April 11, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- David Drucker talks to Jack Armstrong
- An awful subway story... not for the kids!
- Lanhee Chen talks to Jack Armstrong
- How Jack & Joe met!
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 Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Armstrong and Getty and now he Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I do hope and believe that the vote today is
a very strong signal to the markets, to investors, job creators, entrepreneurs,
the people that make the economy run, that the Congress
is going to get us on stout sound footing. And
you can count on that and you can bet on it.
And the auto I think today wud be a great
day to buy stuff.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Speaker Johnson, Congress is going to get us on sound footing. Well,
that would be something we'd like to welcome to the
Armstrong and Getty show. Our old friend David Dructor, who've
been talking to four years, who is now with The Dispatch.
I hear him on a regular basis, senior writer at
the Dispatch, on various TV appearances and Dispatch podcasts which
I hear weekly. It says here David, when Drugger is
(01:04):
not covering American politics for the Dispatch, he enjoys hanging
out with this two boys.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
That's nice.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
That's what I do too. And listening to his wife's
excellent taste in music. Did you write this?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I did write it, But it's true.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
That's interesting that so she have a particularly good taste
and you just sit in there, you sit down and
listen to it in your make.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Let's be clear, even if she have bad taste, she
was sure run the music of the family I understand
to have. But if she has to have extremely good
taste of music.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Oh cool. How old are your kids?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Our oldest turns thirteen on Monday, and our youngest, our
other boy, will be tennis a while.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I have two boys in there, thirteen and fifteen, and
I have just started into the whole teenage thing, which,
like you've learned, as I learned with all of parenting,
every phase is completely different and practically none of your
skills from the last phase are of any use.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
This is one of the first things that I realized
some years ago, was it just when you figure out
how to do it right, they change and you have
to learn all over again.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
I know how to handle a baby, Okay, I know
how to handle a toddler. Okay, I know how to
handle a four year old, But then they're not that anymore,
and so yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I think you probably said.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
This last year. I know lots of pundits. Did man
Trump gets elected? The biggest story first year? Get ready
for this. It's going to be all about the Trump
tax cuts and whether they're renewed or not. This is
going to be the biggest political story in America. Everybody
will be talking about it. Well, we haven't been talking
about it because Trump has been doing so many different
(02:41):
things doge and now tariffs and everything like that that
get all the attention. We haven't been talking about this,
but it's still been kind of burblin behind the scenes.
Tell us where we are with all of this legislation, Well, I.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Mean it gets kind of into the weeds. But in
order to take advantage of this process called record faciliation,
which is a limited legislative process in Congress that allows
you to avoid a filibuster in the Senate, you have
to get the House and the Senate to agree on
what's called a budget resolution, which provides the contours of
(03:18):
taxation and spending and spending cuts but doesn't sell any
of the blanks. But first you have to get the
two chambers to agree on the top line numbers. All right,
we're gonna We're going to cut one hundred and five
trillion in spending, I think is what's in this budget
resolution that finally passed the House after passing the Senate.
(03:40):
We're going to cut taxes of this much. I don't
know all these numbers in my head, We're going to
spend this much. And so then once you do that,
then the committees you know the ways it means committee,
Energy and Commerce, Committee or whatever you know in the Senate,
the Finance Committee and whatever, all the committees of jurisdiction
can then go about processing actual detailed legislation with all
(04:03):
the numbers, and then you know the plan is, and
this is how it's worked in the past. You know,
you get to a point where the party that's running
the reconciliation bill, because both parties have used this process,
they agree and then they run votes, and then the
opposition cries foul and then it passes. Now, you know,
one of the things about reconciliation is you can't just
(04:25):
do anything right, can't You can't just do any policy
and have to have taxing and bending implications.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Is there a judge on this, like somebody are paneled?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Well, there's a part, there's a parliamentarian in the House
and a parliamentarian in the Senate. Of course, the House
in the Senate can overrule their parliamentarian to some degree.
You know, in two thousand and nine, when the Democrats
lost their super majority in the Senate, there's sixty of
vote because Scott Brown was elected to Kennedy who had
(04:57):
passed away. It looked like Democrats may not be able
to finish the process of passing the legislation that we
call Obamacare, and instead they just basically stretched the limits
of what reconciliation was able to do. Under Perry Reads leadership,
he was the majority leader, and they passed it even
though they didn't have sixty votes. And when you don't
(05:20):
have sixty votes, all you need is fifty one or
a simple majority. However that works out, the vice president
can you be the tie breaking vote. So listen, I've
always thought that they would get the reconciliation build on
one way or the other, especially given Trump's standing in
the Republican Party. But Trump, as he likes to do,
finds other ways to sideline what should be his best
(05:43):
and biggest story, and that's by his ill fated attempt
to reshape global trade, which was never going to work
out the way he wanted it to. Still won't work
out the way he wants it to, and it has
caused the market's pain. But when the markets have pain,
you know, somebody who used to run a small business,
I can tell you small businesses end up having pain
because Main Street is inextricably linked to Wall Street. People
(06:07):
may not think they're invested, but their pensions are, and
you know, their four on one ks are, the retirement
counts are, and people have pensions, they have retirement accounts.
It also, you know, impacts treasury bonds, meaning you know
the price of debt that the US government sells, and
(06:28):
then that impacts interest rates. So even if you have
no money in the market but you want a car
loan or a mortgage for a home, I mean, there's
just no way around it, right, There's no protection from
this stuff. So that's why we haven't been talking about
this because Trump decided he didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Right, Well, does he feel like it's to his advantage
to not be talking about the whole renew and the
taxes and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, I don't know. But even for Trump, and sometimes
it seems illogical, but you know he has his I mean,
he wasn'tlected president twice, and he's a really good politician
talking about how he's going to cut taxes for average Americans,
which which is what is in this bill, right. I mean,
you know, everybody focuses on the income tax cuts, but
you know, the funny thing about the tax bill, right,
(07:14):
what they want to do is sort of make the
Trump tax cuts from the first term, right, pre bide
and permanent. And Democrats did a really good job of
convincing people these were all tax cuts for the rich,
but actually a lot of middle class and lower class
Americans receive tax benefits. Some people don't even pay income
taxes anymore because of the first Trump tax bill and
(07:36):
this new bill, you know, no taxes on tips, no
taxes on Social Security income. I believe you want to
put a measure in there that says, if you, you know,
are financing an American made car, you can write off
the interest. So there's all this stuff in there for
regular people so called. And you know, people may complain
about the capital gains cuts, but you know, cutting capital
(07:58):
gains is really good for an investment, which means people
can invest in things that resulted more jobs and you know,
wealthy people buying products and things that middle class people
are building. So I don't see why Trump wouldn't want
to be talking about this. But he has always liked Paris,
(08:19):
he has always believed. He doesn't believe many things, but
he believes a few things. And this thing with trade
he's believed going back to the nineteen.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Yeah, we've played the clips of him on Oprah or
Letterman or wherever.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah. And the thing is, you know, if anybody thought
he wasn't going to do this, they were just silly,
because all you have to do is listen to what
he said and understand that if he was going to
be re elected after everything that went on at the
end of the first term and in the middle of
the first and second term, exactly why was he going
to show up and feel hesitant to do what he
wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Well, I wouldn't be if I was in That's what
I've been talking about my whole life.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, but that's common sense. It's but a lot of
you know, there are a lot of Republican donors and
a lot of the people that supported him, and it
makes sell us and I understand you know, totally makes
sense him over eris, you know, on balance. But the
idea that you didn't build in what he's done in
the past couple of weeks or the past couple of months, really,
(09:14):
that you didn't build into the price of admission what
this might cost you. I mean, that just shows you
that even people with money aren't always that bright.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I was gonna throw out as a trivia question earlier
today just because it's extraordinary, how much has been going
on in the last couple of months.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
How long has Trump been president?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Today is day eighty two, eighty two days he's been president,
and it seems like it's been years of stories and reporting.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
David Drucker of The Dispatch here, Hey, you said you
were you were a small business owner.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
What was your business?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, this goes back thirty years ago. But my my
family owned a sales and marketing firm, and we also
manufactured window covering like vertical blinds.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And shade and things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And I was a part owner along with them. It
was a very small firm. We didn't have a lot
of investment capital, really have any investment capital. I wasn't
really very I made so many mistakes that after about
seven years of doing it and not doing that well,
I finally figured out how to not make mistakes anymore.
And then I started to think about whether I wanted
(10:15):
to do that thing for the next forty years, and
I devided I did not. My parents' side of the
business has always the very successful side. My side was
the manufacturing side, light manufacturing, distribution, things like that. But
because of that, I understand the impact of government regulations.
(10:37):
I understand inventory and waste, and competition from overseas and competition,
domestic competition, you know all of that, and you know
it helps inform I think.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm sure I'm amazed by uh.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I've always had so much respect and awe for people
who start a small business and then run it and
make a success out of it and everything you got
to pour into it.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It is, it really is. And those are probably the
people I still admire most are people that do that.
I love to read about how they went from nothing
to something. And you know, I you know, especially people
you know that are not And this is, by the way,
there's a there. Every kind of success I think is
a great success, but people that that just didn't have
(11:26):
any investment capital because the industry, you know, it was
too competitive or it's just not the kind of industry
that creates that sort of feed and you have to
you know, beg barrow and steal to get it started.
And and there's such a talent for running a business.
There's a talent in managing people. And you can take
all the business classes in the world and it really
(11:48):
does help to at least understand profit and loss and
and all of that. But this other stuff, it's like
an art form.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Absolutely, Yeah, I'm amazingly impressed. And that's cool that you
did that. I understand now where you're coming from on
some of the things you talk about and write about, Hey,
we got to take we gotta be done because we're
up against our break. But just as quickly as you can.
Do you think most of the Trump tax cuts from
the first term do become permanent?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I do. I mean I think they'll get reconciliation in
one way or the other. Yeah, they might have to.
It may not work out exactly the way they want,
but they'll they'll they'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Cool. Well, thank you, David Drucker. Enjoy those boys and
your wife's music.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
We got a lot more on the way of different stripes.
I want to get back to the New York Times
story that I brought you last hour. If you don't
know what it is, stick around. I can't tell you
a short version of it because it's too disgusting and
that would be unfair. But that's on the way, among
other things, stay right here, get over.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
This week released an annual list of items customers left
behind in their cars, and there's some incredible stuff of
Some of the belonging these passengers left in their ubers
include a madeqan head had a chainsaw, a ghost trap
from Ghostbusters.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Shrek ears, a urinal.
Speaker 6 (13:06):
Someone left a bottle of fresh breast milk, which I
have two questions for that.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
How do they know his breast milk?
Speaker 6 (13:13):
And more concerningly, how did they know what was fresh?
Speaker 4 (13:21):
A chainsaw, a mannequin head? Maybe those two things went together.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Not sure.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So I started into this story last hour, didn't have
time to get a.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Few more of the details. So I'm going to try
to do that now.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
And as Byron new York said in the Washington Examiner,
this is a story from the New York Times. The
New York Times seems to be worried that subway necrophilia
will make the city look bad. Necrophilia of courses people
who for some reason like the idea of this is
not for the kids or the queenish. Nope, having sex
(13:57):
with a dead body, which I'm not as concerned about
my corpse being defiled as some people are.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Once I'm dead, do whatever you want with me, I
don't care.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
I mean, it's up to you, but I don't feel
like it has anything to do with my life anyhow.
It's weird to want to do that. The living person
is the focus. That's where my concern is.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, exactly, I'm about to sneeze. Oh oh oh, no, okay,
went away.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Police seek man who they say violated a corpse on
the R train. And it's got a picture of the subway,
so you know what the subway looks like. New York
subways have been the subject of debate, with politicians using
them to paint the city is out of control and
dangerous to residents and visitors.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And then you have this story.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
The police were searching on Thursday for a man investigators
believe violated a dead man Wednesday night on a train
in a Manhattan subway station. According to an internal police document,
the person who died, I guess you can die anywhere,
But this guy got on the R train at eight
o'clock at night. According to a law enforcement official with
(14:59):
knowledge of the mas, he had watched the videos because
they got cameras in all the subways. It was unclear
when or how the person died. A man entered the
same empty train car at around eleven. Within forty five minutes,
the man saw the dead man, then began to rummage
through his pockets. Then the man began to have sex
(15:20):
with the body. According to the video and the official documents,
the sexual acts were captured on surveillance cameras inside the
train car. Soon after, the man got off the train
and fled. Well that was good luck for me, wasn't it,
he thought, and got off the train. The police on
Thursday released images of the man. He had a goateee man.
(15:40):
Never trust somebody of the goates, Oh boy, carrying a
black backpack and wearing a yellow hooded sweatshirt, a black
puffer jacket and a blue Dodgers baseball cap.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Dodgers fans, Yeah, i'd see.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I shouldn't say that, I know a couple of Dodgers
fans who would punch me in the face for that joke.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
This is the part I like.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
The episode occurred as New York City subways had become
the subject of a national debate about poor governance. Bah
blah blah blah. So again, the New York Times seems
to think that people dying on the trail, if you
die on the train by accident, somebody is gonna sex
up your dead body. They think that's a bad look
for the subway system, and they're concerned about that.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Let's the ripple effects. Now, let's just copycat crimes. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Oh my god, what are the chance that you wouldn't
think there'd be one in a million chants that this
could happen, that you would come across a human being
who wouldn't think, oh my god, is that person okay?
You know, go try to wake them up, figure out
their dead immediately, call nine to one one or first stop.
You're screaming to the you know, some official, I've got
a dead bit. No you think, all right, yeah, this
(16:44):
guy sprinted in the opposite direction from what you just described. Wow,
I hope they catch a guy and interview him that's
so crazy, and you got you gotta lock him up.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Well I was gonna say lock him up forever, but well,
they've made contact with his brother, so they're on their way.
They figured out who his brother is. Yeah, apparently this
guy's identifying the.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Did his brother know that his sibling was a corpse
blanker story?
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Dickens, Yeah, Armstrong and Geeddy.
Speaker 7 (17:13):
Sanctuary cities are sanctuary for criminals, bottom line, that's who
we're concentrating on, arresting the priorities public safety threads and
national security threads. For any elected official to tell his
police officers not to help us remove public safety treads
from his community, which he's responsible for, is just sickening.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
So we're going to keep doing it.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
You probably recognize the voice of Tom Holman there and
talking about sanctuary cities. Trump had a tweet or truth
that he put out yesterday that he's coming after sanctuary
city's going to cut the federal funding. I'm sure that
will be challenged. It'll get to the Supreme Court finally,
I hope. But it's another one of those issues that
the Democratic Party seems to be on the wrong side of.
(17:52):
A eighty twenty or seventy thirty issue, which brings me
to wanting to talk to long Heat. He's a David
and Diane Stephi Fellow at an American Public Policy Study
Studies at the Hoover Institution and the Director of Domestic
Policy Studies at Stanford University, Lana. He got more Republican
votes a couple cycles ago when he ran for comptroller
(18:14):
in California than any Republican in the entire country, including
Ron DeSantis, which is amazing, Lanai. Welcome back to the
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Hey Jack, thanks for having me again and speaking to DeSantis.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
And this is where I want to go with Gavin
Newsom's prospects for running for president and my main question
that I've had for quite a while now, and you
might be the perfect person to answer it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
But this headline right now.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Florida teacher is first to be fired for using students
preferred name without parents consent.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
In Florida, where they have a law the teacher.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Can't call Jimmy Jane in class just because the student
wants that without talking to the parents about it, the
opposite of what the law is in California, where the
schools are not allowed to contact the parents and I
was just wondering, do you think Gavin Newsom can run
(19:10):
for president being on the twenty side of an eighty
twenty issue like this and many others.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
This is just one example.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
It is just one example. You're right. I think what
will be interesting is Gavin Newsom's effort to reinvent himself.
And the reason I say that is because if I
don't know, Jack you have you listened to the guy's
podcast or have you? I mean, all of this sort
of effort to make himself into a reasonably minded, more
moderate Democrat is interesting. It's politically expedient given the fact
(19:42):
that the Democratic Party remains really without leadership. If you
look at the structure as well as the nature of
the different things that Democrats are saying, there really isn't
a national leader. So you can't blame Gavin Newsom for
trying to step into that vacuum. You know, I said
recently on television that politics ab whoors a vacuum, and
I think what you're seeing now are efforts on the
(20:05):
parts of different Democrats to try and take that leadership mantle. Now.
I don't know, frankly, how effective it will be. To me,
it comes off as very disingenuous and somewhat comical the
degree to which Gavin Newsom is trying to remake himself.
Now that having been said, there is room for a
more moderate Democrat, somebody who's governed divererning experience, and he's
(20:29):
trying to fit that mold. Now, the question is whether
his reinvention will be successful. But I think that's what
he's trying to do, and he's trying to make people
forget how many times to your point, precisely, he has
been on the twenty percent side of the eighty twenty issue.
And it's not just on this one, Jack, There's a
whole bunch of ways, whether it's on extreme environmental policies,
(20:51):
extreme policies to dampen business creation and job creation, policies,
to put in place a socialist health care all of
these ways well.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
And the reason that the reason that I played the
sanctuary city clip to you, to combine those two things,
the transition and the sanctuary city thing, he's way out
of line with the American people.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Yeah, And I mean I think you know, in politics,
one of the things you can be sure of is
that people will be made a weird. Opponents will make
people aware of your record, and I think that he can. Trial.
He wants to rebuild himself and re architect himself, but
you know, he is who he is. And it goes
back to having been mayor of San Francisco all the
(21:34):
time he's been governor until the last six months or
last three months, when he's trying to cozy f to
President Trump and to do various other things that make
him seem more moderate. To me at least, I think
it won't work. But I've seen weird things before in politics.
Well you never, I guess.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
So you're the perfect person to ask this because you've
been involved in campaigns of Romney's campaign and he got
the nomination Marco Rubio's campaign and he didn't get the
nom You have to get the nomination first, And that's
what I have to keep reminding myself is that you know,
you got the general election play, but you got to
get the nomination in a party that you saw how
(22:12):
everybody came after Gavin when in that first episode of
his podcast, he kind of he didn't even make a
bold statement, He just kind of hinted that maybe he
wasn't all in on dudes participating in girls' sports and
he got killed by the left.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
Yeah, he did get killed by the left, and he
got killed by a lot of activist groups on the left,
as well as activist members of the left who make
up a disproportionate percentage of participants in Democratic primaries when
we begin to get to the voting around twenty twenty eight,
obviously a long time between now and the start of
twenty twenty eight, so a lot can change. But I
(22:50):
do think that this is always the challenge in American
politics of how do you navigate between getting through a
primary and winning a general election? To your point, the
dynamics are really different in one electorate versus another.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Can he get then, so all the polling shows Democrats
are crying out for like a moderate candidate, you know,
a left of center Democrat. Can can you get the
nomination in the current Democratic Party as that person just
you know, kind of like not having a name attached
to it.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
Yeah, that's a million dollar question. I mean, can can
basically can you repeat what Joe Biden did? Because us
remember Joe Biden was sort of the moderate Democrat when
when he had hard to remember now twenty hard to remember.
I mean, it's like ancient history, right, it was just
five years ago, you know, I don't know. I think
some of it's going to depend on on how the
(23:40):
midterms go in twenty six and the degree to which
there continues to be this overarching If the overarching narrative
in the Democratic Party continues to be let's define our
success by opposition to Donald Trump, I have a tough
time seeing how moderates do well in that in that setting.
The reason I bring up the midterm elections is because
(24:01):
I think if Democrats do reasonably well in the midterms,
and let's say reasonably well or better than expected, that
might relieve some of the pressure there will be to
have a more extreme left candidate. I think if they
don't do well for some reason in the midterms, it
is going to force this is a little bit ironic,
(24:22):
and this might be counterintuitive. I think it's going to
force the Democrat base even further left, and that is
going to be a problem if people are trying to
run the gamut by going through the middle. So I
mean these dynamics, I think there's a lot of things
in play. A lot of things are very very fluid
between now and then, but these are some of the
things I would watch out for, watch out for the
(24:43):
mid term performance. I'd watch out for how much of
that Democrat messaging continues to be anti Trump. And then
I would look and see what other politicians are doing.
Look at Gretchen and Whitmer. I don't know if you
guys talked about Greshen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan who
found herself in the Oval office earlier this week, and
Donald Trump actually praised her, and she actually had some
nice things to say about him that might tell you
(25:03):
a little bit about where the party is headed and
the degree to which it's leaders believe they have to
be more moderate.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Can i do three yes no questions, and then I'll
ask you like an essay question. Out of the yes
no questions, the first one Gavin Newsom going to run
for president yes or no?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yes, okay. Kamala Harris going to run for president, yes
or no no. Kamala Harris going to run for governor
yes or no? Yes, okay.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
So she's going to run for governor in California. New
York Times had a story the other day that wasn't
the greatest for Kamala Harris because it mentioned, for instance,
that big Wisconsin vote a week ago for the Supreme
Court justice, the state Supreme Court justice. They Wisconsin Democrats
didn't want her in the state in an election they
had to win.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's painful. Where does that leave her?
Speaker 5 (25:54):
Well, it leaves her in California, And that's why I
think that you know, she still has First of all,
in politics, the greatest gift you can have is that
people recognize your name. And we've seen that over and
over again. And you know, regardless of how people feel
about Kamala Harris, people recognize her name, certainly in California,
So she starts off with a huge intrinsic advantage in
(26:17):
that respect. I think the other question is, when you
are a sort of you know, washed up candidate, what
do you do right? I mean, do you It's not
like she's got some deep well of private sector experience
where she can go back to life and career in
the private sector. Naturally, the sort of thinking gravitates toward politics,
(26:39):
and so I would think that as she looks at California,
she sees a tremendous political opportunity here A because she
remains reasonably popular. B because everyone knows who she is
and see because can you name any of the other
Democrats who are running in that primary for governor? I mean,
you can probably do a jack Many of your listeners
can probably do it. But I'll tell you something. If
(27:00):
you go around California and you just show up at
the Safeway and you ask people, hey, uh elany Cunelacus,
they may say, hey, do I find her on Aisle five?
You know, it's just it's just not one of those
things where people have a huge amount of recognition. So
she can step into that contest, God, I just instantly
be competitive.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
I don't I don't know if I can live in
a state where Kamala Harris is a governor and Adam
Shift's one of the senators.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I just don't know if I can handle that. I
might have to start in Nevada.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
I was gonna say, you you're you're believe me, You're
not the only one. So I just I just think
that there is a I mean, let's be let's be
clear about this. That the pathway for her to become
governor of California, I think is a lot more reasonable
and and sort of easy to define than any other
(27:50):
political pathway she might have in the in the in
the near future. So we just have to be aware
of the fact that in the reality of politics, this
is a great opportunity for her.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Yeah, I know you're not the kind of person that
would answer this question. Really, but do you think she's dumb?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I mean, look, I'm not. That's more than I.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Don't.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
I don't think it's I don't think it's you know, look,
people have, people are smart in different ways.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
There you go, and and.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
I think that, uh, she has had a reasonably successful
political career given what I believe to be relatively few accomplishments.
And that's not a reflection of your question. I understand
that you're you're asking a different question. I think it's
ultimately up for voters to assess that.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And and by the way, well, well I.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Was gonna say, I'm not sure how much it really matters, uh,
you know, whether whether whether you know one's intelligence in
the grand scheme of politics. I mean, we've got a
lot of people who are who are out there who
are doing public sector job, particularly elected officials, who you know,
we've seen some sharper tool of them.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
The thing that angered me the most with her, and
you know, we're rehashing what is now ancient history. I
guess when she didn't take a stand in those final
days on do you think we should start locking up
criminals in California? That you know, what do you call them?
What's the word? You wouldn't we go out and vote
(29:28):
on an issue in California they don't have a numbers
prop referendum.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
She wouldn't even.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Take a stand on one of our initiatives about locking
people up. What it was polling, it was gonna win
by you know, many, many many points, and it did,
and she wouldn't take a stand on that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I thought, oh my.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
God, well, Jack, that's a different issue that that. That
speaks to the fact that I think, and this was
a problem that I think her campaign had generally, is
I think they they tried to triangulate too much, right,
they tried to be they tried to thread too many Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
God, you gotta take a take a position.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Listen. And by the way, the American people agreed with you,
because because they did not, they didn't particularly find her
campaign to be all that compelling. And I think one
of the reasons why is precisely because she would not
take a stand on even issues like should we criminalize
crime again in California. And if you can't even take
(30:22):
a stand on the issue like that, you know you're
going to have some problems politically.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
And I think I would say I would say, man
the opposite of a profile and courage, LANEA.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
Chen.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
We always like your time.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
You're a smart guy and you've got a lot of
experience at Lon heat Chen if you want to follow
him on the Twitter.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Thanks Alani, Hey, Thanks Shack. Yeah, yeah, well that was.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
It's not like I was, you know, a big Kamala
Harris fan before that, But to me, that was the
end of it. You don't have what it takes to
be a politician. I mean, if you can't take a
stand on a position like that, that in your own
state is going to pass.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Like what did it win by? Like twenty points? Anyway,
we got more stuff on the way.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
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Speaker 2 (31:57):
Stay here.
Speaker 8 (32:02):
Master's favorite Rory McElroy racing his four year old daughter
Poppy to the green Poppy who is just four on
the night pole there attempting a difficult twenty five foot
putt downhill.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
And she makes it.
Speaker 8 (32:17):
The crowd cheering, hugging dad Rory McInroy calling the contest
always one of the best days of the year.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Yeah, that's the Master's Golf Tournament, which is the biggest
tournament they have every year in the world of golf.
If you're into that, I'm not, but a lot of
people are. And that's where Joe is. Actually, he's at
the Master's Golf Tournament. And that was a four year
old making a twenty five year yard putt, which if
you're a golfer probably I don't know if that makes
you happy or sick to your stomach.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I don't know. If you've one of the most.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Not one of the most, by far, the most common
question Joe and I ever get if we're ever meeting
new anybody, How did you guys meet.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I don't know why that question is so prevalent, but
it is.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Anyway, what we started doing to get we worked at
competing radio stations. We started playing golf together because we
were both golf fanatics and.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We were twenty five years old. Geez, that's a long time.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Ago, and we played golf all the time. And then
we decided to put a radio show together, and we
started doing a fake radio show and recording it and
sending out tapes to radio stations. That's how we started,
but I didn't know that. Oh you didn't know that, Okay,
I felt like cool. I feel like I've told that
story so many times that it is boring to tell.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
I haven't told it in the last couple of years
because that's really I had no idea. That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah, we worked at different radio stations. We were both
on in the morning. I was on a music station,
he was on a well, we were both on music stations,
but he was on the news music station and I
was on just like a young person's music station. We're
twenty five years old. And they were dead end jobs,
very low paying dead end jobs. Yeah, I mean very
low paying.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And we uh.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
The first time I since you've never heard this story,
I'll tell it again. The first time I ever heard
him all my life. I was at a bar for
a trivia contest at night, and he was the MC
for the trivia contest. I think he did it for
extra money or free beer or something, because we're poor people.
And and and he would say funny things when he
(34:21):
was doing the trivia contest, and I thought, Wow, that
guy is really funny. And it kind of bothered me
that a guy that worked at another radio station was
funny because I thought I was the funny guy in
town and the fact that there was a different funny
guy in town was bothered them to me guys anyway,
So I met him, and I mean like immediately that
we found out we like to play golf, and we
started playing golf together, and that's we came up with
(34:41):
the idea. We both liked a lot of the same
radio shows that we grew up listening to out of Chicago.
Even though he lived in Chicago, I didn't, but a
very famous AM Chicago station, WLS, you could hear all
over the Midwest, and we listened to the same radio shows,
and so we had the same same style. And then
we would go into my radio station at night, because
you'd get fired for doing this.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
You can't do.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
This, you're looking for another job, and you're using the
station's equipment to record it. So we would wait until
after five o'clock and keep driving around the block until
we had seen everybody's cars leave the radio station. Okay,
the general manager is gone, now we can go in.
So we'd go into my radio station and we'd spend
(35:22):
an hour pretending to a radio show with the songs
and everything, weather, just the whole thing, and then we
would cut up tapes and send them out and that's
how we got hired for a job that way.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I love everything about that. That's so cool.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
I was actually gonna talk about the golf thing because
I was obsessed with golf as a young man and
at some and this is the only time this has
ever happened to me in my life. I don't know
if this has ever happened to anybody else. Were you, like,
really into something and then all of a sudden you not.
I don't know if anybody's ever done that.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I was loved golf, obsessed.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
With it, and then at some point I decided I
don't like this anymore and stopped. I don't know if
anybody's ever done that with cooking or playing a musical instrument.
I don't know what, but I just lost interest in
So Joe continues to be a golf avid golf fanatic,
and I haven't had any interest in golf in decades
for some reason.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I don't even know why.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Oh, we got a lot more an hour three on
a bunch of different news topics that we should hit.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
I hope you can stick around to that armstrong and
Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Armstrong and Getty and now he Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I do hope and believe that the vote today is
a very strong signal to the markets, to investors, job creators, entrepreneurs,
the people that make the economy run, that the Congress
is going to get us on stout sound footing. And
you can count on that and you can bet on it.
And the auto I think today wud be a great
day to buy stuff.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Speaker Johnson, Congress is going to get us on sound footing. Well,
that would be something we'd like to welcome to the
Armstrong and Getty show. Our old friend David Dructor, who've
been talking to four years, who is now with The Dispatch.
I hear him on a regular basis, senior writer at
the Dispatch, on various TV appearances and Dispatch podcasts which
I hear weekly. It says here David, when Drugger is
(01:04):
not covering American politics for the Dispatch, he enjoys hanging
out with this two boys.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
That's nice.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
That's what I do too. And listening to his wife's
excellent taste in music. Did you write this?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I did write it, But it's true.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
That's interesting that so she have a particularly good taste
and you just sit in there, you sit down and
listen to it in your make.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Let's be clear, even if she have bad taste, she
was sure run the music of the family I understand
to have. But if she has to have extremely good
taste of music.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Oh cool. How old are your kids?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Our oldest turns thirteen on Monday, and our youngest, our
other boy, will be tennis a while.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I have two boys in there, thirteen and fifteen, and
I have just started into the whole teenage thing, which,
like you've learned, as I learned with all of parenting,
every phase is completely different and practically none of your
skills from the last phase are of any use.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
This is one of the first things that I realized
some years ago, was it just when you figure out
how to do it right, they change and you have
to learn all over again.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
I know how to handle a baby, Okay, I know
how to handle a toddler. Okay, I know how to
handle a four year old, But then they're not that anymore,
and so yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I think you probably said.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
This last year. I know lots of pundits. Did man
Trump gets elected? The biggest story first year? Get ready
for this. It's going to be all about the Trump
tax cuts and whether they're renewed or not. This is
going to be the biggest political story in America. Everybody
will be talking about it. Well, we haven't been talking
about it because Trump has been doing so many different
(02:41):
things doge and now tariffs and everything like that that
get all the attention. We haven't been talking about this,
but it's still been kind of burblin behind the scenes.
Tell us where we are with all of this legislation, Well, I.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Mean it gets kind of into the weeds. But in
order to take advantage of this process called record faciliation,
which is a limited legislative process in Congress that allows
you to avoid a filibuster in the Senate, you have
to get the House and the Senate to agree on
what's called a budget resolution, which provides the contours of
(03:18):
taxation and spending and spending cuts but doesn't sell any
of the blanks. But first you have to get the
two chambers to agree on the top line numbers. All right,
we're gonna We're going to cut one hundred and five
trillion in spending, I think is what's in this budget
resolution that finally passed the House after passing the Senate.
(03:40):
We're going to cut taxes of this much. I don't
know all these numbers in my head, We're going to
spend this much. And so then once you do that,
then the committees you know the ways it means committee,
Energy and Commerce, Committee or whatever you know in the Senate,
the Finance Committee and whatever, all the committees of jurisdiction
can then go about processing actual detailed legislation with all
(04:03):
the numbers, and then you know the plan is, and
this is how it's worked in the past. You know,
you get to a point where the party that's running
the reconciliation bill, because both parties have used this process,
they agree and then they run votes, and then the
opposition cries foul and then it passes. Now, you know,
one of the things about reconciliation is you can't just
(04:25):
do anything right, can't You can't just do any policy
and have to have taxing and bending implications.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Is there a judge on this, like somebody are paneled?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Well, there's a part, there's a parliamentarian in the House
and a parliamentarian in the Senate. Of course, the House
in the Senate can overrule their parliamentarian to some degree.
You know, in two thousand and nine, when the Democrats
lost their super majority in the Senate, there's sixty of
vote because Scott Brown was elected to Kennedy who had
(04:57):
passed away. It looked like Democrats may not be able
to finish the process of passing the legislation that we
call Obamacare, and instead they just basically stretched the limits
of what reconciliation was able to do. Under Perry Reads leadership,
he was the majority leader, and they passed it even
though they didn't have sixty votes. And when you don't
(05:20):
have sixty votes, all you need is fifty one or
a simple majority. However that works out, the vice president
can you be the tie breaking vote. So listen, I've
always thought that they would get the reconciliation build on
one way or the other, especially given Trump's standing in
the Republican Party. But Trump, as he likes to do,
finds other ways to sideline what should be his best
(05:43):
and biggest story, and that's by his ill fated attempt
to reshape global trade, which was never going to work
out the way he wanted it to. Still won't work
out the way he wants it to, and it has
caused the market's pain. But when the markets have pain,
you know, somebody who used to run a small business,
I can tell you small businesses end up having pain
because Main Street is inextricably linked to Wall Street. People
(06:07):
may not think they're invested, but their pensions are, and
you know, their four on one ks are, the retirement
counts are, and people have pensions, they have retirement accounts.
It also, you know, impacts treasury bonds, meaning you know
the price of debt that the US government sells, and
(06:28):
then that impacts interest rates. So even if you have
no money in the market but you want a car
loan or a mortgage for a home, I mean, there's
just no way around it, right, There's no protection from
this stuff. So that's why we haven't been talking about
this because Trump decided he didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Right, Well, does he feel like it's to his advantage
to not be talking about the whole renew and the
taxes and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, I don't know. But even for Trump, and sometimes
it seems illogical, but you know he has his I mean,
he wasn'tlected president twice, and he's a really good politician
talking about how he's going to cut taxes for average Americans,
which which is what is in this bill, right. I mean,
you know, everybody focuses on the income tax cuts, but
you know, the funny thing about the tax bill, right,
(07:14):
what they want to do is sort of make the
Trump tax cuts from the first term, right, pre bide
and permanent. And Democrats did a really good job of
convincing people these were all tax cuts for the rich,
but actually a lot of middle class and lower class
Americans receive tax benefits. Some people don't even pay income
taxes anymore because of the first Trump tax bill and
(07:36):
this new bill, you know, no taxes on tips, no
taxes on Social Security income. I believe you want to
put a measure in there that says, if you, you know,
are financing an American made car, you can write off
the interest. So there's all this stuff in there for
regular people so called. And you know, people may complain
about the capital gains cuts, but you know, cutting capital
(07:58):
gains is really good for an investment, which means people
can invest in things that resulted more jobs and you know,
wealthy people buying products and things that middle class people
are building. So I don't see why Trump wouldn't want
to be talking about this. But he has always liked Paris,
(08:19):
he has always believed. He doesn't believe many things, but
he believes a few things. And this thing with trade
he's believed going back to the nineteen.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Yeah, we've played the clips of him on Oprah or
Letterman or wherever.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah. And the thing is, you know, if anybody thought
he wasn't going to do this, they were just silly,
because all you have to do is listen to what
he said and understand that if he was going to
be re elected after everything that went on at the
end of the first term and in the middle of
the first and second term, exactly why was he going
to show up and feel hesitant to do what he
wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Well, I wouldn't be if I was in That's what
I've been talking about my whole life.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, but that's common sense. It's but a lot of
you know, there are a lot of Republican donors and
a lot of the people that supported him, and it
makes sell us and I understand you know, totally makes
sense him over eris, you know, on balance. But the
idea that you didn't build in what he's done in
the past couple of weeks or the past couple of months, really,
(09:14):
that you didn't build into the price of admission what
this might cost you. I mean, that just shows you
that even people with money aren't always that bright.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I was gonna throw out as a trivia question earlier
today just because it's extraordinary, how much has been going
on in the last couple of months.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
How long has Trump been president?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Today is day eighty two, eighty two days he's been president,
and it seems like it's been years of stories and reporting.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
David Drucker of The Dispatch here, Hey, you said you
were you were a small business owner.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
What was your business?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, this goes back thirty years ago. But my my
family owned a sales and marketing firm, and we also
manufactured window covering like vertical blinds.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And shade and things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And I was a part owner along with them. It
was a very small firm. We didn't have a lot
of investment capital, really have any investment capital. I wasn't
really very I made so many mistakes that after about
seven years of doing it and not doing that well,
I finally figured out how to not make mistakes anymore.
And then I started to think about whether I wanted
(10:15):
to do that thing for the next forty years, and
I devided I did not. My parents' side of the
business has always the very successful side. My side was
the manufacturing side, light manufacturing, distribution, things like that. But
because of that, I understand the impact of government regulations.
(10:37):
I understand inventory and waste, and competition from overseas and competition,
domestic competition, you know all of that, and you know
it helps inform I think.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm sure I'm amazed by uh.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I've always had so much respect and awe for people
who start a small business and then run it and
make a success out of it and everything you got
to pour into it.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It is, it really is. And those are probably the
people I still admire most are people that do that.
I love to read about how they went from nothing
to something. And you know, I you know, especially people
you know that are not And this is, by the way,
there's a there. Every kind of success I think is
a great success, but people that that just didn't have
(11:26):
any investment capital because the industry, you know, it was
too competitive or it's just not the kind of industry
that creates that sort of feed and you have to
you know, beg barrow and steal to get it started.
And and there's such a talent for running a business.
There's a talent in managing people. And you can take
all the business classes in the world and it really
(11:48):
does help to at least understand profit and loss and
and all of that. But this other stuff, it's like
an art form.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Absolutely, Yeah, I'm amazingly impressed. And that's cool that you
did that. I understand now where you're coming from on
some of the things you talk about and write about, Hey,
we got to take we gotta be done because we're
up against our break. But just as quickly as you can.
Do you think most of the Trump tax cuts from
the first term do become permanent?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I do. I mean I think they'll get reconciliation in
one way or the other. Yeah, they might have to.
It may not work out exactly the way they want,
but they'll they'll they'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Cool. Well, thank you, David Drucker. Enjoy those boys and
your wife's music.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
We got a lot more on the way of different stripes.
I want to get back to the New York Times
story that I brought you last hour. If you don't
know what it is, stick around. I can't tell you
a short version of it because it's too disgusting and
that would be unfair. But that's on the way, among
other things, stay right here, get over.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
This week released an annual list of items customers left
behind in their cars, and there's some incredible stuff of
Some of the belonging these passengers left in their ubers
include a madeqan head had a chainsaw, a ghost trap
from Ghostbusters.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Shrek ears, a urinal.
Speaker 6 (13:06):
Someone left a bottle of fresh breast milk, which I
have two questions for that.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
How do they know his breast milk?
Speaker 6 (13:13):
And more concerningly, how did they know what was fresh?
Speaker 4 (13:21):
A chainsaw, a mannequin head? Maybe those two things went together.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Not sure.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So I started into this story last hour, didn't have
time to get a.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Few more of the details. So I'm going to try
to do that now.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
And as Byron new York said in the Washington Examiner,
this is a story from the New York Times. The
New York Times seems to be worried that subway necrophilia
will make the city look bad. Necrophilia of courses people
who for some reason like the idea of this is
not for the kids or the queenish. Nope, having sex
(13:57):
with a dead body, which I'm not as concerned about
my corpse being defiled as some people are.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Once I'm dead, do whatever you want with me, I
don't care.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
I mean, it's up to you, but I don't feel
like it has anything to do with my life anyhow.
It's weird to want to do that. The living person
is the focus. That's where my concern is.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, exactly, I'm about to sneeze. Oh oh oh, no, okay,
went away.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Police seek man who they say violated a corpse on
the R train. And it's got a picture of the subway,
so you know what the subway looks like. New York
subways have been the subject of debate, with politicians using
them to paint the city is out of control and
dangerous to residents and visitors.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And then you have this story.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
The police were searching on Thursday for a man investigators
believe violated a dead man Wednesday night on a train
in a Manhattan subway station. According to an internal police document,
the person who died, I guess you can die anywhere,
But this guy got on the R train at eight
o'clock at night. According to a law enforcement official with
(14:59):
knowledge of the mas, he had watched the videos because
they got cameras in all the subways. It was unclear
when or how the person died. A man entered the
same empty train car at around eleven. Within forty five minutes,
the man saw the dead man, then began to rummage
through his pockets. Then the man began to have sex
(15:20):
with the body. According to the video and the official documents,
the sexual acts were captured on surveillance cameras inside the
train car. Soon after, the man got off the train
and fled. Well that was good luck for me, wasn't it,
he thought, and got off the train. The police on
Thursday released images of the man. He had a goateee man.
(15:40):
Never trust somebody of the goates, Oh boy, carrying a
black backpack and wearing a yellow hooded sweatshirt, a black
puffer jacket and a blue Dodgers baseball cap.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Dodgers fans, Yeah, i'd see.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I shouldn't say that, I know a couple of Dodgers
fans who would punch me in the face for that joke.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
This is the part I like.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
The episode occurred as New York City subways had become
the subject of a national debate about poor governance. Bah
blah blah blah. So again, the New York Times seems
to think that people dying on the trail, if you
die on the train by accident, somebody is gonna sex
up your dead body. They think that's a bad look
for the subway system, and they're concerned about that.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Let's the ripple effects. Now, let's just copycat crimes. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Oh my god, what are the chance that you wouldn't
think there'd be one in a million chants that this
could happen, that you would come across a human being
who wouldn't think, oh my god, is that person okay?
You know, go try to wake them up, figure out
their dead immediately, call nine to one one or first stop.
You're screaming to the you know, some official, I've got
a dead bit. No you think, all right, yeah, this
(16:44):
guy sprinted in the opposite direction from what you just described. Wow,
I hope they catch a guy and interview him that's
so crazy, and you got you gotta lock him up.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Well I was gonna say lock him up forever, but well,
they've made contact with his brother, so they're on their way.
They figured out who his brother is. Yeah, apparently this
guy's identifying the.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Did his brother know that his sibling was a corpse
blanker story?
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Dickens, Yeah, Armstrong and Geeddy.
Speaker 7 (17:13):
Sanctuary cities are sanctuary for criminals, bottom line, that's who
we're concentrating on, arresting the priorities public safety threads and
national security threads. For any elected official to tell his
police officers not to help us remove public safety treads
from his community, which he's responsible for, is just sickening.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
So we're going to keep doing it.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
You probably recognize the voice of Tom Holman there and
talking about sanctuary cities. Trump had a tweet or truth
that he put out yesterday that he's coming after sanctuary
city's going to cut the federal funding. I'm sure that
will be challenged. It'll get to the Supreme Court finally,
I hope. But it's another one of those issues that
the Democratic Party seems to be on the wrong side of.
(17:52):
A eighty twenty or seventy thirty issue, which brings me
to wanting to talk to long Heat. He's a David
and Diane Stephi Fellow at an American Public Policy Study
Studies at the Hoover Institution and the Director of Domestic
Policy Studies at Stanford University, Lana. He got more Republican
votes a couple cycles ago when he ran for comptroller
(18:14):
in California than any Republican in the entire country, including
Ron DeSantis, which is amazing, Lanai. Welcome back to the
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Hey Jack, thanks for having me again and speaking to DeSantis.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
And this is where I want to go with Gavin
Newsom's prospects for running for president and my main question
that I've had for quite a while now, and you
might be the perfect person to answer it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
But this headline right now.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Florida teacher is first to be fired for using students
preferred name without parents consent.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
In Florida, where they have a law the teacher.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Can't call Jimmy Jane in class just because the student
wants that without talking to the parents about it, the
opposite of what the law is in California, where the
schools are not allowed to contact the parents and I
was just wondering, do you think Gavin Newsom can run
(19:10):
for president being on the twenty side of an eighty
twenty issue like this and many others.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
This is just one example.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
It is just one example. You're right. I think what
will be interesting is Gavin Newsom's effort to reinvent himself.
And the reason I say that is because if I
don't know, Jack you have you listened to the guy's
podcast or have you? I mean, all of this sort
of effort to make himself into a reasonably minded, more
moderate Democrat is interesting. It's politically expedient given the fact
(19:42):
that the Democratic Party remains really without leadership. If you
look at the structure as well as the nature of
the different things that Democrats are saying, there really isn't
a national leader. So you can't blame Gavin Newsom for
trying to step into that vacuum. You know, I said
recently on television that politics ab whoors a vacuum, and
I think what you're seeing now are efforts on the
(20:05):
parts of different Democrats to try and take that leadership mantle. Now.
I don't know, frankly, how effective it will be. To me,
it comes off as very disingenuous and somewhat comical the
degree to which Gavin Newsom is trying to remake himself.
Now that having been said, there is room for a
more moderate Democrat, somebody who's governed divererning experience, and he's
(20:29):
trying to fit that mold. Now, the question is whether
his reinvention will be successful. But I think that's what
he's trying to do, and he's trying to make people
forget how many times to your point, precisely, he has
been on the twenty percent side of the eighty twenty issue.
And it's not just on this one, Jack, There's a
whole bunch of ways, whether it's on extreme environmental policies,
(20:51):
extreme policies to dampen business creation and job creation, policies,
to put in place a socialist health care all of
these ways well.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
And the reason that the reason that I played the
sanctuary city clip to you, to combine those two things,
the transition and the sanctuary city thing, he's way out
of line with the American people.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Yeah, And I mean I think you know, in politics,
one of the things you can be sure of is
that people will be made a weird. Opponents will make
people aware of your record, and I think that he can. Trial.
He wants to rebuild himself and re architect himself, but
you know, he is who he is. And it goes
back to having been mayor of San Francisco all the
(21:34):
time he's been governor until the last six months or
last three months, when he's trying to cozy f to
President Trump and to do various other things that make
him seem more moderate. To me at least, I think
it won't work. But I've seen weird things before in politics.
Well you never, I guess.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
So you're the perfect person to ask this because you've
been involved in campaigns of Romney's campaign and he got
the nomination Marco Rubio's campaign and he didn't get the
nom You have to get the nomination first, And that's
what I have to keep reminding myself is that you know,
you got the general election play, but you got to
get the nomination in a party that you saw how
(22:12):
everybody came after Gavin when in that first episode of
his podcast, he kind of he didn't even make a
bold statement, He just kind of hinted that maybe he
wasn't all in on dudes participating in girls' sports and
he got killed by the left.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
Yeah, he did get killed by the left, and he
got killed by a lot of activist groups on the left,
as well as activist members of the left who make
up a disproportionate percentage of participants in Democratic primaries when
we begin to get to the voting around twenty twenty eight,
obviously a long time between now and the start of
twenty twenty eight, so a lot can change. But I
(22:50):
do think that this is always the challenge in American
politics of how do you navigate between getting through a
primary and winning a general election? To your point, the
dynamics are really different in one electorate versus another.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Can he get then, so all the polling shows Democrats
are crying out for like a moderate candidate, you know,
a left of center Democrat. Can can you get the
nomination in the current Democratic Party as that person just
you know, kind of like not having a name attached
to it.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
Yeah, that's a million dollar question. I mean, can can
basically can you repeat what Joe Biden did? Because us
remember Joe Biden was sort of the moderate Democrat when
when he had hard to remember now twenty hard to remember.
I mean, it's like ancient history, right, it was just
five years ago, you know, I don't know. I think
some of it's going to depend on on how the
(23:40):
midterms go in twenty six and the degree to which
there continues to be this overarching If the overarching narrative
in the Democratic Party continues to be let's define our
success by opposition to Donald Trump, I have a tough
time seeing how moderates do well in that in that setting.
The reason I bring up the midterm elections is because
(24:01):
I think if Democrats do reasonably well in the midterms,
and let's say reasonably well or better than expected, that
might relieve some of the pressure there will be to
have a more extreme left candidate. I think if they
don't do well for some reason in the midterms, it
is going to force this is a little bit ironic,
(24:22):
and this might be counterintuitive. I think it's going to
force the Democrat base even further left, and that is
going to be a problem if people are trying to
run the gamut by going through the middle. So I
mean these dynamics, I think there's a lot of things
in play. A lot of things are very very fluid
between now and then, but these are some of the
things I would watch out for, watch out for the
(24:43):
mid term performance. I'd watch out for how much of
that Democrat messaging continues to be anti Trump. And then
I would look and see what other politicians are doing.
Look at Gretchen and Whitmer. I don't know if you
guys talked about Greshen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan who
found herself in the Oval office earlier this week, and
Donald Trump actually praised her, and she actually had some
nice things to say about him that might tell you
(25:03):
a little bit about where the party is headed and
the degree to which it's leaders believe they have to
be more moderate.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Can i do three yes no questions, and then I'll
ask you like an essay question. Out of the yes
no questions, the first one Gavin Newsom going to run
for president yes or no?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yes, okay. Kamala Harris going to run for president, yes
or no no. Kamala Harris going to run for governor
yes or no? Yes, okay.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
So she's going to run for governor in California. New
York Times had a story the other day that wasn't
the greatest for Kamala Harris because it mentioned, for instance,
that big Wisconsin vote a week ago for the Supreme
Court justice, the state Supreme Court justice. They Wisconsin Democrats
didn't want her in the state in an election they
had to win.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's painful. Where does that leave her?
Speaker 5 (25:54):
Well, it leaves her in California, And that's why I
think that you know, she still has First of all,
in politics, the greatest gift you can have is that
people recognize your name. And we've seen that over and
over again. And you know, regardless of how people feel
about Kamala Harris, people recognize her name, certainly in California,
So she starts off with a huge intrinsic advantage in
(26:17):
that respect. I think the other question is, when you
are a sort of you know, washed up candidate, what
do you do right? I mean, do you It's not
like she's got some deep well of private sector experience
where she can go back to life and career in
the private sector. Naturally, the sort of thinking gravitates toward politics,
(26:39):
and so I would think that as she looks at California,
she sees a tremendous political opportunity here A because she
remains reasonably popular. B because everyone knows who she is
and see because can you name any of the other
Democrats who are running in that primary for governor? I mean,
you can probably do a jack Many of your listeners
can probably do it. But I'll tell you something. If
(27:00):
you go around California and you just show up at
the Safeway and you ask people, hey, uh elany Cunelacus,
they may say, hey, do I find her on Aisle five?
You know, it's just it's just not one of those
things where people have a huge amount of recognition. So
she can step into that contest, God, I just instantly
be competitive.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
I don't I don't know if I can live in
a state where Kamala Harris is a governor and Adam
Shift's one of the senators.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I just don't know if I can handle that. I
might have to start in Nevada.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
I was gonna say, you you're you're believe me, You're
not the only one. So I just I just think
that there is a I mean, let's be let's be
clear about this. That the pathway for her to become
governor of California, I think is a lot more reasonable
and and sort of easy to define than any other
(27:50):
political pathway she might have in the in the in
the near future. So we just have to be aware
of the fact that in the reality of politics, this
is a great opportunity for her.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Yeah, I know you're not the kind of person that
would answer this question. Really, but do you think she's dumb?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I mean, look, I'm not. That's more than I.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Don't.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
I don't think it's I don't think it's you know, look,
people have, people are smart in different ways.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
There you go, and and.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
I think that, uh, she has had a reasonably successful
political career given what I believe to be relatively few accomplishments.
And that's not a reflection of your question. I understand
that you're you're asking a different question. I think it's
ultimately up for voters to assess that.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And and by the way, well, well I.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Was gonna say, I'm not sure how much it really matters, uh,
you know, whether whether whether you know one's intelligence in
the grand scheme of politics. I mean, we've got a
lot of people who are who are out there who
are doing public sector job, particularly elected officials, who you know,
we've seen some sharper tool of them.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
The thing that angered me the most with her, and
you know, we're rehashing what is now ancient history. I
guess when she didn't take a stand in those final
days on do you think we should start locking up
criminals in California? That you know, what do you call them?
What's the word? You wouldn't we go out and vote
(29:28):
on an issue in California they don't have a numbers
prop referendum.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
She wouldn't even.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Take a stand on one of our initiatives about locking
people up. What it was polling, it was gonna win
by you know, many, many many points, and it did,
and she wouldn't take a stand on that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I thought, oh my.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
God, well, Jack, that's a different issue that that. That
speaks to the fact that I think, and this was
a problem that I think her campaign had generally, is
I think they they tried to triangulate too much, right,
they tried to be they tried to thread too many Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
God, you gotta take a take a position.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Listen. And by the way, the American people agreed with you,
because because they did not, they didn't particularly find her
campaign to be all that compelling. And I think one
of the reasons why is precisely because she would not
take a stand on even issues like should we criminalize
crime again in California. And if you can't even take
(30:22):
a stand on the issue like that, you know you're
going to have some problems politically.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
And I think I would say I would say, man
the opposite of a profile and courage, LANEA.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
Chen.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
We always like your time.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
You're a smart guy and you've got a lot of
experience at Lon heat Chen if you want to follow
him on the Twitter.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Thanks Alani, Hey, Thanks Shack. Yeah, yeah, well that was.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
It's not like I was, you know, a big Kamala
Harris fan before that, But to me, that was the
end of it. You don't have what it takes to
be a politician. I mean, if you can't take a
stand on a position like that, that in your own
state is going to pass.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Like what did it win by? Like twenty points? Anyway,
we got more stuff on the way.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
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Speaker 2 (31:57):
Stay here.
Speaker 8 (32:02):
Master's favorite Rory McElroy racing his four year old daughter
Poppy to the green Poppy who is just four on
the night pole there attempting a difficult twenty five foot
putt downhill.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
And she makes it.
Speaker 8 (32:17):
The crowd cheering, hugging dad Rory McInroy calling the contest
always one of the best days of the year.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Yeah, that's the Master's Golf Tournament, which is the biggest
tournament they have every year in the world of golf.
If you're into that, I'm not, but a lot of
people are. And that's where Joe is. Actually, he's at
the Master's Golf Tournament. And that was a four year
old making a twenty five year yard putt, which if
you're a golfer probably I don't know if that makes
you happy or sick to your stomach.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I don't know. If you've one of the most.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Not one of the most, by far, the most common
question Joe and I ever get if we're ever meeting
new anybody, How did you guys meet.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I don't know why that question is so prevalent, but
it is.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Anyway, what we started doing to get we worked at
competing radio stations. We started playing golf together because we
were both golf fanatics and.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We were twenty five years old. Geez, that's a long time.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Ago, and we played golf all the time. And then
we decided to put a radio show together, and we
started doing a fake radio show and recording it and
sending out tapes to radio stations. That's how we started,
but I didn't know that. Oh you didn't know that, Okay,
I felt like cool. I feel like I've told that
story so many times that it is boring to tell.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
I haven't told it in the last couple of years
because that's really I had no idea. That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah, we worked at different radio stations. We were both
on in the morning. I was on a music station,
he was on a well, we were both on music stations,
but he was on the news music station and I
was on just like a young person's music station. We're
twenty five years old. And they were dead end jobs,
very low paying dead end jobs. Yeah, I mean very
low paying.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And we uh.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
The first time I since you've never heard this story,
I'll tell it again. The first time I ever heard
him all my life. I was at a bar for
a trivia contest at night, and he was the MC
for the trivia contest. I think he did it for
extra money or free beer or something, because we're poor people.
And and and he would say funny things when he
(34:21):
was doing the trivia contest, and I thought, Wow, that
guy is really funny. And it kind of bothered me
that a guy that worked at another radio station was
funny because I thought I was the funny guy in
town and the fact that there was a different funny
guy in town was bothered them to me guys anyway,
So I met him, and I mean like immediately that
we found out we like to play golf, and we
started playing golf together, and that's we came up with
(34:41):
the idea. We both liked a lot of the same
radio shows that we grew up listening to out of Chicago.
Even though he lived in Chicago, I didn't, but a
very famous AM Chicago station, WLS, you could hear all
over the Midwest, and we listened to the same radio shows,
and so we had the same same style. And then
we would go into my radio station at night, because
you'd get fired for doing this.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
You can't do.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
This, you're looking for another job, and you're using the
station's equipment to record it. So we would wait until
after five o'clock and keep driving around the block until
we had seen everybody's cars leave the radio station. Okay,
the general manager is gone, now we can go in.
So we'd go into my radio station and we'd spend
(35:22):
an hour pretending to a radio show with the songs
and everything, weather, just the whole thing, and then we
would cut up tapes and send them out and that's
how we got hired for a job that way.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I love everything about that. That's so cool.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
I was actually gonna talk about the golf thing because
I was obsessed with golf as a young man and
at some and this is the only time this has
ever happened to me in my life. I don't know
if this has ever happened to anybody else. Were you, like,
really into something and then all of a sudden you not.
I don't know if anybody's ever done that.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I was loved golf, obsessed.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
With it, and then at some point I decided I
don't like this anymore and stopped. I don't know if
anybody's ever done that with cooking or playing a musical instrument.
I don't know what, but I just lost interest in
So Joe continues to be a golf avid golf fanatic,
and I haven't had any interest in golf in decades
for some reason.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I don't even know why.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Oh, we got a lot more an hour three on
a bunch of different news topics that we should hit.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
I hope you can stick around to that armstrong and
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