The Prince Didn't Win the Lottery!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode Title: The Prince Didn't Win the Lottery!
Date: June 11, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode opens with a wide-ranging, spirited discussion on American foreign policy toward Iran, referencing historical parallels and recent military actions. Jack and Joe offer their signature mix of sharp commentary and humor, shifting seamlessly from global geopolitics to mental health statistics and U.S. political intrigue—particularly inside the Trump administration during the Epstein files saga. The episode also features reflections on historical legacies and the passing of historian Gordon S. Wood.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Iran Crisis and Historical Parallels

Timestamps: 01:29–13:12

• Trump’s Comments on Iran: The show starts with a Trump quote about Iran negotiations, with the hosts noting the cyclical nature of U.S. hopes for a breakthrough and the pattern of Iranian delay tactics.
  • Key Quote (Jack Armstrong, 01:55): “I wish he would have said... I’ve come to the conclusion they have no interest in a deal. So we’re going to have to force this another way because he still sounds like he thinks there can be a negotiation.”
• Comparison with Jimmy Carter Era: They highlight an op-ed likening Trump’s predicament with Iran to Carter’s impotence during the hostage crisis, emphasizing that Iran often drags out talks with no intent to compromise.
• Mocking the Obvious: The futility of negotiation is lampooned:
  • Memorable Moment (Joe Getty, 02:50): “It had a bit of the feel of a man saying, I'm starting to think these Nigerian princes haven't won a lottery.”
• Choices for U.S. Policy: The hosts discuss that America basically faces a choice between brutal military force or a long-term campaign of economic strangulation, with neither option simple or clean.
  • Quote (Jack Armstrong, 04:12): “The only two choices really... are bomb them into submission... or we strangle them, but we have to be willing to wait nine months, a year, however long it takes for the regime to fall.”
• Risks and Realities: They highlight civilian casualties, the likelihood of needing boots on the ground, and the complications from allies and adversaries circumventing sanctions.

2. Military Developments and Economic Warfare

Timestamps: 05:49–07:50

• Updates are provided (via Jennifer Griffin) on U.S. military operations, including controlling the Strait of Hormuz and escorting oil tankers at night past Iranian blockades, sparking humorous skepticism.
  • Quote (Jack Armstrong, 06:35): “He did it in the dark. You can’t expect anybody to catch a terrorist in the dark.”
  • Sarcastic Rejoinder (Joe Getty, 06:49): “What are you gonna do? Right, so Iran doesn’t have, like, any radars or night vision or anything. Flashlights... like really powerful flashlights. Lighthouses.”

3. Long-term Strategy and Political Sacrifice

Timestamps: 07:50–11:06

• The discussion explores whether a president could sustain the long-term unpopularity necessary to strangle Iran:
  • Quote (Jack Armstrong, 07:18): “That would be Trump basically saying, I give up my reputation and presidency for this issue... I think it's worth it to stick this out until the regime falls. That’d be a heck of a thing to do.”
• Joe Getty laments the lack of international consensus, criticizing Europe's "passivity."
  • Quote (Joe Getty, 07:55): “One of the great forces... that allows evil to triumph is the passivity of so many countries, especially Europe... They figure, hey, we'll have the big daddy over there take care of it.”

4. U.S. Politics: Options and Leadership

Timestamps: 11:06–14:13

• The hosts consider the future: Would a forceful, war-time strategy last beyond one administration? Joe notes potential future presidents (Vance, Rubio, AOC...) might not maintain continuity.
• Brief humorous tangent on an AI-generated video—AOC confronting “Basic Economics” and Thomas Sowell (11:45–12:50).

---

5. Mental Health Crisis in America

Timestamps: 14:49–16:45

• The hosts discuss rising mental health statistics (4 in 10 adults) and speculate on generational changes.
  • Quote (Joe Getty, 15:21): “At what point is that just being a human being?”
  • Quote (Jack Armstrong, 15:49): “When the old people are gone and all young people... it'll be over half easily.”

---

6. China’s Irreversible Demographic Crisis

Timestamps: 16:45–21:39

• They highlight Rod Martin’s analysis of China’s population collapse, irreversible due to decades of the One-Child Policy and a gender imbalance:
  • Quote (Joe Getty, 17:07): “China's population collapse is now mathematically irreversible. There simply aren't enough women left of childbearing age.”
• The hosts note projections of China possibly shrinking from 1.4 billion to as low as 310 million by 2100, rendering its superpower status unsustainable.
  • Quote (Joe Getty, 21:03): “This is not just a demographic crisis, it’s the end of China’s superpower dream.”

---

7. Inside the Trump Administration & Epstein Files

Timestamps: 21:52–34:18

• Review of a forthcoming book, "Regime Change" by Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan, focusing on the Trump White House’s internal meltdown over the Epstein files.
• The Situation Room was used not for national security, but to strategize damage control over possible Epstein fallout.
  • Quote (Jack Armstrong, 24:54): “Apparently for some reason, and nobody's exactly quite sure, Trump hated the idea of the Epstein files coming out... he said to some people behind the scenes, look, I got a lot of friends that are going to be damaged, bad by this.”
• J.D. Vance’s “crazy” proposal that Tucker Carlson should interview Ghislaine Maxwell to clear Trump—met with internal disbelief.
• Comedic reenactments of administration chaos, like Pam Bondi handing out “Epstein files” folders to MAGA podcasters with zero coordination:
  • Quote (Jack Armstrong, 32:52): “[Pam Bondi] announces... I have for you the Epstein files and starts handing them out to these podcasters... everybody else there from the White House [was asking], what is in those files? What the hell is this?”

---

8. History & Legacy: Gordon S. Wood

Timestamps: 35:11–37:37

• The hosts honor historian Gordon S. Wood, praising his work on America’s founding and his critique of the “1619 Project”.
  • Quote (Gordon S. Wood, as played, 36:18): “If you don’t like the story, okay. But think about it as a saga... it makes the rise and fall of Rome seem tame by comparison, nothing compared to the story of the United States over the last 400 years.”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Negotiating with Iran:
  Joe Getty (02:50): “It had a bit of the feel of a man saying, I'm starting to think these Nigerian princes haven't won a lottery.”
• On the limits of air power:
  Joe Getty (04:44): “The caveat to that, though, is air power can accomplish a lot, but not everything. And the civilian costs might be...”
• On handling the Epstein Files:
  Jack Armstrong (24:54): “Trump hated the idea of the Epstein files coming out... he said to some people behind the scenes, look, I got a lot of friends that are going to be damaged, bad by this.”
• On China’s Demographic Collapse:
  Joe Getty (17:07): “China’s population collapse is now mathematically irreversible. There simply aren't enough women left of childbearing age.”
• On U.S. History:
  Gordon S. Wood (36:18): “It makes the rise and fall of Rome seem tame by comparison, nothing compared to the story of the United States over the last 400 years.”

---

Memorable Segment Timestamps

• Trump’s Iran comments: 01:29–02:00
• “Nigerian princes” analogy: 02:50–03:03
• Militaristic choices for Iran: 04:12–05:21
• Mocking U.S. oil ops secrecy: 06:11–07:01
• AOC “Basic Economics” video: 11:45–12:50
• China’s demographic collapse: 16:45–21:39
• Epstein Files/White House chaos: 21:52–34:18
• Gordon S. Wood tribute: 35:11–37:37

---

Episode Tone & Closing

This episode is classic Armstrong & Getty: a quick, conversational mix of policy seriousness and irreverent wit. The hosts aren’t shy about lampooning political absurdities (both foreign and domestic), and seamlessly blend historical insight, current events, and cultural commentary. The tone remains candid—often skeptical, sometimes exasperated, but always sharp.

---

For More

Missed any segments? Find them at Armstrong & Getty On Demand.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

Guaranteed human before we had AT&T business wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn, an influencer even livestream the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business Wireless, routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53

[Jack Armstrong]

new followers though at&t business Wireless Connecting changes everything

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

this week at Safeway and Albertsons. Red, green or black seedless grapes are $1.99 per pound limit 6 pounds member price with coupon and fresh boneless pork shoulder country style ribs. Value packs are $2.49 per pound member price plus selected sizes and varieties of General Mills cereals or Treat bars, Nature Valley granola bars, Mott's Fruit by the Foot or gushers are 199 each member price when you buy three hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

[Jack Armstrong]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center,

[Joe Getty]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now he's Armstrong and Getty.

[Donald Trump (quoted)]

So we'll see what happens. But we hit him hard yesterday and we're going to hit them again hard today in case you miss it, in case you don't turn on your television set and we'll see what happens with the deal. We were, we're really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers because you know what? They dealt with some very stupid presidents. I have to say that I'm embarrassed to say some very stupid people were sitting here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yipes. Yipes.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I mentioned the Financial Times has got a piece in it today from this guy named Ed Luce. He's a journalist, but he worked in the Carter White House. He's got a piece out saying I think the headlines something like Trump is becoming Jimmy Carter, something like that. He worked in the Carter White House during the hostage crisis and he said we constantly thought we had a deal and it took us like a year and a half to realize they have no interest in a deal. They're just lying to us constantly and dragging us out and that that's what the Iranians do. And Trump right there saying they're tapping us along. And there's been a lot of stupid presidents. I wish he would have said or I wish he believed and would have said. I've come to the conclusion they have no interest in a deal. So we're going to have to force this another way because he still sounds like he thinks there can be a negotiation. Yeah, he's.

[Joe Getty]

He was right, what he said, but it had a bit of the feel of a man saying, I'm starting to think these Nigerian princes haven't won a lottery.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. Yeah. I'm beginning to think this stripper doesn't love me. I'll give her another $20 and see if I'm.

[Joe Getty]

I'll cover her rent this month, but then I'm really gonna look into this.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll cover her rent, but then I'm gonna have to get a commitment because I'm just wondering. What's going on on the other side, because there is a blockade going on. You know, Iran's keeping the straight Hormuz closed, but we've blockaded their blockade, so they can't get anything in or out either. Tree yinxed on that with Fox.

[Reporter or Correspondent]

Now, the backdrop here in all of this is quite important. And I spoke with President Trump about this as well. As these strikes are taking place and the Iranians are unable to control the skies of their own country, the US Naval blockade remains in effect, and it's crippling the Iranian economy. The exports for the Iranian regime are down about 90%. They're extracting crude oil at a 50% rate. And so not only was the president bombing them from the air overnight, keeping the naval blockade in place and ultimately telling them, you have one choice here at the negotiating table. Sign the deal or the war resumes. But he was also communicating with regional allies about what was going on. He told me he spoke quickly with the Israelis. However, the Israelis were not involved in, in the strikes overnight.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I've listened to a lot of smart people on this. I think I agree with the. The smart take of the only two choices really are, well, I guess there's the third choice of walk away. But that, that's horrible. The only two choices really, to get any kind of good ending are bomb. Bomb them into submission. Like, bomb them until they just. They either actually give or they're just. They're dead. They're all dead. And then somebody moderate says, I'll. I'll make a deal with you because he's the only guy left.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. The caveat to that, though, is air power can accomplish in a lot, but not everything. And the civilian costs might be.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, no, it would be palatable. It would be incredibly ugly. I think we'd have to put, you know, People on the ground. Militarily, we would lose lots of guys. Lots of innocent civilians in Iran would die. It'd be ugly. Or we strangle them. But we have to be willing to wait nine months, a year, however long it takes for the regime to fall because they're running out of gas and money and everything else.

[Joe Getty]

And the complication there is that you would have to punch some other countries in the face who were trading with Iran and smuggling oil out and trying to profit from the whole thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

So are you.

[Joe Getty]

None of these are easy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, let's hear from Jennifer Griffin first, then. I have the big question. Every Thursday, we do it. Brought to you by Ford.

[Joe Getty]

Jack not ready.

[Jack Armstrong]

Jack's big question, not ready emotionally is Jennifer Griffin with a little update of what else we're doing.

[Jennifer Griffin]

CENTCOM had been busy mapping new targets and also tracking the movements of Iran's leaders. He also claimed the US Actually controls the Strait of Hormuz after the President revealed that the US military had secretly been escorting oil tank anchors through the Strait of Hormuz laden with over 100 million barrels of oil in the middle of the night without Iran seeing them.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. So we're getting millions, many millions of barrels of oil out of there. Going to who?

[Joe Getty]

I'm reminded of the story years ago of a guy who snuck onto the tarmac at the San Jose airport, as I recall, in California. And the airport spokeswoman explained the breach of security by saying, well, he did it under the COVID of night.

[Jack Armstrong]

He did it in the dark. You can't expect anybody to catch a terrorist in the dark.

[Joe Getty]

What are you gonna do? Right, so Iran doesn't have like any radars or night vision or anything.

[Jack Armstrong]

Flashlights,

[Joe Getty]

like really powerful flashlights. Lighthouses. Yeah, we did it at night. We snuck the oil through at night. Damn it. Well, then why isn't everybody doing that?

[Jack Armstrong]

But is it benefiting us? I mean, gas is still really expensive.

[Joe Getty]

It'd be a lot more expensive from what I understand. Understand that and the China factor, which is my new spy novel coming up, that they're not consuming or not importing, I should say, millions of barrels of oil a month that they usually do.

[Jack Armstrong]

So, yeah, that's its own interesting thing in terms of when would they finally put pressure on Iran if we went with the long term strategy of nine months a year, however long it got. That would be Trump basically saying, I give up my reputation in presidency for this issue. I think it's important enough to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. We're going to get demolished in the midterms, my approval rating is going to go into the high 20s. But I think it's worth it to stick this out until the regime falls. That'd be a heck of a thing to do.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Yeah. Boy, there's so much to be said on this topic.

[Jack Armstrong]

I wish, before I get to Jack's

[Joe Getty]

big question, oh, no, I don't have it in me. I wish Trump had been able to build a consensus among more nations than just US and Israel and the Gulf nations that Iran with the bomb is such a terrible, terrible threat to humanity that there should be a coalition, a serious coalition, designed to deny them that right, because then we could really bring the power to bear to get it done. But one of the great forces, you know, it's not a force of evil, it's what allows evil triumph is the passivity of so many countries, especially Europe, they figure, hey, we'll have the big daddy over there take care of it. We don't have to do anything. We can keep our hands clean. We can claim to be pure and peace loving and the rest of it, and then we get the outcome we like. This is fantastic. And you've got a coax and threaten and cajole them out of that stance. And I wish Trump had done a better job because winning it, winning it, it's going to be a hell of a big task.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right, well, so that leads me to my question. Okay. If it's true that we outli just laid out really the only two things that are left to do, like really, really go to war, seriously go to war in the way that wars used to look pre smartphone, you know, lots of people are going to die on both sides, but we're going to be in it to win it. Or the incredibly long strategy of choking them off and then you get all the complications. Joe mentioned China and then trying to cheat and some of our allies probably trying to cheat and everything like that. If those are the only two options, and I think they are. Are you at a point where you would say, shouldn't have done this?

[Joe Getty]

Wow,

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't think I am, but I don't have a reason for it. I can't give you a reason why I don't think I am. I can't make an argument argument. My only argument would be there was no other choice. But, but if you, but if you don't end up with a good result,

[Joe Getty]

then, well, I, I, I disagree with your dot, dot, dot. Sometimes you do what you have to do and it doesn't pan out. But you still had to do it. We could not let Iran get a nuke. And they were getting close and their delivery capability was there. And, and they're a murderous religious fanatic, dead end or death cult regime. I wish it had been done differently.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, which of the two paths you gonna take then, if you're president?

[Joe Getty]

I'm sorry, Sagan, which of the two

[Jack Armstrong]

paths are you gonna take if you're president? If those are the only two pads full on war. Let's actually win this thing for first time. We actually like attempt to win a war in a, in like maybe since World War II. Or, or, or just try to strangle them.

[Joe Getty]

I would like to get briefed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff before I answer that question. I would like a full reckoning of what it's likely to look like. Is there a middle ground?

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know which.

[Joe Getty]

We've been calling for an absolute historic ass whooping with putting few people on the ground, maybe occupying some of those islands and then renewing the attempt to negotiate something. The problem is, and this is always our problem, in two and a half years, Trump is going to be gone. And who, whether it's President J.D. vance or Marco Rubio, which will probably provide some continuity, or President AOC probably

[Jack Armstrong]

going to be a Democrat. Yeah, historically, I think that'd be the most likely.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, speaking of which, this is a total tangent. Do you have anything more weighty and serious to say? So during the commercial break, I was just flipping through X and Babylon B just tweeted out an AI video. AI generated video. First of all, they are now breathtakingly realistic and good. And you can't believe anything you see in here anymore. It's the post Truth World. Their video is a mock horror movie if AOC were forced to learn basic economics. And it's AOC in her apartment. And it's dark. It's a dark night and the lights are very dim. And she turns next to her, I can't remember, on the couch or whatever, and there's a book called Basic Economics. She doesn't know where it came from, so she runs down the hall and turns around and peeks to see if she's safe. And there's another copy of Basic Economics. She runs into the kitchen, she grabs a big knife to defend herself and crouches down behind the couch saying, supply and demand isn't real and it can't hurt me. Supply and demand isn't real and it can't hurt me.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

And then finally her. Her incantations ward off the danger, the lights come back on. And in the jump scare tradition of horror movies, a figure appears behind her in the kitchen. Hi, I'm Thomas Sowell. The screen goes black. Oh, I'll retweet that if you follow us on the Twitter. If you don't, you should.

[Jack Armstrong]

How do we get out of this war? If you got any ideas, you could text us. 415295 kftc armstrong and getty. Armstrong and Getty here for hims, there are all kinds of great weight loss approaches that fit into your world out there. They've got them at hims with a wide range of affordable GLP1 options.

[Joe Getty]

You've got weight loss goals, but hitting them is another story. Check out Weight Loss by hims. It's designed to support you in losing the weight and keeping it off. And HIMSS now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen.

[Jack Armstrong]

Through hims, everything happens online. You'll connect with a licensed provider who will determine if treatment's right for you. And then if prescribed, your medication is delivered right to your door. No insurance necessary.

[Joe Getty]

Ready to reach your goals? Visit HIMSS.com Armstrong to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. That's H I M S.com Armstrong HIMS.com

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong Weight loss by HIMSS is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk as to get started and learn more, including important safety information, WeGovy clinical

[Joe Getty]

study information, and restrictions, visit HIMSS.com you

[Jack Armstrong]

have to be a Seinfeld fan to get this joke, but there's a picture of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David there on the court after the game at Madison Square Garden. And it says the spurs know how to take the lead. They just don't know how to hold the lead. And that's really the most important part of the lead. That is good.

[Joe Getty]

So 29 points down and they win is the statistic of the day in sports. Here are a couple more statistics you might find interesting. Four in ten American adults report having mental health problems. Four in ten, a lot of anxiety and depression. It accelerated during COVID blah blah blah because of the horrific unconstitutional government shutdowns. But I find myself asking at Some point, if 40% of us have, quote, unquote, mental health problems, at what point is that just being a human being?

[Jack Armstrong]

Definitely. And the majority of that, if you broke it down by ages, you know it's way, way, way heavier, screwed toward Younger people, obviously. And so for whatever is going on, plastic cell phones, whatever is causing this, when the old people that don't have depression and anxiety, which, like if you're grown up, who did you know that had depression and anxiety? Like practically nobody.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, nobody talked about it, in fairness. But you know, I didn't see it

[Jack Armstrong]

either though because I see it among young people. But anyway, so when the old people are gone and all young people. Yeah. It'll be over half easily. So then it's. Then you got to do it. You do have to ask the question, is this just being a human being in the modern world, part of it?

[Joe Getty]

I think a large part of it is the narcissism of small distinctions. If you are celebrated and cared for and awe and arm put around you because you have a quote unquote mental health issue, that makes it more attractive to say so and say so more often. That's not to say people don't and people don't legitimately suffer.

[Jack Armstrong]

I got to admit, if I didn't have a kid who's got this and it's observable right then I would be probably in the crowd that it's just soft people over exaggerating how sad they are or whatever. Scared of life. Now my kid has got something.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Because the other kid doesn't and. Yeah. And what caused it? I have no idea.

[Joe Getty]

Oh yeah. There's absolutely something afoot. It's all, it's all sorts of different factors that work into this. Speaking of statistics, this is mind blowing. Rod Martin, who is one of the guys who started PayPal, he's a CEO and a founder and a writer and a thinker and brilliant. But he says China's population collapse is now mathematically irreversible. There simply aren't enough women left of childbearing age.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

Even if the fertility rate magically returned to replacement levels, that's 2.1 children per woman tomorrow, the country would still lose more than 40% of its population by the year 2100. And it won't. He says the real number is 75%. There's nothing like it in history because 40% is if they got back to replacement rate, he writes. Official estimates say China has only 190 million women of childbearing age. But that's higher than reality. The one child policy which you're familiar with probably took place from 1980 to 2016. China and its echoes slashed the entire generation. Sex selective abortions made it worse. The cohorts now entering child prime childbearing Years are themselves the children of the one child policy, already a drastically smaller group. Each generation compounds the previous deficit and the numbers are brutal. Population has fallen for four straight years. In 2025, there were just under 8 million births and almost 11 and a half million deaths. 8 to 11 and a half. Fertility rates dropped 17% year to year, hitting the lowest level since 1949. Total fertility rate is now around 0.92 children a woman, and it's could be as low as 0.84.

[Jack Armstrong]

So what, what will the population be do they think at 2100? Did they have that number? I don't know what the math is on that. Because they had 1.4 billion people at their height.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. There are several different estimates that he cites. The UN says it could fall as low as 663 million, which is still a big country.

[Jack Armstrong]

Sure.

[Joe Getty]

More realistic demographers like. And he gives all the credentials and all put it at around 310 million. Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

So it'd be smaller than the current United and we might be, who knows what, 500, 600 million by then.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, that's correct. And then he goes into the births versus deaths in various cities and provinces of China and how it is just statistically irreversible. The CCP knows this. She has pushed marriage, cash bonuses, extended maternity leave, even removed tax breaks for contraceptives. Nothing has worked. There simply aren't enough women.

[Jack Armstrong]

That is really interesting. If you missed the segment, get the podcast Armstrong E. Getty on Demand.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Gettysburg. Last night, Grant Platner won the Maine Senate Democratic primary. Yeah, get this. Men who entered his victory party without an invitation were brutally raped. That's his policy, not mine.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, my God. People groan because they don't know the story. Probably that Graham Platner, as we have mentioned several times, according to one of his girlfriends, used to sit around watching tv, sharpening in his ax and talking about how you know what I'd do if somebody broke into my home? I'd rape him to show him who's in charge. I'm not gay or anything, but I'd

[Joe Getty]

rape him to show him my dominance. Wow. Okay. That's normal. So what do you want to have for dinner, honey?

[Jack Armstrong]

And can we put away the now sharp enough ax?

[Joe Getty]

Looks plenty sharp to me. Throw that back in the garage.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not exactly sure what you how sharp you need it to be for what you're planning to do. We do have some breaking news that I only mentioned because it could be a big deal. It probably isn't. It's probably Just preventative being extra careful. But something weird with the ventilation system at the Pentagon. Pentagon is locked down. Many floors have been evacuated. Some news sources say responders are wearing full gas masks and chemical protection suits. Whoa.

[Joe Getty]

Hello.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm guessing this is probably out of an abundance of caution that'll turn out to be nothing, but certainly worth keeping our eye on.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Hey, give me 15 seconds to do this. We ran out of time last segment and I didn't get to the conclusion about the Chinese population collapse. And as Rod Martin writes, this is not just a demographic crisis, it's the end of China's superpower dream. Shrinking workforce, collapsing taxpayer base, exploding retiree burden and hollowed out consumer market. The one child policy was horribly immor. But it also may have been the CCP's greatest strategic mistake. And with no one and their and one with no fix, well sold themselves the rope that they would hang themselves with. To paraphrase Nikita Khrushchev.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's good news for the United States. It is not free people everywhere. It's not going to be the Chinese century. Almost guaranteed, right?

[Joe Getty]

Ain't going to be China. Any Chinese to have it or enjoy it.

[Jack Armstrong]

So the first real book about the inner workings of the Trump administration is coming out soon. There have been lots of books, but they've been by hacks with an agenda or hacks who don't actually have any knowledge but made stuff up or all kinds of different things. But this is a real book that's coming out by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times. Now I know Jonathan Swan, his work well in my mind. Maggie Haberman, I didn't have a good view of because of and I learned this yesterday. So I was listening to the Commentary podcast. That's John Pod Horror. It's. I can't say his name. How do you say his name?

[Joe Getty]

I think it is Pod Horizon.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, he runs Commentary. He, he's been a long time writer for the New York Post. He's known Maggie Haberman for 30 years. He said he worked with her. She's a good journalist. Her name was on some of the Russia stuff during Russiagate. But she was not the lead writer. She was an investigator. She was a journalist. And she got her name thrown into things that were crap. He trusts her, says this is going to be a book you can believe in. And he hates the New York Times with a passion that I like. I can't explain to you. So it's not like he's a fan of the New York Times. Anywho, this book that's coming out is called Regime Change. It's out in a couple of weeks and the first excerpt came out yesterday in the New York Times or New York Times Magazine or wherever. I don't even know where I grabbed it, but I listened to it as about 45 minutes long to listen to it read by an AI voice. An interesting development that has happened. Right. Or if you don't have time to read a news article, you just press a button and have it read to you. Kind of cool. Inside the White House freakout over the Epstein files, the President's top advisors gathered in a series of Situation Room meetings as they struggled to contain a scandal engulfing Donald Trump himself. It gets into how seriously they were taking the whole Epstein thing a year ago. Um, the Situation Room is generally where you meet to like, you know, watch the killing Osama bin Laden or, or plan epic fury when you take out the Ayatollah in Iran or something like that. But they all got together there because it's a super secret place. You're not allowed to have any phones in there or anything like that. It was all the heavyweights because Trump was so concerned about the Epstein files. Now, one thing now I like the fact that these journalists don't go to speculation on this. They're just reporting a variety of things. At no part in the segment, I read the excerpt and I assume if they had something, it would have been in this excerpt. Does it say that there's any there there in terms of Donald Trump himself and the Epstein files? That they were really, that they, that they knew of, that they were covering up. Right. But apparently for some reason, and nobody's exactly quite sure, Trump hated the idea of the Epstein files coming out. The details he said to some people behind the scenes, look, I got a lot of friends that are going to be damaged, bad by this. So part of that was that maybe he didn't know how it would play in the media stuff that was coming out about it. Again, there's no information in this book that there's. Yep, Trump was worried about that one time he was with that girl. And I mean, there's nothing like that.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

But he was beside himself with concern. They thought that this was going to just rock the entire administration again, which I still don't quite understand why.

[Joe Getty]

I think the reason why, and you know, disagree, feel free, is that at that time, and this used to make me crazy, I talked about it on the air many times to be associated with Epstein. Many people took as oh, so he was into sexually abusing underage girls.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. As opposed to the financier and the expert networker and the quote unquote collector of people and trader of high level favors who happen to be a perv and like girls. Girls young. But you could easily be part of the other 95% of the guy's life where it was all about the other stuff, but you'd be tarred with the. The provo stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, you know, and depends on what your definition of purvo is, but. Or he could be like Larry Summers. He was hitting on fully adult women at the college, which maybe you don't think is cool, but that, I mean, it's not against the law and he's never been charged with anything.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

So a couple interesting things from this excerpt. One, there's a quote from Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, that JD Vance is fully on board with all that conspiracy stuff. I mean, he's really into the conspiracy stuff.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, really?

[Jack Armstrong]

According to Susie Wiles and these reporters who are really good reporters. So he.

[Joe Getty]

Or is he really into consolidating that vote?

[Jack Armstrong]

Good question. And she can't tell the difference or

[Joe Getty]

doesn't know how he plays footsie with the Tucker Carlson crowd. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

She might not even know herself. The difference between his own mind and him trying to. Yeah. So he came up with the idea in this meeting where all the heavyweights got together of we should have Tucker do an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell in which she will clear Trump and that will, that will fix the whole problem. And everybody was like, no, we can't have Tucker interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell and that's going to be our way out of this problem. But that was his idea, which, as John Poroitz said yesterday, he said that's the most bat s crazy idea. But that was from J.D. vance at the meeting.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

And then the guy that's clearly. I'm sorry.

[Joe Getty]

Clearly the fallback was, we're going to send those two guys from the DOJ to go talk to Ghislaine Maxwell and then come back and report that she says, no, Trump wasn't involved in any of the crazy stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

They eventually get to that conversation because the. What's his name, Blanche, who's currently the nominee to be the Attorney General, he was the number two under Pam Bondi. And he had two ideas. One idea which was pretty good, just didn't work out that way. He said, let's announce. We'll have the President announce that we want Everything to come out. We want everything in the files to come out, which includes the. What do they call them, 301 BS or 302. Whatever it is. It's the. It's the unverified stuff that is in any grand jury testimony that is super secret for a great reason. One thing we've decided as the United States is just because some whack job, somebody said something crazy about you, and that's on a piece of paper that does not come out unless you're charged with something that is a hard and fast rule. And so the guy.

[Joe Getty]

Even factual stuff that's perfectly reasonable. If they decide not to charge, the government doesn't get to say, yeah, we're not going to charge Jack Armstrong with fraud, but holy cow, does he steal a lot from his neighbor. He hacks into his cable or cheat

[Jack Armstrong]

on his wife a lot.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly. He's mean to his kids. I mean, no, that's not what we do.

[Jack Armstrong]

Kinds of stuff that they could dig up about you. That's got nothing to do with it. We don't release that stuff. We did with the Epstein files, which is a horror and hopefully not a precedent going forward for all kinds of different cases. But so this Blanche, the guy who might be the Attorney general, if he's confirmed he came up with the idea, let's have the President come out and say, we want to. We want it all out. We want to release it all. Every single shred of it. Let's just get this out in the open. And that kind of inoculates us against any criticism because we want it all out there. And he said, guaranteed, a judge will not allow this. No judge is going to allow all of these, you know, unverified pieces of paper from grand jury testimony to be released. And he said the best thing would be if it ends up being a Democratic judge, which we got like a 50, 50 chance of being a Democratic judge, says, no, we're not going to release unverified grand jury testimony. Yeah, but it ended up happening. And I don't remember exactly how, but some judge, somewhere, somehow, it's. It all came out. And that's where the 6 million pages came from that have got all this crazy S in there about George H. W. Bush raping a baby, then cutting it into pieces and eating it. That is in there. Some of y' all believe that crazy crap. I don't even know what to say to you. Um, but, you know, you know, and it was never investigated. Well, it was investigated enough to realize, well, whoever said that to somebody is a nut job. And that's all the farther it went. But that stuff came out, and so that's part of the Epstein files.

[Joe Getty]

And then there was the redacting. There was a great deal of it because the judge required a certain amount and some of that was misapplied. And. Yeah, anyway, so that aside, no.

[Jack Armstrong]

1, that was his idea, which was a pretty good idea because he didn't think there's a chance that it would. That any judge would sign off on it. But a judge did sign off on it, so that stuff came out. The other really interesting thing that happened is so they go through the whole Pam Bondi experience where she at one point said, I've got the Epstein files on my desk and we will release them at some point. And that made everybody go crazy because, like, everybody inside the White House and the Justice Department was like, what, what are you talking about? What Epstein files? There is no Epstein files. I mean, the way it's being discussed. Oh, it goes through all the Dan Bongino and Cash Patel and all the money they were making off their podcasts by claiming all these various things, knowing they weren't true. But. And then they ended up in the Justice Department and it got complicated for the very, very fast. But anyway, back to Pam Bondi. So she, she announces, I've got the, the Epstein files on my desk. And everybody's like, what the hell is she talking about? So then they bring together, you might remember when this happened, a lot of your biggest MAGA podcasters, including a bunch of names that I've never even heard of, but I guess they're really big in the MAGA world. They brought them to the White House. They actually got to meet with Trump and then they sat down with, with Bondi and JD Vance and all these different sport sorts of people and everything like that, and they're going to talk to them about the Epstein files. And this is for the MAGA crowd. This was about satisfying the MAGA crowd at that point. Not the Democrats, not msnbc, not. Not Jimmy Kimmel, who ended up being, you know, big proponents of getting the Epstein files out because they became convinced there was. Trump was hiding something because he acted like a guy that was hiding something for some reason, even though there's been no evidence that he does have anything

[Joe Getty]

to hide to protect all of his friends and associates. Like you said, any who it flipped

[Jack Armstrong]

before it flipped to the Democrats wanting this stuff to come out. It was all about satisfying the MAGA base. I know plenty of people that voted for Trump three Times that are horrified that the Epstein files were kept secret because they thought, you know, it was protecting the Clintons and the Obamas and the Hollywood stars and all this sort of stuff.

[Joe Getty]

Child sex trafficking, cabal, blah, blah, blah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, just to give you an idea of the way the Trump White House works, so they bring in all these podcasters, these mag journalists and everything like that. And Pam Bondi announces and she brings out a stack of folders she says, I have for you the Epstein files and starts handing them out to these podcasters and everybody else there from the White House is, what the hell is this? What is in those files? What is, what is she handing out? What the hell is this? They had no idea. They got no heads up whatsoever that Pam Bondi was about to hand out a bunch of pieces of paper to these journalists. What is in there? And so one of the guys that's in Trump communications team grabs one of the folders and starts looking through it, trying to figure out what it is, and sees on one of the pages, Trump's name was on there. It's like, holy crap, what is this? Now Trump's name's on here. This is going to get out today. Blah, blah. It becomes a big. So then they grab all the files back from the podcasters and say, we'll give these to you later. We've give these to you later. It's very important that we embargo this because Trump's meeting with the ambassador, the Prime Minister from Great Britain today and we don't want the blah, blah, blah. Anyway, they figured out they'd had to figure out how to handle this explosion that was going to happen later that day. And that was the day, as you remember, if you're following this, that the first time Trump's name ever showed up or whatever. But Pam, Bonnie just went off on her own, like handed out pieces of paper, no talk with anybody, no plan, no nothing.

[Joe Getty]

Wow, wow, wow. No wonder she got canned.

[Jack Armstrong]

But doesn't that sound like all of that sound like a pretty haphazard flying by the seat of your pants dealing with, I hope the Iran war is not being handled like this. Oh boy, I think that book's going to be really interesting.

[Joe Getty]

Speaking of books and wars and that sort of thing, we lost a great historian who I want to talk about a little bit it in the next segment, next hour. Do AI systems have a soul? It's starting to look like maybe, wow, Joe.

[Jack Armstrong]

Breaking news. Joe Getty believes AIs have a soul

[Joe Getty]

and I'm prepared to worship them. That's correct. What the type of A.I.

[Jack Armstrong]

i don't know, but it's got a soul. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.

[Jack Armstrong]

Loving the well, I'm loving a lot of this stuff leading up to the 250th anniversary of the birth of our country. I'm not loving everything because there's a plenty of the this is a bad country and we should be ashamed of it rather than celebrating it. But let's ignore that for now.

[Joe Getty]

Twisted idiots. Yeah, we're only going to ignore it partly just to pay tribute to a great historian indeed, Gordon S. Wood, who is a historian's historian, especially about the creation of the country. The Creation of The American Republic, 1776-1787 is one of the great tomes of American history.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think I've read one of his many books, but I've watched him I don't know how many, many hours of YouTube videos of him giving lectures about stuff. Really fantastic. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

In the 90s, he really hit with a book called the Radicalism of the American Revolution, which was made the point that the idea that all men are created equal and the people are gonna govern themselves now and there's gonna be no king or anything like it was. It's revolutionary and amazing. Here's Mr. Wood speaking not too long ago.

[Podcast Announcer]

What's the most important event that's occurred in the last 400 years? It has to be the creation of the United States. Now, for good or for ill, it's a great saga. Think of it starting with a Little Colony in 1607, a dozen people, 20, 30 people. And from that you grow to be the greatest, most powerful nation ever in the history of the world. If you don't like the story, okay. But. But think about it as a saga. As a story, it makes the rise and fall of Rome seem tame by comparison, nothing compared to the story of the United States over the last 400 years. It's just incredible. You have to be impressed by it, and whether you like it or dislike it, you have to confront it and come to terms with it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's funny. I think I heard the other day he hated history because he had boring history teachers in high school and didn't get into it in college until college.

[Joe Getty]

Late in his life, he was an aggressive and brilliantly effective critic of the horrific 1619 project. He just took it apart and dismantled it effectively. Maybe a little more of that next hour, but he knew all about America and its flaws and loved this country dearly.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you missed a segment of the podcast, Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.