The 2 Headed Calf

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: The 2 Headed Calf

Date: October 10, 2025
Host: iHeartPodcasts (Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty, with Mike Hansen and Katie Greener)

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Episode Overview

This brisk, wide-ranging episode of Armstrong & Getty covers the top stories of the week—war updates from Ukraine to the Middle East, surges in urban crime, and the psychology behind America's obsession with true crime. The hosts also serve up their trademark blend of sharp commentary, irreverent humor, and biting social critique. They dissect both international crises and local politics, vent about the pressures of high-risk professions, and deliver memorable rants about crime, justice, and media narratives. Pop culture and a dash of personal anecdotes round out a lively, rapid-fire conversation.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Ukrainian War Fatigue & Global Oil Politics

[00:27–01:40]

• The hosts note Russia's ongoing assaults against Ukrainian civilian targets and discuss rumors of Russia running out of oil and troops.

• Jack Armstrong: “If something can't go on forever, it will end. It's just a question of when.” [00:41]

• China’s dependence on Iranian oil and mounting pressure on all fronts are highlighted.

• The tone is grim but realistic about the ugly, grinding nature of the conflict.

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2. Clips of the Week – Satirical Soundbites

[01:40–04:15]

• A quick-fire segment recapping memorable and absurd moments in news and politics.
• Riffs on Super Bowl halftime rumors, LeBron James’ “announcement” (which is just an ad), and chaos at the border.
• Quirky moments:
  • “I love it that we need at least 50% of the Palestinian government to be trans women.” – Mike Hansen [02:41]
  • “Antifa is real.” – Jack Armstrong [02:49]

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3. Racial Politics and Electoral Manipulation

[04:42–06:34]

• Armstrong critiques racial gerrymandering and the inevitable bad leadership it produces:

  • “The losers in that sort of ethnic or racial politics are always the citizens… It's a scam, it's not representative government. And nobody ever has the balls to say that. But I just did.” — Jack Armstrong [06:23]

• They cite infamous LA County leaks and single-party rule in urban politics, with references to Maxine Waters and Jasmine Crockett.

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4. Mistakes in Medicine and Occupational Pressure

[06:39–12:04]

• The team discusses the enormous pressures medical professionals face and how innocent errors can ruin careers:

  • “It's like 40,000 people die every year from medical mistakes or something like that.” – Mike Hansen [07:10]
  • Followed by a Johns Hopkins estimate as high as 440,000 (Katie Greener) [08:33]

• Jack Armstrong: “Water doesn’t care how hard you tried. It’s either gonna come out or it ain’t.” [11:49]

• The analogy between life-or-death jobs and their own lower-stakes radio mistakes is played for laughs.

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5. Middle East: IDF Pullback, Trump’s Role, Fragile Peace

[13:11–18:20]

• Seinfeld bit on dropped calls lightens tone before a serious discussion of news from Israel/Gaza:

  • “They're not sending accountants in suits, they're sending troops because if something troopy has to happen, you want troops.” – Mike Hansen [14:59]

• The IDF’s strategic withdrawal, hopes for peace, and Trump’s impending visit to Israel are evaluated with cautious optimism:

  • “I'm sure you'll get a standing ovation as long as any have ever happened.” – Jack Armstrong on Trump’s visit [16:12]

• They discuss skepticism about whether Hamas splinter groups will sabotage peace and the tension between optimism and hard reality.

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6. Criminal Justice: Urban Crime, Policing, and "Woke" Policies

[20:02–29:47]

• Using the “two headed calf” as a metaphor, Armstrong & Getty rail against “Woke” criminal justice reforms they believe have failed in cities.

• National Crime Victimization Survey cited:

  • “The rate of violent crime in urban areas increased 61% from 2019 to 2024.” – Jack Armstrong [24:44]
  • “It’s the cities that are going to hell—the blue cities mostly, where they've embraced woke policing policies.” [24:54]

• A nuanced discussion follows on crime demographics:

  • “White residents make up 60% of the population, yet were offenders in only 7% of incidents involving black victims.” [26:41]

• Armstrong endorses "tough on crime" moves in Baltimore, citing falling violent crime with stricter prosecution.

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7. True Crime Obsession – Gendered Appeal

[30:59–36:43]

• The crew marvels at women’s fascination with true crime content, postulating on evolutionary psychology:

  • “Mostly guys watch sports because it's a simulation for war. Women watch these true crimes things because it's a simulation for how do I keep the village safe and spot the bad person.” – Mike Hansen [35:30]

• Katie Greener and Armstrong discuss using such stories to process fear and self-protect.

• “Why am I so depressed? Asks wife who listens to eight hours of murder podcasts a day.” – Jack Armstrong (Babylon Bee) [35:56]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On politics and race:
  “If you vote for somebody because of their race or don't vote for somebody because of their race, you're a bad person, a bad American, and a dope.” – Jack Armstrong [06:27]

• On medicine:
  “People make mistakes. It'd be almost impossible to have a mistake-free system, I think.” – Mike Hansen [07:58]

• Plumbing metaphor:
  “Water doesn’t care how hard you tried. It’s either gonna come out or it ain’t.” – Jack Armstrong [11:49]

• On urban crime:
  “It’s the cities that are going to hell—the blue cities mostly, where they've embraced woke policing policies.” – Jack Armstrong [24:54]

• On tough prosecutors:
  “If you lock up violent repeat offenders…every cop in America will tell you, I spend 90% of my time babysitting the 2% of the population that commits 90% of the crimes…and again, Baltimore is turning around.” – Jack Armstrong [29:29]

• On women and true crime:
  “I fall asleep to murder documentaries.” – Katie Greener [33:35]

  “It’s a way to deal with your fears once removed…Part of it is figuring out how to avoid that.” – Jack Armstrong [34:16]

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Pop Culture and Miscellaneous

• Jerry Seinfeld on dropped calls
  [13:11–14:33] Seinfeld lampoons the social ritual after a dropped cell call: “No one was hoping or expecting that maybe you could explain a random micro-glitch in infinitely complex global telecommunications network.” [13:55]

• Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary
  Anticipation for Burns’ 250th anniversary “Founding of America” project (“not a bunch of woke nonsense”) [28:00]

• True Crime, Murder Weapon Stereotypes
  “Poison is the woman's murder weapon.” – Jack Armstrong [31:56]
  Real-life antifreeze poisoning case used to segue into the gender and psychology of true crime fascination.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ukraine/Russia & Oil: 00:27–01:40
• Clips of the Week: 01:40–04:15
• Racial Politics Critique: 04:42–06:34
• Medical Mistakes & Pressure: 06:39–12:04
• Middle East/Trump/IDF Withdrawal: 13:11–18:20
• Urban Crime/Policing/Woke Reform: 20:02–29:47
• True Crime & Gender Psychology: 30:59–36:43

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Overall Tone

The episode maintains Armstrong & Getty’s characteristic blend: brash, skeptical, darkly comic, and at times sincerely concerned. They tackle controversial topics head-on, peppering the show with offbeat humor and anecdotal tangents, while making sharp points on public policy and social trends.

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Summary prepared for listeners and fans who want a comprehensive, timestamped overview before diving in, or a refresher on the most important and entertaining takeaways.

Transcript

[Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Joe Getty]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty.

[Mike Hansen]

What's happening, boy? Russia's been pounding the heck out of Ukraine trying to blow up kids waiting in line to go to school or hospitals or apartment buildings, the thing that they do. But there are a number of stories out about how out of oil they are. They're out of oil and troops there in Russia. There's got to be a limit, right, on how long you can prosecute a war like this and shoot through people and material, I would think.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? Yeah. China's super dependent on Iranian oil right now too. They just did a big giant new pipeline type project. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. This has all got to. Well, as we've said many times, if something can't go on forever, it will end and it's just a question of when. But yeah, they're, they're literally in like Kherson, for instance. The Russians are dropping grenades on individual civilians who are just like getting out of their car to go to work. Just, just trying to terrorize the population into submission. So ugly. Ugly stuff. A lot of good stuff. Not as ugly. To get to this hour, hope you can stay tuned. But first, it's the Friday tradition. Let's take a fond look back at the week that was. It's cow clips of the week.

[Mike Hansen]

It's clips of the wind.

[Jack Armstrong]

Who we are Navy.

[Guest or Contributor]

I'm doing the super bowl halftime.

[Joe Getty]

I wanted you to know that I'm not dying and I'm not ready to die yet.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, you're disrespectful, you're entitled and you're.

[Announcer]

Being privileged right now.

[Jack Armstrong]

King James highly anticipated announcement turned out.

[Mike Hansen]

To be an ad.

[Joe Getty]

Sanchez again advanced towards the driver saying the driver thought, this guy's trying to kill me.

[Jack Armstrong]

Both Israel and Hamas have signed on to the first phase of his 20 point peace plan. The world has come together around this deal. Gonna be a different world. What do you guys have to say to President Trump? Thank you. Gotta start working out and put the bottle down because I really want to see how this all plays out.

[Mike Hansen]

I love it that we need at least 50% of the Palestinian government to be trans women.

[Jack Armstrong]

Antifa is real.

[Mike Hansen]

I took this flag from that, from.

[Jack Armstrong]

That man that was burning it in the street.

[Guest or Contributor]

Do you know who he is? Give it to the attorney general and let's prosecutions.

[Joe Getty]

Senator, I don't think A lot of people like that. You were out protesting with antifa.

[Jack Armstrong]

Your vehicle, driven by Border Patrol agents, was allegedly rammed and boxed in by two cars.

[Joe Getty]

One of the things I've been dealing with all day here in Portland is a bunch of pansies.

[Mike Hansen]

So when this person is committing six or seven crimes, I don't know his or her story. Maybe they were abused as a child. Maybe they're hungry.

[Jack Armstrong]

This is the most stupid thing I think I've ever witnessed in Washington, D.C.

[Mike Hansen]

Complete and total embarrassment. Yeah, you're embarrassing yourself in your district right now. So I'm anxious to administer the oder.

[Jack Armstrong]

Jay Jones sent texts that imagined shooting.

[Guest or Contributor]

The Republican speaker of the House.

[Jack Armstrong]

Can you tell me why my phone records, when I'm the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, were sought by the Jack Smith agents.

[Joe Getty]

What do you say to the 40% of California voters who you'll need in order to win, who voted for Trump? How would I need them in order to win, man? Well, to those voters.

[Announcer]

Okay, so.

[Jack Armstrong]

So you.

[Joe Getty]

I don't want to keep doing this. I'm gonna call it.

[Guest or Contributor]

Thank you.

[Joe Getty]

And the state could lose.

[Mike Hansen]

Get out of my shop. I'm glad I didn't blow up my life this week the way Katie Porter blew up her life.

[Jack Armstrong]

How did Alec Baldwin describe his wife's divorce lawyer once? A homunculus with a face like a clenched fist.

[Mike Hansen]

Right. I was being kind. Morley.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's Katie Porter. Kur. Bluey. There goes your career. What are you going to do? Oh, speaking of bad politics. I don't know. I've been itching to say this because nobody ever does. The Supreme Court's going to hear a case Wednesday, I think, about redistricting in Louisiana, and it's all about racial redistricting and a misinterpretation of the voting. Civil Rights act and Voting Rights Act, I should say, and stuff like that. You know what nobody ever says the racial politics thing yields crappy leadership for the people involved. You remember there was a leaked tape, LA county not long ago, where the Hispanic folks were bad mouthing the black people on the council and talking about we gotta have our share, and they're trying to take our share and the rest of it. I've seen this over and over again. You get a city, for instance, a majority black city like Houston or St. Louis or something like that. And there's. It's like one party rule where if you are anointed, the black person that will get this office, like a Maxine Waters or a Jasmine Crockett in Houston or whatever you're untouchable. You are ordained by the powers that be to be the black person that will win. And everybody comes together because they want to keep that power consolidated. But the losers in that sort of ethnic or racial politics is always the citizens. They always get bad representation because it's a mob, It's a scam, it's not representative government. And nobody ever has the balls to say that. But I just did vote. If you vote for somebody because of their race or don't vote for somebody because their race, you're a bad person, a bad American and a dope.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah. It's just not just smart also.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Mike Hansen]

Speaking of blowing up your life, I was talking to a medical professional yesterday. I'd never heard this before. This. What is she, a nurse? I guess. She's explaining how easily in the medical field you can blow up your life by making a mistake.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh boy.

[Mike Hansen]

That I. That I didn't know. And I don't know if it's fair or a good idea. You know, we, we hear every year the, the total number of deaths due to mistakes. It's a lot. It's like more than car wrecks.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

It's like 40, 000 people die every year from medical mistakes or something like that.

[Jack Armstrong]

50, but yeah, it's a huge number.

[Guest or Contributor]

Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

And people make mistakes. It's impossible. See the picture for the Philadelphia Phillies last night. People who are really, really good, trying their best make mistakes sometimes. So I don't know if that. But anyway, she's explaining to me how. She's explaining to me somebody who had gotten in a hurry and gave the wrong medicine to someone. And you know, and obviously it's a very important thing to do, but it ended up killing this person. And she got a first. First they just caught. The person, got sick and they. So she got fired immediately, even before the person had died or whatever. And the person died and then she got sued into like ruin over it.

[Guest or Contributor]

Oh boy.

[Mike Hansen]

And just was a mistake. Which it. It'd be almost impossible to have a mistake free system, I think.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. There got to be different levels of mistake, I'm sure. I mean, because that sounds egregious. Although I don't know what. What happened specifically.

[Mike Hansen]

I'm guessing it was. But because that can happen. Everybody is scared to death all the time. This person was telling me.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

And lives their lives really scared. And that can't be good.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, Katie is trying to talk. And Hanson is silenced. Misogyny, almost certainly probably racism.

[Guest or Contributor]

The sex came around. Here is thick. Johns Hopkins medicine According to them, 250,000 to as high as 440,000 US deaths and annually due to medical errors.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I can't. Crap.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Are you arguing with Johns Hopkins?

[Mike Hansen]

I'm working with John's. I kind of trust Hopkins.

[Guest or Contributor]

Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

Well, anyway, whatever it is, many tens of thousands. How can you, how could you get. Have a situation where you get sued into oblivion if you make a mistake and have that many mistakes going on or have people running around scared? I guess that's my point, is that she said, oh, yeah, me and my friends talk about this all the time. We're just worried to death regularly when we'll make a mistake and then we're done. We'll never be able to get hired anywhere ever again. We might get sued to ruin.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think a lot of medical professionals would say, yeah, our hospital companies intentionally understaff and overwork us to save money and raise their profits. That was part of running, you know.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah, glad you brought that up. That was one of the points they were making, is that, you know, they had been running up and down several floors because they were short staffed.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Mike Hansen]

And running from one patient to another and just missed one. Yeah. God dang it. Can you imagine? Because like our job, we, we regularly say when we're trying to decide what to talk about next segment. Nobody's going to die. I mean, if we, if we decide to talk about the shutdown instead of Taylor Swift or whatever. I'm glad I don't have a job with that kind of pressure.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, no kidding. Oh, speaking of mistakes, and this is pales in the face of the story you just told, but you remember how I told you, excuse me, earlier this week, about the plumbing screw up. I did that. That almost ruined our newly remodeled kitchen. The floors had just been done and came through the ceiling and everything. But the contractor is like, no, it's, it's okay. Don't. It'll be fine. It was brief of a. Turns out it was way worse than we thought because it hadn't occurred to anybody to check the room next door, which happened to be like an attic storage room entirely carpeted. Gallons of water had gone in there and had been absorbed and held by the carpet. And if that room hadn't been carpeted, a contractor said, we'd have had to start again on a lot of stuff, which would have meant eight weeks set back, I mean, like months. And I had. As he was telling me this, I had the feeling like I'd narrowly escaped, like a dangerous car wreck or I dodged a bullet. Or something. I was. I almost went down.

[Mike Hansen]

Well, it would have personally cost you. Your plumbing mistake could have personally cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Oh, easily. Easily several tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah. And what's especially annoying is I've done so much plumbing and it was such a stupid, careless, tired in a hurry mistake. You know like the nurse lady reminded me of that it's like the teeny tiny mistake that could cost $50,000.

[Mike Hansen]

And then God help you if you ever end up with mold. I had that in my last house and depends on what county you live in, when it state you live in, the way they treat it. But there's a lot of money to be made in the whole. We found us one spore a mold world.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. So I've been working on my description of plumbing. I think the other day I said you can't fake plumbing or something like that. Here's my new one. Water doesn't care how hard you tried. It's either gonna come out or it ain't.

[Mike Hansen]

That's true. We got a lot on the way. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

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[Mike Hansen]

Something funny before we get to something semi serious about the Middle east that I thought was super interesting. This is Jerry Seinfeld is still funny. Fantastic. He is one of the great observers of just life and noticing things that we all notice. But he comments on them in a way you know. You know what he is. Anyway, this is on Jimmy Fallon the other night.

[Guest or Contributor]

Somebody called me the other day. Cell phone call drops, friend calls back says I don't know what happened there. You know, people do that. I don't know what happened there yet. No one was hoping or expecting that maybe you could explain a random micro glitch in infinitely complex global telecommunications network. Just fall back and go. You were saying? That's all. I don't know what happened there.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know what happened there. Like, I'm gonna go. What do you mean you don't know what happened? You were on the call, you heard us get cut off and now you claim to know nothing about it. I think you know exactly what happened. Who are you coming up for? T Mobile. What's the T stand for? Thievery, Treachery.

[Mike Hansen]

That is very.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, my go. That's great.

[Mike Hansen]

I don't know what happened. What do you mean you don't know what happened to the micro glitch in an incredibly complicated global communication system?

[Jack Armstrong]

Beautiful. Beautiful. Isn't it just. Isn't it? I didn't hang up on you. Isn't that what you're communicating?

[Mike Hansen]

I guess. I guess. Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

As I was saying, that is would be so funny.

[Mike Hansen]

Perfectly okay. That is funny. So maybe you've seen the headline. We're sending a couple of. A couple hundred troops to Israel, Gaza to do. Not Gaza, Israel.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Mike Hansen]

But if, you know, are familiar with distances in the map, everything's very, very close together in that part of the world. And again, like I said earlier, they're not sending accountants in suits, they're sending troops because if something troopy has to happen, you want troops. And they're sending troops because something troopy could happen is the whole thing. I'm hoping it won't. And I'm. I don't think it will. But I was just reading this post that IDF soldiers are celebrating like crazy as they exit the Gaza Strip today.

[Jack Armstrong]

They'll remain in that.

[Mike Hansen]

They'll remain in 53% of the Strip for now. But they're pulling back to the edges. It's basically a pull back to the edges that if we have to run back in, we can. But they're getting away from, you know, population centers and all that sort of sort of stuff. And our soldiers are going to be far away from it too. But yeah, they're thrilled. Everybody seems to be thrilled. People in Israel dancing in the streets, Gazans dancing in the streets, all thinking Trump, which is, you know, amazing. And Trump is going on Monday. Now it has been announced he will go to Israel on Monday and speak to their government, which I'm sure he'll get a standing ovation as long as any have ever happened.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm sure you saw that cover of the Jerusalem Post that was captioned they're coming home. And it was Trump's silhouette filled out by the portraits of all the hostages, alive and dead, were still being held. I hope their optimism is, you know, I hope it comes through until, you know, the, the chicken lays the egg in the Middle East. You never know. Oh, and, and I would just. There is one group that is absolutely not happy. And as we said earlier, there is 100% certainty that there are splinter groups within Hamas and allied groups that are absolutely not down with the peace plan and will be exploding things and shooting people as soon as possible.

[Mike Hansen]

So, but sometimes, like that was a big concern when our civil war ended, that Lee could go to Appomattox courthouse and say, we're done, we give, but there's going to be, you know, militias of southerners all across the south that wouldn't stop fighting. But that didn't really happen. Not on the level that they were concerned about. Right. Sometimes this, that side, it's small enough. The overwhelming, you know, most southerners wanted it to be over, too. They were happy the war was over. So if you got enough people happy, it's over. They don't, they, they don't like the idea of you trying to start it back up again.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I was just thinking some splinter group comes along into a neighborhood and says, hey, we're going to resist the occupiers, and the neighborhood is going to say, no, you're not.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah, I got no more of that. I got food and electricity for the first time in two years and they're rebuilding.

[Jack Armstrong]

Kids going to school. Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah, that'll be interesting to watch. What I wonder as the first point of something getting derailed is if some of these bodies come back in really rough shape and it's really obvious what their end was like, or some of the people that are alive start telling stories that are like what?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, turns the mood. There's a near 100 chance of that, too. Oh, boy. Plus, there are elements of Hamas that are going to wait out the Trump administration.

[Mike Hansen]

But it has been announced Trump will be in Israel on Monday and on Columbus Day of all important days. We've got a lot more on the way. Hope you can stick around if you missed a segment.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

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[Mike Hansen]

How's your weekend looking? You got football, you got playoff baseball. Depending on where you live, either got fantastic weather or a horrible hurricane headed to the southeast. Is that right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Nah, there's like a northeaster. Oh it's going to be. You know what was crazy? I was like an old guy. I was watching the network weather coverage last night and they mentioned that temperatures are going to be like below freezing at night in parts of the Northeast. You get used to living in mild climates and that just seems crazy in October. But anyway, God bless you people in the Northeast. May you endure.

[Mike Hansen]

Man, with the shutdown going on and rain, that's a rough time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh my golly, you make a terrible point. Anyway, I was tempted to reset that candidate for Seattle Mayor, Bruce Harrell again, who is talking about how somebody who commits seven or eight crimes in a row, maybe they're hungry or had a bad childhood. I don't want to jail them. Which is just insane. And we've probably played it enough. But it's like a train wrecker. A two headed calf. I just have to keep looking at it.

[Mike Hansen]

You ever seen it? Have you actually seen a two headed calf? I have.

[Jack Armstrong]

In person?

[Mike Hansen]

Oh yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

No. No.

[Mike Hansen]

Hanson. You seen that sort of thing? No, never have. I'm kind of surprised you growing up in South Dakota in in rural parts of America, those kind of roadside attractions, these my finger quotes or attractions are semi common. It's basically just deformities. You know, see the two headed calf and you pull over and you go. You pay five bucks and you go in there and they got variety of horrific mistakes of nature and you look at them and then you walk out and think why did I do this?

[Jack Armstrong]

The cost to my soul was way more than the $3. Yes. Oh my God. Oh, speaking of freakazoids, before we get to the main topic, that, that interview at the pro Palestine rally that we played the other day with that little guy who was trying to claim Islam is a transgender religion and the rest of it. It would appear he may be a troll.

[Mike Hansen]

Oh, really?

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a hell of a thing to be hanging out at that rally saying what he was saying. But it would appear. And, and who knows? It is so hard to tell when somebody is parodying the woke lunatics.

[Mike Hansen]

That's what I was gonna say.

[Jack Armstrong]

Whether it's a par.

[Mike Hansen]

If it's believable enough, like not even really shocking, then you've got a problem.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, and as you pointed out, people around him. Hur it. Are saying, yeah, yeah, don't talk to him, he's a Zionist. That was their only objection to this nonsense he was spouting.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah. Nobody walked up and said, don't talk to him, he's a crazy troll. Listen to him. What is he saying? Muhammad was a trans woman. What is he talking about? Nobody said that.

[Jack Armstrong]

And that the, the new Gaza Council needs to be at least half transgender women. I mean, but again, it was indistinguishable from a sincere woke person.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, on a more significant level, the reason I wanted to replay the two headed calf Bruce Harrell arguing for not jailing people who commit eight crimes is how miserable a failure that philosophy is. And anybody who knows anything about crime and punishment knows that. And what wonderful timing this is. We've referenced this before the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey, which is so, so, so much better a measure of crime, in particular violent crime, but all crime, than the official government statistics. And they open this article mentioning that Trump and conservatives say crime is rampant in US cities. His critics in the mainstream media assert that it's under control and actually dropping. Crime is down 40% in Washington D.C. how many times did we hear that? Keeping in mind how incredibly easy it is to distort crime statistics based on who you say to arrest, who you say to charge, and what you decide to charge them with. So anyway they ask, have our cities become more crime ridden and unpleasant, or are they safe and livable? Newly released data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey go a long way to answering those questions. The survey finds that the rate of violent crime in urban areas increased 61% from 2019 to 2024. Now it's a little down from its peak in like 2022 or 2023 in some cities. But there's been an enormous rise since pre George Floyd and pre pandemic for some reasons that are obvious. You know, the pullback of policing, the being afraid to police certain neighborhoods. The rest of it, abandoning the broken windows philosophy. Some of it might be a little more mysterious, but in 2024, the rate of violent crime in urban areas was 46% higher than the nationwide rate and 104% higher, more than double the rural rate. Rural and suburban areas have actually held pretty stead. It's the cities that are going to hell, the blue cities mostly, where they've embraced WOKE policing policies. And the reason this survey is so good is rather than relying on police reports, which, again, are incredibly easy to manipulate, the National Crime Victim Victimization Survey asks tons and tons of US Residents whether they were a crime victim in recent months. If so, it asks about the nature of the crime, the demographics of those involved, and whether the crime was reported to the police. It's been conducted since the Nixon administration. It is by far the most accurate measure of crime.

[Mike Hansen]

How many crimes are reported to police.

[Jack Armstrong]

Versus as a percentage?

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah, great question. I've had a number of crimes in my life I didn't report to the police because there was no point.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, right. You know, I've got a handful of stats you might find interesting. In D.C. number of homicides rose 13% from 2019 to 2024.

[Mike Hansen]

Homicide. How would report?

[Jack Armstrong]

Go ahead and call the police. By the way, if you go back a little bit farther and study, it's a good idea. If you go back Farther, just to 2017 and stretch it to seven years. Homicides are up 61% in Portland, homicides almost doubled from 2019 to 2024.

[Mike Hansen]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

As for the demographics of crime, the survey finds that the likelihood that whites, blacks and Hispanics will be victims of violent crimes essentially matches their percentage of the population majority.

[Mike Hansen]

I understand how stealing cars can go up and down or breaking into houses go up, down. I've always been confused how murder rates go up and down.

[Jack Armstrong]

A lot of it is is young men and gangs. Any inner city cop will tell you this has been a pretty good year for gang wars and turf wars. It's just been settled down a little bit.

[Mike Hansen]

For the benefit of our own mental health, we should probably separate those out into two completely separate numbers. A, this could actually happen to you murder rate and a, this ain't gonna happen to you unless you're in a gang murder rate.

[Jack Armstrong]

I agree. That's a great idea.

[Guest or Contributor]

So blah, blah, blah.

[Jack Armstrong]

The primary reason black residents. Oh, oh, some of the demographic stuff. A majority of incidents involving black victims also featured black offenders, a result not true for any other racial group, although it was just barely over 50%. The primary reason black residents weren't disproportionately likely to be crime victims despite this high rate of interracial intra racial crime, is that there are comparatively few crimes committed against black victims by white offenders. White residents make up 60% of the population, yet were offenders in only 7% of incidents involving black victims. The most overlooked U.S. crime story in recent years has been the huge crime spike in our cities. Mr. Trump is right that the American that American cities are not nearly as safe as they were before systemic racism became a familiar accusation and defund the police became a rallying cry. You're not going to hear the story in many places at all. The journals on it, but almost nobody else is. Doesn't fit the narrative, you see so.

[Mike Hansen]

Hey Hansen, have we been pitched Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker? We should probably reach out to his people because he's making the rounds. He started with Joe Rogan, which is probably a good place to stop start. I think it's the number one podcast in America. He did like three hours the other day. Anyway, he's got his big, his latest giant epic documentary coming out. It's about the founding of America. Coming up this 4th of July, the 250th anniversary of founding of this country. And Ken Burns has done a big documentary and it looks fantastic. I don't know if you've seen any of the previews and from what I can tell from the interviews he's doing, it's not a bunch of woke nonsense which makes me very, very happy. It looks really, really great and you know, fully honoring the amazing thing that it is this nation being founded on the principles it was founded on. So I'm looking forward to that a lot. It'd be nice if we could have Ken Burns on.

[Jack Armstrong]

Fantastic. Yeah, we had one more.

[Mike Hansen]

We had him in studio one time and we were unhappy with his hair color and style.

[Jack Armstrong]

Very, very fortunate.

[Mike Hansen]

He wears the haircut of a 10 year old boy and he clearly darkens it. I mean just like very clearly.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, a lot of people do that.

[Mike Hansen]

I mean to do a documentary on that, a four part series on your hair.

[Jack Armstrong]

At least four. One final note on crime. Baltimore has a new city state's attorney, whatever his title was. He's, he's the DA essentially and he's a tough on crime Democrat and crime, especially violent crime is plunging, he says. Hold violent repeat offenders accountable, especially with illegal handguns. Too many murders for eight years straight. That's a terrible number to have. If you lock up violent repeat offenders, you hold them accountable. We invoke mandatory minimums, etc. Every cop in America will tell you, I spend 90% of my time babysitting the 2% of the population that commits 90% of the crimes and this guy said no, that part of the population? We're putting them in jail. And again, Baltimore is turning around.

[Mike Hansen]

Lock up that tiny percentage and the rest of us can enjoy walking our dog through the neighborhood at night not having to worry about anything. We will finish strong.

[Announcer]

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[Guest or Contributor]

This Connecticut woman is free on a million dollar bond after she was charged with attempting to murder the father of her child by pouring antifreeze into his wine. 33 year old Kristen Hogan and her partner shared this Ridgefield home where in early August, prosecutors say he fell ill and was hospitalized after consuming wine tainted with ethylene glycol, a toxic, often colorless and odorless substance in antifreeze. Police say Hogan searched the Internet for potassium cyanide and monoethylene glycol, as well as how much monoethylene glycol would kill you.

[Mike Hansen]

How have you weirdo wannabe murderers not caught on to the fact that somebody is going to check your Googles if your husband drops dead of poison or wife or boss or whoever?

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, he almost died, but the good news is he doesn't get overheated on summer days anymore.

[Mike Hansen]

Pulling a Trailer up a hill.

[Jack Armstrong]

Boy. Poison is the woman's murder weapon.

[Guest or Contributor]

It is.

[Mike Hansen]

I was gonna mention that. That is. There's been quite a few of these stories and, you know, it's a fairly common thing. Terrible that, you know, a dog or a cat will lick up some antifreeze that dripped out of a car and die from her. She probably got that idea from that thought, you know, why don't I do that? This husband that I can't stand anymore, he drops dead. I'm free to go out and, you know, date and have a good time. Good plan.

[Jack Armstrong]

Look at my computer records at all when my man mysteriously comes up dead.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah, I remember. Where did we hear this? Did a cop tell us? Or is this from a book? Or is that. It's just in the. In the world of solving problems, if a husband or wife dies, it was their spouse. If a restaurant burns down, it was the owner. And then there's like another one that is so often true. That's the first place you start.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

And. But so I was wondering about that, relating it to who's making the joke. It might have been from the Emmys the other night. It was about all of the various Dateline sorts of shows on that are on about stories like this. She thought she'd met the man of her dreams, but it turned out he was hiding a dark secret. He, you know, it turns out he'd poisoned his last two girlfriends or whatever. And these real true crime sorts of stories that are very, very popular and women just absolutely love them. And psychologically, what is that all about? Every woman I know brings up watching Dateline on a Friday night.

[Jack Armstrong]

And Katie True crimes podcasts. Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

And Katie nods her head.

[Guest or Contributor]

I fall asleep to murder documentaries.

[Mike Hansen]

So. So, yeah, you and your friends. Every woman in America Friday night, if you're not, you know, out at the club, you're watching Dateline to see some horrible boyfriend, husband murderer, something sort. What. What is the appeal? Why do you think it's more appealing to women than men? It seems to be more of a woman thing.

[Guest or Contributor]

I don't know that. I know. I'm attracted to the murder mystery and the law enforcement aspect of it. It's not. And it's not always women killing their husbands. It's just any form of crime. Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

But it's usually the opposite on those shows. Because they're four women.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah.

[Guest or Contributor]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, I've actually. Well, go ahead.

[Guest or Contributor]

No, that was. That was pretty. I just. I don't really know have any rhyme or reason to it.

[Jack Armstrong]

I've talked to my daughter about this a lot because she is becoming an attorney and is a true crimes podcast freak. And. And. And so we've talked about the psychology of it, and part of it is the old saw about why people like horror movies. It's a way to deal with your fears once removed. It's not actually in your life, but you can kind of process your fear of that. And the second thing is, she thinks women are really intent on figuring out how to avoid that. So if they can see examples of when it happens, connecting with the wrong guy and becoming a victim, if they can start to get smart about the earmarks and what to look out for, they feel more protected.

[Mike Hansen]

It was from the Emmys. It was Nate Bargazzi. He was playing the character of Philo Farnsworth, who invented television. And this was old timing. They're asking him, what will television do? And he said, you know, they'll have true crime stories on at night. Well, they're solved crimes. Would anybody watch that? Yes. Your wife, my wife, everyone's wives was the joke, and it's true. And you know, what you described. So that's interesting. So. And none of this is a hundred percent, but mostly guys watch sports because it's a simulation for war. Women watch these true crimes things because it's a simulation for how do I keep the village safe and spot the bad person.

[Guest or Contributor]

Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

And it's very evolutionary.

[Guest or Contributor]

I watched a particular horror movie the other day that encapsulated all of my biggest fears, like home invasion, phone calls from people that I don't know, like, a mysterious voice. It was like, all of the things that make my skin crawl. And my husband watches, like, why are you watching this one?

[Mike Hansen]

I don't.

[Jack Armstrong]

Babylon B headline. The other day I saw this on Twitter. Why am I so depressed? Asks wife who listens to eight hours of murder podcasts a day.

[Guest or Contributor]

Touche.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I know.

[Mike Hansen]

I remember. And clearly it's just a thing, but I remember when my wife was pregnant with our first kid, and she was constantly watching these stories about, you know, husbands, dads that turned out to be monsters. Like, is this what you want to watch when you're pregnant? But I guess, yeah, it helps you think you can look out for that person, I guess.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yep.

[Guest or Contributor]

I have some final thoughts, and some people say they are the greatest final thoughts they've ever heard. But if you look at what's happening, I would have to say Armstrong and Getty have some wonderful final thoughts. They are right up there with Abraham Lincoln, and everybody knows it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Here's your good job on the peace deal, Mr. President, by the way.

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah. Fantastic. You should have gotten the Nobel Prize day instead of that woman from somewhere. Venezuelan woman. Armstrong and Getty, final thoughts. Here's your host, Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Let's get a final thought from everybody on the crew. Michelangelo is off today. Mike Hansen filling in. Hanson, do you have a final thought?

[Guest or Contributor]

Yeah.

[Mike Hansen]

We talked about the Phillies pitcher who blew the game last night and when, you know, he wondered if he was done or not. He's cooked. The Phillies fans will cast their verdict. Get out of here. Yeah. Bum is what they're going to. Yeah. I wonder if he's going to have to leave town, go to Tampa.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Katie Greener, esteemed newswoman, has a final thought.

[Guest or Contributor]

Katie, we were talking about working out earlier and I had a workout yesterday that just made me realize I am not as strong as I think I am.

[Mike Hansen]

Nah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like we're out of time, huh?

[Mike Hansen]

Yeah. Armstrong and Giddy wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.

[Jack Armstrong]

So many people to thank, so little time. Go to Armstrong and getty.com. a lot of great clicks there for you. Check out the hot link. They are good every single day and interesting. Drop us a note if there's something you see over the weekend. We ought to be talking about mailbag@armstrong getty.com Pick up some swag for your favorite Ang fan.

[Mike Hansen]

Christmas is getting here fast. We got some cool stuff there too. Buy some swag, watch some videos and then comment on how much you hate the show. A lot of people seem to do that too. That's a fun thing to do on the weekend. Armstrong and Getty done with another show. We will see you next week. God bless America.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. There's a freaking war going on.

[Joe Getty]

They are ruthless.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, you're being a wise guy with me a little bit. I think that you may be over egging the pudding. Enough talk.

[Guest or Contributor]

It's a little too much.

[Mike Hansen]

Docky dog. I haven't said a word, so stop yelling at me.

[Announcer]

We must together work together.

[Mike Hansen]

Come on.

[Jack Armstrong]

I told you to get the out. Now get the out. Who whip up animus. The left against the right. The right against the left. Animal animus. Have a great Friday, you mother. Armstrong and Getty.

[Announcer]

This is an I heart podcast.