Why Don't You Use Words?!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand – "Why Don't You Use Words?!"

Date: March 11, 2026
Host: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode of Armstrong & Getty dives deeply into the ongoing Iran conflict, the economics and politics around the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. and international oil strategy, and the complications of enforcing or defining "unconditional surrender." The hosts also cover domestic stories of healthcare fraud, tax policy, the NBA’s latest scoring record, and a quirky discussion about the proliferation of emojis—questioning why people don’t just use words.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Iran Conflict, Oil, & Unconditional Surrender

Timestamps: 00:14 – 12:49

• Iran’s Hostage History and Oil Straits

  • Discussion begins with Iran's 47-year history of antagonism—hostage-taking, internal repression, and global economic leverage through threats to close the Strait of Hormuz.
  • Recent U.S. military action against Iranian mining ships has led to continued anxiety in global shipping and insurance markets.
    • Jack Armstrong: “They can send ships through there because they know they’re not gonna bomb their own ships, so they’re sending more oil through the strait than they were before the war. Why are we allowing that?” (01:28)

• Wall Street Journal's Reporting

  • Paradox noted: Iran exporting more oil during wartime, exploiting the risk aversion of foreign companies while ensuring their own are unharmed.

• Leadership Communication & Trump’s Approach

  • Francis Fukuyama’s critique of Trump’s ambiguous communication is cited.
    • Joe Getty: “Trump says stuff and then he changes what he’s gonna do. And everything is strategic ambiguity with Trump. I’m not saying that’s a good thing.” (02:55)
  • Jack Armstrong: “There’d be more support for the war if he’d have brought everybody along for the ride.” (03:27)

• The Problem with "Unconditional Surrender"

  • Hosts debate the historical and practical meaning of the phrase.
    • Jack Armstrong: “If your opponent is demanding unconditional surrender...there’s just no reason to not give it every bit of fight you’ve got if your opponent is demanding unconditional surrender.” (04:42)
  • The regime’s stability is directly tied to force, IRGC, and internal militias unlikely to disarm.
    • Joe Getty: “The IRGC and the besiege will not give up their weapons because they themselves would not survive. Oh, they’d be torn limb from limb.” (05:43)

• Israeli Precedent, Rebuilding, & Occupation

  • Parallels drawn with Gaza post-conflict; difficulty in eradicating all resistance in a larger country like Iran.
  • Joe Getty: “It will not be possible to eliminate every missile and drone under their control, so we can expect continuing attacks…” (07:32)
  • Open questions remain about what "victory" could plausibly look like.

• U.S. War Objectives & Policy Options

  • Wall Street Journal vs. New York Times editorial perspectives described.
  • Possible actions: Blockade, seizing Kharg Island, “midnight hammer” operations, and threats against regime atrocities.
    • Joe Getty: “That’s the moderate conservative Bret Stephens in the New York Times sounding more warlike than Lindsey Graham…” (09:51)

• Nuclear Facilities - "Pickaxe Mountain"

  • Discussion of new deeply-buried Iranian nuclear facility, harder to disable than Fordo.
    • Joe Getty: “It’s a new facility, a nuclear facility in Iran that’s buried hundred feet, hundreds of feet underneath granite…would probably take footwear on the turf, if you will.” (10:34)

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2. Sports: NBA and Baseball Highlights

Timestamps: 12:54 – 17:10

• NBA Record-Breaking Performance

  • Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo scores 83 points, passing Kobe Bryant for second-highest single game total.
    • Jack Armstrong: “I kind of liked the fact that Kobe Bryant had the second highest score in NBA history, but some guy passed him last night with 83 points.” (12:54)
    • Team and fans “went berserko at the end”—players feeding him for the milestone.
  • Statistics: 36 free throws out of 43, shot ~50% from the field.
    • Joe Getty: “So if a guy’s on fire from the free throw line, it doesn’t do any good to foul him.” (15:03)

• World Baseball Classic Upset

  • U.S. loses to Italy, potentially facing tournament elimination.

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3. Oil Markets & Geopolitical Strategy

Timestamps: 17:10 – 18:29

• Release from Global Oil Reserves
  • Dozens of countries agree to release 400 million barrels, aiming to stabilize prices amid the Iran war.
  • Jack Armstrong: “So big release of reserve oil during the uranium war, which helps Trump out in the war effort, I think hurts Russia, which is good.” (18:13)

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4. Government Waste & Healthcare Fraud

Timestamps: 18:29 – 26:59

• Hospice & Autism Therapy Fraud (CBS & WSJ Reporting)

  • CBS story: Massive Medicare fraud in California, particularly L.A. County hospice care—inflated billing, fake patients, no government oversight.
    • Jack Armstrong: “Why can CBS News do that but...no government auditor can for some reason?” (20:08)
  • Wall Street Journal: Medicaid scams especially in autism therapy—extraordinarily high per-patient payouts, companies exploiting lack of rule enforcement.
    • Joe Getty: “She founded this thing in 2019. In 2023, the state paid Ms. Mitchell’s company...$29 million in a year to provide therapy to just 84 patients.” (22:55)
  • Underlying cause: Systemic apathy about monitoring public expenditures.

• Challenges of Oversight

  • Both hosts note the lack of political will or public interest to fix the systemic abuses.
    • Jack Armstrong: “The only way...to stop this sort of stuff from happening...you don’t give the government the money in the first place. That’s the only thing you can do.” (26:36)

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5. Taxes, Wealth Flight, and Policy Debates

Timestamps: 27:01 – 31:17

• Tax Base Narrowing & Wealth Exodus

  • New state tax in Washington prompts Starbucks founder Howard Schultz to leave for Florida.
    • Joe Getty: “If you make a million dollars a year…that’s $100,000 tax increase all of a sudden.” (29:47)
  • Drucker’s take: It’s unwise to assume wealthy people won’t move when targeted with high taxes.
  • Broader debate about “taxing the rich” and the unintended consequences on migration and economic activity.

• Politics and Rational Voters

  • Analyzing the appeal of far-left political parties in Europe among younger voters; skepticism over promises to nationalize utilities, legalize drugs, and withdraw from NATO.
    • Joe Getty: “These people are freaking insane. And yet they’re getting growing support…” (31:47)

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6. Modern Communication: Emojis vs. Words

Timestamps: 32:02 – 36:29

• Apple’s New Emojis & Unicode Consortium

  • Apple adds eight new emojis—one “controversial” distorted face, ballet dancer, trombone, fight cloud, orca, landslide, hairy creature (Bigfoot), and more.
  • Debate and light humor about the necessity and interpretation of so many emojis.
    • Jack Armstrong: “I’ve never used an emoji because I’m a grown up.” (32:56)
    • Joe Getty: “What about seafaring marauders? They don’t like. It’s a culture, not a costume.” (33:34)

• The Problem with Emojis

  • Armstrong complains about the subtlety, confusion, and the generational divide:
    • Jack Armstrong: “Why don’t you use words like we started doing about, I don’t know, a million years ago?” (36:14)
    • Joe and Katie (producer): Defend the nuance and emotional color of emojis; suggest Armstrong might be emoji-illiterate.

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7. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If your opponent is demanding unconditional surrender…there’s just no reason to not give it every bit of fight you’ve got." — Jack Armstrong (04:42)
• "He’ll do what you are suggesting anyway, and people will say, yeah, he changed his mind on the unconditional surrender thing, or he didn’t really mean it, or whatever." — Joe Getty (04:14)
• "Why can CBS News do that but…no government auditor can for some reason?" — Jack Armstrong (20:08)
• "These people are more mobile than the rest of us. He just bought...a $44 million penthouse at the Four Seasons in Miami...but I’m out of here." — Jack Armstrong (30:48)
• "Why don’t you use words like we started doing about, I don’t know, a million years ago?" — Jack Armstrong (36:14)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:14–12:49: Iran war, U.S. policy, oil strategy, and "unconditional surrender"
• 12:54–17:10: NBA 83-point game, World Baseball Classic
• 17:10–18:29: Global oil reserves release
• 18:29–26:59: Medicare, Medicaid, hospice, and autism therapy fraud
• 27:01–31:17: Wealth taxes, Howard Schultz moves, policy debates
• 32:02–36:29: Emoji proliferation and the decline of "words"

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Conclusion

This rich mix of geopolitical analysis, economic policy, cultural observation, and deadpan wit characterizes Armstrong & Getty at their best. The Iran situation’s complexity is laid bare, with smart parallels and skepticism; domestic stories of government waste get the usual eyeroll and frustration; and the generational culture gap is playfully exposed through the crescendo of their emoji debate. The tone throughout is irreverent, insightful, and conversational—a perfect capsule for listeners who missed the show and want to catch up fast.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human

[Joe Getty]

broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio

[Jack Armstrong]

studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center,

[Joe Getty]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. This terrorist regime began 47 years ago by literally taking us hostages.

[Joe Getty]

And then here they are 47 years

[Jack Armstrong]

later, slaughtering their own people in the streets and then holding the entire world

[Joe Getty]

hostage economically by threatening to close the strait.

[Jack Armstrong]

And of course, President Trump has made it very clear the consequences if they try to do that. So the Iranians. That's Doug Burgum. He's the energy secretary.

[Joe Getty]

Secretary of the Interior. I think he is talking about the exterior.

[Jack Armstrong]

I thought he was the energy secretary.

[Joe Getty]

All right,

[Jack Armstrong]

so Iran was gonna try to mine the Strait of Hormuz so that none of the oil ships could go through there. And then we blew the bejesus out of 16 of their mining ships yesterday to try to keep it open. But there still ain't no companies wanting to send their ship through there. Their crews are worried about dying. They're worried about losing their assets, their boat, and all the oil and everything like that. They can't get the insurance that they need to get from the big insurance companies, all based out of London, which has caused their economics to go nuts. So there's a lot there. But then this Wall Street Journal story today that Iran is exporting more oil than they were before the war because they control it. They can send ships through there because they know they're not gonna bomb their own ships, so they're sending more oil through the strait than they were before the war. Why are we allowing that? Because it would be even more disruptive to the oil market if we bombed their ships.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, probably. Clearly. Yeah. And we don't want to start a weird tit for tat where we're gonna sink you if you try to sink any ships. But we're gonna sink a bunch of ships ourselves. Yeah. The world economy would go nuts. I think that is ironic as heck, though.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it is.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Chris Wright is the Secretary of energy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay.

[Joe Getty]

Charming fellow. Doing a lovely job, too, in my opinion.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll take your word for it.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Doug Burgum, again, is mostly in charge of bisons and in Indian res, from what I understand. As the Secretary of the Interior, I'm not sure why he's speaking on behalf of the administration, but I don't mind it. He's fine fellow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Sure.

[Joe Getty]

So do you know who Francis Fukuyama is? Doesn't really matter. He's a scientist. Yeah, he made one of the worst predictions in the history of mankind. And apparently he has bounced back from his embarrassment in his writing again. And, you know, I almost hesitate to bring that up, but people who recognize the name might be yelling at the radio, what are you calling him for? But I thought this is a pretty compelling piece. First, he's criticizing Donald Jay for his unconditional surrender quote last week. You know, I would respond, hey, Trump says stuff and then he changes what he's gonna do. And everything is strategic ambiguity with Trump. I'm not saying that's a good thing. Well, he's saying it would've been good if he'd communicated to the American people more clearly what our purpose was here. But it just is true about Trump.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, absolutely. I think there'd be more support for the war if he'd have brought everybody along for the ride. But he clarified either today or late yesterday, what he meant by unconditional surrender, and it didn't sound like what you usually think when you think unconditional surrender.

[Joe Getty]

So, yeah, that's a phrase with great historical weight and all. And Trump is no historian, obviously.

[Jack Armstrong]

Do you know, when FDR said it about Japan, which was very controversial, it was off the top of his head. He fired it off. He hadn't consulted. None of his people around him knew he was going to say that. And they're like, wow.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah, interesting. So much as I'd like to continue talking about that, because it's important and fascinating. Back to the Middle east, it seems to me, because he says normally a smart leader in such a situation would try to lower expectations and declare an achievable objective in the war, such as degrading the better part of Iran's ability to target, target, strike targets with ballistic missiles and drones. This would offer an opportunity for Trump to declare victory and disengage. Instead, Trump did the opposite. Except he won't. He will do what you are suggesting anyway, and people will say, yeah, he changed his mind on the unconditional surrender thing, or he didn't really mean it, or whatever. I don't think that's a big deal. But here's the really interesting.

[Jack Armstrong]

The problem with unconditional surrender throughout history is it really. I mean, it's really, you know, a rat backed into a corner fighting for its life. I mean, there's just no reason to not give it every bit of fight you've got if your opponent is demanding unconditional surrender. Right.

[Joe Getty]

It's like announcing, no quarter. There will be no prisoners taken. Yeah, well, in that case I ain't surrendering anyway. But here's where it gets more interesting. He says the new objective of unconditional surrender suddenly raised the goalposts to an unachievable height. Again, we're not doing that. Here's the good part. There are any number of reasons for Ron not to capitulate in the first place. Oh, that's. I'm sorry, that part is stupid. Stupid too. Big, too. Well, again, he's hung up on the unconditional surrender thing. In historical precedents, he just says stuff, Francis, give it up.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's fine. I'll be gone by the end of the day. So yeah, we don't have to worry about that.

[Joe Getty]

A second reason for thinking that surrender won't happen is that it would be exposed the regime to Internal Disintegration Iran today is being ruled by force. A large part of the population hates the regime of the clerics that killed tens of thousands of protesters in January. The IRGC and the besiege, which is. I mean they got so many different militaries and militias and stuff. The besieged are kind of internal goon squads, but there are hundreds of thousands of guys. But he writes, the IRGC and the besieged will not give up their weapons because they themselves would not survive. Oh, they'd be torn limb from limb. A final reason for not expecting unconditional surrender is that a good part of the regime can survive and continue fighting for some time to come. The air campaign has been extremely effective in going after Iran's visible military assets, air defenses, ballistic missiles, drones, launch facilities, ammo storage, military bases and similar. But the tens of thousands of individual fighters are still there and will retain some residual capacity to fight back. And again, this is the part I find compelling. We've recently seen an example of what this looks like. The nearly two and a half year long war between Israel and Hamas has destroyed a huge amount of infrastructure in Gaza and has deprived Hamas of the ability to launch major attacks. But they are still there, commanding some degree of popular support in the remaining tunnels and shelters. They have not surrendered and will be a big obstacle to any attempt to rebuild Gaza and restore post conflict government. Gaza is a much smaller territory and Israel has been willing to enter it with ground forces. Iran by contrary contest is a very big country and has lots of places for the surviving regime to hide. It will not be possible to eliminate every missile and drone under their control, so we can expect continuing attacks on U.S. aligned Gulf states and American facilities into the foreseeable future. The threat of a random drone Strike hitting the big airline hubs in the Gulf will be economically very damaging. And you got the Straits of Hormuz and the rest of it. So what quote, unquote, victory looks like is still a really, really open question.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. So I.

[Joe Getty]

What do you think Trump is open for?

[Jack Armstrong]

What is Trump hoping for? Boy, that's a good question. It would seem pretty unrealistic to hope for any kind of moderate leader to rise up. I don't know how you wouldn't be alive with the current structure of all the different military forces around them.

[Joe Getty]

Do we strike a deal with what remains of the regime and say, look, these three conditions, I can't do this, that or the. Or the dogs come back?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I think he'd get him to agree to it. I think he'd be perfectly happy with some sort of military dictatorship taking over that says, okay, we ain't gonna try to get a nuclear weapon and we ain't gonna mess with the ships in the Strait. Okay. And he'd be cool, we're out. I think it's kind of interesting that from the. How much support for the war is there, particularly among the Republican Party side? The Wall Street Journal editorial board is. Got a piece out today saying, don't end this before you decimate them to the point that they can't just rebuild in a couple of years. So that's the Wall Street Journal editorial board. And then you've got Brett Stevens, the opinion writer for the New York Times, saying, here are the things that we need to do. Seize Kharg Island. So that's a little island there with the strait that really puts you in control of the Strait of Hormuz and their oil, particularly Iranian oil is where you'd get. You'd have so much power over Iran's oil there.

[Joe Getty]

And I think it's got an enormous oil facility on it, too, unless I'm thinking of a different island.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's like the key to Iranian oil is this Kharg Island. And Trump has been saying we should take that. Going back to 1979 when the whole Carter hostage thing was going on. Donald Trump, billionaire playboy, was saying, we need to take Carg island, so maybe that's gonna happen. I heard it bandied about on some podcast, and everybody thought that was just crazy and a bridge too far and all that sort of stuff. But Bret Stephens in the New York Times saying we should take Carg Island. Miner?

[Joe Getty]

Absolutely. Going to take Marines?

[Jack Armstrong]

I would assume so.

[Joe Getty]

A lot of them, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Mine or blockade Iran's remaining ports. That's A pretty provocative thing. Destroy as much Iranian military capabilities possible over the next week or two, including a second midnight hammer operation to destroy what's left of Iran's nuclear capacity and know how. And then threaten the regime with further bombing if it massacres its own citizens. Mounts terrorist attacks anywhere or anything like that. That's the moderate conservative Bret Stephens in the New York Times sounding more war like than Lindsey Graham in that piece in the New York Times. So that's it.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, and I almost, I almost forgot to bring up Pickaxe Mountain.

[Jack Armstrong]

You boys don't go down to Pickaxe Mountain.

[Joe Getty]

It's got a really old timey western name. It's a new facility, a nuclear facility in Iran that's buried hundred feet, hundreds of fe underneath granite that they say is going to be even harder to take out than the Fordo facility and would probably take footwear on the turf, if you will. So that might be coming up too.

[Jack Armstrong]

So back to unconditional, because to the

[Joe Getty]

greater point, if that facility is entirely intact and this all settles down and then six months from now they announce, hey, we got a bomb. So, I mean, that would be utterly unacceptable.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow, that would be a. Yeah, that'd be something. Back to unconditional surrender. This is what I was talking about. Caroline Levitt was asked about what unconditional surrender means in the White House press room yesterday afternoon, and she said what the President means is because that's the way she talks. I'm not going to talk that way.

[Joe Getty]

When she orders a pizza, that's how she talks.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's so obnoxious.

[Joe Getty]

I mean, she's a hell of an upgrade from oh yeah, KJP or whatever.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a little strident in her tone. But anyways, what the President means is that when he, as commander in Chief of the US Armed forces determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not. So by that, whatever, by that definition, just when we decide it's over, they've unconditionally surrendered.

[Joe Getty]

They will surrender under conditions that I have not yet set.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I guess that's what it means. So, yeah, there you go.

[Joe Getty]

Fair. That's fine. You hung up on that as a phony.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, I'm not worried about it. The oil situation is pretty damned interesting. Are we going to take that carg island and take Iran's oil and try to work out some sort of Deal like you get to be a military dictatorship or the Revolutionary Guard runs the country or whatever. But we are going to control a lot of the oil. They're going to agree to that.

[Joe Getty]

And you got to agree to rename yourselves Venezueiran.

[Jack Armstrong]

I suppose if you bomb them enough, they agree to it because I don't know, otherwise you're dead. And if you're dead, really. No, no. You know, the percentages of oil you get don't matter that much when you're dead. Right.

[Joe Getty]

All you got is an indeterminate number of virgins and that's kind of it. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, I kind of liked the fact that Kobe Bryant had the second highest score in NBA history, but some guy passed him last night with 83 points. Interesting stats about that, if you're a sports fan at all. And a whole bunch of other stuff. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty,

[Jack Armstrong]

83 points. The second highest scoring game in NBA history. He will come out of the game and hear it from the crowd. And we feel you at home. It just became a domino effect from there. My teammates was feeding me, I was making shots. And then once I got to 70, I was like, might as well see how far you can get at this point. And ended up 83 once you got to 70. So this gam bam Adebayo, who I'd never even heard of before and I'm a kind of an NBA fan, but he's not a household name like Wilt Chamberlain and Colby Bryant obviously, who have the will. If you, if you're a fan of the NBA at all. The law. Everyone knows the lore that Wilt Chamberlain scored a hundred points in a game, which it's just a stunning number, it was not a televised game, so nobody's ever seen any highlight of it. Then Colby, toward the end of a career, scored 82 once and that was the second highest. This guy last night for the Miami Heat scores 83 points. Miami wins 150, 129. That's a high score.

[Joe Getty]

Name, wham, bam, thank you, ma'. Am.

[Jack Armstrong]

Bam Adebayo. He's the center slash power forward. 69, 28 year old. And here's the couple of the interesting stats if you're a fan of the NBA at all. First of all, he shot about 50% for the field and 30% from three point land, which are both good numbers and put out lots and lots of shots. But when a guy is hitting like that, you start fouling him, right? Well, that was the problem. So even though he's placed center and usually centers can't shoot free throws for crap. He made 36 of 43. 43 times he went to the line and he made 36 of them.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

So if a guy's on fire from the free throw line, it doesn't do any good to foul him because the clock is stopped and you're scoring points is how.

[Joe Getty]

6 from the line, 47 from the field. Shooting 50%. Huh?

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. Anyway, those are some stunning numbers. And the team went just berserko at the end. They were so excited to get him, you know, the second all time high score. I mean, champagne and everybody really enjoyed it. So it's, it's not like the. I've always, I've always really liked the bit from Adam Sandler that was one of his first bits that got him on Johnny Carson way back in the day about when WilT Chamberlain scored 100 points. And he's in the team huddles. First the team huddle for the other team. Hey, who's got Wilt? He's hot. And then the team huddled for Wilt, one of the other players. Hey, Wilt, I'm open. My, my parents are here. Could you. 100 points. Yeah, but the, the teammates for this guy were not like, hey, I'm. Hey, I'm open. They were like getting him the ball as much as they could. See if they could get him the record.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

I wonder if that's fun for the fans. It was probably fun.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that'd be. That'd be a hoot. What team does he play for?

[Jack Armstrong]

Miami Heat.

[Joe Getty]

Are they in a playoff run or.

[Jack Armstrong]

I assume they are.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That had to be super exciting and fun on the same night the US Lost to Italy in the World Baseball Classic. Italy. Yeah. Unless DiMaggio is still playing. That's outrageous.

[Jack Armstrong]

Italy has some major leaguers, definitely, but they're like you're, you haven't heard of them unless you're a big fan. Major leaguers. Where we, the United States are fielding an all star team of some of the biggest names in all of the world. And we were down 8 nothing to the Italians last night and ended up losing and might not be. We might be out of the tournament depending on how Mexico does today.

[Joe Getty]

Well, that's why they play, you know, a seven game series and they play 162 games because the nature of the game of baseball, a lesser team can

[Jack Armstrong]

beat a better team, especially with a hot pitcher, because. Yeah, right. Exactly.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Yeah. So that's too bad though. National Humiliation during this time of war would not be good.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, not good for ratings either to lose the U.S. because I'm sure they were looking forward to the U.S. japan matchup eventually. Okay, we'll get into some of the news on the way. If you missed a segment, podcast Armstrong and Gettysburg. And finally, a male enhancement supplement called Rhinochoco VIP10X has been recalled because it contains the active ingredient found in the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis. Customers became suspicious when they took something called Rhinochoco VIP 10X and it actually worked. Yeah, no kidding. I take one of those you probably bought at the convenience store and I'm thinking, eh, there's this might have aspirin in it. Hey, we got some breaking news. Dozens of countries have agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from the reserves in a move to ease prices on the global oil market. So big release of reserve oil during the uranium war, which helps Trump out in the war effort, I think hurts Russia, which is good. So there you go.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. I don't recall a major news story that had so many possible outcomes. I mean like the thing with Ukraine and Russia, I can come up with like three probably, but this has half a dozen possible outcomes.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, I can make a transition from that to what we're about to talk about in that I'm a little tired of hearing the constant chatter of how expensive this war is. For instance, one of the big talking points of the last 24 hours was the initial days cost $5 billion. Really? All of a sudden $5 billion gets your attention? $9 billion of taxpayer money stolen in Minnesota alone.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wasn't of any interest to you in

[Joe Getty]

a tiny state, Hawk. Now are you in a tiny State?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes, but 5 billion of the immense defense budget gets your attention. And that's like a headline for you. Okay, whatever. Speaking of wasted money, CBS Evening News last night with a big story about all the fraud that's going on in another different area. Here we go.

[CBS News Reporter]

69 year old Dr. Lynn Ianni was, according to Medicare records, dying in hospice care two years ago, something she discovered when she sought physical therapy for a pickleball injury.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I said what?

[CBS News Reporter]

Ianni's Medicare number had been stolen and used by a company to enroll her in hospice care. A CBS News investigation foundation, an industry ripe for fraud, especially in California. Companies accused of over billing real patients denied care. And it's costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. CBS News analyzed every hospice licensed in LA county more than 1700 and checked for the same warning signs the state used in an audit of the industry. Like multiple hospices packed into one building or caregivers whose patients supposedly at death's door are discharged alive.

[Jack Armstrong]

And that's just in LA County. And why can CBS News do that? But you know, no government auditor can for some reason, you know, compare. You look at a building and you realize what there's like dozens of these rehab clinics here. I find that hard to believe. Because they don't care. That's exactly right. That's why they don't care.

[Joe Getty]

There's more to this story. Three years ago, California state auditor, which is surprising that the state auditor would do anything in California, sounded the alarm that LA county had seen a 1500% increase in hospice companies since 2010. So a dozen years, 15 times as many hospice companies, more than six times the national average relative to its elderly population.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well that's like when they were grilling what's the bald headed governor of Minnesota? Walls. Tim Walls. The other day about there was a 150% increase in a year in various kinds of autism clinics.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

And like in one year. Come on. Wall Street Journal had a big story about the autism therapy thing and how what a big chunk of Medicaid fraud that is. Like it's a giant, giant industry where all kinds of people are, sometimes people that don't even exist are getting, getting money.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. So the boom in autism therapy is Medicaid's fastest growing jackpot. Companies have found lucrative opportunities to capitalize on a growing need. Billing long hours, extracting payments as high as $800 an hour. Here's this cute Midwestern gal. She looks to be the age is probably in here somewhere. There's certainly no more than 40. Young woman. She first launched her autism therapy business in 2019. Let me do some quick math for you. It's like six, seven years, okay? And she took an, she took aim at an unlikely, unlikely source of profit. Indiana's taxpayer funded Medicaid program. Public insurance system for the poor. Worth noting, before we even dive into this, Indiana has cleaned up their act a lot under their governor. They are a case study in nipping this crap in the bud as opposed to like Minnesota or California. But having said that, here's, here's what it looks like now. She founded this thing in 2019. In 2023, the state paid Ms. Mitchell's company, piece by piece, Autism Centers, $29 million in a year to provide therapy to just 84 patients. That's about $340,000 per child, which surpassed what Indiana Medicaid typically spends in a year treating a newly diagnosed lung cancer patient or covering a year of 24 hour nursing home care. But it all got by because nobody gives a crap about taxpayer dollars. Reimbursements were as high as $640 an hour for a routine therapy that can be administered by workers with little more than a high school diploma. Its highest payments were more than 10 times higher than the nation's average. But nobody cared. She just submitted these gigantic breathtaking bills and they kept getting paid. Unbelievable. Mitchell said her company complied with Indiana's rules and the state never objected to her prices. Quote and this is the woman. I don't think in Indiana really had any oversight or not much, said Mitchell, who bought a series of properties including a 2 and a half million dollar home on Florida's Sanibel island and a $600,000 waterfront house on the Tippecanoe river in Indiana while her company's Medicaid billings soared.

[Jack Armstrong]

So are there little autistic kids who are actually getting paired, getting care and their incredibly stressed out parents trying to figure out how to deal with the situation?

[Joe Getty]

They don't make that clear. The hallmark of the Minnesota Somali scandal, It wasn't all Somalis, but a lot was that the kids either didn't exist or didn't have autism. There are kickbacks to the parents, that sort of thing. This appears to be just an entrepreneur saying I'm going to follow all the

[Jack Armstrong]

rules but I'm going to bill them

[Joe Getty]

just ridiculous, ridiculous amounts and see if they'll pay it. And the answer was yes, they will.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. I don't know where I draw the line on that one. I mean at some point you're ripping people off. But if I send, if I send in paperwork says I'm now charging $800 an hour and you just send me back a check.

[Joe Getty]

I hear you, I hear you. So the Wall Street Journal analyzed providers payments per patient as well as the overall number of hours per patient, blah, blah, blah. Many providers in nationwide, nationwide build a high number of hours of therapy for nearly every patient. Experts said that therapy plan should be tailored to individual children's needs and the number should vary. But this one autism treatment plant in Seattle, it's a program run through Seattle Children's Hospital said she never recommends 40 hours per week. But no, of course not a lot of journal analysis build, let's see in Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, Colorado, slow down, Joe. In Florida alone, 61 different autism therapy companies out of about 1100 build an average of 30 more hours or 30 or more hours of weekly therapy per child in 2020.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you've ever had a kid that had do any kind of therapy, that's not the numbers you have. Unless you've got a profoundly autistic or injured kid, you're not doing 30 to 40 hours worth of anything. I mean, it would just be unworkable.

[Joe Getty]

Private equity backed Action Behavior Centers, one of the largest U.S. providers, billed Colorado's Medicaid program for some of the most hours per patient of any provider. Its children received an average of 33 hours of therapy a week, with more than three quarters getting full time therapy in at least one week. Action received $18 million in Medicaid payments from the state that year.

[Jack Armstrong]

So the problem with a lot of this is you can't get people to care enough to get any momentum to hold anybody to account. Nobody ever pays a price for this stuff. Very, very few. And the only way, there's only one single way you can stop this sort of stuff from happening. And it's you don't give the government the money in the first place. That's the only thing you can do. Now how you work that out with the fact that there are kids with autism and they do need care and we do have a safety net that takes care of them without letting it get out of hand, I don't know. But if you send them less money, there's less opportunity to steal it.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, true enough. And if you see a 700% increase in a particular sort of expenditure in a year or two, that ought to be a red flag if anybody's watching.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, nobody cares about that.

[Joe Getty]

In a closely related story, a couple of Democratic politicians with a the hots for the White House. Oh, what's his name, A couple of senators. We'll go into the particulars in a bit, including old Spartacus guy. What's the Cory Booker? Their big plan for quote unquote affordability is to further narrow the tax pool, grant no federal income tax to people who make up to x thousand dollars a year. And it's a lot higher than it is right now. So they want to get even fewer people who give a single s about how tax money is spent.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, we got the, we've got the tax story of the day for the crowd that likes that sort of thing coming up right after we tell you about rough greens, which is a live supplement you add to your dog's food. Your dog's food is going to stay the same, but you're going to start adding rough greens on top of it. For the health of your dog.

[Joe Getty]

You see, traditional dog food is shelf stable for years because it's lifeless. Rough brings. I'm sorry. Rough greens brings the nutrition back. Packed with live vitamins, minerals, probiotics, digestive enzymes and omega oils. It's all about keeping your dog active, mobile and alert as they age. With all sorts of great natural antioxidants and other stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, so you can try it out for free. Just the shipping cost. Ruff Greens is offering a free jump Start trial bag. All you do is cover the shipping and use the discount code Armstrong to claim your free Jumpstart trial [e-mail] r

[Joe Getty]

u f f greens.com roughgreens.com remember that promo code Armstrong. Don't change your dog's food. Just add rough greens and watch the health benefits come alive again. You just cover the shipping. Roughgreens.com, remember that promo code Armstrong.

[Jack Armstrong]

So David Drucker, friend of the Armstrong and Getty show, who we've had on many, many times writing about taxes today and what Joe was just talking about narrowing the tax base, presuming that wealthy voters aren't going to vote with their feet and relocate to avoid onerous taxes in today's post pandemic society is foolish politically. And as a matter of public policy. What is he responding to? The news that Howard Schultz is leaving Seattle. He started Starbucks company. He became incredibly rich. Seattle is his home. He's a big entrepreneur. He's a star there. He's leaving the same day that the legislature in Washington passed a 9.9% state tax on income over a million dollars a year. They currently have zero sales tax or state tax. Zero state tax. But now they're going to have 9.9% on all income over a million dollars a year. And the richest guy, I don't know if he's the richest guy in Seattle, but he's got to be in the running. Is saying I'm out and he's moving to Florida.

[Joe Getty]

Unless my math is incorrect. If you make a million dollars a year, first of all, congratulations. Secondly, that's $100,000 tax increase all of a sudden.

[Jack Armstrong]

If only if make a million dollars a year. Yeah. So yeah, above it. Yeah, that's something. That's something. And again, as David Drucker said, you think that rich people are just gonna stick around. Oh, shucks. I guess I'll have to pay the 5% billionaire tax in California or the 10% new millionaire tax in Washington or wherever and that people aren't gonna leave. What is your thinking there?

[Joe Getty]

I could afford to live anywhere on earth, but I'll just write a check for a hundred thousand or more to Washington State.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, good point. These people are more mobile than the rest of us. He just bought. Actually, we know what he bought, Schultz. He just bought a 44 million dollar penthouse at the surf club at the Four Seasons private residence in Miami. I'm looking at it and it looks pretty damn nice with a pretty cool view.

[Joe Getty]

I'll bet it is.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, but people of his wealth can say, you know what, I'll come back and visit anytime I want on a private plane. But I'm out of here.

[Joe Getty]

My final note on this, and I'd love to talk about this more later, is the, the education you get in life. Because I remember studying, you know, politic, politics and political systems ages ago in college and. And everybody approaches it as if people are rational, as if voters are rational, for instance, and have reasonably good information.

[Jack Armstrong]

Just.

[Joe Getty]

I'm going to read you a sentence from a story about how the far left political parties are surging in Europe, especially among, of course, young voters. And they highlight for a moment here the Green Party in Britain. It wants to nationalize utilities, legalize drugs, withdraw from NATO, welcome all asylum seekers, heavily tax private landlords, and of course, they're deeply critical of Israel's military actions in Gaza.

[Jack Armstrong]

There you go.

[Joe Getty]

So you're gonna tax the crap out of landlords that'll free up some housing and withdraw from NATO. These people are freaking insane. And yet they're getting growing support in emoji news.

[Jack Armstrong]

Coming up, Apple has dropped eight new emojis and as always happens, it comes with an apology for one of the emojis. What, that other stuff on the way?

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

So Joe Rogan came out pretty hard against the war in Iran yesterday. I don't know how much that matters. He's a pretty influential guy. I don't know how much he represents maga, but he said Trump ran on no more stupid wars and now we're in one. So that's his take. And again, I don't know how much of MAGA that represents. No idea.

[Joe Getty]

Well, yeah, he came off as a guy who just doesn't know much about the topic and is mystified.

[Jack Armstrong]

Eight new emojis just dropped from Apple, including one controversial icon. That prompted an apology from Apple.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, no,

[Jack Armstrong]

I've never used an emoji because I'm a grown up. But they've got eight new emojis. How many emojis there are now? There's like a lot, right?

[Joe Getty]

Hundreds.

[Jack Armstrong]

Eight new ones that were approved. This is the part I like. This is the reason I'm bringing up that were approved by the Unicode Consortium. No. Okay. I'd like to be involved in that. That would be a fun meetings. You go into and somebody puts an emoji up there and then you argue about whether or not it should be on the iPhone and then you have a vote.

[Joe Getty]

I would do it.

[Jack Armstrong]

A guy with a pirate patch. What about the one eyed? How are they going to feel about this? You know, and that sort of thing.

[Joe Getty]

What about seafaring marauders? They don't like. It's a culture, not a costume. Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

That sort of thing. So here are your new emojis that you'll be able to use however you want. Ballet dancer. You think you needed that now and then that looks like a guy. Just to let you know.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Dude in the leotard. Trombone Joe will be able to drop that one now and then. Sorry, sorry I couldn't take your call. I was busy. And then you got your trombone emoji.

[Joe Getty]

I think it's probably more used as like a sad trombone. That's what I'm guessing. I have no idea you would use that emoji for. Katie, you buy that?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, sure. Treasure chest fight cloud. Kind of like looks like from the old Looney Tunes. When they get in a fight, it's just like, oh, okay.

[Joe Getty]

Dust flying. Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Orca. The whale, a landslide. Hairy creature.

[Joe Getty]

Look like hairy creature.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which looks to be Bigfoot. If I used emojis, I might use that one. I don't know for what, but. And then a distorted face, which is somehow controversial. And I couldn't finish the paragraph that explained why because it was boring me too much. I gave up with the pregnant man

[Joe Getty]

when they released that one.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, do they still have that on there? Oh, yes, they do do.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Because I've gone to send the pregnant woman. Men can't get pregnant.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, according to Apple Joe, they can.

[Joe Getty]

Okay, well, they can't is the thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

So that one got by the.

[Joe Getty]

So if you accidentally. I interrupted you. Have you accidentally sent the pregnant man emoji? Katie, you know I have.

[Jack Armstrong]

I really would like to be on the Unicode Consortium. Let me on there. I'd love to sit around and argue about various emojis all day long. Sounds like a good idea. And then all the different faces. And I've had to regularly do this where somebody sends me an emoji and I'm like, I don't know what they're trying to tell me. So I take the emoji and I paste it on Google and say, what the hell does this mean? And then it explains it to me.

[Joe Getty]

There's the pregnant man. Or maybe he just drinks a lot of beer, got a food baby.

[Jack Armstrong]

Because, like the basic faces, where you got the two eyes with the straight mouth or the slightly down curved mouth, but the down curved mouth, but the big eyes, or the down curved mouth with the closed eyes, or the downturned mouth but the eyebrows raised. I mean, those are all very subtle variations, right? And I don't know what you're trying to tell me.

[Joe Getty]

See, I do, though, and Katie does. I wonder if you have, like, some sort of deficit for that sort of thing. Maybe one skeptical, the other's mildly disappointed. The others, you know, I don't remember the list you just read.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, they're so small I can barely see them. Anyway, hold my phone out here.

[Joe Getty]

And you're blind.

[Jack Armstrong]

I ain't never know what that is. Why don't you use words like we started doing about, I don't know, a million years ago? Explain to me what you were thinking about me in words. Are your eyes closed or open? I don't know what's going on here. We got more on the way. If you miss it, get the podcast.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.