You Go To Choose Your Romances Better

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand Episode: You Go To Choose Your Romances Better
Release Date: April 23, 2025
Host/Authors: Armstrong & Getty
Publisher: iHeartPodcasts

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1. Personal Struggles and Resilience

The episode opens with co-host Jack sharing a personal and challenging experience. He recounts falling seriously ill just before a family vacation to San Diego, where both he and his son’s health deteriorated significantly. Jack reflects on the difficulties of maintaining normalcy during illness, stating:

"I have tried to power through so many things in my life with an illness, and usually successfully. This one did not work. We were on vacation and Sam was dying. I was just dying. Just dying." ([05:09])

Ryan expresses concern and empathy, highlighting the severity of their situation and the impact it had on their vacation plans.

2. Political Commentary and Economic Policies

The conversation shifts to current political events, focusing on former President Trump's remarks about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Ryan discusses Trump's assertion:

"I have no intention of firing Jerome Powell." ([07:39])

Jack and Ryan delve into the implications of such statements, debating the constitutional boundaries of presidential authority. They also touch upon the ongoing tariffs on China, examining their effects on small businesses. Jack shares insights from a San Diego businessman who fears the tariffs could "wipe him out," emphasizing the real-world consequences of these policies.

3. Radical Islam and Global Terrorism

A significant portion of the discussion centers around recent terrorist attacks in India, attributed to Islamist extremists. Ryan underscores the severity of the situation:

"Yesterday Islamist terrorists killed more than 25 tourists in India." ([14:11])

Jack adds context by referencing the historical partition of India and Pakistan, emphasizing the long-standing sectarian conflicts that exacerbate such tragedies. The hosts debate the mainstream and conservative discomfort in labeling these groups as Islamic supremacists, arguing for more direct terminology to accurately represent the threats.

4. Immigration Policies and Deportations

A substantial segment is dedicated to immigration, tracing deportation numbers across various U.S. administrations. Using statistics provided by Brett Baer, Ryan highlights:

• Bill Clinton: Over 860,000 deportations
• George W. Bush: Approximately 2 million deportations
• Barack Obama: 3,062,000 deportations
• Donald Trump: 616,000 deportations
• Joe Biden: 27,000 deportations (from January 25 to March 8, 2025)

Jack remarks on the stark differences in deportation rates, noting:

"That's amazing. Nobody's talking about that." ([30:11])

The discussion intensifies around the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 gang member deported to El Salvador. Ryan and Jack critique the immigration system’s handling of such cases, arguing that Garcia’s situation exemplifies the system's flaws. Ryan states:

"He's a criminal illegal alien gang member. He is not your Rosa Parks." ([44:51])

They argue for a re-evaluation of humanitarian protections and criticize the current administration’s approach to deportations, emphasizing the need for clear and effective immigration policies.

5. The Psychology of Hatred and Movements

Referencing Eric Hoffer, Ryan introduces a philosophical angle on political movements:

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life." ([34:29])

Jack and Ryan explore how personal grievances and the search for purpose can drive individuals toward fanaticism and mass movements. They discuss the rise of intense activism, particularly within the Democratic Party, and its impact on political discourse. Jack observes:

"The Democratic Party is still more what you just heard from Bill Clinton than what's been going on for the last several years." ([33:37])

6. Final Thoughts and Call to Action

As the episode concludes, Armstrong and Getty reiterate their commitment to addressing pressing issues with clarity and honesty. They emphasize the importance of understanding the underlying factors that drive political and social movements, urging listeners to engage critically with current events.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jack Armstrong: "I have tried to power through so many things in my life with an illness, and usually successfully. This one did not work. We were on vacation and Sam was dying. I was just dying. Just dying." ([05:09])

• Ryan: "Yesterday Islamist terrorists killed more than 25 tourists in India." ([14:11])

• Ryan: "He's a criminal illegal alien gang member. He is not your Rosa Parks." ([44:51])

• Ryan: "Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life." ([34:29])

• Jack: "That's amazing. Nobody's talking about that." ([30:11])

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Insights and Conclusions:

The episode provides a multifaceted exploration of personal hardship intertwined with pressing national and global issues. Jack’s personal struggle with illness sets a tone of vulnerability, which seamlessly transitions into robust discussions on political policies, terrorism, and immigration. The hosts advocate for transparent and effective governance, critiquing both historical and contemporary approaches to complex issues. They emphasize the need for informed discourse and call for systemic reforms to address the root causes of societal challenges.

Listeners are encouraged to critically evaluate immigration policies and recognize the psychological underpinnings that fuel political movements. Through candid conversations and supported by statistical data, Armstrong and Getty offer a compelling narrative that balances personal anecdotes with broader societal analyses.

Transcript

[Annabe]

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[Ryan]

It is Ryan here and I have a question for you. What do you do when you win? Like are you a fist pumper?

[Jack]

A woohooer?

[Ryan]

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[Katie]

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[Jack]

Come on.

[Ryan]

Why is this taking so long?

[Jack]

This thing is ancient.

[Molly]

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[Katie]

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[Katie]

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

[Annabe]

Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Ryan]

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

[Jack]

I have seen the doctor and he has seen me. Famous line from the movie Arthur.

[Ryan]

Wow.

[Jack]

So I joined the show an hour or two. So here's what I did remember. Do you remember? Does anybody listen to this show? Remember? I was sick last week and part of the week before and assumed that I was on the tail end of it as I had been to a doctor and they said it was, you know, sort of thing that you'll have for 10 days or whatever. I went ahead with our scheduled trip to San Diego that I had for the family and my son had started having this illness too, and we both got sicker during this trip. So it turned out to not be the greatest idea to try to go on a vacation ill like this. My son has now declared this the sickest he's ever been.

[Ryan]

Yikes.

[Jack]

Which I think is true. I told the doctor yesterday, I said I'm old and this is in the top five, certainly of all time. But so when we were landed in San Diego, both of our heads are full of whatever your head gets full of when you're sick. And our ears. I thought my head was going to explode. I thought my ears were going to explode. I've never had that happen before. Ever. I mean, I've had some ear pain on a plane before, but never like this.

[Ryan]

And my scattering blood on passengers to your right and left, left, right.

[Jack]

My son, who was a couple of seats away from me, was stomping his feet because he didn't want to yell out loud and make a scene. He was in so much pain. He was just miserable.

[Ryan]

Couldn't Release the pressure. Oh, Lord.

[Jack]

We never have. There's no reason to. Pressure hasn't gone in five days anyway.

[Ryan]

Wow.

[Jack]

He mostly hung out in bed. My other son's perfectly healthy. Luckily, he didn't catch it, so. God, we went cruising around in a boat on the bay and did all this stuff for a couple of days. And I was just dying. I mean, just absolutely dying, you know, trying to keep the vacation going. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Ryan]

So has anybody slapped a name on this yet, or is it just a respiratory bug?

[Jack]

Really is the only reason I bring it up because it might be something to learn from this, something I didn't know. So I went to the doctor yesterday, same doctor that I'd seen a week earlier. And I said, tomorrow, which is today, will be we day 14. So I've had this for 14 days. And if anything, it's getting worse. It's certainly not getting better. And say they declared that it's. So everybody tests you for strep throat. The sore throat is ridiculous. It's like you're swallowing a razor blade every time you swallow. And it's been that way for two freaking weeks.

[Ryan]

It's crazy.

[Jack]

Anyway, they said everybody test for strep throat, but there's lots of bacterial infections like strep throat that don't have a name that they don't test for because they're, you know, they're not as popular or whatever. And you have one of those. Yeah. So they gave me. They said the nuclear option of antibiotics for me and my son, and I'm sure we'll be fine in 48 hours.

[Ryan]

But I was used only for end stage Ebola patients in Africa.

[Jack]

Ebola patients who have gonorrhea. Oh, Both before. They usually give you this.

[Ryan]

Well, you're having a bad week.

[Jack]

Yeah, well, you got to choose your mates. Your romance is better.

[Ryan]

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

[Jack]

I have tried to power through so many things in my life with an illness, and usually successfully. This one did not work. We were on vacation and Sam was dying. I was just dying. Just dying. Like, how are we gonna go to the airport and do security and do this whole thing?

[Ryan]

How are we ever gonna do.

[Jack]

It was terrible. Is a terrible idea. Oh, we stayed on our friend Dave's boat. And that was. That was cool.

[Ryan]

Yeah. Well, at least that's fairly restful, right?

[Jack]

No, there is no rest. Nobody rested. Everybody's coffee in pain.

[Ryan]

I was looking for the positive side. Wow. Okay. So.

[Jack]

So. But because I've been quite sick, I haven't been following news. Tell, tell Me. What's the story? My hair, if I had any, was. Is supposed to be on fire about today. What am I supposed to be concerned about today?

[Ryan]

Actually, I think the headline is that your head is being blasted with the cooling waters of moderation and not on fire. As Trump has come out and said, I have no intention of firing Jerome Powell. Oh, Jerry, are you kidding? Me and him, we go way back. And also, you know, these tariffs on China, they're very, very high. We should probably work out something better. And so the markets yesterday reacted with, oh, thank God. And. And skyrocketed, having cratered in the previous day or two. And the. The whiplash of will he or won't he? What's the official policy has continued. So, financially speaking, we're on the downward crest of a wave, or upward. I guess the upward is better. So that. That's good.

[Jack]

I talked to a small businessman in San Diego about the tariffs. Off to tell that story later, and he was telling me what it was going to do to him. Just wipe him out. Really?

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Because all this stuff comes from China.

[Ryan]

Did he say anything about how long it would take him or how expensive it would be to retool his supply lines and remake his business for a new world?

[Jack]

His particular thing of selling stuff that he gets from China just wouldn't be doable, I don't think.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Jack]

Yeah. Was I gonna say. Oh, then I did listen to, Hi, Katie. How are you?

[Ryan]

I am doing better than you, Jack.

[Jack]

Yeah, most people usually are. I mean.

[Ryan]

Yeah, that's not much of a statement.

[Jack]

Yeah. What was I gonna say?

[Ryan]

I'm not. In general. I'm not joining on with that. That's just. That would be abusing a sick man. I just meant in terms of your physical health. Debatable.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Jack]

I'm probably. Probably below average most of the time.

[Ryan]

Somebody's got to be, right?

[Jack]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ryan]

Just statistically, you're doing a favor to the above average. You're a giver, Joe. Stop beating the sick guy.

[Jack]

We'll stay in the United States of America. To be fair, half of the country is below average. Their lives are going below average. So it's not hard to believe that I'm in that half. I think I can see the line from here. Like the 50 line, but.

[Ryan]

Right, right, sure. Anyway, I probably have days where I'm.

[Jack]

Slightly above average, but I'm supposed to.

[Ryan]

Let you guys know that the actual.

[Annabe]

News story of the day is that.

[Ryan]

Lizzo has announced that she's lost 16 of her body fat.

[Jack]

I noticed when she was the musical guest on SNL a couple weeks ago. That. That's not the same Lizzo as before. She's much half a Lizzo. Yeah, it was half a Lizzo.

[Ryan]

And I'm sorry, I'm in the camp of if Lizzo assassinates the president or cures cancer, I want to hear about her. But otherwise, no. But that was.

[Jack]

Her whole act was fat acceptance. Yeah. And look how beautiful I am at this weight. So why is she losing all the weight?

[Ryan]

Probably because it was killing her because obesity is incredibly unhealthy.

[Jack]

And then, remember she had all those backup dancers who were every bit as big as her, and then she made fun of them for being fat.

[Ryan]

Yes.

[Jack]

Somehow. And got in trouble for that.

[Ryan]

All right, thank you for weighing in with that, Katie. No pun intended. Great Scott.

[Jack]

Yes, yes. One thing. I did listen to a podcast that explained how Trump absolutely has the power to, or should have the power to fire Jerome Powell. There is a law that he can't. But that law is clearly unconstitutional. If they fired.

[Ryan]

Are we talking about Humphrey's executor Jack, the famous Supreme Court case?

[Jack]

I don't know. But as the head of the executive branch and he hires the guy, obviously he can fire the guy. So if that law went to the Supreme Court, they would declare it unconstitutional? Almost certainly.

[Ryan]

Yeah. The history of that sort of thing, the executive branch starting quasi independent agencies, comes from the era of the Supreme Court, where that was like decades and decades long. Activist, lefty court that said. Yeah, that's fine. And it is. It is on very slippery and weird ground, constitutionally. I'd love to talk to a learned expert on that topic at some point because it is strange.

[Jack]

Yeah. Well, the interesting thing about that to me was one, I don't think he should fire the Fed chair. And as you say, today's news is. It doesn't look like he's going to.

[Ryan]

It would be incredibly counterproductive.

[Jack]

Yeah, but the mainstream media acting like that's, you know, clearly a dictator move to do that. And then I listen to people who know what they're actually talking about. No, he'd be challenging a law that's almost certainly unconstitutional. Really? Not exactly a dictator move. So I don't know the claiming that. How are you supposed to know what's going on? Like our old producer Sean used to say, every news story comes with a homework assignment. Unless you want to do the homework assignment, you don't know what's happening.

[Ryan]

Right. Yeah. I actually began the show with the theme being that you generally have two sides pitching. They're trying to litigate the issue, and they're completely unbalanced and not looking at it. And we're gonna try to bring some clarity today and have some great examples of that coming up, like the war against the universities doing exactly the right thing, maybe in the wrong way, but, you know, we'll get to the bottom of that. Also, I have some great stuff on immigration and the difference in the reaction to the same policies by the left, depending whose guy is in the White House. It is hilarious.

[Jack]

I saw Rubio statement that he's not going to the next peace talks meeting between Russia and Ukraine. So that's not going the right direction.

[Ryan]

Yeah. Last week he said he'd go if it looked like there was any point in going. And his decision to not go speaks louder than words.

[Jack]

And him saying his boss, Donald J. Trump, might have other priorities if this is not working out. So then what are we doing?

[Ryan]

So one more. You asked, what are the big stories of the day? One more that's getting extremely little attention. You know, I want to make sure I'm not lying to you here, as I so often am. Shameless. I'm just scanning. Let's see. Okay. Yeah. It is cruelly under reported. And the reason I bring this up is partly because I've been saying for a very long time, and I've been a bit of a lonely voice on this, the question of radical Islam versus the west is far from decided.

[Jack]

Right.

[Ryan]

I mean, it took a bit of a little break, you know, the post. Post 911 thing. But you've got the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah and their Iranian proxies, and everybody talks about that and describes them, you know, with. With words like that, and it's accurate. But they're Islamic supremacists. That's at the core of their being. And so much of the mainstream, and sometimes even the conservative is uncomfortable describing them with that sort of term. And the reason I bring it up is yesterday Islamist terrorists killed more than 25 tourists in India. The number of folks who've died. The count is ongoing, and some folks are clinging to life. More than 25 tourists in India slaughtered by Islamist lunatics. The attack took place in Kashmir, a region that many in the Muslim majority Pakistan say is occupied Hindu majority India and ought to be part of Pakistan. If you don't know the story of the partition of India and Pakistan among or along sectarian lines back in the. Was it the 50s or the 60s, I can never remember. There's too much history anyway, just bloody history. Bloody and horrible. And like a perfect example of what happens when you divide societies based on religion or color of skin or whatever.

[Jack]

I got a good story from Being the San Diego Bay to get back into that Islama sting. Whenever you decide to talk about it, I'm gonna use that line for the rest of my life. I can't remember something. You know. There's too much history. Yeah.

[Ryan]

So many people doing so so many things. How can you remember it?

[Jack]

I told my teacher that. Just so many things.

[Ryan]

Too much history.

[Jack]

You're in charge of ending this. All right.

[Ryan]

We've got a lot of good stuff to come. Hope you can stick around. It's the Armstrong and Getty show.

[Annabe]

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[Drew]

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[Katie]

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[Colby]

We have a confession to make. Both iheart and this commercial you're listening to right now would probably sound a heck of a lot better on the new Roku Pro Series tv. It's got side firing speakers that fill your room with sound, Dolby Atmos audio that puts you right in the middle of the entertainment, and the ability to pair seamlessly with your home theater sound systems that already have surround sound and booming bass. If all that sounds too good to be true, it'll sound even better on the new Roku Pro series. Your hearing isn't better, your TV is.

[Ryan]

I'm Molly Roberts. And I'm Drew Goins. Each Friday on Impromptu, we talk through the questions we can't stop thinking about.

[Jack]

Do we need to rethink how much we drink?

[Ryan]

Why are companies really asking workers to.

[Hannah]

Come back to the office?

[Ryan]

Does boycotting a business actually work? Should we quit social media?

[Jack]

We're here when the news gets personal and the headlines hit home.

[Ryan]

Join Molly and me every Friday on Impromptu from Washington Post Opinions. Find Impromptu wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, thanks for tuning in. It's the Armstrong and Getty Show. Big news on the border. Court battles, immigration numbers, etc coming up in a couple of minutes. Next segment. First a couple of stories from the world of science. We are joined, at least temporarily, by the co host, Mr. Jack Armstrong. Jack, glad you're here.

[Jack]

I saw a scientist yesterday. That's what a doctor is basically, right?

[Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, in a very real way, some are better than others.

[Jack]

But I got a question. I don't want to derail what you got planned, but I do have this.

[Ryan]

Yes.

[Jack]

I'm so sick and they finally get on my me on antibiotics. If antibiotics didn't exist, if I had the exact thing I have now, 100 years ago, would I die from this? Or what would happen?

[Ryan]

Be touch and go? Probably. I wonder. Yeah, I don't know nearly enough, but there are examples of that. Yeah, absolutely. I will never forget this. It still gives me chills. My wife almost certainly would have died in childbirth giving birth to our first child because it was an extremely difficult birth. And I won't go into the details, but it was an incredibly long labor and exhausting. And it's the sort of thing that people died from without proper medical care. So, yeah, I thank God every day for America's, you know, medical system is screwed up as it is, and it is very screwed up. But, yeah, it's possible. Anyway, speaking of science and Jack, I'm glad you're here because you are much better at physics and that sort of stuff than I am. I don't even try. I've realized I'm might. You might as well explain some of the stuff to my dog is to me. But in a potential landmark discovery, scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope, which is an amazing piece of hardware, have obtained what they call the strongest signs yet of possible life beyond our solar system. They detected in an alien planet's atmosphere the chemical fingerprints of gases that on Earth are only produced by biological processes. I will just tell you very briefly. The two gases are dimethyl sulfide, also known as dms, sounds like a raptor. And dimethyl disulfide, or dmds, a better wrapper. Blah, blah, blah. The idea that you could detect trace gases from light years away using a telescope so blows my mind. I can't even believe it. I don't disbelieve it, but I feel like I'm being told that, yeah, I've got a pet gorilla. He knows the Alphabet up to Y. We're trying to get him to the. I'm like, I. That's. I don't think so.

[Jack]

I have a lot I could say about this. I think it's interesting that since the zeitgeist had turned toward there's no life anywhere in the universe in the last couple of years. I think this might just be a coincidence or I just wonder if there's like a real effort at pushback from the other side of the argument. Because the other, the, the no life out there argument had been winning recently for the first time and a very long time. Anyway. Go ahead.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I was going to say that's another topic that you had much more experience than me in is the question of grants for you, right. At universities and scientific studies. If the there is life out there field is dying because a lot of the zeitgeist is going in the other direction. If I'm in that field, I write this study as fast and loud as I can to keep the funding going.

[Jack]

Yeah, see, climate change. Now, I don't know that this is what's happening. It could just be, you know, they finally discovered something. And the other thing being, I was listening to a really, really smart astronomer scientist dude on a podcast recently talking about how if we ever can discover that there's been any biological life, it goes from there's no life anywhere, there might not be any life anywhere to there's life everywhere. I mean, because you only need to replicate it once, somewhere in space to go with, okay, it's all over the place.

[Ryan]

It's got to be.

[Jack]

Yeah, sure, yeah, it would have to be.

[Ryan]

Yeah. And in another story that we really don't have time to squeeze in, but also, at least quasi scientific. For many years during the illegal immigration debate, people have been saying, well, who's going to pick the crops? Well, the answer is increasingly robots. They're getting better and better. Farm robots. Stay with us. Plus a border Update don't go away.

[Annabe]

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[Colby]

Hello iHeart listener. We have a confession to make. Both iHeart and this commercial you're listening to right now would probably sound a heck of a lot better on the new Roku Pro Series tv. It's got side firing speakers that fill your room with sound, Dolby Atmos audio that puts you right in the middle of the entertainment, and the ability to pair seamlessly with your home theater sound systems that already have surround sound and booming bass. If all that sounds too good to be true, it'll sound even better on the new Roku Pro series. Your hearing isn't better, your TV is.

[Katie]

There's an efficient way to get caught up on a lot of news. It's called the seven from the Washington Post. It's a newsletter and podcast. Whether you're reading or hit play, you get seven stories you need to know and you can consume it all in just a few minutes. The 7 is out every weekday morning by 7:00am Eastern. I'm Hannah Jewell. I'm one of the writers and I host the show. Find the seven podcast wherever you're listening. The newsletter link is waiting for you in the show notes. Wasn't that delicious?

[Annabe]

So good.

[Ryan]

Your bill, ladies.

[Jack]

I got it. I got it. No, I got it.

[Ryan]

Seriously, I insist. I insisted first.

[Katie]

Don't be silly.

[Annabe]

You don't be silly.

[Drew]

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[Ryan]

Okay.

[Annabe]

Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Ryan]

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

[Drew]

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[Hannah]

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[Ryan]

We're getting them out and a judge can't say no. You have to have a trial. The trial is going to take two years and now we're going to have a very, we're going to have a very dangerous country if we're not allowed to do what we're entitled to do. And I want an election based on the fact that we get them out. So there is a lot of cloudiness on this issue. If you take in, you know, a lot of the media, a lot of ideas being expressed that weren't expressed only a few months ago when the other guy was in charge. And we're going to try to get to some to the bottom of this. But there's no question that Trump's numbers on the border are sky high popularity wise.

[Jack]

So unlike the economy is two big issues. The economy in the border where he's taking a big hit, people are loving what he's doing on the border yeah.

[Ryan]

And interestingly, the economy stuff could turn around quickly. I think if he eases up on the tariff plans. And the well, he's already said he's not going to fire Jerome Powell. So the markets are heading back northward again. I haven't checked lately, but that's fine. We don't do that minute to minute around here. So I think those numbers could turn around in a big hurry in a way that previous administrations never could have dreamed of because what was going on was like massive, you know, at least half unavoidable changes in the global economy as opposed to, depending on who you ask, some interesting and creative or ill advised and hasty talk on tariffs. Anyway, getting back to the topic of immigration, Bret Baron, Special Report last night in his panel segment had some really interesting statistics that will lead us into a discussion. Coming up in a moment. The truth, the bottom line on old Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the was he or Wasn't he an Ms. 13, MD father and little league coach who was sent down to El Salvador to that nasty prison? Anyway, here's Brett Baer from last night. The previous presidents on the migrant removals and the numbers that we were talking about here. Look at this. Bill Clinton Over 860 million 2 million plus for George W. Bush, 3,062,000 for President Obama. There you see the first Trump term, President Biden at 616. The 27,000 is from January 25th to March 8th. It's more than that now. But you look at the non judicial removals from 95 to 2012, significant. So in other words, all of these removals have happened in previous administrations. Each one of those people did not get a trial or an adjudication in front of a judge. Had they done that, we would still be hearing Obama migrant removal cases.

[Jack]

Wow.

[Ryan]

Oh, how interesting. So more than 3 million by Obama, handful by Biden just because the numbers of people he let in were so astonishing. That inflated the number, but it was still a very, very low number. But yeah, I thought Brett's point was excellent.

[Jack]

That's amazing. Nobody's, nobody's talking about that.

[Ryan]

Everybody gets, you know, a weeks long trial or whatever. It's ridiculous. And then Annie Linsky, who's the Wall Street Journal's White House reporter, weighed in with a thought that dovetails nicely.

[Katie]

I mean the number that stands out is really the 3 million from, from Barack Obama's term. And, and I mean this is how this issue has just changed so much that everything that Trump does, the Democrats are against. And when Barack Obama was Doing it. We didn't see, you know, massive marches and a hue and a cry. He removed 3 million people from this country.

[Ryan]

And so, you know, the politics has certainly changed. And I think it's a great example of how the left has just moved.

[Katie]

You know, much further to the left.

[Jack]

There was some hue and cry, the left, left of the lefties, you know, calling him the deporter in chief. They were pretty unhappy about it, but it wasn't, it wasn't what the mainstream media was worried about.

[Ryan]

Right. I would agree completely. Here is for more historical examples how the left has just shot leftward while the right has stayed much more consistent on this issue. It's old Billy. Jeff Clinton in 1995. Our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years. And we must do more to stop it.

[Jack]

Wow.

[Ryan]

If anybody claims to you that the case is anything but that the left has moved miles to the left, you know, as many Democrats from, you know, Bill Maher, and there are a hundred names have said, I didn't leave the party, the party left me. If anybody ever denies that's true, to you, they're either gaslighting you or they're a fool. It's absolutely true.

[Jack]

That is amazing. So that's, I don't know what year that was. Sometime between 95. 95. So 30 years ago. Obviously, even as a Democrat, a criminal illegal gets booted out.

[Ryan]

Obviously. All right, how could you. What's the counter argument to that?

[Jack]

The counter argument is you get free health care paid for by taxpayers.

[Ryan]

Well, and that's, you know, not to get off on a tangent, that could be like a book. But the triumph of emotionalism over logic on the left is one of the greatest effects that nobody talks about of a lot of the DEI stuff and the microaggression stuff, which was all designed to take over institutions to shame people into silence. Then the neo Marxists can take over the institutions. But I feel offended, therefore I'm right. Would have been laughed at for like all of American history. All of American history would have said, wait a minute, no, his intentions were fine. It's perhaps you are offended, but talk it out and you need to calm down because he didn't say anything wrong. But all of a sudden, in the last few years, as people like Bill Clinton were left here on the center right saying, what the hell just happened? Emotionalism has taken over.

[Jack]

I think the Democratic Party is still more what you just heard from Bill Clinton than what's been going on for the last several years. I just don't know why, like, somebody doesn't have the freaking guts to stand up to the lunatics and be that candidate and. And win in a landslide, I think.

[Ryan]

But yeah, it's the whole problem of you've got that outward. I don't know what is it, what percentage of the party, 30%, whatever are. They're the crazy activists and, and they have so much energy. Our freedom loving quote of the day, Jack, was from Eric hoffer, the great 20th century author who said, passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus, people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause, but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

[Jack]

Wow.

[Ryan]

And again, the key sentence, passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

[Jack]

And yeah, so then is how much is it about the issue or is it just expressing your misery in your life and having someone to blame? Did you see that video I tweeted out about the trans activists with the people screaming at some young women who were, you know, against boys and stuff? You had this crowd, mostly men, just, I mean, not just chanting, but like they were gonna lose their minds screaming at these women. And you look at that and you have to think, how would you ever get that worked up about anything other than maybe defending your own family?

[Ryan]

Because it's not about an issue. It's religious fervor of a cult.

[Jack]

Yeah, it's wild.

[Ryan]

Who would suck down what was. It wasn't Kool Aid. I always try to get this right. It was actually Flavor Aid that the Jonestown cult sucked down. Anyway, everybody says drinking the Kool Aid. So just go with the Flo, Jo. Okay, but. But how can you explain people sucking down poison to go to heaven with their two bit would be cult leader. Yeah, I mean, cult fervor anyway. Yeah, but that's what you saw there. And I want to get back into the radicals and the defacing Tesla dealers and that sort of thing in a little bit, but here are a bunch of Marylanders reacting to the deportation of the Maryland father of. Of two or whatever. And the Little League coach, Abrego Garcia, 66, Michael. He was living in Maryland, designated Ms. 13 terrorist, and Donald Trump deported him. How does that make you feel?

[Jack]

I feel safer.

[Ryan]

He gotta go. He gotta go. Need to go. But he was a father, but he's still a terrorist. He shouldn't have picked a tree.

[Jack]

So he picked to be a tourist instead of worrying about his children.

[Ryan]

The Democrats, they want him back.

[Annabe]

Back.

[Ryan]

They say he was wrongfully deported. He has a wife and a kid who's a citizen. They're calling this a national emergency. Is this a national emergency? I wouldn't call it national emergency.

[Jack]

We got more things going on.

[Ryan]

We have more things, more fish to fry.

[Annabe]

What kind of national emergency for what?

[Ryan]

What is the emergency for?

[Jack]

Ain't no national emergency.

[Ryan]

No. A bunch of white people being racist. Well, excuse me, just control rooms. Oh, they were mostly black people. Yeah, yeah. So according to Rich Lowry of the National Review, who is one of the smartest and most reasonable people in journalism, he says Kilmar O'Braga Garcia should not be in prison in El Salvador. And he gets into why, and I agree with him, but he also should never have been in the United States and should never have been given relief from deportation. The White House is trying to make the alleged MS.13 gang member a symbol of illegal immigrant crime, while the anti Trump opposition is seeking to make the Maryland man a symbol of the administration's disregard for due process. What's gotten less attention, Rich writes, is that his case is an example of the self defeating absurdities of our immigration system and in particular of how it hands out humanitarian protection. When Abrego Garcia avoided deportation back in 2019, he didn't take advantage of asylum, which has been a big part of the immigration crisis. He used something called withholding of removal. So asylum grants you a path to citizenship. Departing from the text here for a second, because you know you came from an awful place that would persecute you, and we take in refugees of that sort, and so we will let you stay here and become a citizen. But it. This was just the withholding of removal that just prevents a deportable alien from being removed to a particular country. In Abrego Garcia's case, El Salvador, where he is now. So he came to the US when he was 16 years old in 2012. He lived here illegally until he was picked up by the cops in 2019, put into deportation proceedings to avoid being removed. He made an asylum claim, sought relief under The UN Convention Against Torture applied for withholding of a removal. An immigration judge did not grant him asylum because he hadn't applied soon enough. It was just, you're supposed to apply in your first year saying, hey, here's where I'm here, here's why I'm here, and here's why I need to stay. He didn't. He just used it as a tool when they finally caught him.

[Jack]

And he didn't know all this. So there are, like, lawyers out there who make their living figuring out how to keep these people around.

[Ryan]

Yeah, or he's probably a reasonably bright guy. He figured it out. But anyway. And the judge also ruled that there's no reason to believe you'll be tortured in El Salvador. But the judge granted the withholding of removal on some really unconvincing grounds. Here's what happened with this guy. And it's funny, I've read a version of this story many times and nobody ever explains what the hell a pupusa is. Obrega Garcia claimed that his mother had a pupusa business. I've read that half a dozen times.

[Jack]

Sort of like an alpaca, but with two humps.

[Ryan]

Yes. No, it half sounds like prostitution. That's not it. Either it's the national dish in El Salvador. Or. A national dish. Okay, so it's like having a hot dog stand. Yeah. So she ran a papuza business out of the family's home. And a gang called Barrio 18 was extorting and threatening the family. It'd be a shame if something bad happened to your pupusa business. That sort of thing.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Oh, of course it would suck. It always. Protection money, they call it. And this included a warning that they would take their 12 year old son if the parents payments didn't continue.

[Jack]

Oh, my God.

[Ryan]

If this is true, it's awful.

[Jack]

Sure it is.

[Ryan]

But it's not really a good reason to prohibit Obrega Garcia from being removed to El Salvador years later. Because by the time of the court proceedings, the pupusa business had closed. Tell you what, the pupusa business ain't what it used to be. So the occasion for extorting this kid by the gang no longer existed. Not only that, he wasn't a kid. He was a 23 year old who was more than capable of living independently of his family.

[Jack]

That sort of thing happens to people in the United States all the time. Also, though, I mean, it's not. Yes, you know, a revolutionary country or something.

[Ryan]

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, if you had to get me out of the hood to my cousin's place in the suburbs because a gang was trying to recruit me at age 16. I have enormous sympathy for that situation, but when I'm 23, not so much. There's more to the story. We've got it for you. Stay with us. Armstrong and Getty.

[Annabe]

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[Colby]

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[Katie]

We've all done it. You see a headline but don't have time to read the whole story or there's so much news you're not sure what is worth your time. I'm Colby Ekowitz, co host of Post Reports, the weekday afternoon podcast from the Washington Post. Post Reports brings you what's relevant and revealing. Breaking stories, politics, wellness, culture. Each episode goes beyond a headline for the context you need. Find Post Reports now wherever you're listening. Wasn't that delicious?

[Annabe]

So good.

[Ryan]

Your bill, ladies.

[Jack]

I got it.

[Ryan]

I got it.

[Jack]

No, I got it.

[Katie]

Seriously.

[Ryan]

I insist.

[Hannah]

I insisted first.

[Katie]

Don't be silly.

[Annabe]

You don't be silly.

[Drew]

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[Ryan]

Okay.

[Annabe]

Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Ryan]

Rock Paper, scissors Shoot.

[Drew]

No the Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.comActiveCash terms apply.

[Hannah]

Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using Xumo to stream music from iHeart 90s radio is easy. Or play Iheart country or hip hop beats your choice. All for free. Stream Easy with Zumo Play. Get live and on demand entertainment with no logins, no signups, no accounts, no hassle. This April binge these classics. The Whole Nine Yards starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry adaptation with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep and the Fisher King with Robin Williams. All streaming free on Zumo Play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy.

[Ryan]

They are winning because they've secured the border. And the Democrats unleashed the worst border crisis in American history and Donald Trump ended it in a month. And 87% of Americans according to the New York Times poll show believe that criminal aliens like this guy should be deported. So that's why they're not focusing on the legal side. So a mere 87%, not even half jack in favor of deporting criminal illegal aliens. I could write for the New York.

[Jack]

Times Mark Halperin wrote that he can't believe Democrats are making this their battle.

[Ryan]

Oh, I know, I know. And I guess their, their battle cry is it's a don't make it about this guy. Make it about due process. We're actually going to talk to some folks from the center for Immigration Studies next hour about the due process thing. But dudes and dudettes, the guy's a criminal illegal alien gang member. You not. He is not your Rosa Parks. Right.

[Jack]

I realize if you're a lawyer or constitutionalist or whatever, it's the due process is the issue. But politically, politically people, the average voter sees okay, an illegal criminal. Get him out of here. Next story. That's it.

[Ryan]

So that was Mark Tson's voice you heard coming back back to the story of Kilmart poor name really if his name was Jimmy or something Kilmar. It just doesn't sound good. Anyway, the guy who was shipped off to El Salvador, blah blah blah, due process, blah blah blah Maryland father. Anyway, so this guy got a withholding of removal back in the day because he allegedly he was a support 16 year old who gangs tried to extort into joining their gang. But when this order was giving given he was 23 years old and his family's business no longer existed. So the idea that he could be blackmailed and joining the gang was fairly ridiculous. Rich Lowry writes to succeed in getting a withholding of removal, an alien is supposed to estab. That's the legal word, alien. Feel free to use it. An alien is supposed to establish a risk of persecution based on his race, religion, nationality, membership in particular social group or political opinion. How did this apply to Abrego Garcia? Supposedly his family was the particular social group. This is a stretch since the gang presumably would have treated anyone with a pupusa business the same way. And he also points out that there's the fact that El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele has utterly demolished Barrio 18. The gang doesn't really exist anymore. So here we had a man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who came here illegally and had at best questionable associations. Almost certainly Ms. 13, living and working in the US based on a supposed fear of an all but extinct street gang and its threats over long closed business. And we wonder why we can't control illegal immigration. Congress should eliminate the particular social group category which is often abused. And we should fundamentally rethink how humanitarian protection works. And even if it makes sense to be in the business of granting asylum at all, the Trump administration should not have blown by the immigration judges ruling in Brega Garcia's case. But that is no way to run an immigration system, right? So they should have shipped them back and dotted their I's and crossed their t's. He's right, because as we were talking about earlier, you can do the right thing, but if you do it in the wrong way, the other side can make you the bad guy. So you gotta be careful, right?

[Jack]

You're stepping on your own long tie.

[Ryan]

So you've heard many references into due process. Any American who understands the Constitution cherishes due process. But what does that phrase mean and what does it mean in immigration? And what does it mean with a guy like Garcia? We'll talk to the center for Immigration Study next. If you can't stick around, subscribe to our podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand. Listen to it later.

[Annabe]

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[Molly]

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[Colby]

Hello iHeart listener. We have a confession to make. Both iHeart and this commercial you're listening to right now would probably heck of a lot better on the new Roku Pro series tv. It's got side firing speakers that fill your room with sound, Dolby Atmos audio that puts you right in the middle of the entertainment, and the ability to pair seamlessly with your home theater sound systems that already have surround sound and booming bass. If all that sounds too good to be true, it'll sound even better on the new Roku Pro series. Your hearing isn't better, your TV is.

[Katie]

There's an efficient way to get caught up on a lot of news. It's called the seven from the Washington Post. It's a newsletter and podcast. Whether you're reading or hit play, you get seven stories you need to know and you can consume it all in just a few minutes. The 7 is out every weekday morning by 7:00am Eastern. I'm Hannah Jewell, I'm one of the writers and I host the show. Find the seven Podcast wherever you're listening. The newsletter link is waiting for you in the show notes.

[Hannah]

Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using Xumo to stream music from iheart 90s radio is easy or play Iheart country or hip hop beats your choice. All for free. Stream easy with Zumo play. Get live and on demand entertainment with no logins, no signups, no accounts no hassle this April binge these classics the Whole Nine Yards, starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry. Adaptation with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. And the Fisher King with Robin Williams. All streaming free on Xumo Play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Xumo is easy.