March 7, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 3 of A&G features...
- Abolishing the Department of Education
- Sun burns & McDonald's cameras
- The Trump strategy for the Ukraine/Russia war
- Men in women's sports
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Katty Armstrong and
Jettie and no Hee Armstrong and Yetty. I want to
(00:24):
bring the schools.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I want to bring the schools back to the States.
And and I've said it a hundred times, we're ranked
at the bottom of the list, and yet we spend more.
If you tell me about Indiana and some of these
great states that run really well Iowa. You tell me
about those states, and if they run their own education,
(00:46):
they're going to do a lot better than somebody sitting
in Washington, DC that couldn't care less about the pupils
out in the Midwest.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
No, no, no, no, no, places like New York and LA.
They should set the standards for the kind of education
your kid gets in stupid Iowa and stupid Indiana, and
then the federal government can force it on those people.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Wow, that is some excellent sarcasm there.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I just appreciate Trump's use of the term pupils, which
you don't hear that much anyway. Yeah, well, he's an
old man, he is that. So President Trump is sitting
on is still considering apparently an executive order that some
people thought might come out this week aimed at abolishing
the Education Department. By the way, some of them just
(01:30):
throwing it in there at Trump's age, he's damn near eighty. Yeah,
the last three weeks. Who you me, anyone has worked
three weeks that much that hard at any age, let
alone eighty years old, I'd be in some sort of
rest facility, some sort of resk. God, anyway, back to you,
it's amazing anyway. A draft of the order directs Education
(01:53):
Secretary Linda McMahon to quote, take all necessary steps to
facilitate the closure of the Education Department based on the
maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law. And then and
that just refers to the fact that if Congress starts
a department and tasks it with specific things, really the
best you can do is pare it down to that
(02:15):
which is obviously undeniably what Congress said specifically. But agencies
tend to metastasize and take on a bigger and bigger
list of programs, a lodger remit. As they'd say in
the intellectual community, why can't you talk like regular people.
I'm trying to, you know, to change the world in
the way they were never designed to do. But anyway,
(02:36):
some of the verbiage from the Draft report, the experiment
of controlling American education through federal programs and dollars and
the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support has failed
our children, our teachers, and our families. The draft viewed
was labeled as predecisional.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I like that. I just like that term.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I live my life that way. Watch lots of issues.
I like that color for the drapes. But this is
a predecisional, you know, discussion.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I'm in my predecisional period on a number of things.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
I was thinking to you the other day.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I want you to react to this from from your heart,
from your ticker, from your gut. Two hours spent looking
at granite and other counter surfaces for a kitchen remodel.
So did a new slip off your neck or how
did you end up in that situation? I enjoyed it.
This is how you tell us apart. I thought it
(03:35):
was fun. I perfectly embrace that. Other people are okay
with that.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I yes, dude, I don't understand that on any level whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I can almost convert you I'll convert you on one left.
The variety of colors and patterns that are produced by nature,
by God's creation, are astonishing and beautiful. I've awakened the
poet in your soul. Anyway, So I thought this was great.
(04:05):
Kim Strassel, who's a genius, quoting a lot of really
brilliant women on today's show, which which I think is great.
She's talking about the executive Order. She was writing about
it recently and is in favor of it, and I
love her description, you know, never mind her reasoning, which
is great. But never has a department been more deceptively titled.
(04:26):
To listen to this week's whaling, the Federal Education Department
is the beating heart of our nation's schools, and its
demise a straight line to an illiterate nation. Oh my god,
that's funny. Yeah, yeah, I gotta voice her articles because
she doesn't have an aluw enough voice to say a.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Straight line to an illiterate nation.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
You know, you gotta be scary, and as we practically
are now with de part of Education in charge. Well
wait a minute, yeah, the Education Department is more of
the straight line to an illiterate nation than its absence
would be the re our. Federal Education bureaucracy takes no
part in the daily, hard fought grind of teaching. Little
salute to the great teachers, That sentence goes out to
(05:10):
y'all because you're heroes.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I am stunned by the work a lot of my
kids teachers have done and do just I mean stunned.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It's a lot of teachers' unions are evil. Really hear themselves.
I love you, yeah, yeah. Anyway, So the Federal Education bureaucracy,
it takes no part in the daily, hard fought grind
of teaching. It does not step in classrooms, interview teachers,
or debate curriculum. It doesn't meet with parents, coach sports,
or set bus schedules. The department's only job is to
(05:40):
act as the keeper of the education treats. Every year,
these federal masters get some eighty billion dollars to dispense
on good behavior.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
They hive off a dollop for their own salaries.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well. The rest they dispense as if rewarding a pet.
Good state puppies, those that roll, fetch and fill out
paperwork and triplicate get grants from IDA funds.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Bad puppies lose their school lunch money.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Thus today's inane system in which kids from Taos to
Tallahassee are held hostage to a counterproductive mays of federal
rules that dictate dollars yet waste resources and stemy local innovation.
School stage Bingo nights when staff coach parents to minimize
their salaries on forms so that the school qualifies for
Title I Low Income funding. Wow. Parents and administrators fight
(06:31):
to get kids labeled special needs to score an individual
education plan and extract federal resources. And by the way, folks,
before you fire off an angry email that in no
way implies that any kid with special needs is trying
to do that, not at all. It's like, you know,
riddle in for ADHD. There are some cases that are
absolutely necessary. They're a hell of a lot that aren't.
(06:52):
Having said that, in recent years, the threat of losing
federal funds also sent district scurrying to comply with Joe
Biden's trends gender directives. And then she gives a bunch
of specific examples of the specific grants and how they
they play the tune in the schools have to dance
(07:13):
to it. Whatever you know, whatever the cause, celeb is
restorative justice and transgender you know, boys playing girls' sports
and the rest of it.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
You know, the thing Trump said there at the beginning
should be like the only part of the discussion, and
then go from there. We spend more than anybody else,
we get lower results. Even if you don't want to
compare to other countries, don't compare it to ourselves. We
spend more than we ever have and we get less
out of it. What changed from you know, the year
(07:49):
nineteen ninety or the new year nineteen seventy, that we
have to spend so much money per pupil and then
get a worse result. I mean that seems like such
an obvious How would you get around it?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Sign that things are off the rails? Yeah, I think
it's Washington thrives on this. But we need to return
to a plane spoken sentiment like this has been a failure.
What do you want to try now? As opposed to
the notion that, well, the Department of Education exists and
it does the things it does and we probably shouldn't
(08:23):
mess with it.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
No, it's failed.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
What are you try now? Or somebody just hit you
with teachers or heroes and right, you're supposed to just
recoil an emotional horror from.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You know anything else. And indeed Ms Strassel, much like
mister Armstrong and mister Trump, points out the formula afore
described sent one trillion dollars to schools since nineteen seventy nine,
producing a perfect inverse correlation of plummeting education scores. And
then she makes a point that I love, go ahead,
(08:53):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I mean, that is the end game of the discussion.
We're spending more and getting less need. Something's wrong. We
got to change, like massively change. But this is this
is how you get people to rally.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Jack.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
We've established it needs to change.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Now we're going to get them excited about it by
pissing them off. She writes, Yet what And she went
through gosh six or eight different ways the money flows
to schools for dancing to the tune being a good puppy.
Yet note what these federal funds have in common. The money,
ostensibly for the children, all goes to the adults to
(09:34):
hire more counselors and special ed teachers for those IEPs
sometimes great necessary, but more administrators to run various programs,
including perverse ones, legions of staff to input data, and
guess what. Most of those adults belong to a union
local of the National Education Association or the American Federation
of Teachers, because the keeper of treats was, is and
(09:56):
always will be Jimmy Carter's thank you for Teachers Union endorsements.
Randy Weingarten controls the clicker, and then she's a little
annoyed that Trump has been a little passive on education
so far, but everything else has been so feverish it's
(10:16):
hard to it's easy to forget that. No, no, no,
this is month number two. We'll get to it. It'll
be good. I hope you're Randy Winingarten.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Say hello to Hitler and Ojy when you get to Hell,
because that's where you're headed.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Amen to that.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, she does say he didn't mention school choice in
his address as addressed to Congress this week, which would
have been good. But conservatives are already on the offence
and winning school choices exploding across the States. Those laboratories
and democracy innovating on scholarships, vouchers, savings, accounts, charters. New
generation and conservative leaders are embracing next steps accountability and standards, merit,
(10:52):
pay for teachers, reviving vocational education and parents are loving
it in large measure. One one note, before we eliminate
the Department of Education, and although, honestly to answer myself
before I even make any argument, have the Department of
Justice to it, or Streets and Sanitation or park rangers
(11:14):
or something.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
But we don't need a whold department for this.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But the still breathing Department of Education launched a public
portal last week for parents, students, teachers, and communities to
submit reports of sex and race based discrimination in public
K through twelve schools. The portal is called the nd
DEI Portal and allows the submission of an email address,
(11:38):
the name of students, school or school district, and a
text box for detailing. Hey, even though this DEI racial
discrimination stuff is illegal, now my school is still doing
it and here's how they're doing it.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Wow, that's good because our friend Tim Sandifer, who works
for the Goldwater Institute. He tweeted out today win for Goldwater.
A Pennsylvania school district tried to hide its DEI from
a mom It claimed the materials were copyrighted so they
weren't subject to state's open records law, and Goldwater.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Change that in one Yeah, yeah, I could write a
book right now about ways colleges, especially and lower tiers
of education are getting around all the anti DEI stuff.
I'll give them points for creativity, but they are just
changing names of programs and offices, changing titles, and pretending
(12:34):
to change their admissions while doing precisely the same stuff.
And one more note and then I'll shut up. I
read a really interesting piece. I can't remember who wrote it,
might have been the Free Press. Was talking about how
one of the big problems is the accreditation organizations that
the government has tasked with. And this is the sort
of thing that ought to respond to the private market,
(12:54):
but it doesn't because universities are so woke. But they're
tasked with saying the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, has
good professors and they're teaching good stuff, and.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
We accredit them as a university.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Those organizations are crazy ass woke, the creditors themselves, and
so they're going to the universities and saying, if I
don't see you march in the DEI tune, we're not
going to credit credit you as a university.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, not shocking at all.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Troubling, So coming up trying to put a lipstick on
a pig re Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I'm gonna try to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And also Ai comes to the McDonald's drive through, among
other things.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
On the way, Trump talked about all the good happening,
the damn sis seeds.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
That was Liz Warren. There's so much steam coming from
her ears. I thought you was sending smoke signals me
very mad at Orange Man. Meanwhile, Nancy nod through her
mouth like it was a tough chunk of rice pudding.
George Washington's teeth bit better, and he whittled them out
of mahogany.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
I'd meant to comment on that.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
After the Tuesday night speech, Nancy Pelosi was making never ending,
very old person mouth motions. I saw that.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yeah, yeah, we're all going to be that age someday.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well right, yeah, I'm not going to mock her for it,
but the idea that she was the leader of a
party until like last week is just absurd. I just
ran into my son in the hallway. He said, what
are you doing at home? I'm at home, And the
reason I'm home, as I told him, is because I'm
on the tail end of the flu and my stomach
is not good. This whole flu thing. I'm flying today,
(14:40):
and I'm going to get an aisle seat. If you
know what I'm saying. I need to to be able
do move quickly, move quickly. There are remedies, of course,
you know you're hip to them. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I hate to take some sort of stop me all up.
What do you hate more?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Speaking of medical matters, I just got a call during
the commercial break from my dermatologist.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
They got a slice on me again. And I'm gonna
walk in there.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I've threatened before to bring my own knife and say, yeah,
come at me, let's go.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
You like it, I'm gonna get some, but I've changed
my strategy.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'm gonna walk in there and say, hey, let's save
all of us a little time in trouble. Just skin me,
just take all of it, all right, or at least
my back.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
We'll call it.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Good covering, some sort of cellophane or something. Oh man,
those summer days on the Indiana dunes, all covered with oil.
That's like the only thing going in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
You know how, I always say, name one thing that's
getting better, because everything seems like it's getting worse. One
thing that's getting better is as we stay out of
the sun and our kids, like my kids, I think
one of us had one sunburn and the other one's none,
and their lives and.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I used to get burnt practically every day. Yeah yeah,
with the the cost being paid now with slicings. Anyway, Ah,
what was I going to say, there's a sunburned sunscreen
doing better? They skin you skinning Joe? Yeah, let's uh anyway, ah, jab,
(16:17):
we're not coming off at all like old Al Green
shaking his cave. You can get the fluid any age?
All right? Oh no, I'm yeah, just yeah, man, here's
something exciting. McDonald's is going to use AI computer vision
and facial recognition in store mounted cameras at the drive
(16:38):
through to determine whether the orders are accurate before they're
handed to customers. Oh so, the same technology that is
facial recognition. They're going to look at your bag, I
guess and say it looks like two cheeseburgers and mcflurry
go ahead, give it to him.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
It's necessary.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You know what drives all this, by the way, raising
the minimum waged.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Where they can't afford him employees, so they got little
willing to spend whatever they got to spend to get
rid to eliminate employees ding true fact. Yea, what is
the Trump plan in Russia?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Ukraine?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
We might actually know now we might not armstrong and getty.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
President's Zelensky sent a letter to the President. I think
the President thought that it was a really good, positive
first step. We're now in discussions to uh coordinate a
meeting with the Ukrainians and Rhyod or even potentially Jetta,
and I think the idea is to get down a
framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire ceasefire
(17:37):
as well.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Okay, so Zelensky is playing ball a little more than
he did a week ago. Today, Uh with what Trump wants.
Whether it's just rhetorically or in reality, I don't know
which Trump needs. But uh, and here's Trump yesterday talking
(17:58):
about the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
What's going to happen is Ukraine wants to make a
deal because I don't think they have a choice. I
also think that Russia wants to make a deal because
in a certain different way, a different way that only
I know, only.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I know, they have no choice either.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
So what was that the entire foreign policy establishment wants
to know in a certain way that only I know,
only I know Russia needs to make a deal.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Also, what is that oh boy? Whether that's oh boy
threat that hasn't been said out loud, or we are
more aware of their near collapse of either the economy
or the military or something. When Trump last time around
(18:50):
appeared to be kissing up to Putin, he secretly implanted
a painless chip under Putin's skin that is, in fact,
to tiny nuclear device he can blow his head off
with the flip of a switch. I don't.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
I am so intrigued by that.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I've got a button and it's right next to my
diet coke button here at the desk, So I gotta
make sure.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I don't get him mixed up. But if I press
this button, it'll blow your head clean off your shoulders.
So let's get down to business. Yeah, wow, that's is
that Trumpian bull duty or hard to say? But so
I want to preface with this just for my own
conscience that I am not trying to spend this like I.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Think Trump has handled this beautifully and I'm all in
favor of everything that's happening. He said some to me
just horrific things about the war in Ukraine and equivocating
between Russian and that, like they're equal, and I don't
get that at all. But that being said, he might
through all of that haze of the way Trump does things,
(20:08):
there might be a strategy. According to even David Ignatius
in the Washington Post today. And I came to this
through Mark Halprin's newsletter where he said, the foreign policy
world of.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Washington, d c.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
And they are a thing, the foreign policy what is
the right term, something.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Contingent.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
They're more or less permanent, I mean, like the State
Department and a whole bunch of other thinkers and everything
like that. They stay there as presidents come and go,
and they are starting to wake up to according to
Mark Halprin, to a possible strategy that Trump's got here,
and that David Ignacius writes a little bit about in
the Washington Post today. First of all, David Ignacius writing,
(20:51):
and he does not like Donald Trump, but he writes,
give Trump this much. He's right that the time has
come to end the horrific Ukraine War. And he's right
too that the United States needs to re establish a
relationship with the Kremlin to play an effective mediating role. Okay,
so you got to do whatever you gotta do to
(21:11):
get Putin to talk to you. And one you have
to talk to him too. You have to come up
with a way to get him.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
To talk to you, right, yeah, and send the message, Hey,
we're not coming in to lop your head off in
spite of my earlier idea or coming into broker this.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
So we're gonna be cool. Can you be cool?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Here's the paradox at the core of the negotiations, writes
David Ignatius. Though Ukrainian President Vladimir de Zelenski has bristled
at Trump's pressure, he badly needs a ceasefire. His forces
are tired and depleted and could begin to buckle in
the next six months. As for Russian President Vladimir Putin,
he has welcomed Trump's embrace, but he doesn't want to
cease fire unless it gives him the victory. He hasn't
(21:51):
won on the battlefield, because while Russia has been somewhat successful,
they're not anywhere near what Putin was open for.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I read a great think piece that said Putin has
lost this war by any of his definitions. It's been
a miserable failure in spite of the territory game.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
In fact, to you, the diplomatic agenda was summed up
well by Keith Kellogg yesterday. He's the retired Army lieutenant
general who's serving as Trump's Ukraine envoy. What you're seeing
now are urgent efforts to bring both sides to the
table to get a peace settlement. Bringing both sides to
the table means applying pressure points and incentives, sticks and carrots,
he said.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yesterday Putin and I don't know if he's just waking
up to this or what.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Puttn has been feasting on these carrots for months. But
the Kremlin suddenly began sounding truculent this week and offered
by Britain and France to provide troops for a deterrent
force after a ceasefire brought a nasty response Thursday from
last we will categorically not tolerate such actions. European troops
in Ukraine would amount to official and undisguised participation of
(23:08):
NATO countries in a war against the Russian Federation.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So that's what we were talking about the other day.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is Trump just trying to like slip this by the
world and putin by being so belligerent and so over
the top hard on Ukraine, like behind the scenes, in
front of the scenes, cutting intelligence, cutting services, callings, let's
get a dictator, all this different sort of stuff, and
(23:34):
then the reality was gonna be Russia wakes up and
lait a second, there are thirty thousand NATO troops here
and a brand new United States business full of business
people and trucks and everything like that.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Ah the hell did that happen?
Speaker 6 (23:49):
Is?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Is that what Trump's secret strategy is? I mean, that's
what David Ignations is saying. And I don't know. And
it's a face saving thing too, of as you should
know if you don't know, face is so much a
diplomacy is letting people walk away with their pride and
or at least you know, if you're a dictator, well
it's a dictator. Whether you're a dictator or you're elected,
(24:11):
you have to have your people feeling like you didn't
get played, and you need to be able to present
it that way.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, they call it legitimacy and political science. Sometimes it
comes through the ballot box. Sometimes it comes through the
point of a bayonet. Sometimes with a dictator, it's a
combination of yeah, I don't want to speak out because
they don't want to go to jail.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Plus life's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
But there are many many cases in history where if
life is pretty crappy, and Russia has some pretty serious
economic problems and social problems right now, I mean really
really serious. I wonder if the you know, Trump has
a hard time sitting unclassified information. There are a couple
of times through his tenure where, for instance, the Israelis
got crazy, pissed off or whatever, but he's obviously sitting
(24:54):
on something big.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
If you don't see get information, you put it in
the back to mar a Lago, you pull the shower
curtains so nobody can see it.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Everything's fun.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Well right, yeah, I'm fine with it.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But yeah, so anyway, I wonder whether the classified stuff
he can barely keep to himself has to do with
ugh OLLI garks who are really really pissed off at Putin,
because remember they accumulated a large share of their wealth
by dealing with the West, doing business with Europe, for instance,
(25:24):
and Putin and his little warfs screwed all of that up.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
I just I don't know what it could be, but
it's intriguing.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Well again, and I'm not trying to work too hard
to give Trump credit for this master plan. But for instance,
this week, Left Leaning TV was playing some of Russian
TV to say, see how this is playing back in
Russia where he got They're showing clips of Trump yelling
(25:50):
at Zelensky, at Jadvans yelling at Zelensky. They're playing that
on Russian TV. Well maybe that's so Putin can say, see,
we won, and when the settlement is done, I won.
I got twenty percent of the land. Zelensky's the punk.
Even according to the President of the United States. While
at the end of the day there are now thirty
thousand NATO troops there, we've established a business which is
(26:11):
practically the same as having troops there, and we're not
gonna let American material and business people be attacked by Russia.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
So I mean, that's the that's the way.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Even uh Starmer British Prime Minister said that the other day.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
He said it out loud.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
He said, if the United States has a major business
interest in the Ukraine, that's our.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Backstop right right.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You know, Originally I thought you and David Ignatius were
hinting that Trump was trying to swell, as you said,
slip one past Putin, and I think that's that's fantasy.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
He's just too calculating.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But the whole preserving his claim to legitimacy and victory thing.
Now that that that's got my attention. That is signific again,
even in a dictatorship. More on that and several other
fascinating topics in a moment.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yes, well, yeah, the one most confusing part to me
about Trump's strategy after this.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
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Speaker 3 (28:13):
The only thing I don't understand about this is if
this is a strategy, is why wouldn't you let Zelensky
in on it behind the scenes. Hey, I'm gonna have
to yell at you and make it look like we're
really sticking it to you.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
But at the end of the day, what's you know
and explain to Zelensky.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
And maybe Zelensky wouldn't agree with this because polling shows
Ukrainians still want to fight and he can't blame them
at all. But if the President said to him, look,
you're not getting that land back, and Zelensky's even said
we might not get all the land back. But if
Trump said to him, look, you're not getting to let
the land back. But at the end of the day,
here's what's going to happen. We're going to have a
(28:49):
vested business interest, which is same as a military interest,
and they are going to be thirty thousand NATO troops there.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So that is your protection, all right. Why wouldn't you
say that behind the scenes of the Zolensky instead of
having him It certainly would seem like completely confused by
the whole thing. I don't know what standards there are
for Ukrainian TV, but Zelensky is not only a performer,
an actor, a comedian, but like the most popular one
(29:19):
could be, he's in on it. He's playing his role
as the the butt hurt. I thought we were allies
guy to a t jack. He sucked you in. Now
that's nine dimensional chess with a time machine. That's just
one final perspective about Putin and and Kremlinology has always
(29:41):
been in exact science at best. But this bloke, Rod
Martin is that that's not his name, is it.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I'd like to give credit words too, But.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
He's talking about how Putin's control of Russia pales in
comparison to the Soviet Union's control, because you know, under
Stalin especially, the Communist Party was the organ by which
the control took place, and they were in every village,
practically every cottage. In every village there were a pair
of Communist Party eyes keeping an eye on things. And
(30:12):
they got paid back through you know, patronage and money
and power and the rest of it. But it's really
now just the oligarchs, and the control of the Russian
countryside is much less direct. And so this guy thinks, well,
he asked questions, is Putin in control? And to what
extent are the oligarchs of one mind? And what happens
(30:34):
when the war ends? The oligarchs don't want the regime
to fall, but whether they want Putin at the top
is another matter. So he just thinks it's much less
stable in Russia than we might think in the West.
Who knows, you gotta think that the gazillionaires there in
Russia have been saying to each other, if not to
Putin's face, what are we getting out of this? Well,
(30:54):
they were as rich as any human beings have ever
been prior to the invasion of Ukraine. What do I
need this for so you can feel like Peter the Great?
What's it for me? Do you want to take a break?
George Friedman wrote the piece, Thank you very much, Mike,
we got to take a break. I was just gonna
(31:16):
say putin coming out of COVID with that megal maniacle
I want to be the next Czar and grow the
giant Russian empire across the world. If his concern really
was NATO getting too close and playing foots you with.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Ukraine, why wouldn't he just say that?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Why is he putting out long fantasy screens about being
the new czar people who believe it was the West's fault? Coincidence? Right? Yeah,
good point. Okay, more on the way, stay here, Friday, y'all.
In my oldest kid's birthday, which means I've been a
parent for fifteen years as of today. Am no wonder
(31:56):
I know soul?
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Your oldness?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Is that the explanation the exhaustion of being a parent?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Oh? Oh yeah, that too. Yeah, and the flu doesn't help.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Now, we could bring you some exciting results from America's
track and Field Championships, where dudes have beat down girls
in girls' sportsmen not in the mood for that. There
are some notable ones, including a race where the two
top female contenders said, we're not participating in this farce.
I'm just shocked.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I'm shocked that doesn't happen more often. I understand why
you've been training your whole life, but I'm amazed there
aren't more parents that just lose their minds.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I would lose my mind. They'd have to get the cops. Yeah. Yeah,
you heard when that boy triple jumper whooped up on
the girls and beat them by eight feet eight feet
in a California match. All the folks in the stands
are like, oh my god, can you believe this? They
(32:55):
were disgusted and talk to each other, but they made
no formal protest, whether out of conformity, not wanting to
embarrass their children, or not wanting to target the confused
child involved.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
I get that it's not necessarily cowardice.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
I don't think I could stop myself. I really don't
think I could. I think I would run in front
of the stands and say, who's with me? This is ridiculous?
Does anybody disagree?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah? Yeah, but we're talking about what I said. We're
not going to be talking about which we do all
the time because it's a great topic. But you know,
one of the themes has been picking and choosing what
the modern world presents to you, because taking the whole package,
I don't think is a very good idea.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
And the theme might be better stated as.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
The people trying to sell you the modern world do
not have your best interests at heart. There's another example
of it, and this is not old man shaking fisted clouds,
because it's not just the amount of changes. The pace
of change that I think is so dizzying to people
right now and they don't have time to slowly take
it in and decide whether, all right, do we want
a television set in our house? How much can the
(34:07):
kids watch? What shows can the kids watch? It's just
it all comes on like a tsunami. Anyway, This headline
caught my eye because I've kind of been on this
kick lately. No granola eye. But ultra processed foods make
up over half of American diets, even at home. Oh
according to a recent study, it's fifty four percent of
(34:29):
the diet at home and almost sixty one percent away
from home, challenging the assumption that home cooking is automatically
healthier because a lot of home cooking as you take
some convenience food out of the freezer and heat it
up and eat it, but it's ultra processed, lots of chemicals,
you know, lots of weird industrial inputs, as opposed to
(34:52):
minimally processed foods like fruits, vegetables and unaltered meats. That's
declined significantly, drop from just thirty percent of at home
calories and twenty four percent of away from home calories
by twenty eighteen. That's weird and weirdly worded anyway, And
these trends were consistent across almost all demographic groups, suggesting
(35:15):
widespread structural factors rather than individual choices or driving the
shift toward more processed diets. I'm not sure i'd phrase
that the same way either. I would just say, much
like you know, the wonders of the Internet and social
media and all sorts of things, appeared to be all
good and it took us while to recognize the bad.
(35:36):
Having incredibly delicious, ridiculously convenient food at our fingertips all
the time seemed to be a dream come true. He
left out cheap, Yeah, no kidding, but with everybody obese
and young people developing cancer at rates that they never
have before, and all sorts of stuff. I think it's
yet another example of yeah, the people who are profiting
(35:58):
from this stuff or I absolutely love it. Is this
something you would choose if you sat down and thought
about it. I'm working with RFK JR.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
If you missed a segment, get the podcast Armstrong and
Getty on demand
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Katty Armstrong and
Jettie and no Hee Armstrong and Yetty. I want to
(00:24):
bring the schools.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I want to bring the schools back to the States.
And and I've said it a hundred times, we're ranked
at the bottom of the list, and yet we spend more.
If you tell me about Indiana and some of these
great states that run really well Iowa. You tell me
about those states, and if they run their own education,
(00:46):
they're going to do a lot better than somebody sitting
in Washington, DC that couldn't care less about the pupils
out in the Midwest.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
No, no, no, no, no, places like New York and LA.
They should set the standards for the kind of education
your kid gets in stupid Iowa and stupid Indiana, and
then the federal government can force it on those people.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Wow, that is some excellent sarcasm there.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I just appreciate Trump's use of the term pupils, which
you don't hear that much anyway. Yeah, well, he's an
old man, he is that. So President Trump is sitting
on is still considering apparently an executive order that some
people thought might come out this week aimed at abolishing
the Education Department. By the way, some of them just
(01:30):
throwing it in there at Trump's age, he's damn near eighty. Yeah,
the last three weeks. Who you me, anyone has worked
three weeks that much that hard at any age, let
alone eighty years old, I'd be in some sort of
rest facility, some sort of resk. God, anyway, back to you,
it's amazing anyway. A draft of the order directs Education
(01:53):
Secretary Linda McMahon to quote, take all necessary steps to
facilitate the closure of the Education Department based on the
maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law. And then and
that just refers to the fact that if Congress starts
a department and tasks it with specific things, really the
best you can do is pare it down to that
(02:15):
which is obviously undeniably what Congress said specifically. But agencies
tend to metastasize and take on a bigger and bigger
list of programs, a lodger remit. As they'd say in
the intellectual community, why can't you talk like regular people.
I'm trying to, you know, to change the world in
the way they were never designed to do. But anyway,
(02:36):
some of the verbiage from the Draft report, the experiment
of controlling American education through federal programs and dollars and
the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support has failed
our children, our teachers, and our families. The draft viewed
was labeled as predecisional.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I like that. I just like that term.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I live my life that way. Watch lots of issues.
I like that color for the drapes. But this is
a predecisional, you know, discussion.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I'm in my predecisional period on a number of things.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
I was thinking to you the other day.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I want you to react to this from from your heart,
from your ticker, from your gut. Two hours spent looking
at granite and other counter surfaces for a kitchen remodel.
So did a new slip off your neck or how
did you end up in that situation? I enjoyed it.
This is how you tell us apart. I thought it
(03:35):
was fun. I perfectly embrace that. Other people are okay
with that.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I yes, dude, I don't understand that on any level whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I can almost convert you I'll convert you on one left.
The variety of colors and patterns that are produced by nature,
by God's creation, are astonishing and beautiful. I've awakened the
poet in your soul. Anyway, So I thought this was great.
(04:05):
Kim Strassel, who's a genius, quoting a lot of really
brilliant women on today's show, which which I think is great.
She's talking about the executive Order. She was writing about
it recently and is in favor of it, and I
love her description, you know, never mind her reasoning, which
is great. But never has a department been more deceptively titled.
(04:26):
To listen to this week's whaling, the Federal Education Department
is the beating heart of our nation's schools, and its
demise a straight line to an illiterate nation. Oh my god,
that's funny. Yeah, yeah, I gotta voice her articles because
she doesn't have an aluw enough voice to say a.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Straight line to an illiterate nation.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
You know, you gotta be scary, and as we practically
are now with de part of Education in charge. Well
wait a minute, yeah, the Education Department is more of
the straight line to an illiterate nation than its absence
would be the re our. Federal Education bureaucracy takes no
part in the daily, hard fought grind of teaching. Little
salute to the great teachers, That sentence goes out to
(05:10):
y'all because you're heroes.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I am stunned by the work a lot of my
kids teachers have done and do just I mean stunned.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It's a lot of teachers' unions are evil. Really hear themselves.
I love you, yeah, yeah. Anyway, So the Federal Education bureaucracy,
it takes no part in the daily, hard fought grind
of teaching. It does not step in classrooms, interview teachers,
or debate curriculum. It doesn't meet with parents, coach sports,
or set bus schedules. The department's only job is to
(05:40):
act as the keeper of the education treats. Every year,
these federal masters get some eighty billion dollars to dispense
on good behavior.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
They hive off a dollop for their own salaries.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well. The rest they dispense as if rewarding a pet.
Good state puppies, those that roll, fetch and fill out
paperwork and triplicate get grants from IDA funds.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Bad puppies lose their school lunch money.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Thus today's inane system in which kids from Taos to
Tallahassee are held hostage to a counterproductive mays of federal
rules that dictate dollars yet waste resources and stemy local innovation.
School stage Bingo nights when staff coach parents to minimize
their salaries on forms so that the school qualifies for
Title I Low Income funding. Wow. Parents and administrators fight
(06:31):
to get kids labeled special needs to score an individual
education plan and extract federal resources. And by the way, folks,
before you fire off an angry email that in no
way implies that any kid with special needs is trying
to do that, not at all. It's like, you know,
riddle in for ADHD. There are some cases that are
absolutely necessary. They're a hell of a lot that aren't.
(06:52):
Having said that, in recent years, the threat of losing
federal funds also sent district scurrying to comply with Joe
Biden's trends gender directives. And then she gives a bunch
of specific examples of the specific grants and how they
they play the tune in the schools have to dance
(07:13):
to it. Whatever you know, whatever the cause, celeb is
restorative justice and transgender you know, boys playing girls' sports
and the rest of it.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
You know, the thing Trump said there at the beginning
should be like the only part of the discussion, and
then go from there. We spend more than anybody else,
we get lower results. Even if you don't want to
compare to other countries, don't compare it to ourselves. We
spend more than we ever have and we get less
out of it. What changed from you know, the year
(07:49):
nineteen ninety or the new year nineteen seventy, that we
have to spend so much money per pupil and then
get a worse result. I mean that seems like such
an obvious How would you get around it?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Sign that things are off the rails? Yeah, I think
it's Washington thrives on this. But we need to return
to a plane spoken sentiment like this has been a failure.
What do you want to try now? As opposed to
the notion that, well, the Department of Education exists and
it does the things it does and we probably shouldn't
(08:23):
mess with it.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
No, it's failed.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
What are you try now? Or somebody just hit you
with teachers or heroes and right, you're supposed to just
recoil an emotional horror from.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You know anything else. And indeed Ms Strassel, much like
mister Armstrong and mister Trump, points out the formula afore
described sent one trillion dollars to schools since nineteen seventy nine,
producing a perfect inverse correlation of plummeting education scores. And
then she makes a point that I love, go ahead,
(08:53):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I mean, that is the end game of the discussion.
We're spending more and getting less need. Something's wrong. We
got to change, like massively change. But this is this
is how you get people to rally.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Jack.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
We've established it needs to change.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Now we're going to get them excited about it by
pissing them off. She writes, Yet what And she went
through gosh six or eight different ways the money flows
to schools for dancing to the tune being a good puppy.
Yet note what these federal funds have in common. The money,
ostensibly for the children, all goes to the adults to
(09:34):
hire more counselors and special ed teachers for those IEPs
sometimes great necessary, but more administrators to run various programs,
including perverse ones, legions of staff to input data, and
guess what. Most of those adults belong to a union
local of the National Education Association or the American Federation
of Teachers, because the keeper of treats was, is and
(09:56):
always will be Jimmy Carter's thank you for Teachers Union endorsements.
Randy Weingarten controls the clicker, and then she's a little
annoyed that Trump has been a little passive on education
so far, but everything else has been so feverish it's
(10:16):
hard to it's easy to forget that. No, no, no,
this is month number two. We'll get to it. It'll
be good. I hope you're Randy Winingarten.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Say hello to Hitler and Ojy when you get to Hell,
because that's where you're headed.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Amen to that.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, she does say he didn't mention school choice in
his address as addressed to Congress this week, which would
have been good. But conservatives are already on the offence
and winning school choices exploding across the States. Those laboratories
and democracy innovating on scholarships, vouchers, savings, accounts, charters. New
generation and conservative leaders are embracing next steps accountability and standards, merit,
(10:52):
pay for teachers, reviving vocational education and parents are loving
it in large measure. One one note, before we eliminate
the Department of Education, and although, honestly to answer myself
before I even make any argument, have the Department of
Justice to it, or Streets and Sanitation or park rangers
(11:14):
or something.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
But we don't need a whold department for this.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But the still breathing Department of Education launched a public
portal last week for parents, students, teachers, and communities to
submit reports of sex and race based discrimination in public
K through twelve schools. The portal is called the nd
DEI Portal and allows the submission of an email address,
(11:38):
the name of students, school or school district, and a
text box for detailing. Hey, even though this DEI racial
discrimination stuff is illegal, now my school is still doing
it and here's how they're doing it.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Wow, that's good because our friend Tim Sandifer, who works
for the Goldwater Institute. He tweeted out today win for Goldwater.
A Pennsylvania school district tried to hide its DEI from
a mom It claimed the materials were copyrighted so they
weren't subject to state's open records law, and Goldwater.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Change that in one Yeah, yeah, I could write a
book right now about ways colleges, especially and lower tiers
of education are getting around all the anti DEI stuff.
I'll give them points for creativity, but they are just
changing names of programs and offices, changing titles, and pretending
(12:34):
to change their admissions while doing precisely the same stuff.
And one more note and then I'll shut up. I
read a really interesting piece. I can't remember who wrote it,
might have been the Free Press. Was talking about how
one of the big problems is the accreditation organizations that
the government has tasked with. And this is the sort
of thing that ought to respond to the private market,
(12:54):
but it doesn't because universities are so woke. But they're
tasked with saying the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, has
good professors and they're teaching good stuff, and.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
We accredit them as a university.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Those organizations are crazy ass woke, the creditors themselves, and
so they're going to the universities and saying, if I
don't see you march in the DEI tune, we're not
going to credit credit you as a university.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, not shocking at all.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Troubling, So coming up trying to put a lipstick on
a pig re Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I'm gonna try to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And also Ai comes to the McDonald's drive through, among
other things.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
On the way, Trump talked about all the good happening,
the damn sis seeds.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
That was Liz Warren. There's so much steam coming from
her ears. I thought you was sending smoke signals me
very mad at Orange Man. Meanwhile, Nancy nod through her
mouth like it was a tough chunk of rice pudding.
George Washington's teeth bit better, and he whittled them out
of mahogany.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
I'd meant to comment on that.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
After the Tuesday night speech, Nancy Pelosi was making never ending,
very old person mouth motions. I saw that.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yeah, yeah, we're all going to be that age someday.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well right, yeah, I'm not going to mock her for it,
but the idea that she was the leader of a
party until like last week is just absurd. I just
ran into my son in the hallway. He said, what
are you doing at home? I'm at home, And the
reason I'm home, as I told him, is because I'm
on the tail end of the flu and my stomach
is not good. This whole flu thing. I'm flying today,
(14:40):
and I'm going to get an aisle seat. If you
know what I'm saying. I need to to be able
do move quickly, move quickly. There are remedies, of course,
you know you're hip to them. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I hate to take some sort of stop me all up.
What do you hate more?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Speaking of medical matters, I just got a call during
the commercial break from my dermatologist.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
They got a slice on me again. And I'm gonna
walk in there.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I've threatened before to bring my own knife and say, yeah,
come at me, let's go.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
You like it, I'm gonna get some, but I've changed
my strategy.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'm gonna walk in there and say, hey, let's save
all of us a little time in trouble. Just skin me,
just take all of it, all right, or at least
my back.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
We'll call it.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Good covering, some sort of cellophane or something. Oh man,
those summer days on the Indiana dunes, all covered with oil.
That's like the only thing going in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
You know how, I always say, name one thing that's
getting better, because everything seems like it's getting worse. One
thing that's getting better is as we stay out of
the sun and our kids, like my kids, I think
one of us had one sunburn and the other one's none,
and their lives and.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I used to get burnt practically every day. Yeah yeah,
with the the cost being paid now with slicings. Anyway, Ah,
what was I going to say, there's a sunburned sunscreen
doing better? They skin you skinning Joe? Yeah, let's uh anyway, ah, jab,
(16:17):
we're not coming off at all like old Al Green
shaking his cave. You can get the fluid any age?
All right? Oh no, I'm yeah, just yeah, man, here's
something exciting. McDonald's is going to use AI computer vision
and facial recognition in store mounted cameras at the drive
(16:38):
through to determine whether the orders are accurate before they're
handed to customers. Oh so, the same technology that is
facial recognition. They're going to look at your bag, I
guess and say it looks like two cheeseburgers and mcflurry
go ahead, give it to him.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
It's necessary.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You know what drives all this, by the way, raising
the minimum waged.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Where they can't afford him employees, so they got little
willing to spend whatever they got to spend to get
rid to eliminate employees ding true fact. Yea, what is
the Trump plan in Russia?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Ukraine?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
We might actually know now we might not armstrong and getty.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
President's Zelensky sent a letter to the President. I think
the President thought that it was a really good, positive
first step. We're now in discussions to uh coordinate a
meeting with the Ukrainians and Rhyod or even potentially Jetta,
and I think the idea is to get down a
framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire ceasefire
(17:37):
as well.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Okay, so Zelensky is playing ball a little more than
he did a week ago. Today, Uh with what Trump wants.
Whether it's just rhetorically or in reality, I don't know
which Trump needs. But uh, and here's Trump yesterday talking
(17:58):
about the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
What's going to happen is Ukraine wants to make a
deal because I don't think they have a choice. I
also think that Russia wants to make a deal because
in a certain different way, a different way that only
I know, only.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I know, they have no choice either.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
So what was that the entire foreign policy establishment wants
to know in a certain way that only I know,
only I know Russia needs to make a deal.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Also, what is that oh boy? Whether that's oh boy
threat that hasn't been said out loud, or we are
more aware of their near collapse of either the economy
or the military or something. When Trump last time around
(18:50):
appeared to be kissing up to Putin, he secretly implanted
a painless chip under Putin's skin that is, in fact,
to tiny nuclear device he can blow his head off
with the flip of a switch. I don't.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
I am so intrigued by that.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I've got a button and it's right next to my
diet coke button here at the desk, So I gotta
make sure.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I don't get him mixed up. But if I press
this button, it'll blow your head clean off your shoulders.
So let's get down to business. Yeah, wow, that's is
that Trumpian bull duty or hard to say? But so
I want to preface with this just for my own
conscience that I am not trying to spend this like I.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Think Trump has handled this beautifully and I'm all in
favor of everything that's happening. He said some to me
just horrific things about the war in Ukraine and equivocating
between Russian and that, like they're equal, and I don't
get that at all. But that being said, he might
through all of that haze of the way Trump does things,
(20:08):
there might be a strategy. According to even David Ignatius
in the Washington Post today. And I came to this
through Mark Halprin's newsletter where he said, the foreign policy
world of.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Washington, d c.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
And they are a thing, the foreign policy what is
the right term, something.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Contingent.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
They're more or less permanent, I mean, like the State
Department and a whole bunch of other thinkers and everything
like that. They stay there as presidents come and go,
and they are starting to wake up to according to
Mark Halprin, to a possible strategy that Trump's got here,
and that David Ignacius writes a little bit about in
the Washington Post today. First of all, David Ignacius writing,
(20:51):
and he does not like Donald Trump, but he writes,
give Trump this much. He's right that the time has
come to end the horrific Ukraine War. And he's right
too that the United States needs to re establish a
relationship with the Kremlin to play an effective mediating role. Okay,
so you got to do whatever you gotta do to
(21:11):
get Putin to talk to you. And one you have
to talk to him too. You have to come up
with a way to get him.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
To talk to you, right, yeah, and send the message, Hey,
we're not coming in to lop your head off in
spite of my earlier idea or coming into broker this.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
So we're gonna be cool. Can you be cool?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Here's the paradox at the core of the negotiations, writes
David Ignatius. Though Ukrainian President Vladimir de Zelenski has bristled
at Trump's pressure, he badly needs a ceasefire. His forces
are tired and depleted and could begin to buckle in
the next six months. As for Russian President Vladimir Putin,
he has welcomed Trump's embrace, but he doesn't want to
cease fire unless it gives him the victory. He hasn't
(21:51):
won on the battlefield, because while Russia has been somewhat successful,
they're not anywhere near what Putin was open for.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I read a great think piece that said Putin has
lost this war by any of his definitions. It's been
a miserable failure in spite of the territory game.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
In fact, to you, the diplomatic agenda was summed up
well by Keith Kellogg yesterday. He's the retired Army lieutenant
general who's serving as Trump's Ukraine envoy. What you're seeing
now are urgent efforts to bring both sides to the
table to get a peace settlement. Bringing both sides to
the table means applying pressure points and incentives, sticks and carrots,
he said.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yesterday Putin and I don't know if he's just waking
up to this or what.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Puttn has been feasting on these carrots for months. But
the Kremlin suddenly began sounding truculent this week and offered
by Britain and France to provide troops for a deterrent
force after a ceasefire brought a nasty response Thursday from
last we will categorically not tolerate such actions. European troops
in Ukraine would amount to official and undisguised participation of
(23:08):
NATO countries in a war against the Russian Federation.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So that's what we were talking about the other day.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is Trump just trying to like slip this by the
world and putin by being so belligerent and so over
the top hard on Ukraine, like behind the scenes, in
front of the scenes, cutting intelligence, cutting services, callings, let's
get a dictator, all this different sort of stuff, and
(23:34):
then the reality was gonna be Russia wakes up and
lait a second, there are thirty thousand NATO troops here
and a brand new United States business full of business
people and trucks and everything like that.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Ah the hell did that happen?
Speaker 6 (23:49):
Is?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Is that what Trump's secret strategy is? I mean, that's
what David Ignations is saying. And I don't know. And
it's a face saving thing too, of as you should
know if you don't know, face is so much a
diplomacy is letting people walk away with their pride and
or at least you know, if you're a dictator, well
it's a dictator. Whether you're a dictator or you're elected,
(24:11):
you have to have your people feeling like you didn't
get played, and you need to be able to present
it that way.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, they call it legitimacy and political science. Sometimes it
comes through the ballot box. Sometimes it comes through the
point of a bayonet. Sometimes with a dictator, it's a
combination of yeah, I don't want to speak out because
they don't want to go to jail.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Plus life's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
But there are many many cases in history where if
life is pretty crappy, and Russia has some pretty serious
economic problems and social problems right now, I mean really
really serious. I wonder if the you know, Trump has
a hard time sitting unclassified information. There are a couple
of times through his tenure where, for instance, the Israelis
got crazy, pissed off or whatever, but he's obviously sitting
(24:54):
on something big.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
If you don't see get information, you put it in
the back to mar a Lago, you pull the shower
curtains so nobody can see it.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Everything's fun.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Well right, yeah, I'm fine with it.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But yeah, so anyway, I wonder whether the classified stuff
he can barely keep to himself has to do with
ugh OLLI garks who are really really pissed off at Putin,
because remember they accumulated a large share of their wealth
by dealing with the West, doing business with Europe, for instance,
(25:24):
and Putin and his little warfs screwed all of that up.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
I just I don't know what it could be, but
it's intriguing.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Well again, and I'm not trying to work too hard
to give Trump credit for this master plan. But for instance,
this week, Left Leaning TV was playing some of Russian
TV to say, see how this is playing back in
Russia where he got They're showing clips of Trump yelling
(25:50):
at Zelensky, at Jadvans yelling at Zelensky. They're playing that
on Russian TV. Well maybe that's so Putin can say, see,
we won, and when the settlement is done, I won.
I got twenty percent of the land. Zelensky's the punk.
Even according to the President of the United States. While
at the end of the day there are now thirty
thousand NATO troops there, we've established a business which is
(26:11):
practically the same as having troops there, and we're not
gonna let American material and business people be attacked by Russia.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
So I mean, that's the that's the way.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Even uh Starmer British Prime Minister said that the other day.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
He said it out loud.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
He said, if the United States has a major business
interest in the Ukraine, that's our.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Backstop right right.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You know, Originally I thought you and David Ignatius were
hinting that Trump was trying to swell, as you said,
slip one past Putin, and I think that's that's fantasy.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
He's just too calculating.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But the whole preserving his claim to legitimacy and victory thing.
Now that that that's got my attention. That is signific again,
even in a dictatorship. More on that and several other
fascinating topics in a moment.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yes, well, yeah, the one most confusing part to me
about Trump's strategy after this.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
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Speaker 3 (28:13):
The only thing I don't understand about this is if
this is a strategy, is why wouldn't you let Zelensky
in on it behind the scenes. Hey, I'm gonna have
to yell at you and make it look like we're
really sticking it to you.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
But at the end of the day, what's you know
and explain to Zelensky.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
And maybe Zelensky wouldn't agree with this because polling shows
Ukrainians still want to fight and he can't blame them
at all. But if the President said to him, look,
you're not getting that land back, and Zelensky's even said
we might not get all the land back. But if
Trump said to him, look, you're not getting to let
the land back. But at the end of the day,
here's what's going to happen. We're going to have a
(28:49):
vested business interest, which is same as a military interest,
and they are going to be thirty thousand NATO troops there.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So that is your protection, all right. Why wouldn't you
say that behind the scenes of the Zolensky instead of
having him It certainly would seem like completely confused by
the whole thing. I don't know what standards there are
for Ukrainian TV, but Zelensky is not only a performer,
an actor, a comedian, but like the most popular one
(29:19):
could be, he's in on it. He's playing his role
as the the butt hurt. I thought we were allies
guy to a t jack. He sucked you in. Now
that's nine dimensional chess with a time machine. That's just
one final perspective about Putin and and Kremlinology has always
(29:41):
been in exact science at best. But this bloke, Rod
Martin is that that's not his name, is it.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I'd like to give credit words too, But.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
He's talking about how Putin's control of Russia pales in
comparison to the Soviet Union's control, because you know, under
Stalin especially, the Communist Party was the organ by which
the control took place, and they were in every village,
practically every cottage. In every village there were a pair
of Communist Party eyes keeping an eye on things. And
(30:12):
they got paid back through you know, patronage and money
and power and the rest of it. But it's really
now just the oligarchs, and the control of the Russian
countryside is much less direct. And so this guy thinks, well,
he asked questions, is Putin in control? And to what
extent are the oligarchs of one mind? And what happens
(30:34):
when the war ends? The oligarchs don't want the regime
to fall, but whether they want Putin at the top
is another matter. So he just thinks it's much less
stable in Russia than we might think in the West.
Who knows, you gotta think that the gazillionaires there in
Russia have been saying to each other, if not to
Putin's face, what are we getting out of this? Well,
(30:54):
they were as rich as any human beings have ever
been prior to the invasion of Ukraine. What do I
need this for so you can feel like Peter the Great?
What's it for me? Do you want to take a break?
George Friedman wrote the piece, Thank you very much, Mike,
we got to take a break. I was just gonna
(31:16):
say putin coming out of COVID with that megal maniacle
I want to be the next Czar and grow the
giant Russian empire across the world. If his concern really
was NATO getting too close and playing foots you with.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Ukraine, why wouldn't he just say that?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Why is he putting out long fantasy screens about being
the new czar people who believe it was the West's fault? Coincidence? Right? Yeah,
good point. Okay, more on the way, stay here, Friday, y'all.
In my oldest kid's birthday, which means I've been a
parent for fifteen years as of today. Am no wonder
(31:56):
I know soul?
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Your oldness?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Is that the explanation the exhaustion of being a parent?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Oh? Oh yeah, that too. Yeah, and the flu doesn't help.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Now, we could bring you some exciting results from America's
track and Field Championships, where dudes have beat down girls
in girls' sportsmen not in the mood for that. There
are some notable ones, including a race where the two
top female contenders said, we're not participating in this farce.
I'm just shocked.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I'm shocked that doesn't happen more often. I understand why
you've been training your whole life, but I'm amazed there
aren't more parents that just lose their minds.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I would lose my mind. They'd have to get the cops. Yeah. Yeah,
you heard when that boy triple jumper whooped up on
the girls and beat them by eight feet eight feet
in a California match. All the folks in the stands
are like, oh my god, can you believe this? They
(32:55):
were disgusted and talk to each other, but they made
no formal protest, whether out of conformity, not wanting to
embarrass their children, or not wanting to target the confused
child involved.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
I get that it's not necessarily cowardice.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
I don't think I could stop myself. I really don't
think I could. I think I would run in front
of the stands and say, who's with me? This is ridiculous?
Does anybody disagree?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah? Yeah, but we're talking about what I said. We're
not going to be talking about which we do all
the time because it's a great topic. But you know,
one of the themes has been picking and choosing what
the modern world presents to you, because taking the whole package,
I don't think is a very good idea.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
And the theme might be better stated as.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
The people trying to sell you the modern world do
not have your best interests at heart. There's another example
of it, and this is not old man shaking fisted clouds,
because it's not just the amount of changes. The pace
of change that I think is so dizzying to people
right now and they don't have time to slowly take
it in and decide whether, all right, do we want
a television set in our house? How much can the
(34:07):
kids watch? What shows can the kids watch? It's just
it all comes on like a tsunami. Anyway, This headline
caught my eye because I've kind of been on this
kick lately. No granola eye. But ultra processed foods make
up over half of American diets, even at home. Oh
according to a recent study, it's fifty four percent of
(34:29):
the diet at home and almost sixty one percent away
from home, challenging the assumption that home cooking is automatically
healthier because a lot of home cooking as you take
some convenience food out of the freezer and heat it
up and eat it, but it's ultra processed, lots of chemicals,
you know, lots of weird industrial inputs, as opposed to
(34:52):
minimally processed foods like fruits, vegetables and unaltered meats. That's
declined significantly, drop from just thirty percent of at home
calories and twenty four percent of away from home calories
by twenty eighteen. That's weird and weirdly worded anyway, And
these trends were consistent across almost all demographic groups, suggesting
(35:15):
widespread structural factors rather than individual choices or driving the
shift toward more processed diets. I'm not sure i'd phrase
that the same way either. I would just say, much
like you know, the wonders of the Internet and social
media and all sorts of things, appeared to be all
good and it took us while to recognize the bad.
(35:36):
Having incredibly delicious, ridiculously convenient food at our fingertips all
the time seemed to be a dream come true. He
left out cheap, Yeah, no kidding, but with everybody obese
and young people developing cancer at rates that they never
have before, and all sorts of stuff. I think it's
yet another example of yeah, the people who are profiting
(35:58):
from this stuff or I absolutely love it. Is this
something you would choose if you sat down and thought
about it. I'm working with RFK JR.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
If you missed a segment, get the podcast Armstrong and
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Speaker 1 (36:13):
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