July 17, 2026 • 35 mins
Hour Two of A&G features...
- Trump's address on election vulnerabilities...
- A famous walker...
- Our guest, military expert Mike Lyons talks about Iran's capabilities...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Armstrong and Jetty and he Armstrong and Getty. But it
gets even worse.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in twenty twenty, yet
buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included
an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. Document
show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and
NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of
(00:50):
the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost
every day. Everything was kept out that was of importance.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So Trump announced earlier in the week he is going
to address the nation the way we do it in
the United States, since we don't have government controlled media,
like where Iran or Rush or something like that. Putin
can just announce or the iatolic can just announce I'm
giving a speech tonight, and everyone is covering it, and
(01:20):
they do because again, the media is controlled by the government.
Our media is not controlled by the government. So you
asked for time. It's controlled by the Democratic Party. Everybody
knows that. Oh so you ask for time as the president,
and I don't remember the last time that a president
has asked for prime time time and been denied that
(01:45):
by any of the major networks. Anyway, Trump asked for time,
and CBS aired at least the first part of the
speech and then went to analysis. ABC and NBC didn't
air it at all. I don't remember he blasted him
during the speech too. I don't remember remember the last
time that's happened.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Earlier in the week, when it was announced that he
was going to talk about election interference, I thought, oh God,
he's going to go on and on about the twenty
twenty election and how it was stolen from him. But
that's not what happened. He got into, It's not entirely
what happened. He got into all kinds of stuff that
is supposed to be new information about China and Russia
(02:23):
messing with our elections and their intent and that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Some of it to help Biden, some of it to
help him.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
The Russians were trying to help him get elected, the
Chinese were trying to help Biden get elected, and various stuff.
Here's some major Garrett on CBS after they broke in
and they did a little analysis of what Trump had
said so far last night.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
She underscore the point is that the White House made
today in his briefing. It is not alleging the China
or any other foreign adversary infiltrated any system in our country,
compromised a single vote or material effected any election outcome. Ever,
that's really important. Yeah, vulnerabilities matter. That is important. But
have they been taken to the next most important, scariest
(03:05):
level and the administration is saying no, it has not.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So I feel like Major Garrett was like bailing out
the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't know what his intent was, but I think
that did with Look, they're not claiming the China stole
the election or anywhere. They're just letting you know, they
were jerking around with the elections and we need to
watch out for it, right, and that we have vulnerabilities
that we really ought to look into.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
That's one hundred percent legitimate.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
It was.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Frankly, it was a mishmashy hard to follow this that
and the other ish speech from Trump that would try
to make way too many points. Mice I said earlier,
I wish he just hammered the need for legal id
to vote and making sure the voting roles are only
people who need to be on there. Well, why wasn't
(03:52):
it just from his desk at two o'clock on a Wednesday,
like he announces all kinds of other stuff of roughly
the same importance.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Is there any three dimensional chess going on here?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
We did bomb bridges and power plants for the first
time last night. Did he decide I need to have
a primetime speech that everybody's talking about so that all
the talk the next day is not about war crime
this and taking out power plants. That any chance of that,
(04:22):
I don't know. I don't think anybody cares that much,
do they. Well, when he first announced power plants and bridges,
there was a lot of talk about lots of Democrats
came out immediately with that's a war crime in the
New York Times and everybody. But same night as the
primetime address. That doesn't make any sense to me. I
don't understand why that was a primetime address save those
(04:43):
for really really important new things.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I would agree anyway, moving on, because I don't think
anybody's going to be talking about it and on Monday.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I don't think you may be talking about it at lunch.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Right, right, And again it's kind of a because I
think there were some legitimate things brought up. Well I
know there were, but again it was a little mishmashy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
We'll see what comes from it. Sorry, you know, Oh,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I was gonna I was gonna check what the latest
reporting on the Iran war was, and I was distracted
by the fact that the first several stories in the
New York Times are about the new Prime Minister of Britain.
They get to the speech eventually.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It isn't didn't trip my trigger.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Wildfire smoke in North America, still scrolling China and a ie.
So I don't think anybody's that upset about the Iran stuff.
So he did throw in a couple of things that
apparently were ad libbed, you know how he does that.
He threw in a couple of things about burn bags
and stuff that has been discredited since he originally started
(05:56):
talking about it back in twenty twenty. Anyway, somebody tweeted
this out last night and it was floating around on
social media, and I thought this was pretty good. What
I would like, I would love it. If this could
be put to a poll for the entire country, how
many people would agree with this, this series of statements?
How many people would be on board with this? Trump
lost fair and square in twenty twenty. Only women can
(06:19):
get pregnant, The Trump assassination attempts were real. Mitch McConnell
is alive. Michelle Obama is not a man. Barack Obama
is a citizen. America is less racist than most countries.
Police stop crime, tariffs hurt the economy. How many people
(06:39):
could you get to say yeah to all of those?
Do you think, oh, my gosh, oh, because I think
all of those are to my mind, indisputably true.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, I agreed with all of them. But how many
people could you get on board to say yes to
all those?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Most twenty eight? Twenty eight percent? I don't know. I
need to hear the list again and I will have
to do a little quick math in my head.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All right, there, we lost twenty percent. There.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Trump lost fair and square in twenty twenty. Only I
know there's a significant chunk of our audience that would
reject that notion true only women can get pregnant. Anybody
who doesn't think that is an idiot or a cultist.
The Trump assassination attempts were real. This is kind of
a presentism one.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
This one.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Mitch McConnell is alive. Michelle Obama is not a man.
Barack Obama is a citizen. I like this one. America
is less racist than most countries. That would cut a
bunch of people out. Yeah, you'd lose a lot of
the young left. Maybe this one too, police stop crime
(07:51):
and tariff hurt the economy, which to me might be
the most complicated one one. Did you see Paul? Is
it Paul Krukman, that's his first name. A Nobel Prize
winning economist who I don't think he works for The
New York Times anymore, but he's been a pain in
(08:12):
the ass of normal people forever as a lefty, and
they take his word for everything because he won the
Bell Prize years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Completely full of crap.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Except he came out and saying, you know, he said
I was wrong about this. He said, I've looked over
the data and I think Trump is right about the tariffs.
He put that out a couple of weeks ago, that
the tariffs we were being treated unfairly.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
This was a good idea, and this did help us.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, that's that's partly because he's an old school left
in protectionism and mercantilism. If you really want to to
turn people off at a dinner party, start talking about that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's long been a province of the old left. You
thought there was a.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Good list, though, because you really hit on a couple
of big points for a certain crowds, Because a lot
of people would be not long.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, yeah, you need to get to there.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Whatever they call gorya ox or sacred cow or whatever
it is, you'd be okay, I'm all this. And then
as soon as it said America is less racist than
most countries, I'm out. Or only women can get pregnant,
I'm out, or like you said, for a bunch of
our audience, Trump lost farre and square in twenty twenty,
I'm out. Yeah, that one's a little bit broad because,
(09:21):
and I know I speak for a lot of the
folks listening, they're like.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
The Russian collusion hoax as perpetrated by the FBI with
help from the NSA. That's fair and square, you know,
to say, to have a point, what do you mean
by he lost. He lost, wing, he lost, and he
got seven million fewer votes and he lost.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, I would I would change that one to.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Donald Trump did not actually win the votes in twenty twenty.
Ter rehash something nobody wants to rehash. But I did
the homework on it yesterday, so I'll have to throw
it out there quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Uh oh.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
There were sixty two legal claims the Trump people made.
They lost sixty one of them in court. The one
they won got overturned quickly. It's okay. Most of the
claims that Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell made on TV
to you, they did not make in court. They set
(10:24):
them on TV and on talk shows and podcasts, but
they didn't actually say them out loud in court because
they didn't believe them themselves and they didn't want to
get disbarred and they didn't want to go to jailor
get disbarred.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, that's just true.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
And all those court cases across America that Trump lost
over challenging that election, lots of them were with Trump
judges and red legislatures.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
This is true. Yeah, I don't not to say about that.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
There's not much you need to you don't need to
get complicated when you get into the men can't have
babies one.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That one's easy. Yeah, there's no subtlety there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
But the fact is, there's a lot more money to
be made and whipping people up than calming them down.
There's a lot more money to be made in wild
conspiracies than in it's actually not that interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Here's the truth. It just is.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
It's human nature. Human beings cannot survive the Internet. That
has become clear to me. I wish you young people
well good luck. It's going to be a quite a test.
Day's life has always been quite a test, so don't
get all self pitying. They've fixed the reflecting pool and
they're going to fill it back with water, thank god.
Finally the nations nightmare is over. Our long national Are
(11:35):
you kidding me? Barely noticed time you compare that?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh hello, damn it. Well it's not that late in
the show. I'd meant to plug.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yesterday's One More Thing podcast Armstrong and Getty One More Thing.
You get it automatically if you subscribe to Armstrong and
Getty on demand. We went through the executive summary of
the Trump Administration's report on What's the title of it,
Saving America's Story, how ideological capture at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of American History erases our heritage.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And we went over the.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Marxist activists who have taken over who took over the
leadership of the Smithsonian Institution, particularly the National History Museum.
That's where I'm sick, all right, Jack, first person account
of it has become a far leftist. This country is
evil and it sucks museum, and the Trump administration's report
(12:33):
on that and what to do about it is absolutely shocking.
It's amazing. It is extremely even handed and reasonable, and
we hit that hard and at length in yesterday's Armstrung
You any One More Thing podcast, So that would be
July the sixteenth, and I would encourage you to listen
to it. And the reason that popped into my head
is the idea that the thing you ought to be
(12:54):
worried about on the National Mall is the resurfacing of
the reflecting pool as opposed to the bizarre and sickening
takeover of our national Institution's rostory. Oh please, yeah, no kidding.
That's a very good point. That's a good comparison right
there in ab are you kidding me, honey.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Every time you leave for your affair, you leave the
door open. Our air conditioning bills are so high you've
got to close the door on your way to your affair.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
To your affair with three of our neighbors, your orgies
of the door.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Please, that's a good one. Come on anyway, listen to
the podcast.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Can we militarily open the straight and what would that
look like?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We're gonna talk to Mike Lyons a little bit later
about that.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Lots of other stuff on the way to stay here.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
The World Cup final matchup is set with Argentina taking
on Spain and they got it pretty good. That's a
pretty amazing halftime show. In story, there's also a game
for third place on Saturday between France and England and
they have a halftime show too.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Wow, look at this this Saturday.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
It's the third place game with an incredible halftime show
featuring the six Flags guy Talk to a Girl, Ray Done,
the Australian breakdancer, Justin Bieber is his cousin Hank, that
other other guy from the Black Eyed ps MS McConnell
on spoons.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And bt s.
Speaker 7 (14:27):
It's the Bulgarian tambourine squad. You can miss it.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It's Henrine Squad. Miss McConnell on spoons. They do that.
They have a third place game. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I really don't go deep enough in my soccer knowledge
to know how hard anybody tries, or whether the scrubs
get to play or what, or whether there's much pride
involved in that.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Maybe you definitely want third instead of fourth. Like I said,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So I'm on this thing now where I walk for
about forty five minutes to an hour every single night,
and it's become one of those habits where I just
can't hardly not do it, and I hope I can
keep it doing when the weather turns bad. But I
was listening to a podcast yesterday with David Sedaris.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Do you know him?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
The writer, hilarious guy, he's been an NPR favorite forever,
but a really funny guy if you've never read any
of his stuff. But they were talking to him about
his walking routine. He walks ten Remember, ten thousand steps
was a thing for a while and then they came
out with the ten thousand steps is just a made
up round number to sell you fit bits seven thousand
(15:46):
steps is really plenty for most people. Here's why lowering
all these different things can't risk dementia all these things,
more steps is better. But Sadaris walks ten miles a day. Wow,
every day, he said, rain or shine, no matter what
his schedule is, if he has to be somewhere, he'll
get up at four o'clock in the morning to get
(16:07):
his ten miles in before he goes to the airport
to fly somewhere to Pumper's lotus book.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Wow, how long would that? Wuldn't that take you?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Here's a four mile an hour walk. As you're walking fast.
If you walked at that pace, it's gonna take you
two and a half hours. I just think from a
time standpoint.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And well, look who am I to, questioned the great
David Sedaris. But you could do you know, brief interval
training that would give you all sorts of health benefits
on those days. But you know, he's got a habit going,
he's got a groove. It's overall a good one for him.
Would I approach it differently? But I can't fault a guy. Yeah, Anyway,
(16:49):
I got all this information about what it does for
you to get in seven eight thousand steps a day,
which is about three three and a half miles by
the way, if you're wondering how far that is. There
are a lot of health benefits to that you don't need.
You don't need be in great shape or anything like that.
So I guess we're bombing bridges now and some energy
infrastructure in Iran? And is that going to do the trick?
(17:11):
Wall Street Journal said the other day, we can't get
the straight open without a lot of troops. We'll ask
Mike Lines about it next, Armstrong and Getty for Iran.
Speaker 8 (17:20):
The Straits of Mosstra is a strategic asset.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
No matter what.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
Happens here, they will continue to want to take it
back from us because it's number one. They don't have
a nuclear power capability, they're not even close to developing
a weapon now. This is their number one strategic asset.
It gives them leverage over the Golf States in a region,
and they truly want to have an element of control
(17:46):
here and they are willing to fight us for it,
and we have got to take it away from him
and prevent them from ever getting it back under their
control again.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
General Jack Keane on Fox yesterday, and that seems to
be the case. And we started talking about this two
days ago. Wall Street Journal had that piece where they
were supposedly talking to people in the White House and
the Pentagon who are saying the Pentagon has been telling
the President, Look, we can open the strait, but it'll
be incredibly difficult, and it will take a lot of troops,
(18:19):
and I mean it will be an amazing commitment of
military power to do this.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Do we really want to do this? You're gonna need
more people, You're gonna need more everything.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Let's talk about the situation in general and that question
more specifically with military analyst Mike Lyons, who joins us now.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Mike, always great to talk. How are you, hey, guys,
great to be back.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So how accurate is that that to open the street
would be somewhere between impossible and very very very difficult.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I'm not sure. I think General King's got it right.
Speaker 9 (18:49):
I think we're going to continue to attack along this
very long coastline, right six hundred miles of coastline that
exists here. I look at the targets specifically right round
the sixth day now of striking here, and we're after
the most the largest threat and out of these coastal
batteries and drones, and you know, anybody who picks his
head up and.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
Decides to fire.
Speaker 9 (19:07):
Still not at scale, although some of their missiles and
drones are still getting through. We could still pound away
here for a very long time from the air and
continue to degrade their capability. We saw we took out
a bridge last night. That's a little unusual. And it's
all about the infrastructure now, because if you take away
the initial capability that they have along the coastline, now
(19:29):
we've got to get another layer behind it. So I
think that's what the military strikes are going to do.
I'm not sure where the people are coming in. I mean,
we're not invading Iran, we're not taking it over, We're
not doing that. So I'm not quite sure what that is.
I mean, we could, we could do this for a
long time and get the results we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So but given the fact that all you need are
a couple of shots across a couple of bows to
effectively close the straight, eliminating their capabilities to that extent
seems like a near impossibility to me.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Don't you need to remove their will to do that.
Speaker 9 (20:03):
Yeah, that's two separate kind of lanes there, for sure.
The question is we can again trid it down to
the point where that probability becomes just so low. And
I think that's what we're doing, That's what we're trying
to do. The will question comes down to the separation
that you could see already between the Ministry of Foreign
(20:25):
Policy and the Ministry and the IRGC, I mean, one
side of the coin. They're trying to make a deal
these Trump says, they're calling them all the time to
make a deal. But the IRGC obviously isn't control of
everything here, so you know, and I think that they've
been very decentralized. Obviously, the intent is very clear, just
don't give up. And so the United States is going
to have to continue to pound away while other countries,
(20:46):
to the Gulf countries are looking for alternate means, which
is really the issue here. Create pipelines, don't don't give
the leverage back to the Ranians once this is over.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
They can't ever control this in the future. And these
Gulf states are trying to recognize that as well.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
So the Wall Street Journal's story was we the and
you know a few of information that's different than this,
feel free to tell us. But the reporting has been
that the part of the strait that we're saying is open,
no ships have gone through. And we made a big
on the radio announcement to the United States says it's open,
go ahead and come on through, and the only response
(21:19):
was somebody on another ship saying, f off, Then we're
not going through there.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
Yeah, Well, there's there's a couple of pathways. There's one
close to Aman, which is what we believe is what's open.
It's what's getting through. It's not the hundred ships a day. Necessarily,
it's not an open passage. But you know, you know, again,
the military is going to overestimate I think, what it's capability,
its needs in order to get the job done, and
(21:47):
then try to come in under that.
Speaker 7 (21:49):
Obviously.
Speaker 9 (21:49):
I think that's where the Wall Street Journal is getting
those sources from, because sure, if you're a commander on
the ground to unlimited resources, you're going to say this
is what we need in order to make it, you know,
completely to completely open. We've always heard the chairman say degraded.
They're not completely destroyed. I know the President's is destroyed,
but that's a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Military analyst Mike Lyons is on the line, So what
what would you say overall? Is the capability of the
Iranian military at this point? Are I mean, are they
just the only thing they can accomplish is frightening ships
in the Gulf essentially at this point exactly hanging on
the infrastructure, maybe in the neighborhood, Yeah.
Speaker 7 (22:29):
Exactly, hanging on for dear life.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
I mean again, with ninety percent degraded, they could still
have a few hundred missiles left and nothing comes at scale.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Everything is asymmetric.
Speaker 9 (22:38):
What that means, it's the one off when you don't know,
it's the most challenging to defend against. It's consider it
to be terrorism on the sea. That's what they can do.
But that's all they have. And like anything else, like
we've defeated isis we just have to keep going at
it and keep.
Speaker 7 (22:52):
A treading at it.
Speaker 9 (22:53):
And frankly, as long as we're not bringing body bags
home here, this is fine.
Speaker 7 (22:58):
I know.
Speaker 9 (22:58):
I saw some smart and say, oh, this is now
going to turn in forever war.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
No, it's not. Because we can't do this all day.
We can continue to.
Speaker 9 (23:06):
Strike for the military, you know, one hundred or so
hundred strikes a day.
Speaker 7 (23:10):
It's not the level of epic fury.
Speaker 9 (23:12):
It's not eleven hundred, but it's also not six or seven,
which is all the Iranians are doing. Continue to leverage
on the economic side and the blockade as well. Something's
going to have to crumble inside Iran. I think this
is starting to be the beginning of the end, and
I think this is the strategy most of the military
wanted to see us do a couple months ago.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well, I sure, hope you're right. I mean, that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
If we hit them a couple hundred times a day,
day after day, eventually they fall.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
They're not getting the revenue they need.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
You know, there's enough internal conflict where people are saying
to each other, Hey, this ain't gonna work.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
What's our long plan here? And the regime crumbles.
Speaker 7 (23:46):
Yeah, it works for now.
Speaker 9 (23:47):
I mean again, what we kind of I'm not saying
I don't care we obviously you know, this is again
a good example of other countries should recognize.
Speaker 7 (23:54):
This is the number one threat in the world right now.
Speaker 9 (23:56):
This is this is it, and if we don't get it,
the Aradians they're going to control this then again, the
Trump arrangement syndrome, you know, obviously exists inside of NATO
and exists in some of these leaders here, but the
Gulf States are getting it because they're also been part
of the receiving end wanted two attacks still come that way.
Speaker 7 (24:12):
This problem needs to be solved right.
Speaker 9 (24:14):
Now, and I think the President is going to make
sure it gets solved before we go on to the
next thing.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Mike, I want to change topics just briefly, because we've
been talking about this a lot today and are going
to be talking about it more, including Marco Rubio's fantastic speech.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
Of was it yesterday or yea tremendous.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And we've been talking about the success so far of
the Democratic Socialists of America's candidates in various elections, and
they're trying to take over the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I'm sure you've been watching this too. Any thoughts, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 9 (24:45):
Not sure that anyone in that party's ever got a
civics lesson. We have a Constitution of republic that's going nowhere,
and if they try to change that, then you're talking
we're back to the eighteen sixties again, and you want
to go there. That works out so again, I don't
think it's it's unfortunate gets a lot of press, and
(25:06):
I feel terrible. I'm not the political guy here obviously,
but you know, the Democrats have got a problem they
have to solve here. But if they think they're going
to defund the military and get rid of the Senate
and overturn this whatever they think they're they're just delusional.
And so oh yeah, that's civil war level stuff. So again,
you want to play hardball, We'll play hardball and we'll
see how that goes.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Military analyst Mike lyons, Mike, it's always great to talk.
As I said before, we'll stay in touch. Is the
is the situation of all Thanks great guys, Thanks for
having Yep. Well, he's pretty optimistic about the road we're
going down with the couple hundred strikes per day.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
The old Wackensky is yep, we'll see. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, I suppose at the end of the day it
might be what's the other option? Sure there is one,
so you take the best of your bad options.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Now, that's interesting his angle.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
He this is something he thinks about because he is
in the military and talk to people at a high level.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
That I don't always think about.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The people that leak that stuff to the Wall Street
Journal want a lot more stuff. They want people, planes, bullets, bombs,
all this stuff. And that's how you get it by saying, well,
we can do it, but it's gonna.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Be really, really, really hard. We're gonna need a lot
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, you do that for reasons that are both perfectly
noble and maybe a little self serving. But yeah, yeah,
I if I'm a marine, I want to go in.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
With overwhelming force the Powell doctrine.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Indeed, indeed, want me to hit you with something really
really stupid, or we take a break. If you like,
you're gonna complain about this, Oh, you're gonna yell. We
usually make people buy advertising. That's what you're gonna yell. Well,
if you know everything, I'm going to say, I'm going
to go play golf and you can just do me.
(27:00):
McDonald's has two brand new sandwich creations.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Normally we make people immediately hostile.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
That is true. The honey brown butter, bacon, egg and
cheese biscuit. What is what is honey brown? What is
honey brown butter? Which one is brown? The honey the
butter In the English language is probably the butter a
taco bell.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's the lettuce. Hell nailed them. Oh my god, he
might give people the poops. He tied it into the
news of the day. Did you hear that? Fantastic? All right?
So bad?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So you got the honey brown butter bacon, egg and
cheese biscuit, You're right, I don't know the descriptor.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Brown butter that isak and cheese biscuit.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
That's eight words and much the honey brown butter chicken biscuit,
which is different than the bacon ag this git or
make honey 's. Well, they want you to know about
the honey brown butter, whatever the hell that is, and
fans are loving them apparently excellent. If they have one
of my local McDonald's, I'll try one today. Why are
the calories so high on this stuff?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Though?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I generally kind of like put my hand up to
the menu in front of my eye so I can't
read the calorie part if I met McDonald's. But like,
one of my go tos is a couple of cheeseburgers.
A couple of cheeseburgers, no onions.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
That's all.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I get, two cheeseburgers, no onions, no fries, no drink.
Just said, But it's like eight hundred calories for two
tiny cheeseburgers. Why why are there so? How do they
pack so many calories in there? I don't know the fats,
I really don't know. That was the great thing about
being on that cruise. Judy and I were on no
calories anywhere. It was the international waters friends, the lawless
(28:49):
rum sod of me in the lash I receipt and
no calories on the menu.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It was fantastic. Make me walk the plank. You're gonna
need a thicker plank. Yeah, you better reinforce that plank.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
H Do you tell me how they pack You don't
know how they pack all those extra calories into fast food.
It seems like a lot.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And what's that hun for? Tiny? For two tiny little burgers?
Look up making cheeseburgers or something at home. It ain't
like that. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, deliciousness, I guess has a lot of calories in it.
I will not eat at McDonald's coming up. You should
inconvenience yourself more often. I will explain. I have made
our lot, all of us. You, the general, you, the great,
you Uh, we've made our lives too frictionless. Oh okay,
(29:38):
great essay from one of my favorite young thinkers.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
A lot of stuff on the way stay here.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So Marco Rubio, whose arrow is pointing up in terms
of his Q factor definitely is uh, gave it quite
a spe against socialism slash communism. Yesday will play some
of that now ur three. Yeah, just absolutely terrific. I
am a big fan. I'm also a big fan of
Roland Fryar, who is a young unconventional economist.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
He teaches at Harvard.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He's a think tank guy, entrepreneur, but he writes about
all sorts of intriguing things and looks at them through
the lens of economic analysis and including friendship. And I'm
just I'm gonna hit you with a little little splash
of paint here, a little splash of paint there.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Then get to the point. It's gonna be. Like some
of my favorite songwriters, you don't know quite what's going on.
Great movies.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
The ferry crossing from chap Equittic to edgar Town, Massachusetts
is blah blah blah. No matter how rich or important
you are, you have to wait to get on the boat.
Sometimes you wait in your car. Sometimes you get out,
someone complains about the line, the weather, our politics, or
the ups driver. It goes to the front of the queue.
Someone else laughs, the conversation begins, I've been on that ferry,
I think town, and then he talks about if modern
(31:04):
life hasn't has undersold inconvenience. We treat waiting as wasted time,
and often it is, but sometimes waiting does something useful.
It forces people into the same place with nothing to do,
long enough for conversation to begin. And then he points
out a number of studies that have called loneliness America's
greatest public health problem and the tie in between a
(31:26):
social circle and long life and happy life for all
sorts of age, cohorts and just it is undeniable that
social loneliness is a bad thing for a human beings
twenty ten research big study found that weak social relationships
predict mortality at a magnitude comparable to smoking and greater
than obesity or physical inactivity.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Loneliness linked to.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
High risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and
premature death.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So he makes that.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Point, and then finally he winds back to what brings
me back to that ridiculously inconvenient fairy and what I
call the friction theory of friendship. The idea is simple,
Some inconveniences aren't merely costs. They are the hidden scaffolding
of social life. Then he, because he's an economist, he
(32:15):
has to crank out an equation. If I had to
estimate my own production function for friendship, it would look
something like this. Friendship equals proximity times repetition plus idle
time time's low stakes plus shared irritation. Proximity matters most
when it recurs. Idle time matters most when nobody is
(32:38):
trying to impress anyone. Shared irritation helps, but with diminishing returns.
He points out, a delayed fairy creates conversation, a broken
fairy creates rage. But he says, this is why friendship
is often a product of something else, work, school, church children, sports, errands,
waiting rooms. It is produced not by misery, but by
(33:01):
enough common friction to make conversation natural. Modern life has
spent decades eliminating that friction. We can work without offices,
shop without stores, exercise without gyms, and communicate without looking
anyone in the eye. Each improvement is defensible, some phenomenal Together,
they have made interaction with other people increasingly optional.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I don't argue with any of that. I don't think
we're ever going back.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
But I think about this all the time when I'm
in a line for anything at the airport, at the
coffee shop, I see people at the bus stop. Everybody's
looking at their phone, and think, what would this have
looked like. You don't have to go back far just
twenty years ago. Oh would this will look like twenty
thirty years ago? All these people in line to get
on the plane, you know, in the long tunnel after
(33:46):
you've shown your ticket.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Were we talking to each other?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Were we I don't know, I don't remember what we
were doing, but we weren't all staring at a phone.
We definitely were not doing that, So we probably were
having small talk. Yeah, I disagree with you that we're
going back. I think significant chunks of society will. And
part of the evidence of that, strangely, is the success
that the Democratic Socialists of America are having because they
perform social functions for young people, and young people are
(34:14):
loving that. But anyway, ah so, and then he talks.
Then he really gets into economist talk. But the main
point I want to make to you is that the
usual response is to blame phones.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
That's too easy.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
The deeper forces the war on friction. We need to
interact with others, we need to find excuses to do it.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
It's good, it's healthy.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I really wanted to have time in this to tell
the story of my dinner last night, Day two, Night
two in a row, sitting at the bar at the
golf club where I play, having dinner and and intoxicating
beverage and just chatting with people. Because normally Judy's been busy,
I would be at home alone eating a frozen pizza.
(35:02):
But partly because it's fantastic, partly because of this article,
I thought, no, just go see who you meet, run
into people. Chat Night one worked perfectly, ran into some friends,
had a lovely conversation to.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Night too. Yeah, well you should just see the other guy.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
No.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Night two, I'm sitting there at the end of the
bar reading news, waiting for a conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That happened.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Eight young females set up camp right next to me
and start chattering in a million miles a second, Oh God,
Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Armstrong and Jetty and he Armstrong and Getty. But it
gets even worse.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in twenty twenty, yet
buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included
an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. Document
show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and
NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of
(00:50):
the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost
every day. Everything was kept out that was of importance.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So Trump announced earlier in the week he is going
to address the nation the way we do it in
the United States, since we don't have government controlled media,
like where Iran or Rush or something like that. Putin
can just announce or the iatolic can just announce I'm
giving a speech tonight, and everyone is covering it, and
(01:20):
they do because again, the media is controlled by the government.
Our media is not controlled by the government. So you
asked for time. It's controlled by the Democratic Party. Everybody
knows that. Oh so you ask for time as the president,
and I don't remember the last time that a president
has asked for prime time time and been denied that
(01:45):
by any of the major networks. Anyway, Trump asked for time,
and CBS aired at least the first part of the
speech and then went to analysis. ABC and NBC didn't
air it at all. I don't remember he blasted him
during the speech too. I don't remember remember the last
time that's happened.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Earlier in the week, when it was announced that he
was going to talk about election interference, I thought, oh God,
he's going to go on and on about the twenty
twenty election and how it was stolen from him. But
that's not what happened. He got into, It's not entirely
what happened. He got into all kinds of stuff that
is supposed to be new information about China and Russia
(02:23):
messing with our elections and their intent and that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Some of it to help Biden, some of it to
help him.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
The Russians were trying to help him get elected, the
Chinese were trying to help Biden get elected, and various stuff.
Here's some major Garrett on CBS after they broke in
and they did a little analysis of what Trump had
said so far last night.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
She underscore the point is that the White House made
today in his briefing. It is not alleging the China
or any other foreign adversary infiltrated any system in our country,
compromised a single vote or material effected any election outcome. Ever,
that's really important. Yeah, vulnerabilities matter. That is important. But
have they been taken to the next most important, scariest
(03:05):
level and the administration is saying no, it has not.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So I feel like Major Garrett was like bailing out
the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't know what his intent was, but I think
that did with Look, they're not claiming the China stole
the election or anywhere. They're just letting you know, they
were jerking around with the elections and we need to
watch out for it, right, and that we have vulnerabilities
that we really ought to look into.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
That's one hundred percent legitimate.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
It was.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Frankly, it was a mishmashy hard to follow this that
and the other ish speech from Trump that would try
to make way too many points. Mice I said earlier,
I wish he just hammered the need for legal id
to vote and making sure the voting roles are only
people who need to be on there. Well, why wasn't
(03:52):
it just from his desk at two o'clock on a Wednesday,
like he announces all kinds of other stuff of roughly
the same importance.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Is there any three dimensional chess going on here?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
We did bomb bridges and power plants for the first
time last night. Did he decide I need to have
a primetime speech that everybody's talking about so that all
the talk the next day is not about war crime
this and taking out power plants. That any chance of that,
(04:22):
I don't know. I don't think anybody cares that much,
do they. Well, when he first announced power plants and bridges,
there was a lot of talk about lots of Democrats
came out immediately with that's a war crime in the
New York Times and everybody. But same night as the
primetime address. That doesn't make any sense to me. I
don't understand why that was a primetime address save those
(04:43):
for really really important new things.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I would agree anyway, moving on, because I don't think
anybody's going to be talking about it and on Monday.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I don't think you may be talking about it at lunch.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Right, right, And again it's kind of a because I
think there were some legitimate things brought up. Well I
know there were, but again it was a little mishmashy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
We'll see what comes from it. Sorry, you know, Oh,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I was gonna I was gonna check what the latest
reporting on the Iran war was, and I was distracted
by the fact that the first several stories in the
New York Times are about the new Prime Minister of Britain.
They get to the speech eventually.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It isn't didn't trip my trigger.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Wildfire smoke in North America, still scrolling China and a ie.
So I don't think anybody's that upset about the Iran stuff.
So he did throw in a couple of things that
apparently were ad libbed, you know how he does that.
He threw in a couple of things about burn bags
and stuff that has been discredited since he originally started
(05:56):
talking about it back in twenty twenty. Anyway, somebody tweeted
this out last night and it was floating around on
social media, and I thought this was pretty good. What
I would like, I would love it. If this could
be put to a poll for the entire country, how
many people would agree with this, this series of statements?
How many people would be on board with this? Trump
lost fair and square in twenty twenty. Only women can
(06:19):
get pregnant, The Trump assassination attempts were real. Mitch McConnell
is alive. Michelle Obama is not a man. Barack Obama
is a citizen. America is less racist than most countries.
Police stop crime, tariffs hurt the economy. How many people
(06:39):
could you get to say yeah to all of those?
Do you think, oh, my gosh, oh, because I think
all of those are to my mind, indisputably true.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, I agreed with all of them. But how many
people could you get on board to say yes to
all those?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Most twenty eight? Twenty eight percent? I don't know. I
need to hear the list again and I will have
to do a little quick math in my head.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All right, there, we lost twenty percent. There.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Trump lost fair and square in twenty twenty. Only I
know there's a significant chunk of our audience that would
reject that notion true only women can get pregnant. Anybody
who doesn't think that is an idiot or a cultist.
The Trump assassination attempts were real. This is kind of
a presentism one.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
This one.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Mitch McConnell is alive. Michelle Obama is not a man.
Barack Obama is a citizen. I like this one. America
is less racist than most countries. That would cut a
bunch of people out. Yeah, you'd lose a lot of
the young left. Maybe this one too, police stop crime
(07:51):
and tariff hurt the economy, which to me might be
the most complicated one one. Did you see Paul? Is
it Paul Krukman, that's his first name. A Nobel Prize
winning economist who I don't think he works for The
New York Times anymore, but he's been a pain in
(08:12):
the ass of normal people forever as a lefty, and
they take his word for everything because he won the
Bell Prize years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Completely full of crap.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Except he came out and saying, you know, he said
I was wrong about this. He said, I've looked over
the data and I think Trump is right about the tariffs.
He put that out a couple of weeks ago, that
the tariffs we were being treated unfairly.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
This was a good idea, and this did help us.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, that's that's partly because he's an old school left
in protectionism and mercantilism. If you really want to to
turn people off at a dinner party, start talking about that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's long been a province of the old left. You
thought there was a.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Good list, though, because you really hit on a couple
of big points for a certain crowds, Because a lot
of people would be not long.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, yeah, you need to get to there.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Whatever they call gorya ox or sacred cow or whatever
it is, you'd be okay, I'm all this. And then
as soon as it said America is less racist than
most countries, I'm out. Or only women can get pregnant,
I'm out, or like you said, for a bunch of
our audience, Trump lost farre and square in twenty twenty,
I'm out. Yeah, that one's a little bit broad because,
(09:21):
and I know I speak for a lot of the
folks listening, they're like.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
The Russian collusion hoax as perpetrated by the FBI with
help from the NSA. That's fair and square, you know,
to say, to have a point, what do you mean
by he lost. He lost, wing, he lost, and he
got seven million fewer votes and he lost.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, I would I would change that one to.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Donald Trump did not actually win the votes in twenty twenty.
Ter rehash something nobody wants to rehash. But I did
the homework on it yesterday, so I'll have to throw
it out there quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Uh oh.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
There were sixty two legal claims the Trump people made.
They lost sixty one of them in court. The one
they won got overturned quickly. It's okay. Most of the
claims that Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell made on TV
to you, they did not make in court. They set
(10:24):
them on TV and on talk shows and podcasts, but
they didn't actually say them out loud in court because
they didn't believe them themselves and they didn't want to
get disbarred and they didn't want to go to jailor
get disbarred.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, that's just true.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
And all those court cases across America that Trump lost
over challenging that election, lots of them were with Trump
judges and red legislatures.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
This is true. Yeah, I don't not to say about that.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
There's not much you need to you don't need to
get complicated when you get into the men can't have
babies one.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That one's easy. Yeah, there's no subtlety there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
But the fact is, there's a lot more money to
be made and whipping people up than calming them down.
There's a lot more money to be made in wild
conspiracies than in it's actually not that interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Here's the truth. It just is.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
It's human nature. Human beings cannot survive the Internet. That
has become clear to me. I wish you young people
well good luck. It's going to be a quite a test.
Day's life has always been quite a test, so don't
get all self pitying. They've fixed the reflecting pool and
they're going to fill it back with water, thank god.
Finally the nations nightmare is over. Our long national Are
(11:35):
you kidding me? Barely noticed time you compare that?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh hello, damn it. Well it's not that late in
the show. I'd meant to plug.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yesterday's One More Thing podcast Armstrong and Getty One More Thing.
You get it automatically if you subscribe to Armstrong and
Getty on demand. We went through the executive summary of
the Trump Administration's report on What's the title of it,
Saving America's Story, how ideological capture at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of American History erases our heritage.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And we went over the.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Marxist activists who have taken over who took over the
leadership of the Smithsonian Institution, particularly the National History Museum.
That's where I'm sick, all right, Jack, first person account
of it has become a far leftist. This country is
evil and it sucks museum, and the Trump administration's report
(12:33):
on that and what to do about it is absolutely shocking.
It's amazing. It is extremely even handed and reasonable, and
we hit that hard and at length in yesterday's Armstrung
You any One More Thing podcast, So that would be
July the sixteenth, and I would encourage you to listen
to it. And the reason that popped into my head
is the idea that the thing you ought to be
(12:54):
worried about on the National Mall is the resurfacing of
the reflecting pool as opposed to the bizarre and sickening
takeover of our national Institution's rostory. Oh please, yeah, no kidding.
That's a very good point. That's a good comparison right
there in ab are you kidding me, honey.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Every time you leave for your affair, you leave the
door open. Our air conditioning bills are so high you've
got to close the door on your way to your affair.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
To your affair with three of our neighbors, your orgies
of the door.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Please, that's a good one. Come on anyway, listen to
the podcast.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Can we militarily open the straight and what would that
look like?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We're gonna talk to Mike Lyons a little bit later
about that.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Lots of other stuff on the way to stay here.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
The World Cup final matchup is set with Argentina taking
on Spain and they got it pretty good. That's a
pretty amazing halftime show. In story, there's also a game
for third place on Saturday between France and England and
they have a halftime show too.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Wow, look at this this Saturday.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
It's the third place game with an incredible halftime show
featuring the six Flags guy Talk to a Girl, Ray Done,
the Australian breakdancer, Justin Bieber is his cousin Hank, that
other other guy from the Black Eyed ps MS McConnell
on spoons.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And bt s.
Speaker 7 (14:27):
It's the Bulgarian tambourine squad. You can miss it.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It's Henrine Squad. Miss McConnell on spoons. They do that.
They have a third place game. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I really don't go deep enough in my soccer knowledge
to know how hard anybody tries, or whether the scrubs
get to play or what, or whether there's much pride
involved in that.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Maybe you definitely want third instead of fourth. Like I said,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So I'm on this thing now where I walk for
about forty five minutes to an hour every single night,
and it's become one of those habits where I just
can't hardly not do it, and I hope I can
keep it doing when the weather turns bad. But I
was listening to a podcast yesterday with David Sedaris.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Do you know him?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
The writer, hilarious guy, he's been an NPR favorite forever,
but a really funny guy if you've never read any
of his stuff. But they were talking to him about
his walking routine. He walks ten Remember, ten thousand steps
was a thing for a while and then they came
out with the ten thousand steps is just a made
up round number to sell you fit bits seven thousand
(15:46):
steps is really plenty for most people. Here's why lowering
all these different things can't risk dementia all these things,
more steps is better. But Sadaris walks ten miles a day. Wow,
every day, he said, rain or shine, no matter what
his schedule is, if he has to be somewhere, he'll
get up at four o'clock in the morning to get
(16:07):
his ten miles in before he goes to the airport
to fly somewhere to Pumper's lotus book.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Wow, how long would that? Wuldn't that take you?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Here's a four mile an hour walk. As you're walking fast.
If you walked at that pace, it's gonna take you
two and a half hours. I just think from a
time standpoint.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And well, look who am I to, questioned the great
David Sedaris. But you could do you know, brief interval
training that would give you all sorts of health benefits
on those days. But you know, he's got a habit going,
he's got a groove. It's overall a good one for him.
Would I approach it differently? But I can't fault a guy. Yeah, Anyway,
(16:49):
I got all this information about what it does for
you to get in seven eight thousand steps a day,
which is about three three and a half miles by
the way, if you're wondering how far that is. There
are a lot of health benefits to that you don't need.
You don't need be in great shape or anything like that.
So I guess we're bombing bridges now and some energy
infrastructure in Iran? And is that going to do the trick?
(17:11):
Wall Street Journal said the other day, we can't get
the straight open without a lot of troops. We'll ask
Mike Lines about it next, Armstrong and Getty for Iran.
Speaker 8 (17:20):
The Straits of Mosstra is a strategic asset.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
No matter what.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
Happens here, they will continue to want to take it
back from us because it's number one. They don't have
a nuclear power capability, they're not even close to developing
a weapon now. This is their number one strategic asset.
It gives them leverage over the Golf States in a region,
and they truly want to have an element of control
(17:46):
here and they are willing to fight us for it,
and we have got to take it away from him
and prevent them from ever getting it back under their
control again.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
General Jack Keane on Fox yesterday, and that seems to
be the case. And we started talking about this two
days ago. Wall Street Journal had that piece where they
were supposedly talking to people in the White House and
the Pentagon who are saying the Pentagon has been telling
the President, Look, we can open the strait, but it'll
be incredibly difficult, and it will take a lot of troops,
(18:19):
and I mean it will be an amazing commitment of
military power to do this.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Do we really want to do this? You're gonna need
more people, You're gonna need more everything.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Let's talk about the situation in general and that question
more specifically with military analyst Mike Lyons, who joins us now.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Mike, always great to talk. How are you, hey, guys,
great to be back.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So how accurate is that that to open the street
would be somewhere between impossible and very very very difficult.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
I'm not sure. I think General King's got it right.
Speaker 9 (18:49):
I think we're going to continue to attack along this
very long coastline, right six hundred miles of coastline that
exists here. I look at the targets specifically right round
the sixth day now of striking here, and we're after
the most the largest threat and out of these coastal
batteries and drones, and you know, anybody who picks his
head up and.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
Decides to fire.
Speaker 9 (19:07):
Still not at scale, although some of their missiles and
drones are still getting through. We could still pound away
here for a very long time from the air and
continue to degrade their capability. We saw we took out
a bridge last night. That's a little unusual. And it's
all about the infrastructure now, because if you take away
the initial capability that they have along the coastline, now
(19:29):
we've got to get another layer behind it. So I
think that's what the military strikes are going to do.
I'm not sure where the people are coming in. I mean,
we're not invading Iran, we're not taking it over, We're
not doing that. So I'm not quite sure what that is.
I mean, we could, we could do this for a
long time and get the results we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So but given the fact that all you need are
a couple of shots across a couple of bows to
effectively close the straight, eliminating their capabilities to that extent
seems like a near impossibility to me.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Don't you need to remove their will to do that.
Speaker 9 (20:03):
Yeah, that's two separate kind of lanes there, for sure.
The question is we can again trid it down to
the point where that probability becomes just so low. And
I think that's what we're doing, That's what we're trying
to do. The will question comes down to the separation
that you could see already between the Ministry of Foreign
(20:25):
Policy and the Ministry and the IRGC, I mean, one
side of the coin. They're trying to make a deal
these Trump says, they're calling them all the time to
make a deal. But the IRGC obviously isn't control of
everything here, so you know, and I think that they've
been very decentralized. Obviously, the intent is very clear, just
don't give up. And so the United States is going
to have to continue to pound away while other countries,
(20:46):
to the Gulf countries are looking for alternate means, which
is really the issue here. Create pipelines, don't don't give
the leverage back to the Ranians once this is over.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
They can't ever control this in the future. And these
Gulf states are trying to recognize that as well.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
So the Wall Street Journal's story was we the and
you know a few of information that's different than this,
feel free to tell us. But the reporting has been
that the part of the strait that we're saying is open,
no ships have gone through. And we made a big
on the radio announcement to the United States says it's open,
go ahead and come on through, and the only response
(21:19):
was somebody on another ship saying, f off, Then we're
not going through there.
Speaker 9 (21:25):
Yeah, Well, there's there's a couple of pathways. There's one
close to Aman, which is what we believe is what's open.
It's what's getting through. It's not the hundred ships a day. Necessarily,
it's not an open passage. But you know, you know, again,
the military is going to overestimate I think, what it's capability,
its needs in order to get the job done, and
(21:47):
then try to come in under that.
Speaker 7 (21:49):
Obviously.
Speaker 9 (21:49):
I think that's where the Wall Street Journal is getting
those sources from, because sure, if you're a commander on
the ground to unlimited resources, you're going to say this
is what we need in order to make it, you know,
completely to completely open. We've always heard the chairman say degraded.
They're not completely destroyed. I know the President's is destroyed,
but that's a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Military analyst Mike Lyons is on the line, So what
what would you say overall? Is the capability of the
Iranian military at this point? Are I mean, are they
just the only thing they can accomplish is frightening ships
in the Gulf essentially at this point exactly hanging on
the infrastructure, maybe in the neighborhood, Yeah.
Speaker 7 (22:29):
Exactly, hanging on for dear life.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
I mean again, with ninety percent degraded, they could still
have a few hundred missiles left and nothing comes at scale.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Everything is asymmetric.
Speaker 9 (22:38):
What that means, it's the one off when you don't know,
it's the most challenging to defend against. It's consider it
to be terrorism on the sea. That's what they can do.
But that's all they have. And like anything else, like
we've defeated isis we just have to keep going at
it and keep.
Speaker 7 (22:52):
A treading at it.
Speaker 9 (22:53):
And frankly, as long as we're not bringing body bags
home here, this is fine.
Speaker 7 (22:58):
I know.
Speaker 9 (22:58):
I saw some smart and say, oh, this is now
going to turn in forever war.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
No, it's not. Because we can't do this all day.
We can continue to.
Speaker 9 (23:06):
Strike for the military, you know, one hundred or so
hundred strikes a day.
Speaker 7 (23:10):
It's not the level of epic fury.
Speaker 9 (23:12):
It's not eleven hundred, but it's also not six or seven,
which is all the Iranians are doing. Continue to leverage
on the economic side and the blockade as well. Something's
going to have to crumble inside Iran. I think this
is starting to be the beginning of the end, and
I think this is the strategy most of the military
wanted to see us do a couple months ago.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well, I sure, hope you're right. I mean, that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
If we hit them a couple hundred times a day,
day after day, eventually they fall.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
They're not getting the revenue they need.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
You know, there's enough internal conflict where people are saying
to each other, Hey, this ain't gonna work.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
What's our long plan here? And the regime crumbles.
Speaker 7 (23:46):
Yeah, it works for now.
Speaker 9 (23:47):
I mean again, what we kind of I'm not saying
I don't care we obviously you know, this is again
a good example of other countries should recognize.
Speaker 7 (23:54):
This is the number one threat in the world right now.
Speaker 9 (23:56):
This is this is it, and if we don't get it,
the Aradians they're going to control this then again, the
Trump arrangement syndrome, you know, obviously exists inside of NATO
and exists in some of these leaders here, but the
Gulf States are getting it because they're also been part
of the receiving end wanted two attacks still come that way.
Speaker 7 (24:12):
This problem needs to be solved right.
Speaker 9 (24:14):
Now, and I think the President is going to make
sure it gets solved before we go on to the
next thing.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Mike, I want to change topics just briefly, because we've
been talking about this a lot today and are going
to be talking about it more, including Marco Rubio's fantastic speech.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
Of was it yesterday or yea tremendous.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And we've been talking about the success so far of
the Democratic Socialists of America's candidates in various elections, and
they're trying to take over the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I'm sure you've been watching this too. Any thoughts, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 9 (24:45):
Not sure that anyone in that party's ever got a
civics lesson. We have a Constitution of republic that's going nowhere,
and if they try to change that, then you're talking
we're back to the eighteen sixties again, and you want
to go there. That works out so again, I don't
think it's it's unfortunate gets a lot of press, and
(25:06):
I feel terrible. I'm not the political guy here obviously,
but you know, the Democrats have got a problem they
have to solve here. But if they think they're going
to defund the military and get rid of the Senate
and overturn this whatever they think they're they're just delusional.
And so oh yeah, that's civil war level stuff. So again,
you want to play hardball, We'll play hardball and we'll
see how that goes.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Military analyst Mike lyons, Mike, it's always great to talk.
As I said before, we'll stay in touch. Is the
is the situation of all Thanks great guys, Thanks for
having Yep. Well, he's pretty optimistic about the road we're
going down with the couple hundred strikes per day.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
The old Wackensky is yep, we'll see. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, I suppose at the end of the day it
might be what's the other option? Sure there is one,
so you take the best of your bad options.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Now, that's interesting his angle.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
He this is something he thinks about because he is
in the military and talk to people at a high level.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
That I don't always think about.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The people that leak that stuff to the Wall Street
Journal want a lot more stuff. They want people, planes, bullets, bombs,
all this stuff. And that's how you get it by saying, well,
we can do it, but it's gonna.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Be really, really, really hard. We're gonna need a lot
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, you do that for reasons that are both perfectly
noble and maybe a little self serving. But yeah, yeah,
I if I'm a marine, I want to go in.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
With overwhelming force the Powell doctrine.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Indeed, indeed, want me to hit you with something really
really stupid, or we take a break. If you like,
you're gonna complain about this, Oh, you're gonna yell. We
usually make people buy advertising. That's what you're gonna yell. Well,
if you know everything, I'm going to say, I'm going
to go play golf and you can just do me.
(27:00):
McDonald's has two brand new sandwich creations.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Normally we make people immediately hostile.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
That is true. The honey brown butter, bacon, egg and
cheese biscuit. What is what is honey brown? What is
honey brown butter? Which one is brown? The honey the
butter In the English language is probably the butter a
taco bell.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's the lettuce. Hell nailed them. Oh my god, he
might give people the poops. He tied it into the
news of the day. Did you hear that? Fantastic? All right?
So bad?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So you got the honey brown butter bacon, egg and
cheese biscuit, You're right, I don't know the descriptor.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Brown butter that isak and cheese biscuit.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
That's eight words and much the honey brown butter chicken biscuit,
which is different than the bacon ag this git or
make honey 's. Well, they want you to know about
the honey brown butter, whatever the hell that is, and
fans are loving them apparently excellent. If they have one
of my local McDonald's, I'll try one today. Why are
the calories so high on this stuff?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Though?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I generally kind of like put my hand up to
the menu in front of my eye so I can't
read the calorie part if I met McDonald's. But like,
one of my go tos is a couple of cheeseburgers.
A couple of cheeseburgers, no onions.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
That's all.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I get, two cheeseburgers, no onions, no fries, no drink.
Just said, But it's like eight hundred calories for two
tiny cheeseburgers. Why why are there so? How do they
pack so many calories in there? I don't know the fats,
I really don't know. That was the great thing about
being on that cruise. Judy and I were on no
calories anywhere. It was the international waters friends, the lawless
(28:49):
rum sod of me in the lash I receipt and
no calories on the menu.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It was fantastic. Make me walk the plank. You're gonna
need a thicker plank. Yeah, you better reinforce that plank.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
H Do you tell me how they pack You don't
know how they pack all those extra calories into fast food.
It seems like a lot.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And what's that hun for? Tiny? For two tiny little burgers?
Look up making cheeseburgers or something at home. It ain't
like that. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, deliciousness, I guess has a lot of calories in it.
I will not eat at McDonald's coming up. You should
inconvenience yourself more often. I will explain. I have made
our lot, all of us. You, the general, you, the great,
you Uh, we've made our lives too frictionless. Oh okay,
(29:38):
great essay from one of my favorite young thinkers.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
A lot of stuff on the way stay here.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So Marco Rubio, whose arrow is pointing up in terms
of his Q factor definitely is uh, gave it quite
a spe against socialism slash communism. Yesday will play some
of that now ur three. Yeah, just absolutely terrific. I
am a big fan. I'm also a big fan of
Roland Fryar, who is a young unconventional economist.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
He teaches at Harvard.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He's a think tank guy, entrepreneur, but he writes about
all sorts of intriguing things and looks at them through
the lens of economic analysis and including friendship. And I'm
just I'm gonna hit you with a little little splash
of paint here, a little splash of paint there.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Then get to the point. It's gonna be. Like some
of my favorite songwriters, you don't know quite what's going on.
Great movies.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
The ferry crossing from chap Equittic to edgar Town, Massachusetts
is blah blah blah. No matter how rich or important
you are, you have to wait to get on the boat.
Sometimes you wait in your car. Sometimes you get out,
someone complains about the line, the weather, our politics, or
the ups driver. It goes to the front of the queue.
Someone else laughs, the conversation begins, I've been on that ferry,
I think town, and then he talks about if modern
(31:04):
life hasn't has undersold inconvenience. We treat waiting as wasted time,
and often it is, but sometimes waiting does something useful.
It forces people into the same place with nothing to do,
long enough for conversation to begin. And then he points
out a number of studies that have called loneliness America's
greatest public health problem and the tie in between a
(31:26):
social circle and long life and happy life for all
sorts of age, cohorts and just it is undeniable that
social loneliness is a bad thing for a human beings
twenty ten research big study found that weak social relationships
predict mortality at a magnitude comparable to smoking and greater
than obesity or physical inactivity.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Loneliness linked to.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
High risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and
premature death.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So he makes that.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Point, and then finally he winds back to what brings
me back to that ridiculously inconvenient fairy and what I
call the friction theory of friendship. The idea is simple,
Some inconveniences aren't merely costs. They are the hidden scaffolding
of social life. Then he, because he's an economist, he
(32:15):
has to crank out an equation. If I had to
estimate my own production function for friendship, it would look
something like this. Friendship equals proximity times repetition plus idle
time time's low stakes plus shared irritation. Proximity matters most
when it recurs. Idle time matters most when nobody is
(32:38):
trying to impress anyone. Shared irritation helps, but with diminishing returns.
He points out, a delayed fairy creates conversation, a broken
fairy creates rage. But he says, this is why friendship
is often a product of something else, work, school, church children, sports, errands,
waiting rooms. It is produced not by misery, but by
(33:01):
enough common friction to make conversation natural. Modern life has
spent decades eliminating that friction. We can work without offices,
shop without stores, exercise without gyms, and communicate without looking
anyone in the eye. Each improvement is defensible, some phenomenal Together,
they have made interaction with other people increasingly optional.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I don't argue with any of that. I don't think
we're ever going back.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
But I think about this all the time when I'm
in a line for anything at the airport, at the
coffee shop, I see people at the bus stop. Everybody's
looking at their phone, and think, what would this have
looked like. You don't have to go back far just
twenty years ago. Oh would this will look like twenty
thirty years ago? All these people in line to get
on the plane, you know, in the long tunnel after
(33:46):
you've shown your ticket.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Were we talking to each other?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Were we I don't know, I don't remember what we
were doing, but we weren't all staring at a phone.
We definitely were not doing that, So we probably were
having small talk. Yeah, I disagree with you that we're
going back. I think significant chunks of society will. And
part of the evidence of that, strangely, is the success
that the Democratic Socialists of America are having because they
perform social functions for young people, and young people are
(34:14):
loving that. But anyway, ah so, and then he talks.
Then he really gets into economist talk. But the main
point I want to make to you is that the
usual response is to blame phones.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
That's too easy.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
The deeper forces the war on friction. We need to
interact with others, we need to find excuses to do it.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
It's good, it's healthy.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I really wanted to have time in this to tell
the story of my dinner last night, Day two, Night
two in a row, sitting at the bar at the
golf club where I play, having dinner and and intoxicating
beverage and just chatting with people. Because normally Judy's been busy,
I would be at home alone eating a frozen pizza.
(35:02):
But partly because it's fantastic, partly because of this article,
I thought, no, just go see who you meet, run
into people. Chat Night one worked perfectly, ran into some friends,
had a lovely conversation to.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Night too. Yeah, well you should just see the other guy.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
No.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Night two, I'm sitting there at the end of the
bar reading news, waiting for a conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That happened.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Eight young females set up camp right next to me
and start chattering in a million miles a second, Oh God,
Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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