The A&G Replay Friday Hour Four

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand – "The A&G Replay Friday Hour Four"

Date: August 29, 2025
Host: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty | iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This hour of Armstrong & Getty delivers an incisive critique of U.S.-China relations—especially regarding American higher education’s role in educating Chinese Communist Party elites—and digs into issues around environmental policy, mental health screening for children, ADHD medication, and personal anecdotes about wildfire peril and rideshare mishaps. The show blends skepticism toward government and academic institutions with humor and personal stories, all wrapped in the hosts’ snappy, irreverent style.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. America’s Optimism vs. Global Realities

[01:04]

• Jack Armstrong opens by emphasizing how Americans’ safety and prosperity can breed complacency about global threats. He warns that this carefree attitude blinds Americans to the more "grim and calculating" world outside.

  “We don’t understand that the rest of the world is not nearly as carefree as we are... The rest of the world is much more grim and calculating.” —Jack Armstrong [01:19]

2. Harvard, Academia, and the Chinese Communist Party

[02:00 – 09:55]

• Discussion of a Congressional report urging Harvard to stop "educating the elites of the Chinese Communist Party.”
• Details about collaborations between Harvard’s Kennedy School and the Chinese Executive Leadership Academy at Pudong, which is controlled by powerful CCP bodies, training high-ranking party members.
• Hosts compare the situation to Harvard possibly training Nazi elites in the late 1930s, highlighting the apparent absurdity.

  “Harvard wasn’t in 1938, you know, getting Joseph Goebbels to be better at propaganda...” —Jack Armstrong [03:59]

• Mike Gallagher’s Wall Street Journal op-ed: Advocates sending Chinese students home, arguing US universities are unwittingly training adversaries (and that American seats are being crowded out).
• Quotes from Meta’s Chief AI Officer, Alexander Wang, on the threat of AI research “seeping” to U.S. adversaries.

  “The US hosted 1.1 million international students last year. Of those, 25% came from China, more than a quarter million.”
  —Jack Armstrong [06:24]

• The “Thousand Talents Program” is noted as an effort by China to reclaim talent and research, raising security alarms.
• Discussion on foreign students paying full tuition, suggesting an economic motivator for universities.

Notable Quote

“Helping Communists be better in the Communist Party. It’s right there in the name, Communist. We used to be really against that.” —Joe Getty [04:38]

3. China’s Manipulation of U.S. Environmental Policy

[08:09 – 11:32]

• The Energy Foundation China, a San Francisco-based nonprofit with a Beijing-based CEO and ties to the CCP, has funneled over $500 million to climate projects, influencing U.S. policy to favor renewable energies where China dominates the supply chain.

  “China has realized that if they can shove us away from steady sources of energy… Plus, they’re pushing us as hard as they can toward renewable energy. Who has cornered the market on all that stuff in renewable energy? China.”
  —Jack Armstrong [08:51]

• Ted Cruz’s investigations are cited: Chinese support for U.S. environmental groups is suspected of being strategic, not altruistic.

Notable Quote

“They must, at Communist Party headquarters parties, just throw back their heads in laughter sometimes at the things they’re able to pull off.” —Joe Getty [09:59]

4. Wildfire Destruction & Dealing with Bureaucracy

[12:13 – 16:28]

• Personal story: Jack buys a car for his son; in the process, he meets a man whose Pacific Palisades home was destroyed by wildfire despite believing its high-value residents would ensure greater protection.
• The harrowing experience is paralleled by Joe’s own brush with a fire that nearly became fatal.
• Major frustration in dealing with county government and insurance post-wildfire—“a bunch of F bombs” but “accomplished zero.”

Notable Quote

“You think I’m going to stop this with this hose? And the next thing you know, Mother Nature does her thing.”
—Joe Getty [14:44]

5. ADHD Medication, Outcomes, and Diagnosis Skepticism

[19:19 – 23:08]

• Joe discusses his kids’ ADHD diagnoses, noting differences in opinions about medicating children and the modern trend of labeling behaviors.
• Discusses a large Swedish study: ADHD medications linked to lower rates of suicide, substance abuse, criminal convictions, and car accidents.
• Jack argues that improvement in outcomes doesn’t guarantee medication is universally the best solution, and that “every kid is different."

  “I am certain I would have been diagnosed as a boy with ADHD… But what really helped me was getting into a program that lets you learn at your own speed.” —Jack Armstrong [22:01]

6. Mental Health Screenings in Schools: Risks of Over-Diagnosis

[23:08 – 32:26]

• Excerpt from Abigail Shrier’s work: recounts a troubling experience where her middle-school-aged son, brought in for a stomachache, was screened alone by mental health professionals, including queries about suicide.

  “Why can’t I be in the room for these questions, by the way?” —Joe Getty [24:34]

• Serious concerns raised about suggestibility in children and the risk of false positives; mentions Illinois’s new mandatory mental health screening law for children.

  “Kids are wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned. Ask a kid repeatedly if he might be depressed… and he just might decide that he is.”
  —Jack Armstrong [25:42 & 31:03]

• The “high-speed conveyor belt of activism” discussed: concern that diagnoses and interventions can do more harm than good, fostering a sense of brokenness in children.
• Cites expert Allen Frances (DSM-IV author): mandatory mental health screening “great in theory, terrible in practice.”

Memorable Segment

“Mandatory school screenings of kids for mental illness is great in theory and terrible in practice. Most kids who screen positive will have transient problems, not mental disorders. Mislabeling stigmatizes and subjects them to unnecessary…treatments.”
—Allen Frances (quoted by Jack Armstrong) [32:10]

7. "Wokeness" in Schools and Allyship

[34:08 – 36:31]

• Listener mail: Teachers in “Cal Unicornia” complain that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are intensifying, not fading.
• A training slide for “allyship” is read aloud, calling for educators to help “take down systems that challenge marginalized groups.”

  “Yeah, they say, 'We’re trying to tear down the system.' They brand the United States, Western civilization, as a system of oppression.” —Jack Armstrong [36:41]

• Observes that even private and Catholic schools aren’t immune to “woke” culture.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Harvard wasn’t in 1938, you know, getting Joseph Goebbels to be better at propaganda...” —Jack Armstrong [03:59]

• “They must, at Communist Party headquarters parties, just throw back their heads in laughter sometimes at the things they're able to pull off.” —Joe Getty [09:59]

• “If you haven’t spent a lot of time around kids, you don’t know this: kids are wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned.” —Jack Armstrong [31:03]

• “Mandatory school screenings of kids for mental illness is great in theory and terrible in practice. Most kids who screen positive will have transient problems...” —Allen Frances (quoted) [32:10]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:04] – "Americans are fundamentally optimistic—often to a fault."
• [02:00 – 09:55] – Harvard & U.S. Academia: Complicity in CCP leadership training
• [08:09] – China’s foundation funding U.S. climate activism
• [12:13] – Wildfire personal story, insurance, and government frustration
• [19:19] – ADHD medication: Studies, skepticism, and family experience
• [23:08] – Mental health screening of children: Abigail Shrier’s critique
• [32:10] – DSM-IV author’s warning on school mental health screenings
• [34:08] – “Wokeness” and DEI intensifying in schools, “allyship” definition
• [36:41] – Teachers' perspective: DEI, systemic critique, and “tearing down the system,” even in private schools

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Tone & Style Reflected

The podcast carries Armstrong & Getty’s signature irreverent, skeptical, and conversational tone. There’s a heavy dose of satire and sarcasm (as in their faux awe at “the enlightened state of California”), blended with kernel-of-truth warnings about complacency, overreach, and mission drift in elite institutions. Personal stories (e.g., wildfires, “smelly Uber rides”) are used to connect broader societal critiques to real-life experiences, keeping the show both grounded and engaging.

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This summary covers the central themes, memorable audio moments, and provides context for listeners seeking insights without wading through the entire episode.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an I heart podcast.

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[Show Announcer]

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

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

And now here's Armstrong.

[Jack Armstrong]

Strong and strong. And so as a precursor to what we're about to discuss. I don't think you can understand the world really until you understand what a weird country we are in a lot of ways. We have been so safe and prosperous and have such a great system and such a great bill of Rights that we are like by far the most optimistic people on earth. And Americans are uncalculating in a way that, and, and this is, this is my main point. We don't understand that the rest of the world is not nearly as carefree as we are. I mean we are. Let's do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, you know, make a little money. Everybody's fine, everybody's. Most people are nice and blah blah, blah. The rest of the world is much more grim and calculating. And in that spirit, let's take a look inside the China capital. It's my masquerading as clever name for several stories about China. China. There we go. Don't trust. No, we don't. China is salty. Another good point. And salty. That's right. Y. We brought this up before but there is a. A congressional report out now in a demand of Harvard University that they stop educating the elites of the Chinese Communist Party in how to be more effective communists. The elite of our universities, including Harvard are through the Kennedy School and other places educating the. The. Well, the, the elite again, the most powerful people within the most powerful bodies of the ccp. The collaboration between the Harvard Kennedy School and the Chinese Executive Leadership Academy at Pudong. That institution is controlled by the Central Organization Department, one of the most powerful bodies within the ccp. It oversees Xi Jinping thought training programs for party elites and controls placement in key Communist Party roles and high ranking members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. And these people are sent to the Harvard Kennedy School as part of the Organization Department's education and training. And these Congress people are sending a letter to the head guy at Harvard, President Alan Garber, saying, what are you doing? And it's a reasonable question. To cite some obvious, probably two obvious historical parallels. Harvard wasn't in 1938, you know, getting Joseph Goebbels to be better at propaganda, you know, in exchange for a full ride, you know, tuition.

[Joe Getty]

I don't even know what to think of this.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's insane. Yeah, well, you know what? It's not insane. It is a hangover, a holdover from that few decades long period where we got duped into thinking China wanted to reform and it wanted to become, you know, a happy free market participant in the community of nations. But like, everybody knows that's not true now except academia.

[Joe Getty]

But helping Communists be better in the Communist Party, it's right there in the name Communist. We used to be really against that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. And Mike Gallagher has a piece in the Wall Street Journal's opinion section today.

[Joe Getty]

Which Mike Gallagher, there's like five of them.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I know. This is the former, very sane, very serious congressman from Wisconsin, Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute. Anyway, his piece is entitled Send Harvard's Chinese Students Home. It makes no sense for the US to be educating the scientific and leadership class of a future adversary. For decades, Republicans and Democrats agreed our universities were crown jewels of American exceptionalism and Harvard shown brightest of all. Mr. Trump, however, has an uncanny knack for exposing rotten shibboleths. In recent years have seen top universities unmasked as global far left patronage networks using research as a smoke screen to prevent scrutiny of campus hate as they aid adversaries like China. Roughly 30% of Harvard's student body is foreign. At Columbia, it's almost 40%. And America's top universities benefit from billions of dollars in government grants and tax breaks while admitting fewer Americans every year.

[Joe Getty]

I'd like to know what it is in my local college town because it's pretty high.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, yeah. Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexander Wang has argued that the rate of AI progress may be such that, quote, you need to prevent all of our seeker from going over to our adversaries and you need to lock down the labs. Thousands of Chinese citizens, Chinese citizens are working and studying in such labs. The US hosted 1.1 million international students last year. Of those 25% came from China, more than a quarter million.

[Joe Getty]

I know somebody in academia who worked in a lab with Chinese citizens who were there in the lab also. And they would never talk about anything because they were worried about if he brought up anything political, they would never say anything. With the assumption from this person. I know that they were scared to say anything because it would get reported.

[Jack Armstrong]

Back in 2022, foreign nationals, many of them Chinese, accounted for almost 40% of science doctorates in the United States. Almost 40%.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

That is incredible. We are educating our number one global.

[Joe Getty]

Enemy for the next, you know, for the foreseeable future, China will be our number one enemy on planet Earth. And we're educating their scientists.

[Jack Armstrong]

And Beijing is aggressively cultivating American educated and American employed researchers by the Thousand Talents program. That's part of their whole of society. Everybody has to be bent on China being ascendant and squashing the US Blindly embracing academic cooperation with geopolitical rivals is absurd. Nobody suggests we should train Iran, Iranian nuclear physicists or Russian ballistics engineers. The US wouldn't have been better off collaborating more with Nazi Germany in the 30s or with the Soviets during the Cold War. Why make an exception for a nation dedicated to surpassing the US in emerging technologies? Then he mentions that universities love the Chinese students because they generally pay full freight, often subsidized by the Chinese Communist Party. What the hell are we doing? And then finally this. Speaking of money, and I mentioned this once, but it is absolutely worth digging into. There is a nonprofit called the Energy Foundation China. It is based in San Francisco and according to its website, EFC has dispersed over half a billion dollars to more than 4,000 climate related projects, many of them in the U.S. well, wait a minute. Oh, since the Chinese Communist Party controls everything, why is a Chinese. Chinese. Excuse me. The Communist Party run foundation financing thousands of climate related projects. Its CEO by the way is based in Beijing and has a background of strong CCP affiliations. Well, here's the deal and Ted Cruz has dug into this. China has realized that a if they can shove us away from steady sources of energy, it hurts our economy as they're burning and building coal plants as fast as they can. Plus they're pushing us as hard as they can toward renewable energy. Who has cornered the market on the critical rare earth minerals, for instance batteries, etc. Who has cornered the market on all that stuff in renewable energy? China. So they are financing all of these American so called environmental groups screaming for us to give up fossil fuels and embrace technologies that China controls.

[Joe Getty]

They must There at Communist Party headquarters parties, just throw back their heads in laughter sometimes at the things they're able to pull up. Hey, guess what? I bought another hundred acres next to a military base. You did? Yeah, Right next to it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or did you claim to be. I just said who I was.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

They just let you.

[Joe Getty]

Or this. We're financing that giant rally you saw on TV the other day where they're saying, you know, down with fossil fuels. We paid for that. And then the. The hippies push for all these programs that. Then we sell them the stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Their largest state, California, has given up producing the safest, cleanest, best policies for workers. Oil that is produced anywhere on earth. And instead it has instead outsourced it to despicable regimes that don't give a crap about the environment or their workers. That's enlightened California. And when they're not doing that, they're doubling down on technologies that we control and can get them. We can threaten to choke that stuff off. And Donald Trump will let Nvidia sell their most advanced chips or damn near to the Chinese Communist Party because we've gotten them to buy the green energy scam. We are a stupid people, or certainly our leaders are. That's your. Look inside the China Cabinet. China.

[Show Announcer]

Armstrong and Getty. The Armstrong and Getty show.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, look out. Something just came onto the floor. Got an object that just flew in as the free throw was being made. It looked like that hit a player too.

[Joe Getty]

So it's becoming a safety issue, people throwing the sex toys on the floor at the WNBA games. And I think it's a good idea to call it an object. Same same way they used to not show streakers run across the field because it just encourages.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, right. Yeah. You don't want to give them the fame they're looking for.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, exactly. So anyway, we'll keep an eye on that very important story of sex toys being thrown on the floor. WNBA games. I want to mention this. So I bought a. I bought my son's first vehicle the other day and I bought it from a guy in the Bay Area and I drove her there. I Uber to pick it up yesterday and drove it home. Smelliest Uber ride I've ever taken in my life. I don't know what was going on there. I don't know if a body was decaying or if it was him or what, but.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, that was rough.

[Joe Getty]

Anywho, the guy. The guy I bought it from.

[Jack Armstrong]

Guy.

[Joe Getty]

About my age, seemed pretty well to do, but living in a. Not particularly well to do Little duplex thingy. He said, yeah, I'm living with my daughter. I had a house in the Pacific Palisades, completely burnt to the ground. And then we got on that whole. I said, oh, geez, yeah, I found it. And he ended up showing me. We end up talking about it for a long time. And he. He showed me tons of pictures and videos. I mean, he was taking pictures and videos while it was occurring with the idea that he was going to be fine for a couple of different reasons. It was way over there, and he thought, there's no way it gets clear over here. Plus, he thought with all these gazillion dollars homes and some of the masters of the universe that live in this neighborhood, there's no way the city is going to let these homes burn down, was his thinking. And he was standing there, wife and kids. He didn't have kids, but a wife and pets had taken off and everything like that. He was there with a hose. He was going to protect his house. And the cops showed up and said, you got to go. And he went. And now he's so thankful that he did because the fire quickly overwhelmed everything and burnt everything to the ground. He's showing me pictures of stuff that he found in the. In the. He showed me he had a cybertruck, Like I have a cybertruck. And he had a cybertruck with nothing left but the stainless steel panels just sitting there on the ground. Everything else completely disappeared. Showed me a nice. He had a watch collection, a nice watch that he found. It was just charred. You could kind of tell it was a watch.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll bet more than one person. This is grim. Sorry, but has met their end. Standing there with a fire hose. As the. I'm sorry, with a hose, a consumer hose, as the wall of fire comes towards them and thinking, oh, my God. I miscalculated.

[Joe Getty]

I almost did myself, if you remember. That's what I told him about. Because he said. He said, fire. He said, I have a new respect for fire. And I said, the same thing happened to me. I've told the story. This is before you were here, Katie. But our farm caught on fire. And I had. It was a tiny little fire. I mean, it was like three feet in diameter. And I thought, well, I'm going to get a hose. And so I went and got some hoses and put them together, and when I turned around, it's a giant fire. And then I got the hose stretched over there and I'm trying to hose it. And before long, I was consumed in smoke. And heat and didn't know which direction was out and which direction was toward the fire and fire trucks eventually got there and blah, blah, blah. My shoes melted to the pavement. It was. But yeah, that's exactly right. You think I'm going to stop this with this hose? And the next thing you know, Mother Nature does her thing and that's what happened with him. But I asked him the question, of course, of how has it been dealing with the county and the government and the insurance. He said, oh, please. And he dropped a bunch of F bombs. And he has accomplished zero since that fire in terms of trying to get any money. He's living with his daughter and he doesn't have any idea if he's going back, if he can go back, what kind of money he's going to get. Nothing at this point.

[Jack Armstrong]

I hate to bring politics into this, but I just happened to read, I think it was the National Review. Somebody's writing about how Donald Trump saved Karen Bass's job. The idiot left the mayor of la, who was seriously on the ropes because of her utterly incompetent, insensitive, dishonest handling of the wildfire problem. But the high profile immigration raids has enabled her to, you know, rush to the ramparts to play the progressive warrior to protect our immigrant communities. And it saved her bacon.

[Joe Getty]

If you get in.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which is not to say he shouldn't be deporting people at all, but it's kind of interesting the way those things can turn out.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, no. He sent the National Guard. That was a good, you know, helped rescue her, I guess. If you get into an Uber or a Lyft and it smells really, really horrible, what is it? Most likely the Dr.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes. Yeah. In my experience, it's often like they're wearing way too much cologne or have just coated the place with some sort of disinfectant deodorant thing, which is terrible.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, this wasn't either one of those. It definitely wasn't cologne. And it wasn't.

[Jack Armstrong]

It was stank. Huh?

[Joe Getty]

It was stank. It was like.

[Jack Armstrong]

Was it like a spill that they didn't get all the way and went moldy in the car?

[Joe Getty]

Kind of a situation that could happen. I did have a gallon of milk explode in my truck one time and it smelled pretty bad for a long time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Should have torched it. Speaking of fire, I left it in.

[Joe Getty]

My truck on accident on a day when it was 112 degrees outside and it was probably 150 inside the truck and it just burst and then it was in there overnight. And it smelled so bad, but I eventually Lysol did enough over the period of like a year to get the smell completely gone. But I think this was the dude. What would make a human being smell like that? Is it like a 30 year old dude? What would. What would cause your body to do that?

[Jack Armstrong]

What kind of question is that exactly? I'm with kid. You want to talk about this on the air?

[Joe Getty]

Well, what would you do? Are you dying or.

[Jack Armstrong]

Perhaps. But I'm not. I will not. I will not take an Uber ride to this conversation. Hey, Michael, you answer him? No.

[Joe Getty]

Well, what is, I guess seriously?

[Show Announcer]

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[Show Announcer]

The Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Joe Getty]

I got at least one kid diagnosed with adhd, and the other one certainly might have it. And I know how some people react to this with this is just the way kids have always been and now they're putting a name on it. And I think there's some truth there. I think there is too.

[Jack Armstrong]

Depends on the kid, obviously.

[Joe Getty]

I know in at least one of my cases it's definitely not that, but there's so many different medications out there. And it's interesting. I've known a couple of really successful people, scholastically successful people that had ADHD and were able to focus better than normal people in certain situations. That's one of the weird things about adhd. But like several friends I know who have ADHD can drink coffee, like a big cup of coffee before they go to bed. It helps calm them down, stimulates calm them down. So energy drinks, coffee. It's like how you exhale and focus.

[Jack Armstrong]

And Ritalin famously is a stimulant yeah. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

And so anyway, for all kinds of different reasons, there's this giant Swedish study that's out right now. They followed 150,000 people with ADHD for two years on ADHD medication. And based on their analysis with this very big study, the medicated group experienced an estimated 17% fewer suicidal behaviors, 15% fewer cases of substance abuse, 13% fewer criminal convictions, and a dozen percent fewer traffic accidents compared to people that didn't take ADHD medication. So I don't know if that informs anybody who's in the I'm not going to do medication for my kid crowd. That's a tough one.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I just. Just because that is something that improves outcomes, or so it would seem from that study, you know, with the usual grains of salt, doesn't mean it's the best solution. That would be my. My only quibble. And again, it varies kid to kid, but that's interesting. I mean, if that's helping people be happier and all, I'm in favor of it. I just. I know I am certain I would have been diagnosed as a. As a boy with adhd. Do you think my problem was the pace of school was so slow it made me insane.

[Joe Getty]

But do you think it would have helped you if you'd have had something that would taken the edge off?

[Jack Armstrong]

No. What really helped me was getting into a program that lets you learn at your own speed. I loved it, absolutely loved it. Happy as a clam.

[Joe Getty]

And it didn't exhibit itself in any other ways?

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I don't think so. Not that I'd have to think about that for a while.

[Joe Getty]

There's also degrees because it's. Of course they do diagnosis as mild, moderate, or severe.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. And I want to make it clear, I come to this conversation humbly because every kid is different, and I don't know your kid or your kid or your kid. And. And some people absolutely need the help.

[Joe Getty]

Well, yeah, that. Well, that's the problem you have. If you run into people that have very strong opinions on this is all. First of all, I've had a very respected doctor get one diagnosis, and a different respected doctor have a completely different diagnosis. And then what in the hell are you supposed to do with that information? So their guess, to a great extent, it's all on a continuum line between 0 and 1000. And it's also combined with all the other personality factors that you have that are somewhere in the range of normal or not.

[Jack Armstrong]

So, yeah, it's complicated in their environment. Yeah. So, speaking of kids mental health, I absolutely love Abigail Schreier. She wrote a couple of books, Irreversible Damage, about the unspeakably cruel, experimenting on confused adolescents who momentarily believe they're a different gender because activists have convinced them that they might be or that they are. And kids are so impressionable, it led kids down what I've called the high speed conveyor belt of activism toward irreversible damage to their bodies. Terrible. She also wrote a book, Bad Therapy, which she references here. I'm just going to read something she wrote briefly. While I was writing my book, Bad Therapy, my middle school age son returned home from sleepaway camp with a persistent stomach ache. I took him to urgent care where a nurse asked me to leave the room. I know you love this, Jack. So he could administer a mental health screening tool put out by our National Institutes of Mental Health. Afterward, I received a copy of the survey and photographed it. Here, verbatim are the five questions the nurse intended to ask my son in private.

[Joe Getty]

And what was the age of the kid again?

[Jack Armstrong]

Middle school.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

In the past few weeks, have you wished you were dead? 2. In the past few weeks, have you felt that you or your family would be better off if you were dead? 3. In the past week, have you been having thoughts about killing yourself?

[Joe Getty]

Why can't I be in the room for these questions, by the way?

[Jack Armstrong]

Because they don't want you, the parents, interfering with they the government, getting the truth from your kid. 4. Have you ever tried to kill yourself? If yes, how? When? And five, are you thinking of killing yourself right now? If yes, please describe keeping in mind.

[Joe Getty]

And I know more about this than I wish I knew, but keeping in mind, if they declare your kid a threat to themselves, they 5150 that kid and your kid no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the county. They are in the government's control. You get no say at that point. I mean, zero say.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. So Abigail writes, children across America are being asked these questions by doctors because this is explicit protocol from the nim, the National Institute of Mental Health. Ask parents to leave so that you can administer the following questions to kids age 8 and up who have not shown any signs of mental distress. There are so many problems with this. The main one is kids are wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God.

[Jack Armstrong]

Ask a kid repeatedly if he might be depressed. How about now? Are you sure? And he just might decide that he is sure. Or she writes that, yeah, be in.

[Joe Getty]

A position at that moment that day where they want attention.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, sure, yeah. And she writes now. Thanks to Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker. Tens of thousands of Illinois kids will be encouraged to think of themselves as sick. Many or most will be false positives. How do you freaking nut jobs think.

[Joe Getty]

You'Re making the world better with this stuff? I'll never understand it.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just think there are. There is a huge share of people that thinks in terms of feelings and not outcomes. Does this. Does this make me feel. Does this sound good? Does this seem concerned? And they don't even ask. All right. Every action has reactions, both intended and unintended. Let's think about what they might be. Progressives don't say those things.

[Joe Getty]

It's also a weird tendency on the left to.

[Jack Armstrong]

Feel like they're.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know if. Because they come from. Tend to come from dysfunctional families or what it is, but they kind of want it not to be true that there are functioning families out there.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

It bothers them that. That sometimes. We got it. If things are fine, I'm okay. I don't need your help. They hate that.

[Jack Armstrong]

In a way. Yes. Because nothing makes them feel better than helping. I just feel like. To go back to the great C.S. lewis quote about the worst sort of oppression is from do gooders, because they will never stop.

[Joe Getty]

Right. I just feel like it's been more prevalent of people I've known that were super progressive, that nobody's actually happily married. That's. No. They're all faking it or lying or, you know, there are no families that are okay. Just. And I've always thought that's so weird. Why do.

[Jack Armstrong]

Why do you have that view of the world? So.

[Joe Getty]

And if you have that view of the world, you'd be more likely to want this sort of stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

So getting back to J.D. pritzker, assigning mandatory mental health screenings for little kids in into law, and you're.

[Joe Getty]

Not in the room for it. That's unbelievable.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Yeah. And actually, Abigail Schreier mentions, if basic literacy hadn't already collapsed in Illinois, kids might pose spirited objections to Pritzker's sales pitch. But in fact, nobody learns anything in Illinois. But her experience talking to parents of such kids right after word from Simplisafe. Home security. Feeling safe at home. Speaking of functional families. I mean, actually safe whether you're going to sleep at night or leaving for the day and leaving your home empty. You want Simplisafe's new active guard outdoor protection that helps stop break ins before they happen. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

So got all the sensors and the cameras and all that sort of stuff. And it costs about a dollar a day, which is amazing. There are no contracts because Simplisafe doesn't feel like they need to lock you in, that you're going to want to get out, you're going to like it, and you're going to want to stay in. That shows real confidence in their their equipment and their service at Simplisafe.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yep, they're rated the best by all sorts of different folks. And what's really amazing about the Active Guard outdoor protection plan and the combination of AI powered cameras and live monitoring agents is the monitoring plan. Start around a buck a day. It's so much less than a traditional system and it's so much better. It's a real leap forward. Anyway. Visit simplisafe.com Armstrong you get 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan. Get your first month free. Simplisafe.com Armstrong there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Joe Getty]

So this hate this story you've brought us.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, sorry about that. So Abigail writes, I've spoken to hundreds of parents of such kids. In 2024, I published Bad Therapy, an investigation into the surge in adolescent mental health diagnoses and psychiatric prescription drug use. Many young people without serious mental illness nonetheless spend languishing with a diagnosis, alternately cursing it and embracing it, believing they have a broken brain, convincing themselves that their struggles are insurmountable because of the disorder's constraints. They meet regularly with a therapist or school counselor on whom they become increasingly reliant, losing a sense of efficacy, unable to navigate on their own, even minor setbacks and interpersonal conflicts. They begin courses of antidepressants that carry all kinds of side effects, suppressed libido, fatigue, muffling of all emotion, and even an increase in depression. Anti anxiety drugs and stimulants given to kids diagnosed with ADHD are both addictive and ubiquitously abused. And often that tragic descent begins with a simple mental health survey. Then she tells the story of her son. And this is this is maybe the key takeaway. If you haven't spent a lot of time around kids, you don't know this. Kids are wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned. As a kid repeatedly if he might be depressed, how about now? Are you sure? And he might just decide that he is. Introduce gender dysphoria into a peer group and a swath of seventh grade girls are likely to decide they were born in the wrong body. Introduce testing anxiety or social phobia or suicidality to them, and many teams are likely to decide. I have that too. There is A reason clinicians keep anorexia patients from socializing unsupervised in a hospital ward. Anorexia is a profound, profoundly socially contagious mental illness.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. That is, I think, obviously true and so troubling. Yeah. Testing anxiety is a great example. I mean, they, I think they talk about that in classes openly all the time now. And you know, if you and everybody.

[Jack Armstrong]

Gets a free pass. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

And then of course, I mean, who, who doesn't get anxious when you've got a test? Anybody?

[Jack Armstrong]

One more note in. Do you want to squeeze it in now or after the break? It's the guy who writes the giant psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition. I'll just do it real quick now. He says mandatory school. Mandatory school screenings of kids for mental illness is great in theory and terrible in practice.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Most kids who screen positive will have transient problems, not mental disorders. Mislabeling stigmatizes and subjects them to unnecessary necessary treatments while misdirecting very scarce resources away from kids who desperately need them. Don't do it.

[Joe Getty]

Then you've got the added problem of some parents. I'm definitely not this. Who love the idea of having a kid who has some sort of special problem to get to talk about and everything.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Syndrome. And it's various variations.

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The Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Joe Getty]

Good morning. It's National Radio Day. How you doing there? Giving away a taco when you hear this sound. Later. Next hour, be caller six. Win a taco. Traffic on the fives. National Radio Day.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

That was horrible. See, here's your freedom loving quote of the day. Happy radio day to you. This one Comes from Louis Ferdinand Saline, who I don't know his work. He's a Frenchman. But I like to quote, I've never voted. Oh, I'm doing a series on voting, by the way. I've never voted in my life. I have always known and understood that the idiots are in the majority and so it's certain that they will win. We could have gotten along. That's.

[Joe Getty]

That's pretty good. You're in the majority, so what's the point?

[Jack Armstrong]

Mailbag, feel free to reach out. Drop us a Note [e-mail] Guy Guys, first day back at school, writes Al. Anonymous. We teachers had our first day of professional development yesterday and it was all day long dei. It has not gone away. And in some places they're digging their heels in even deeper. Parents and communities need to pay attention. Oh, man. Is there really clear to me where Al is? Would not shock me if he was in Cal Unicornia.

[Joe Getty]

You know, I have friends. They. They had their kids in a expensive private Catholic school and it was woke af.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. Wow. You know, I want to scroll down to this. I really don't have time to search for this, but the graphic was smaller than I expected it to be. Hey, Jack and Joe thought you might be interested slash appalled. This is a different note from Al. Different. Anonymous In Cal Unicornia, you might be interested in Appalled that they're now saying the quiet part out loud in teacher training. And it's a graphic up on a screen that talks about allyship. And the screen explains that what you're trying to do. There it is. I want to read it correctly. Allyship, when a person of privilege works in solidarity and partnership with a marginalized group of people to help take down the systems that challenge that group's basic rights. Equal access and ability to thrive in our society. So they say, yeah, we're tearing allyship being an ally ship.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, they're. They say, yeah, we're trying to tear down the system, but they brand the United States Western civilization as well. It's a system of oppression.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

So of course that's what we're taking down.

[Joe Getty]

Sure. A lot of people in this system with a very high standard of living compared to the world.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Totally different note. Really nice note from Emily here. It's a picture of the memorial table for her dad who passed away, and it includes a stupid should hurt T shirt. Oh. So that's great. That's great. Sorry for the loss of your pop, but that's nice. Anyway, moving along, how does Prague, Czechoslovakia feel toward. Well, it's Czech Republic, right? Feel toward Russia, guys. I was in Prague a couple of years ago. I encountered these citizens expressing their feelings toward Russia. It is a fountain, a water feature in Yugoslavia. Oh, I'm sorry. In the Czech Republic of two grown men, anatomically correct. Standing on the base of the fountain is a flag of Russia and they are both urinating upon it.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know if I grasp the symbolism.

[Jack Armstrong]

I wonder if that's because the Soviet Union oppressed those poor people for generations. Moving along, guy. Good morning. Longtime listener writes Troy. I want to make sure you knew the government subsidized Sun Fresh grocery store in Kansas City closed several days ago. Local radio says $29 million invested in the city over 10 years. I yield the rest of my time. But f this.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

And Mumdani is going to try that in New York City. Yeah. Kansas City tried government grocery stores. They squandered $29 million on it. It became a crime. Choked, no food, Soviet style wasteland enclosed.

[Joe Getty]

And you haven't heard any reporting on that.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's the Armstrong and Getty Show. Armstrong and Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Joe Getty]

The conscience of the nation.

[Show Announcer]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.