
3, 4.
Joe Getty
Really? Okay. I thought I was really getting out there by going to four today, but you'd say you would have started with four.
Jack Armstrong
It's a little fruit.
Joe Getty
It's like eating an apple. I undershot on my prunes. I do not like the consistency. I have a hard time getting them down.
Jack Armstrong
Disgusting. Are they fresh or are they like dried?
Joe Getty
These are gooey.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, they are. They are funky.
Joe Getty
Yeah. It's like I'm eating a bug or something. I don't like it.
Jack Armstrong
A gooey bug.
Joe Getty
I got the organic kind, so that's nice.
Jack Armstrong
Super. I thought this was so interesting and it's funny. Just as an aside to both Jack and the good folks. You good folks. I'm looking at all of the stuff I. I have ready to talk about and a lot of it is super important and significant and in many cases will. Well, it's. It's significant. It's not like day to day gossipy stuff, but it's also damn serious and like impactful and everything. Just, I don't know, the weight of the world. Some days it's too much.
Joe Getty
You know, as impactful as Trump's drawing to Epstein on his birthday and his.
Jack Armstrong
Signature that seemed to mimic public hair. All right, stop it with that. Nobody cares. Evidently people do care because it's the lead story, like in all the mainstream media.
Joe Getty
Yeah, I was just looking at the New York Times coverage on that. Man, there is no there there.
Jack Armstrong
I know. So what I keep saying so I don't know the so what might be, though.
Joe Getty
So my whole life people have been saying this. If you get one of these scenes, things happening, one of these things, I don't even know what you call this, but when something like this is occurring, get everything out immediately because it's gonna happen eventually and it only makes it worse to fight it. And I think that's all they can do. I think that's the only way to end this thing. It's inevitable that every bit of government information is gonna be released. So just do it six months ago and put an end to this.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I think they probably have to the extent that they can, but I don't know. I don't know. I won't, I won't talk about it. The only thing I'll talk about is the media's interest in this birthday letter.
Joe Getty
Well, why isn't Trump saying that?
Jack Armstrong
Trump is denying it. That's the only thing that's interesting.
Joe Getty
Exactly. He's making it worse. Don't stop denying it. Stop saying that's not your signature. I had to. I actually have a letter to my son when he was sick from Donald Trump. That is his signature. It looks just like that.
Jack Armstrong
Yes. Yeah. And he was known to hang out with Epstein and they asked him, hey, sent him a little note for his birthday and he did it. If you were. If it's 100 true, every word of it. So what? Nobody cares. It's not important in any way.
Joe Getty
But he'll deny, obviously. Gives the story more legs.
Jack Armstrong
Oh, yeah, yeah, obviously. Yeah. And breasts, as it turns out. Anyway, you've seen the picture. You know what I mean? So this is.
Joe Getty
Okay, I can't.
Jack Armstrong
You gotta tell me.
Joe Getty
No, your prunes now it's Epstein.
Jack Armstrong
You're a monster.
Joe Getty
What have you become? I don't understand what we're doing. So is, is, is the media suggesting, are they, do they believe that Donald Trump was having sex with underage girls with Epstein and it's just a matter of time before we find out? Do they think that?
Jack Armstrong
No, but I think they enjoy hinting at it.
Joe Getty
Okay.
Jack Armstrong
Because if they even went beyond the hinting at all and like when a third of the way down the road you just went down, they know it's, it's unprovable and it's been denied by everybody, but they enjoy the tying Trump to Epstein.
Joe Getty
And then as you always said, which Epstein story are we talking about? Then there's the chunk of the base that they don't think Trump was having sex with underage girls, but they think Trump is now part of the COVID up of the child trafficking ring that Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, who's a dude, has been running the rest of it.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, right. Yeah, I know, I know. Oh, it's just exhausting. Okay. And you know, if somebody came to me and said, hey, this is all just meant to distract you from X, Y or Z, I mean, I would have to at least consider it because there's so many things that are important going on right now. And who wrote that freaking letter to Epstein on his birthday? It's not one of them. Not even close.
Joe Getty
I wish Trump would have just said though. Yeah, I did. I mean, he was a friend of mine and we partied together and it was his birthday and I jotted something to him. The end.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Yeah, it took me about three minutes. Or, or he could quite, although reasonably say, like several people have. I don't remember. Sounds like I might have. I don't know.
Joe Getty
Although. And I should have dug it up. The exact quote there at the end.
Jack Armstrong
Though, where he says, may every day be another beautiful secret or something like.
Joe Getty
Something about enigmas always grow with time or something. I mean, what. What the hell was that?
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I don't know. Mumbo jumbo. So really interesting poll recently by the NBC polling organization asking under 30s.
Joe Getty
I saw this. This is good.
Jack Armstrong
What they consider important to a successful life and the gulf between young men and young women is now crazy.
Joe Getty
Yeah, you want to get into that deep next, because that's a good one. That's a good topic. It's a better topic than my prunes. So that's on the way. We also are going to talk about why the French government fell yesterday. It might be a warning for the United States. Probably get to that now. Or three Stick around Armstrong and Gettysburg.
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Jack Armstrong
And MSNBC. Pundit trashed Trump's D.C. crime crackdown until old social media posts revealed that she was lamenting having one car, two scooters and three bikes stolen. Yeah, she tried to walk back her comments, but someone stole her shoes.
Joe Getty
Boy, that is something though. You've had that level of crime touch you and you still go with the boost. Your team. I'm against the crackdown, the guard, troops, whatever.
Jack Armstrong
I'm telling you, ideology is like. It's like having half a dozen drinks or something. It just turns you into a babbling fool.
Joe Getty
Breaking news A top UN official condemns Israeli Strike on Qatar hey, shut up.
Jack Armstrong
So this is so interesting and crazy. Steve Kornacki at NBC Polling put this out. They asked young voters, Gen Z adults, if you want to use that term 18 to 29 years old, what they considered important to a successful Life. What is important to your personal definition of success? And they gave them a bunch of things to choose. They could choose no more than one. The numbers will make that obvious. But the number one thing that's important, your personal definition of success. Among men who voted for Trump, young men who voted for Trump, number one thing was having children. Oh, 34%.
Joe Getty
Interesting.
Jack Armstrong
Barely beating out financial independence at 33%, a fulfilling job and career at 30% and being married at 29%.
Joe Getty
I.
Jack Armstrong
Family, success, fulfillment, family.
Joe Getty
I was four answers. I was joking. Yelling, money. I would not put that on my list of things that make you a success.
Jack Armstrong
Women who voted for Kamala Harris, their top four, at 51%, fulfilling job and career. Number two, having money to do the things you want. Number three, having emotional stability, whatever that means. 39%.
Joe Getty
What?
Jack Armstrong
And number four, using talents and resources to help others, which is a lovely idea.
Joe Getty
Emotional stability.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. So fulfilling job and career was 51%. Having money to do things you want is 46% having emotional stability, whatever that is. 39% listed that in their several choices. Now, being married, Almost the bottom 6%. Having children, tied at the bottom 6% listed. That is important to a personal definition of a successful life. In contrast to the men who voted for Trump, having children, being married was 34 and 29%.
Joe Getty
Well, that's a problem. Obviously, you ain't gonna end up with many kids in your country. Which we don't have. Lowest birth rate we've ever had in the United States of America. I think he just explained it. It's not.
Jack Armstrong
Well, the whole having emotional stability thing. Men who voted for Trump, that was in last place, 91% of them said, the hell are you talking about?
Joe Getty
Yeah, probably with a heap and helping of what? I don't even know what you mean. So I'm gonna put this last.
Jack Armstrong
What?
Joe Getty
Isn't that. What. But what's weird about that is, isn't that something you just kind of inherently want every day of your life, starting at birth? I mean, it's just. It's like saying, I'd like to have enough air throughout the day and enough calories to keep me alive. I mean.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, well, given the fact that not having emotional stability means you're emotionally unstable. Yeah, that's. You don't want that. But the fact that really 40% of women listed that in their top. I mean, it was the third place. That's priority for life.
Joe Getty
Wow.
Jack Armstrong
That speaks to the emotional instability of. Of women in the modern world.
Joe Getty
What year did Men are from Mars? Women are From Venus come out nine early 90s. It's God now. It's men are from Mars and women are from, I don't know, some alternate universe that we've never looked into. I mean, just how far apart they are. I'm not claiming, I am claiming this. I guess that I think one is better than the other. And I agree with one much more than the other.
Jack Armstrong
But certainly examples of unhinged young men too.
Joe Getty
But, but even without putting a judgment on it, the, the two sides are very, very far apart.
Jack Armstrong
How many times has it come up in recent years that the engine, the bulk of the people screaming like lunatics at these progressive protests are young women? I mean, they're just so angry and hostile and misguided and militant. And there it is right there in the answers.
Joe Getty
I don't know. I don't know what to make of that. But like I said, it explains why we've got the lowest birth rate we've ever had. And it would lead me to believe that we're going to continue down that road.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at some of the other.
Joe Getty
Answers, it seems to me, and this anecdotally, God, it's way more women than men anecdotally. It seems to me anecdotally that most young women want to have enough money to travel. That is your, your goal in life. I want to travel the world and period. Pretty much period.
Jack Armstrong
Drink aperol spritzes at a good Instagram location. Having children listed by almost six times as many men as women or six times the percentage.
Joe Getty
That's a, that's a, that's a problem.
Jack Armstrong
That's crazy. It's a problem that ever existed in the history of mankind.
Joe Getty
That is the question I ask that all the time. Has this ever happened before?
Jack Armstrong
I want, you know, it's, it's, it's probably worth as a caveat mentioning again, it was 18 to 29 year olds. And it's absolutely the case that many men and women don't really feel, think they would have kids until they get to a certain point in their lives, which is fine and appropriate. But given the enormous gulf between men and women in on that question, that's surprising.
Joe Getty
Yeah. Before I make any doom and gloom judgments, I suppose I'd like to hear those same questions put to 30 to 39 year olds.
Jack Armstrong
Well, we're surrounded by doom and drowning in gloom, so I don't think you need to, to, you know, make that leap. Here we are, we're not having families, we're not having kids. The Hell, they're not even having sex.
Joe Getty
No. So France's government fell in. The way that parliamentary systems work why is super interesting because they. Well, they've hit the end of the road of socialism like you always do. Might be a little heads up for the way we want to take a look at our finances though, so we'll get to that in hour three.
Jack Armstrong
In a related story, Britain and Germany are falling apart politically too. If you can't hang around, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand. Armstrong and Gettysburg.
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Jack Armstrong
This is an I Heart podcast.
In this episode of the Armstrong & Getty On Demand podcast, hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty explore several urgent and controversial issues, focusing on the deteriorating state of American public education. They discuss the latest "nation's report card," educational decline despite increased funding, the impact of administrative bloat and ideology, and highlight expert Roland Fryer's proven—yet ignored—solutions. International news (Israel-Hamas developments), generational differences in life priorities, media narratives around Trump and Epstein, and even the personal trials of prune consumption for "regularity" round out the episode in typical A&G style: irreverent, candid, and packed with sharp commentary.
"They [media] said you weren't allowed to air any booing of President Trump. No, they said cheering or booing, but they all make it booing to make it sound like there's some sort of...cover up to squash it. That sort of thing makes me angry." – Joe Getty [04:25]
"You graduate a high school class where only a third can read at proficiency...and they're not setting the bar very high for proficiency." – Joe Getty [07:56]
"You don’t need Sherlock Holmes. When a guy is standing over the victim with a smoking gun…It’s just unbelievable." – Jack Armstrong [11:08]
"We’re watching temporary setbacks calcify into permanent inequality, even though we know how to reverse them." – Jack Armstrong, quoting Roland Fryer [21:40]
"Layers and layers of administrators that didn’t used to exist and we’re getting a worse result. The math seems pretty easy on this." – Joe Getty [15:35]
"Having children listed by almost six times as many men as women...That’s crazy." [47:24]
"If somebody came to me and said, hey, this is all just meant to distract you...I would have to at least consider it because there’s so many things important going on right now." – Joe Getty [36:33]
"I was supposed to add in one per day...I started at one, then I went to two. I'm now up [to] three. Still no results, so we'll go with four today." – Joe Getty [31:41]
"We are now down 10 points for 12th-grade reading since 1992... And what we've got as a result is we've gone down 10 points for reading. Moving down." – Joe Getty [05:56]
"It is now a government jobs program. Our government school system." – Jack Armstrong [15:03]
"An amazing success story rejected by the educational establishment. Which is why I say there... I don’t think there’s any fixing it." – Jack Armstrong [23:44]
"I do not like the consistency [of prunes]. I have a hard time getting them down." – Joe Getty [32:39]
"Women who voted for Kamala Harris…the top four: at 51%, fulfilling job and career... Being married, almost the bottom—6%. Having children, tied at the bottom—6%." – Jack Armstrong [43:17]
This summary captures all major topics and insights discussed in "Just One Prune a Day!" and should equip any listener (or non-listener) with a clear understanding of the episode’s key arguments, recurring themes, and signature moments.