Shower Poofs!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: "Shower Poofs!"

Date: October 1, 2025

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Overview

This episode of the Armstrong & Getty Show covers a wide swath of timely social, political, and personal topics with their characteristic irreverence and rapid-fire banter. Main themes include high-profile gender and cultural debates (particularly focused on J.K. Rowling and gender ideology), news around the Israel-Hamas peace process, perspectives on AI’s impact on jobs, military readiness and standards, and the lighter matter of men’s bathroom habits—anchored by the story of "shower poofs." The show's tone is sardonic, skeptical, and humorous throughout, with the hosts sharing news, personal anecdotes, and social commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gender Ideology, Foster Care, and J.K. Rowling (00:31–13:48)

• The show opens with a "hardcore talk radio" bit, listing a series of culture war stances for comedic emphasis ("Get the illegals out...no women in combat" — [00:31]).
• Massachusetts Foster Care Policy Controversy
  • Hosts discuss a Massachusetts Christian couple forced to affirm foster children’s gender identities or lose the right to foster.
    • Jack Armstrong: “[Parents] are being forced to co-sign a particular mental illness, which is...what it is. Anyway, moving along. They're fighting back...and if you need a few bucks, let me know.” ([03:05])
    • Joe Getty: “That is about as awful a thing as I'm going to hear today...Wow. They could be saints.” ([02:38])
• J.K. Rowling vs. Emma Watson
  • Rowling’s conflict with former Harry Potter actors, especially Emma Watson, is dissected via a Brendan O’Neill NY Post commentary and Rowling’s own social media statements.
    • Rowling critiques Watson’s privileged detachment and public condemnation, underscoring the gap between celebrity advocates and everyday women affected by gender policy.
    • Notable Quotes:
      • J.K. Rowling (read by Jack): “Emma has so little experience of real life, she's ignorant of how ignorant she is...She’ll never need a homeless shelter...Her public bathroom is single occupancy...” ([05:58]–[08:40])
      • Joe: “It's interesting she decided to stick her neck out like this. J.K. Rowling. Good for her.” ([09:23])
      • Jack: “Emma Watson can spout whatever belief she wants about gender bending madness...It's a luxury belief for her and J.K. has finally called her on it.” ([09:32])
      • Joe: “The tide has turned...the days of clearly J.K. Rowling's the bad person...that's over.” ([10:14])
• They reflect on how public opinion has shifted regarding gender ideology debates and women's rights, especially comparing U.S. and European discourse, and end with lighthearted jabs about the Harry Potter series ([12:11–14:13]).

2. AI, Radiology, And Future Jobs (15:57–18:09)

• Joe recounts conversations with Tim Sandifer and Craig Gotwalls about AI’s impact on jobs, using radiology as a case where technology creates more non-automatable human work.
  • Joe: "Most of a radiologist's job is dealing with the patients...And now that gets done really fast by AI..." ([17:23])
  • Both hosts are skeptical but hopeful about AI following historical patterns of job creation.
  • Complaint about overlong Substack essays is humorously noted ([17:52]).

3. Middle East: Israel-Hamas Peace Plan Developments (19:56–25:24)

• Jack outlines recent developments: Hamas's hesitance and likely rejection of Trump’s peace proposal and the shifting regional alliances, especially with Arab countries’ changing calculus based on Israel’s threats of cross-border pursuit.
  • Jack: “The cold realistic optimistic view is...the involvement of the Arab countries in the region...will render the ground unfertile for Hamas to...sink roots and never grow again. That's the optimistic...hope.” ([20:36])
  • Both express skepticism about Hamas’s intentions and opine on the intractability of Middle Eastern politics.
• Joe: “Here'd be my tip too. If you're in Hamas, if you don't accept this deal, Israel's gonna kill every last one of you.” ([21:41])
• Discussion of media and diplomatic reactions to Trump’s peace plan.

4. Personal Stories & Banter: Dressing Corpses and Shower Poofs (27:10–31:00)

• Katie reveals her father, a retired judge, used to dress corpses, leading to jokes about slipping such stories into daily conversation ([27:10–28:09]).
• The hosts launch into an animated conversation about shower hygiene preferences.
  • Jack confesses confusion about the term for “the fluffy thing” used in showers.
    • Jack: “Judy and I just called them poofs. Shower poofs. And I realized I didn't know what they were actually called.” ([29:10])
    • Katie and the hosts debate if it's "loofah," "poof," or "puff," with references to cultural standards about masculinity and bathing habits, and the exfoliating benefits of loofahs ([28:41–30:34]).
    • Joe: “Whereas a loofah makes you gay.” ([29:56], tongue firmly in cheek, acknowledged as over-the-top by the hosts)

5. Military Standards, “Fat Generals,” & Gender Neutral Testing (34:01–38:03)

• A new Pete Hegseth soundbite addresses the military shifting back to focus on warfighting: “No more frivolous complaints...No more anonymous complaints...No more smearing reputations” ([34:01], Pete Hegseth via news clip).
• Hegseth and hosts argue for high, gender-neutral physical standards in combat roles.
  • Pete Hegseth: “Those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is...” ([37:14])
  • Jack underscores: “That is absurd. And if you don't recognize that, I seriously don't know where to begin the conversation with you.” ([37:43])
• Joe criticizes flawed arguments in policy debates, referencing a viral photo of a “fat” Senator Cruz and drawing a distinction between standards for civilians versus military ([38:38]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Emma has so little experience of real life, she's ignorant of how ignorant she is...” — J.K. Rowling (read by Jack) ([08:10])
• “Emma Watson can spout whatever belief she wants about gender bending madness because she's never gonna be confronted with a 6 foot 4 inch, fully intact male in her locker room. Like the poor girls who swam at Penn, for instance. It's a luxury belief for her and JK has finally called her on it.” — Jack Armstrong ([09:32])
• “My sweet bride insisted I go with a...liquid loofah cleanser thing. It's not a loofah. That's my question. What is the fluffy thing called that you put...” — Jack Armstrong ([28:57])
• “Whereas a loofah makes you gay.” — Joe Getty ([29:56], acknowledged as intentionally over-the-top)
• “Those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat job, so be it.” — Pete Hegseth ([37:14])

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Important Timestamps

• Gender Politics, Foster Care & J.K. Rowling: 00:31–13:48
• AI & Jobs, Radiology Example: 15:57–18:09
• Israel-Hamas Peace Plan: 19:56–25:24
• Dressing Dead People / Shower Poofs: 27:10–31:00
• Shower Accessory Terminology Debate: 32:04–33:29
• Military Standards, Hegseth Clips: 34:01–38:03

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Tone and Style

The episode is lively, brash, and irreverent, with bouts of sarcasm and pointed critique of public figures and social trends. The hosts are unafraid to tackle sensitive topics with humor but take clear stances informed by skepticism of fashionable ideologies and a populist bent.

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For Listeners

If you missed the episode, expect frank (sometimes provocative) discussions of high-profile controversies and current events filtered through classic Armstrong & Getty wit. Peppered with cultural commentary, generational differences, and lighthearted family anecdotes, the episode balances sharp social critique with relatable humor and offbeat banter.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast broadcasting live.

[Joe Getty]

From the Abraham Lincoln radio Studio at.

[Jack Armstrong]

The George Washington Broadcast Center.

[Commercial Announcer]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. We're just discussing how we're hardcore today. We are hardcore talk radio.

[Joe Getty]

Radio today. Get the illegals out of here. No boys and girls restrooms and no fat generals. And what else?

[Jack Armstrong]

We're hard. No women in combat.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly.

[Jack Armstrong]

We are done with that.

[Joe Getty]

That's right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Amen, Pete boy, you tell him, huh?

[Joe Getty]

Maybe I've had too much coffee. It's possible.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. That's all right. It's been fun. So. Oh, that's right. I had. I had an introduction. Really? Let me get. I should have written it down. Voldemort couldn't get little Hermione Granger, but. But she just took a one, two punch that dropped her to the canvas. From none other than J.K. rowling. It's a special celebrity packed Gender Bending madness update.

[Katie]

So I kept hearing about this thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Called Gender Bending Madness.

[Joe Getty]

Del Locos, we're in a brave new world.

[Jack Armstrong]

Now, before we get to the Harry Potter madness, first, a story that's pretty serious. It's from Massachusetts. Here is a couple that has been fostering children for several years now. They've taken seven children into their home in Massachusetts for short and longer term placements. They are the sort of people you dream of as a society being foster parents. But now the state of Massachusetts, like several others, is forcing them to either sign an agreement that they will, and I quote, support, respect and affirm the foster child's sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. This LGBTQIA + non discrimination policy requires them to go along with that or they can no longer foster children. And this couple, who are devout Christians, say, essentially, I'm paraphrasing them, say, yeah, that particular brand of adolescent confusion and struggle with mental illness. I need to sign a form that says I have to affirm that and encourage it. Not doing it.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, you don't have to be Christian to come to that. That's just a common sense approach. That is about as awful a thing as I'm going to hear today. Because like you said, the kind of couple that decides that's what they're going to do with their lives. Wow. They could be saints. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Taking that on. That is absolutely amazing. For the state to then jump in with their ideological craziness.

[Jack Armstrong]

For a couple.

[Joe Getty]

Of people like that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I know. And these, these scourge, like so many foster parents are absolutely dedicated to loving and helping and raising the child until perhaps the family can be reunited. They are among the best people. Again, they're being forced to co sign a particular mental illness, which is. That's what it is. Anyway, moving along. They're fighting back, by the way. They've got some great legal defense and they, like several other couples around the country, are fighting back. And good for them. And I hope they do well. And if you need a few bucks, let me know. So here's the J.K. rowling thing and I became aware of this. I came across a column in the New York Post.

[Joe Getty]

She is the author of all the Harry Potter books.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I thought everybody knows that, but it doesn't cost anything to point it out. Indeed.

[Joe Getty]

And she is a gazillionaire and an.

[Jack Armstrong]

Absolutely brilliant and decent person. So this was written by Brendan o' Neill in the Post and it points out that JK Rowling has, and this is an overused phrase, but in this case it's appropriate broken her silence on Emma Watson, the actress who played little Hermione Granger. He said, it is one of the truest and most cutting takedowns of blissful ignorance of muddied moral posers I have ever read. Watson is the actress who gained fame and riches from playing Hermione in the Harry Potter films. Of late. She has become a one woman foghorn of luxuriant moralism that passes for virtue in celebrity circles. She fell in with a Black Lives Matter contagion, ostentatiously confessing that she had benefited from white supremacy and she thinks Israel is genocide in Gaza, blah blah blah. She's again a one woman foghorn of luxuriant moralism. So I had to go to the source material obviously, because he describes what JK wrote and I found it. She posted it to Twitter and you know, I'll go ahead and do the read her caveats because it helps to show you what kind of person she is, she said. I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points. This is J.K. rowling. I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous to me as me checking with the boss I had when I was 21 for what opinions I should hold. These days. Emma Watson and her co stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work or or violence or death because of them. Worth Noting JK has had tons of horrific, vile threats and slanders against her in recent days.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, she's lucky she can afford the private security that I'm sure she needs.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. However, Emma and Dan Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter in particular, have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right, nay, obligation, to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continued to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created. When you've known people since they were 10 years old, it's hard not, it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big, scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the witch trials of J.K. rowling. Fantastic documentary. Ironically, I told the producers that I did not want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said, so she just hasn't commented on those people. The television presenter in the attached clip, which you know, I should ask for, the audio highlights Emma's all witches speech and in truth, that was a turning point for me as Emma has unloaded on JK publicly. But it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me which contained the single sentence quote, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. She has my phone number, by the way. This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure of her fundamental sympathy and kindness. Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her public bathroom is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed sex changing room at a council run swimming pool? That's A government swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state run rape crisis center that refuses to guarantee an all female service to find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison? I wasn't made a multi millionaire at 14. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without their privileges. The greatest IR here is that had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me, a change of tack. I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was. Yeah, I might never have been this honest. One, one more little bit. Adults can't expect to cozy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is right to freely disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public. But I have the right and I finally decided to exercise it.

[Joe Getty]

It's interesting she decided to stick her neck out like this. J.K. rowlings. Good for her. I mean, she had a pretty, pretty, pretty cushy life going.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, but you know, she had the opposite of a cushy life for like all of her formative years and, and a good chunk of her adulthood. And like any decent moral person who understands the difference between the protected class and the unprotected class, the rich and siloed and protected, the luxury beliefs people talk about. Emma Watson can spout whatever belief she wants about gender bending madness because she's never gonna be confronted with a 6 foot 4 inch, fully intact male in her locker room. Like the poor girls who swam at Penn, for instance. It's a luxury belief for her and JK has finally called her on it.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and JK Rowling is also absolutely right about the tide has turned in the days of clearly J.K. rowlings is the bad person and anybody who speaks out against her as a hero, that's over is over in Europe before it became over here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? And it's, it's back to the whole preference distortion or preference falsification preference cascade. The 85% of us who think the gender bending madness is actually madness, it's mental illness. You don't change your sex by declaring, now I'm a girl. That's as idiotic and Crazy as it seems, as it sounds, now that everybody is saying yeah, that struck me as lunacy from the moment I heard it. Yeah, it's not quite so fashionable to kick J.K. rowling anymore anyway. Good for her. It's a gender bending madness Update. Harry Potter edition. Zing. Zao. Zoom. Isn't there an ending?

[Joe Getty]

Thought there was an ending.

[Jack Armstrong]

You busy there? I'm sorry, I've got something else to do. I apologize if I'm bothering you in your personal life.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm meaner than Emma Watson. There it is.

[Joe Getty]

That's for the China Cabinet.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Wait a minute.

[Joe Getty]

That was the.

[Jack Armstrong]

You're right, Jack. I'm back to being mean to Michael. What's the matter with you? What do you do? Do we have to tip you to get you to pay? What? I don't. I don't. I don't understand what's happening here.

[Joe Getty]

That was the ending of the China Cabinet.

[Jack Armstrong]

He's still looking for it.

[Joe Getty]

It is for both of them. Yeah. No, no, no.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's. It's. What's his face. The fake girl. Oh, right. That guy.

[Joe Getty]

All right. So on so.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, till you ruined it. Oh, sorry. Mean. Again. I am so. No, I'm sorry, Michael.

[Joe Getty]

On Harold Potter, for whatever reason, we never got to the end in my household. And I always assumed that Harry and Hermione were going to end up together, but that's not what happened.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Spoiler alert.

[Joe Getty]

Little Ron Weasley.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes. Yeah. And Harry ends up with Ron's sister, who's a cutie.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, Jenny. Anyway, yeah, I'd encourage you to. To watch Slash, read the end, because part of the genius of J.K. rowling and. And the Harry Potter series, and, you know, I lived through this with my kids and I enjoyed the books and movies myself, was that as the characters aged, the themes became more mature and complex and the symbolism more important. And by the end of it, they were on the cusp of adulthood dealing with very adult things and themes.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I think it. For kids. My kids age. If your kids were the books and then the movies came out long after the books. Well, not long, but years after the books. And everybody's really looking forward to them. You know, my kids, the movies were there right away and they saw them and it just kind of took the magic out of the books.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think I could see that.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Which is unfortunate. I should have hid them. Hid the movies from them.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, here's why you read books. A lot of reasons. Those books in particular but there are many, many, many examples of this. If you were to actually bring all of one of those books to film, it would be 17 hours long, probably the movies. But the book is consistently compelling and engaging. All of those hours, they are good.

[Joe Getty]

And just such, you know, letting your imagination run wild with all that stuff is so fantastic. As opposed to. You haven't been to the Harry Potter thing at Universal, I'm sure because you're an adult. No, it's pretty impressive.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I'd like to. I'd like to go.

[Joe Getty]

It is pretty impressive. Okay. We got a lot more on the way. Stay here. There you go.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

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[Joe Getty]

So apparently this has become a mockable meme. This is. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said this by mistake.

[Jack Armstrong]

Senator Booker also said we should have bipartisan agreement. I think that's a great idea. We should have bipartisan agreement. How about we all come together and say let's stop murders? How about we all come together and say let's stop rapes? How about we all come together and say let's stop attacking pedophiles?

[Joe Getty]

Hmm. I doubt that he meant that last one. I don't know what he meant, but so anyway, let's stop attacking pedophiles.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's no. And then we killed Social Security.

[Joe Getty]

Two things for you here. First of all, you weren't here.

[Jack Armstrong]

You were.

[Joe Getty]

You had abandoned the show during its time of need. And I believe we're playing golf. And over a two day period I talked to a friend of the show, Tim Sandifer and Craig got walls And I had a discussion about AI with both of them and just asked them their opinion on is AI going to wipe out jobs? And. And we're gonna have to come up with some sort of guaranteed basic income or something like that because it'd be nothing to do. Or do you think like technologies of the past, it will create more and different jobs? I lean toward the former rather the latter on AI, even though history shows it to be the other way. Both Tim and Craig were big believers that no, it's just going to be like every other technological advancement that ever came along. It's going to create a whole bunch of new different jobs that you can't even imagine yet. And we'll be just fine. I hope they're right. I don't know if I believe that, but maybe we have the first inkling of that. Just read a long substack piece about the world of radiology. And at least at the beginning, it looks like there's more demand for radiologists than there's ever been with AI's ability to read all this stuff super duper fast. And then they need more radiologists. Most of a radiologist's job is dealing with the patients. And then the stuff that comes after you read the chart. The reading the chart is a. A tiny percentage of the job. And now that gets done really fast by AI. And you need radiologists do all the other part of being a radiologist. And so, and this was one of the main examples people were holding up. In fact, one of your AI geniuses, one of the grandfathers of AI, said a year or two ago, if I was in radiology school, I would drop out and learn to do something else because that job is going away. And it seems that that is not happening at all. So maybe this is the first test case of that whole premise.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I'm surprised by that. I don't know what a radiologist would do after the chart has been read, but maybe I'll read that.

[Joe Getty]

I didn't read the 19 million word essay on it, which is the problem with anything sub stack because there are no editors or limits on paper. Everything is just way too long.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, everything has infinite space for your ideas. So let's get started. No shorter, please.

[Joe Getty]

Every article is the length of a book. We did come up with some new Pete Hegseth stuff that you haven't heard yet. I want to play that for you. Among other things this next hour, Armstrong and Getty.

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[Jack Armstrong]

This Wendy's is adding chicken tenders to their menu and they're calling them Wendy's Tendies. So far they haven't sold any because.

[Joe Getty]

Nobody wants to say Wendy's Tendies I would agree with. I am not saying that as an adult male, I'd like a six pack of Wendy's Tendies.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I need to remember to change my undie ones.

[Joe Getty]

This first round of playoffs and baseball, they're three game series so all the teams that won last night, they could end it tonight. It's over. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Goes fast. I love it. Yep, I got to watch some baseball tonight. So executive producer Hansen, who is constantly seeking to undermine me, has undermined me by sending an important and timely piece of news. I was all ready to talk, you know, briefly about the Israel Hamas situation, which, excuse me, you know, I had that upper respiratory thing. What was that six weeks ago? That stupid nagging cough is just hanging on.

[Joe Getty]

Did you get the whooping cough?

[Jack Armstrong]

No, no, there was no whooping.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't think. What was that sick. It was just annoying. Anyway, I'm glad I have a cough button. There it is.

[Joe Getty]

That's what happens when you get the whooping cough non stop.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not that's inaccurate. So what we were going to talk about was the fact that Hamas has indicated it's opening to it's open to accepting Trump's peace plan. Read some really great analysis. Oh, but Hamas has some concerns about some of the terms. And then read some great analysis about how the problem is the lack of timetables and how Hamas will string this along, cheat as much as possible, and really seek to reconstitute its forces and make it as if there was no agreement. The cold realistic optimistic view is the countermeasures to that, including the involvement of the Arab countries in the region and the reorganization of Gaza and the new prosperity and everything, it'll render the ground unfertile for Hamas to, you know, sink roots and never grow again. That's the optimistic, coldly realistic, you know, hope.

[Joe Getty]

Here'd be my tip too. If you're in Hamas, if you don't accept this deal, Israel's gonna kill every last one of you.

[Jack Armstrong]

Now that's a term. And then finally, I mentioned this earlier in the show, great piece by Amit Seagal, who is a commentator, Israel pointing out that the reason all the Arab countries came around was that Israel had said, all right, we're going to get these guys, even if they're in your living room, friends, including Qatar, and that that Netanyahu apology was a measure so the Qataris could save face because they, like the Iranians and several other countries around the Middle east, had realized, okay, Israel's going to come after the people we're harboring in our giant Kush oil rich cities and we don't want that. So, hey, Hamas, agree to peace. We're through with you.

[Joe Getty]

That's really interesting. So it worked, you know, so it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wasn'T in spite of the attack, it was because of it.

[Joe Getty]

It got all the condemnation from the world. And President Trump allegedly screamed at Netanyahu on the phone afterwards. What'd you do?

[Jack Armstrong]

Why'd you do that?

[Joe Getty]

Seems to have been a key to making this whole peace plan come together.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, it wouldn't be a shock if Benjamin Netanyahu knows how to deal with these Middle Eastern types a little better than Trump does at this point. Uh, but anyway, so it was because the Qataris are afraid that they've come to the table in a serious way. Now here's the timely and important undermining that Hanson has attempted to, you know, inflict upon me. Uh, this is a headline from the Times of Israel. A senior Hamas official tells the BBC that the terror group will likely reject Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza, telling the British network that it serves Israel's interests and ignores those of the Palestinian people. That is a quote. The official added that Hamas opposes several key provisions of the plan. Those include the call for the group to disarm the entry of so called International Stabilization Forces and the requirement that it release all 48 hostages it's holding within 72 hours after the agreement is adopted by. Again, they have mentioned that some of these hostages are held by like, groups that were loosely affiliated with and we don't know where they are and where the hostages are. So you can't hold us to that.

[Joe Getty]

So what do you think happens now?

[Jack Armstrong]

A recent Saudi report also indicated Hamas's skepticism toward the plan.

[Joe Getty]

Well, I'd like to know what their plan is. What's your plan? Hamas. Israel's going in. And Trump said, do what you got to do. You have our backing. What's your plan?

[Jack Armstrong]

Their plan has got to be to fight the Israelis in the rubble and kill as many as possible until Israel becomes discouraged. Show as many injured civilians, whether real or concocted, as possible to bring more condemnation down on Israel and play the long game. I really thought they, as a leopard that will never change its spots, were going to pretend to accept a deal, then seek to undermine it at every opportunity for as long as they could. But maybe they're going with the dead end strategy.

[Joe Getty]

All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

So they can fight their way out of the dead end.

[Joe Getty]

It'll be interesting to see what world opinion is on what Israel has to do, having given them this offer that was approved by. People seem to like it on NPR and msnbc and freaking Tom Friedman of the New York Times even said it was a deal Hamas should take. So if they don't, I don't know.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Unrest in the Middle East. The headline when I was 2, 20, 40, 60, and if I live to 135, probably be the headline.

[Joe Getty]

Probably. So I was wanting these Pete Hegseth clips that I. I'd heard somewhere else and we hadn't had on our show before to play for you because I.

[Jack Armstrong]

Think to put on a break on time for once in our lives and bring those later. Oh, I have an important question for Katie, especially after a word from our friends at Webroot.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

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[Joe Getty]

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[Jack Armstrong]

24.

[Joe Getty]

7 support. $1 million in fraud, expense reimbursement. It's going to be a lot of help.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. In the unlikely event that your identity does get stolen, they take care of you in every other way. Every way. Webroot monitors the Dark Web. Protects your devices, keeps your data out of the wrong hands. Like having a digital bodyguard. And it's fast. It scans six times quicker than competitors, uses way less space, installs in minutes. No annoying pop ups either. That sounds great. Get 50% off Webroot total protection or Webroot [e-mail] Armstrong that's webroot.com Armstrong use our code, please, one more time. Webroot.com Armstrong were you gonna ask Katie.

[Joe Getty]

About how her dad used to dress dead people? Which we just found out the other day. How did you kept that a secret from us all this time? We've talked to your dad, the retired judge, so many times, and it never came up that he used to dress corpses.

[Jack Armstrong]

It didn't.

[Katie]

The corpse conversation never came up.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know, man.

[Joe Getty]

I'd work it in. If I had that in my past, I'd find a way to work it into any conversation.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, yeah. Nice shirt, Jim. By the way, did I ever mention that I used to put shirts on the dead? It would come up a lot in my world. Yeah. Missed a lot of opportunities, a judge, and had, you know, decades of fascinating experiences. So maybe you just didn't think of the stiffs. Would he put funny costumes on them or is it just regular clothes, for God's sake?

[Katie]

Pretty sure just regular clothes. But if they requested funny costumes, I'm sure he would have done it.

[Joe Getty]

I feel like the socks would be the biggest challenge that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh.

[Katie]

Is a big part of it. I'll wait to tell. I'll let him tell you guys the story.

[Joe Getty]

Okay. I just pictured, like, what, you'd have to, like, straddle their leg and, like, lift it up in the air to try to get that sock on.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay. Speaking of grooming and that sort of thing, I have a reasonably reasonable vocabulary in spite of that sentence, but I realized you just showed it off there. I don't. Yeah, I know. Four whole words. One of them is reasonable. I realized I don't know the word for something. First of all, anybody who's like a bar of soap and your hands. Showering person. Jack, are you. What? What do you use in the shower? You like a bar of soap?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I like a bar of soap.

[Jack Armstrong]

Michael. Bar soap guy. Yeah, Bar soap. I used to be, until my wife insisted I stop. I am now a. The liquid loofah cleanser thing. It's not a loofah. That's my question. What is the fluffy thing called that you put.

[Joe Getty]

It's a luffy there, Nancy.

[Jack Armstrong]

It is A loofah. The fuzzy, like, ball thing Joe uses. I always thought aloofo. Shut up, you. I always thought aloofa was. Was like a more abrasive thing.

[Katie]

All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's funny because Judy and I just called them poofs. Shower poofs. And I realized I didn't know what they were actually called. That's not. Because mine unraveled the other day and I was going to text her and say, hey, do we have any more shower poofs? And I thought, there's got to be a name for this that's not a poof.

[Joe Getty]

A shower poof.

[Jack Armstrong]

A loofah. I was close.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Nancy, why I oughta.

[Katie]

Wait, when you say a bar of soap. You guys just put bar of soap to skin.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the way, like 99 of people wash themselves.

[Jack Armstrong]

It just leaves, like, soap scum in the shower.

[Joe Getty]

All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

My sweet bride insisted I go with an.

[Joe Getty]

Whereas a loofah makes you gay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Whoa. Wow. Wow. See, that just. That wasn't even funny. That was just. Wow. That was just bashing. That was hate. I do not hate speech.

[Joe Getty]

I do not know a lot of.

[Jack Armstrong]

Dudes that do speech isn't free speech there.

[Joe Getty]

They either or would admit to using a loofah.

[Katie]

So I have to tell you that there is such thing as an African loofah, and it's the same material as a loofah. It is just a flat piece of loofah and you can wring it out. It dries much easier.

[Joe Getty]

Is there an advantage to the loofah for your body?

[Katie]

Exfoliation.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Dead skin cells.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it gets the dirt off you. Don't confuse a loofah with a falafel. Similar name, totally different.

[Joe Getty]

No, if you have a falafel in the shower.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. Or a loofah for lunch, it's gonna fall apart.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, both are bad, right?

[Katie]

All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, Pete Hegseth, you say?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, we got a couple of new Pete Hegseth clips for you and other stuff. Stay here.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm using a lot of soap. Armstrong and Gettysburg.

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[Jack Armstrong]

Stop the presses. Stop the presses. Ladies and gentlemen, we have an important correction. I have heard from a dermatologist. Jack, Katie, I can never remember. Are you two dermatologists or are you absolutely not dermatologists? A dermatologist has informed me you are correct. It's a puff. Poof is the regional pronunciation. Change it every three months. Don't wait for it to unravel. A loofah is a natural sponge. They grow more bacteria, by the way. Puff nylon loofah, natural fiber sponge.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, I think. I think most people use the term loofah for synthetic things they buy, but it's not accurate.

[Jack Armstrong]

Most people like socialism. Most people want to be supported by the government. Blah, blah, blah. What's important is accuracy.

[Katie]

I'll ask your dermatologist friend what a loofah puff is then, because that's what I'm seeing come up.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is it the same highly unnatural hybrid?

[Joe Getty]

I notice when I'm in hotels now it's almost exclusively the pump things in the shower. And I just never quite feel the same level of clean with those for some reason. I don't know if that's just in my mind.

[Katie]

Yeah, I hate it when I see those because anybody can be doing anything to the insides of those bottles. I like the individual.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, golly, ge.

[Joe Getty]

That's a terrible thing to think about. I'd never.

[Jack Armstrong]

Everybody's mind is worrying and everybody's trying to stop their mind.

[Joe Getty]

I'd never thought about it before, but now I always will, so thanks.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, well, most of them. You need a special tool, I think, to open, but I have a feeling that special tool is available at. What's that store called? Oh, the Internet. That's so gross. I never even thought of it.

[Joe Getty]

Now I'll never be able to not think about it.

[Katie]

Bring your own.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I don't like bringing my own stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Tough to please, huh?

[Joe Getty]

I travel light.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right.

[Joe Getty]

So Pete Hegses said a whole bunch of stuff yesterday in front of the fat generals and the fat admirals about them being fat. We hadn't played this one yet.

[Jack Armstrong]

The secretary also detailing big changes to complaints within the ranks. Sexual harassment and racism are still illegal, he says, but claims about bullying, hazing it or toxic leadership will be redefined. No more frivolous complaints. No more anonymous complaints. No more repeat complainants. No more smearing reputations. No more endless waiting. No more legal limbo. No more sidetracking careers. No more walking on eggshells.

[Joe Getty]

See, I think that is really interesting because we have that in the modern workplace, right, where people are just so scared to say anything to anyone. And that's made us all less friendly and we have worse relationships at work than we've ever had and everything like that before.

[Jack Armstrong]

And less effective, I would argue. Probably.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, almost certainly. How do you, how do you go back to a time where we weren't walking on eggshells without, I don't know, ending up a situation where you're covering up bad things that probably should come to the light today?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's tough to strike that balance. Honestly, I think what Hegseth is saying is that. That we went too far the other way.

[Joe Getty]

Well, I'm sure we did.

[Jack Armstrong]

To the point that it really affected our war fighting readiness and we're going back in the other direction. Will that result in some unfortunate stuff? Almost certainly, yeah. Because we're human beings, we're not good at perfection. But we've got to air to the war fighting side as opposed to the nobody gets their feathers ruffled side.

[Joe Getty]

I think as one of the newspapers I was reading, Washington Post, New York Times, one of those about. But reminding us all, maybe Pete Hegseth has forgotten the 90s Tail Hook Navy scandal which was all about sexual harassment and that sort of stuff. Okay, well, you know, you don't want that, but you also don't want people. You don't want a situation where somebody can make, as Pete said, an anonymous call to a hotline and change somebody's complete career path.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, right. Which you know, brings us back to the fact that a. For a long time now, so called microaggressions or imagined offenses were treated as if they were, you know, a violent sexual assault. They were treated with that seriousness. A reminder, please read James Lindsay's Fabian Helen Pluckrose's brilliant cynical theories. That is a tool of takeover of an institution. If I can ruin your career by merely dropping a little note to the command and I can make up what you did, that's never been considered an offense in the history of Mankind. But now it is all of a sudden, I own you. I control you. I control this institution. The microaggressions thing at its genesis was not overly sensitive people. It's a deliberate tool of takeover. And you gotta get rid of that.

[Joe Getty]

Play that other Pete clip just for fun. We'll get that on and then we'll be done with that conversation.

[Jack Armstrong]

Those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat job, so be it.

[Joe Getty]

That's the clip that got people all fired up on your cable news channels. It is what it is. Oh, it is what it is. No women in combat.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

If there aren't any that can cut it, I'm sure there are plenty that can. But there aren't going to be as many women in combat. And that's fine.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you think the standards are too high, make that case. But the idea that those people have one standard to save their lives and those are the people in their unit, and those people have different standards to save their own lives and the people of their unit because they're girls, that is a absurd. And if you don't recognize that, I seriously don't know where to begin the conversation with you.

[Joe Getty]

So somebody posted somebody in government. Is that a Senator Turnbull? I know that name. Anyway, I think it's a Senator Turnbull posted a picture of Ted Cruz in a not flattering shot in. He's not wearing his suit jacket. He's just in a shirt and pants and he's sitting in an airport and he's very round. Man. I didn't realize he was that big.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, it's gotten a little porky.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God. A little. I'll send you this picture. Turnbull said Senator Cruz strongly supports fitness standards for the military. Okay, so Charles C.W. cook of the National Review posted that and said, a very good point. If you as a person who isn't in the military, aren't personally fit, then you can't argue that people in the military should be in military shape. How do we ever break out of these nonsense arguments?

[Jack Armstrong]

We need to develop like a scientific instrument that measures the stupidity in an argument. I mean, because that is truly a stupid argument. And then if, you know, you can put it on the stupid scale and it says five people say, oh, that's an extra stupid argument. And they don't fall for it.

[Joe Getty]

By the way, speaking of senators, more of the story of old Gold Bar Menendez is out. Do you remember him? Them? It's really entertaining from a scandal standpoint. We'll get to that now. Or four if you don't get it. Get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty? This is an iHeart podcast.