August 26, 2025 • 37 mins
Hour 1 of A&G features...
- Jack's stuck in traffic & woke Cracker Barrel
- Katie Green's Headlines!
- Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, talks to Jack
- Cracker Barrel changes
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 (00:10):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Kaddy arm Strong
and Jaccade.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And he.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Arm wrong, dy Okay, gotcha? So apparently you did not
communicate this properly live from my car, which I'll describe
(00:46):
in just a second. The Michael, you were not allowed
in the loop on the fact that Katie was gonna
take it in and everything, so you probably didn't turn
on her microphone and gotcha. Hello, what are you gonna do?
So here's what happened. I'm solo today because Joe, can
you do it off to music? It's annoying me. The
whole day is falling apart. So I'm solo because Joe's
(01:12):
on vacation. He's in Great Britain, and hopefully he'll be
able to call in a little later this morning. When
you have a whole bunch of great guests lined up,
I get up extra early to do all the extra
work that you have to do when you do the
show by yourself, and I leave the house extra early,
like I don't know, I'm on the road like fifteen
minutes earlier than I usually am. Checking the GPS, the
whole time, make sure there's no recks and road is
(01:32):
clear and free. I'm on the phone with Hanson and
Michaelangelo and Katie and we're doing our pre show meeting,
which we do surprisingly every morning, and while I'm on
the meeting, the GPS goes to all red and it
goes from saying I'm going to be to work fifteen
minutes early to saying I'm going to be to work
forty five minutes late. So all of a sudden, so
(01:54):
I said, I got to get off the phone. Well,
Katie looked it up. There's been a fatality with a motorcycle.
A semi truck hit a motorcycle, which is just horrifying.
Is that all the detail you have so far, Katie, Yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Looked like it was.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
It started with a motorcycle and a semi and then
a third vehicle got involved, and eventually when the second
you saw red, all lanes got blocked.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
So I mean, is it stopped?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And we're I realized we're on whatever seventy stations across
the country and this doesn't have anything to do with you.
But we motorcyclists, which I am, really our ears perk
up when we hear about a motorcycle in an a wreck,
because there's no such thing as a minor motorcycle wreck.
It's not like as a fender bender. You can't have
a fender bender on a motorcycle wreck. Every wreck on
(02:41):
a motorcycle is horrifying. And I ride a motorcycle and
you worry about it all the time. And so I'm
trying not to be concerned about me and my traffic
situation given the fact that this guy I was probably
headed out to work on his motorcycle this morning and
ended up dead, which is a horrifying story. Anyway, I'm
sitting completely still, haven't moved a foot in a half
(03:02):
an hour, just now starting to move, which is fantastic.
And then I don't probably just zoom back home and
work from home, so I'll be on the microphone within
hopefully not too many minutes. Here's the story I'm trying
to wrap my head around this morning that I was
excited about talking to y'all about the whole cracker barrel remodel.
(03:22):
How closely have you been following this? Are you on
top of this? So I was surprised how many of
my favorite podcasts we're talking about the Cracker Barrel remodel.
Because I'm a rural Midwest guy. I've eat nick Cracker
Barrel one hundred times in my life, and the family
goes there when we all get together for Christmas or
(03:43):
Thanksgiving or whatever. We don't eat Thanksgiving meal there, but
like we got the whole family together and everything like that,
we regularly go to Cracker Brow. So when I found
out they were remodeling, and then there is I don't
care what the logo looks like, but they were remodeling,
I thought, oh, I don't know, I like the way
it was. But then it became just such an issue.
As listened to all these different radio shows and podcasts
(04:05):
where people were talking about it a lot, and again
I was surprised. I didn't know as many people were
into Cracker Barrel as they seem to be. Then I
saw the first pictures yesterday. Have you seen the first pictures, Katie. Yeah,
it's well, it's it's a completely different thing. Yeah, just
a completely different thing. It's gonna be. Well, it looks
(04:27):
like a McDonald's. It's it's booths. Well it's it's it's
booths and very minimal, and it just looks like the
inside of a McDonald's or a Wendy's or a Burger King.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
One of my friends, who's a big, a big Crackerbill fan,
said they took away everything we love about.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It, right, the whole vibe they claim. They claim the
food is going to be the same, But I wonder
about that. But then I started hearing it have you
heard this stuff about it's woke? And that I couldn't
grasp what it was that the blowback was because Cracker
Barrel's gone woke, and I thought, in what sense is
this woke? It just seems like they determined that they
(05:09):
needed to come up with a more streamlined, modern look
than the old time you look, which is fine. That's
a business decision. I don't think they're right, but but
I don't see how it's woke. But then I finally
heard today about some of the stuff they're doing apparently,
so you know the little triangle game where you have
the pegs and you jump one peg over another peg
to try to get it down to one peg. Is
(05:30):
there a name for that thing? I can't I remember,
but everybody knows what it is and that little game
and my brother, for some reason, could always get down
to one peg, and I never haven when my entire life,
not once, but on the old Cracker Barrel, the on
the on the little wooden triangle, it says, if you
get it down to one peg, you're a genius. If
(05:52):
you get it down to two pegs, you're pretty good.
If you get it down to three pegs, you're not
so smart. And then if you get it down if
you four pegs are more, you're an ignoramus. That's what
it used to say. I'm a little that's awesome triangle.
I know at Cracker Barrel. Well, now the new ones apparently,
and I don't know if this is in theirnet rumor
or it's true, but the new ones at Cracker Barrel
(06:13):
now say one year a genus, Two, pretty good, three,
keep trying four, Try even harder next time. You know.
It's that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah, no reason to what this one says, no reason
to be embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Try again.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, so, I mean that is a minor thing. But
if that's something they did, then yeah, they do have
their eye toward the modern cultural thing. We don't want
to hurt the feeld. So you've been a business, can
you let me know you probably got Wikipedia or something
open there. How long has Cracker Barrel been around my
whole lifetime? So for decades and decades and decades you've
(06:49):
been calling people who can't do the little triangle peg
game and ignoramus. Everybody's been fine with it. There's been
no protests. I don't remember any marches in the street.
I don't remember seeing any kids crying, and I've been
to Cracker Barrel with lots of kids. Everybody seemed to
be fine. Now you've got to say keep trying, you'll
do okay sport. In fact, maybe they bring out the
waitress brings out of participation, participating a certificate for the
(07:12):
fact that you played the little triangle game.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
So triangle game has just called the peg game. Cracker
Barrel was opened in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Okay, so it's been around my whole life. Yeah, and
everybody seems to have been fine. But now they're worried
about that now. I don't know if there's any other
wokeness besides that. There is.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Because they changed the logo and they took the little
white guy that's sitting next to the barrel off of it,
and they're claiming that they were trying to get a
rid of another white figure, was what I was reading.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
See, I can't tell what is guessing commentary and what
is actually cracker barrel's attitude. Now I did hear on
I guess I was on Fox. There was some concern
that the guy next to the barrel, it was seen
as a cracker, you know, the derogatory term for a
white person, cracker and a barrel cracker barrel, which I
(08:10):
don't know that anybody had ever thought about the logo
ever since nineteen sixty nine, one human being. But it's
actually there. There used to be barrels full of crackers
at old time country stores, and that's what it was,
with a cracker barrel. But if their concern was that,
then once again that would be reacting to something that
didn't exist. That would be trying to fix something that
(08:31):
wasn't the problem in the first place. Again, there were
not marches in the streets. I don't remember anybody crying.
I don't remember any disruption in society over the fact
that it was called cracker barrel and you had a
little picture of a kid nixed to barrel whatever.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Because there wasn't jack.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
So they lost a ton of money in the last
week since this news came out. I don't know if
that's merely the pull back of a business, a tried
and true business is changing. We're a little hesitant. We
don't know if you know it's going to be successful
(09:08):
or not pullback, or if people are actually angry like
they were with bud Light and Nike and a couple
of other products in recent years. But if it goes
to actually, if they actually do go through with this
remodel everywhere and it goes to booths and stuff like that,
I know my family won't be using it when we
all get together for our big gathering because you can't
(09:29):
pull booths together and get a big crowd there. And
because that's a popular thing. At cracker Brough, they put
some tables together and you got fifteen people, and you
got cousins and aunts and uncles and everything like that.
It's fun, fantastic, and the menu's broad enough. There's something
for everybody, and if you got little kids, it's fantastic.
There's enough to look at on the walls, or enough
stupid stuff to play with or whatever. It keeps everybody occupied, fine,
(09:51):
whatever minor problem in life. But if they thought they
were making people happy. From a cultural standpoint, that is
pretty moronic. They cracker Bell released some sort of statement
yesterday to try to walk it back, but it didn't
include any of or changing our mind. It just was,
(10:12):
you know, it was. It was the worst kind of
apology you can ever give somebody. Sorry, I hurt your feelings,
which is basically saying you're a snowflake and I'm sorry.
I said, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Up there with sorry you feel that way, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, yeah, it's just a different version of sorry you
feel that way to say sorry I hurt your feelings.
I'm not sorry. I said what I said. You should
have reacted differently. That's what you're saying. You should have
reacted differently to what I said. That's what sorry I
hurt your feelings mean. Okay, so that minor thing is
off the table. Have a whole bunch of great guests today,
(10:48):
and I won't run through the entire list, but I'm
looking forward to talking to our old friend Craig got
Walls a little bit later in the show. He and
I were actually texting in real life last night, and
he's got a bunch of stuff he's doing, including and
how he uses Ai he uses AI lot for his
business and just in his personal life, and he had
some tips for that that I thought were really really interesting.
(11:08):
I know, use AI, Katie, I use AI Joe does.
But he came across some chart that shows you which
AI to use for which sort of thing you're doing,
whether it's counseling questions, medical questions, imaging. Yeah, because there's
like ten different AIS out there, and if you know
which one's best at, which would be pretty handy. So
(11:30):
we'll talk a little bit about that later. I like
that at the topic. We better start the show officially
before I get in trouble real quick. I'm Jack Armstrong,
He's Joe Getty on this It is Tuesday, August twenty sixth,
year twenty twenty five or Armstrong and Getty, and we
approve of this program. Let's art to start the show
at Mark.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
You know, I do have to acknowledge under Gavin Newsom's leadership.
You know, California, they are number one in a lot
of things. Their number one in homelessness, they're number one
in public defecation, they're number one in tent cities, on
side walks and in public places.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You may recognize that voice as the governor of Florida
who kind of ran for president Ron Desantas talking about
how Gavin Newsom going around claiming California's number one is
hilarious and then you heard some of the lists there
number one in public defication, which I'm sure we are.
I'm sure California is far away number one in public defication.
(12:27):
I can't even imagine there's a close second.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
I can't think of another state with a crap map.
Remember how we had in San Francisco, well.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right, and it was needed. I don't know if Susantis
is actually thinking of taking another shot at it and
thinks maybe he could get the nomination if Trump's not
on the ballot. I don't know, but we'll talk about
that a little bit later. We are going to get
into Katie's headlines coming up. Got a great guest to
talk about Russia and Ukraine in a little bit. Hopefully,
I'm going to get off the interstate all on the
(12:55):
way stay here. Text line is four one, five, two,
nine to five kftc.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Armstrong, Hey Geeddy, yo yo yo man.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
We've lined up a pretty good show today. We got
a bunch of interesting topics to cover and some great
guests that we'll get to a little bit later, including
I want to do a Russia Ukraine thing coming up next.
I think that story's dead. Well, the peace process is
completely dead, so I think we're restarting with where we
are on that whole thing. The war still rages on
and Rush is on pace to lose another twenty thousand
(13:27):
men this month dead, which is absolutely amazing. But more
on that a little bit later. Let's check the headlines
with Katy Green find out what's going on.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
All right, let's start with the Hill. Trump administration quote
absolutely forbidden from removing Abrego Garcia, according to Judge.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I just I've never grasped this story as something I'm
interested in and jumped on it, and it's such a
political football. But well, you know what, We'll wait and
see how it turns out.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Well, let's jump on the flip side of that story
from the New York Post. Ukrainian refugee who fled war
for safer life in the United States knifed to death
by homeless career criminal in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Wow. So this one's got several elements to it, including
the you know, Trump sign an executive order yesterday to
try to do away with cash bail as a thing
across the country, with the idea that that's the reason
there's so many repeat offenders out there on the street,
people that have been arrested over and over and over again.
(14:39):
Are you get arrested for a violent crime and you
get right back out on the street. We got to
do something about that.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
From the New York Times, Israel faces growing pressure over
hostages and Gaza offensive.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
What was the first part, Israel faces the growing pressure.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Yeah, Israel is well, the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So it's it's very right.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
From the New York Times. They always they always failed
to mention that the vast, vast majority of Israelis want
to get a rid of hamas and want to get
the hostages back. They aren't. There are protests in the street,
but that's not the majority opinion. New York Times always
presents it like it's the majority opinion.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Yeah. From USA today, US stock futures lower after Trump
fires FED Governor Lisa Cook.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Another story. I'm not following, Go ahead and move on.
I don't care. I don't care. I'm just I'm just
not going to get baited into all of these outrageous authoritarian.
He's what I just I'm not doing it. I'm not
playing that game. Whatever. If you like that story, listen
something else.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
From NBC. National Guard troops now carrying weapons in Washington.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
D C.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, man, I don't know. My brother was a guardsman
for a long time, and I would I would be
really worried if he was walking the streets to Washington,
d C. With a gun, with the job of being
a policeman, urban policeman following UH civilian law. That's that's
a complicated position to put our our National guardsmen in.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
From the Free Beacon, Columbia Law School tells students to
avoid offensive terms like quote crazy uncle and grandfathering.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Wow. I thought that was over the knowledges at the
beginning of the year telling you the ridiculously woke terms
they used.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Oh and they even dropped the word microaggression back in there.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Wow. So Columbia is gonna die on that hill. They're
gonna good fight. Wow, good for you.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
From Breitbart dot com.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
DNC has spent over fifteen million dollars in twenty twenty
five on repaying Kamala Harris's campaign expenses.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, not enough people pay attention to that part of
running for president. There's a lot of well, first of all,
there's a lot of people that run for president just
for the perks of staying in nice hotels and needing
nice restaurants and raising money, and somebody else pays for it.
And then even the serious candidates take advantage of the
whole situation and somebody's paying the bill for her losing candidacy. Right.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Study findes more purpose less dementia Americans with life direction
fared twenty eight percent better.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Life direction.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, having about that later, Yeah, having a routine some Yeah,
one of the angs.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I want to discuss that at lengths later. That's a
good one.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
And finally from the Babylon B John Bolton elludes FBI
by blending into a herd of Walrus's.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh oh, that's the laugh of the day. That's a
good one. Right there. We got a great guest coming up.
We're gonna talk a little bit about the war in Ukraine,
a whole bunch of other stuff on the way. I
hope you can stay with us on the Armstrong and
Getdy show if you miss as he can get the
podcast arms Strong and Getty on the.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Bed Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I happen to think the whole Rushi Ukraine thing is
actually a very big story that has significance for the world,
as you know if you're a listener to the Armstrong
in Getty Show. I think the peace process, however, is dead.
I don't know if there's much to say about that. Well,
let's find out with someone who's way smarter than me,
Justin Logan with the Cato Institute. Justin Welcome to the
(18:44):
Armstrong and Getty Show. Good morning. So, first of all,
I guess do you agree with my assessment that this,
at least this round of the peace process is more
or less dead.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (19:00):
I mean you have to have a sort of context
with this. If you look back at the Korean War,
for example, there was talking while fighting that went on
for the better part for over two years. In fact,
there were over fifty meetings between the various sides to
try to bring it together. So I think there's an
argument that isn't super helpful in the present that this
should have started a long time ago, which again doesn't
help us today. But so I think there was a
(19:22):
big media push and everybody was like, ooh, is you
know Trump going to get Putin to agree to some
grand deal in Alaska, and those of US with a
little more salar disposition or arguably sort of more expectations, said, well, hey,
wait a minute, this is the sort of it's a
bad metaphor, but first date, right' it's you know, there
were too many hopes put in that first meeting and
(19:43):
then the meeting with the Europeans, and on the central issues,
the two sides are really far apart. The Ukrainians say
they want security guarantees from NATO or the United States,
and the Russians say they want big chunks of Ukrainian territory,
And the two sides are very far apart on those
two central issues. So there's going to have to be
some kind of budging that happens to bring him twitter
on those and that may take quite a long time.
(20:06):
Did you just reveal that your first dates you begin
the negotiations of who gets what right off the bat. Well,
I wouldn't wouldn't put it exactly like that on the radio, but.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So okay. So Trump's style of sure, I'll just meet
with Putin right off the bat before laying any groundwork,
I thought was kind of refreshing and getting away from
the point ahead of the academics who overthink things. But
maybe not.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
No, I mean I agree with that, right at a
certain point, you've just got to make a movie, you know,
you've got to do something. And Trump does not genuflect
at the sort of icons of the DC foreign policy establishment.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
He just does things right.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
There's things in his circles you could just do things,
and he just does things right. And so everybody you
know around where I work freaked out of it, and
I said, well, you know, he didn't give anything away.
You know, there was this great to cry about He's
going to sell out the Ukrainians. And he even said,
at the end of the day, it's going to have
to be the Ukrainians that make some kind of deal, right,
(21:09):
he can't give Ukraine away because Ukrainians are the ones
doing the fucking. So I think his style is so
anathema to the sort of Beltwegh nerds that they tend
to overstate the substance of what's being decided at these things.
But again, I think on the substance, you know, I
(21:30):
don't disagree with your setup that you know, we're still
quite a ways a part.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So that was really interesting info you brought about how
long it took for the Korean War to come to
a close. And I probably know less about the Korean
War than any major war in Neo's history. Maybe I
should look into that. But was one side like fairly
clearly winning at the end the way Russia seems to be,
(21:58):
or at least, you know, willing to fight on between
the careas well. And I think you've put your finger
on another problem, which is that in this case, the
Russians are brutally, gradually, incrementally winning and they know it.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
And that's the fundamental problem. Is that what's happening here
is they say to themselves, all right, we could, you know,
take half a loaf today, or we could keep fighting.
And we have some expectation that if we keep fighting
we could get more than we could get the diplomacy.
And that's the fundamental fact that confounds diplomacy in this case.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Right.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
What you would want is both sides feel as though
they're paying inordinate costs for trivial gains and to say
we need some off ramp off of this thing. And arguably,
I think the Trump administration's policy visa the Ukraine, if
you remember several months ago. They didn't even want to
go to an unconditional ceasefire, right, they wanted to keep
writing along. And I think the fact that no huge
(23:02):
bucket of American materiel arms is forthcoming has caused the
Ukrainians to move somewhat on this issue. On the other side, however,
Russians perceives the order of battle on the battlefield as
it is, which is tilted in their favor, and they
stay to themselves. Well, let's see how this plays out.
But in the meantime, fighting is serving our interests, so
(23:24):
we're going to keep paying.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Let's back up a second in terms of the importance
of this. How important do you super smart people at
CATO think this is? Because I definitely have been buying
into the idea of if Putin gets away with this,
I'm using my finger quotes. If Putin gets away with this,
it re establishes, you know, the great game as they
(23:48):
used to call it, where big countries get to take
small countries and China says, okay, it's on, we get
to take Taiwan. That it affects the way the whole
world works. Do you think it's that it has those
of consequences If Putin felt away with this.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
This won't satisfy you. But cynical realists like me think
that that's always the way international politics has been. And
we had this little interlude, this sort of unipolar moment
after the Cold War, where we told ourselves we had
transcended history, we had broken out of this sort of
tragic nature of international politics. And you know, to some
extent that was true in the sense that you know,
(24:28):
if you only have one great power in the system,
you know, it has a dampening effect. But I think
that the system itself is changing, and therefore we're reverting
back to the normal order of international politics, which is
a brutal and competitive enterprise. The one thing I will
say is that and this has been just a horrific
(24:49):
humanitarian catastrophe for Ukraine and also for Russian conscripts, et cetera.
But the one sort of if you will, silver lining
to this very our cloud that it was a huge
opportunity to force the issue of the Europeans right. The
United States has been complaining about European free riding on
America's exertion since the Eisenhower administration, and this gought the
(25:13):
Europeans attention, right the largest war in Europe since World
War Two. So if we were serious, as Trump administration
said that it was about shifting the burden to the
Europeans for European defense, this was a useful opportunity. Now,
I think again to bring back the dark class. I
think that to a certain extent, they're missing this opportunity
(25:33):
by taking sort of paper commitments to spend more in
the future and by not moving around America's pieces in Europe,
which is the one tool that we have that could
get the Europeans not just to promise to spend more,
or even to spend more, but to spend well and
effectively in terms of translating a euro spent into more
units of military power.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah. I don't know if you read that piece that
Stephen Cottkin wrote for the Wall Street Journal. I thought
it was interesting his take on why are the Europeans
Peans coming to the Oval Office to beg Trump to
let them do something they could do on their own, well,
because they feel like they have to, right.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
Mean, it was a quite striking visual and Trump is
a master of imagery and visuals and things, but he
was sitting on the other side of the resolute desk
with seven or eight European leaders a raid on the
other side like what they were, which is supplicants. Right,
they're coming to the United States to beg and plead
for the United States to take responsibility for Ukraine security
(26:35):
itself because the Europeans feel like they can't do it right.
The Europeans right now are pulling and begging and pleading
for the United States to commit to defend Ukraine from
Russia should Russia attack it again. In the same breath,
the Germans, the Italians, the Brits now are saying, but
we're not going to commit troops ourselves. And that is
(26:58):
the same bad deal that Americans have been getting out
of Europe for the past sixty five or seventy years.
And I think you know, the Trump administration is uniquely
positioned to push this issue and to hand off a
larger share, if not all, of the conventional deterreents in
Europe to Europeans, which after all, have an economy roughly
the size of the US economy iver six times Russia's population,
(27:21):
et cetera, et cetera. But if they don't force this
isue now we may be left with a one hundred
and fifty billion dollars a year liability on the books
that we would have done well to sort of hand
back to the Europeans.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, that's the quote from Donald Tusca Poland that I
like so much. Why are we the five hundred million
expecting the three hundred million of the United States to
protect us from one hundred and forty million, Which is
a good question. It's a very good question, and coming
from the considering the source, it becomes an even better question. Yeah. No,
I was not disappointed in your answer. I love that.
(27:58):
So this it's just the way the world has always
been and always gonna be. Uh. The big and powerful
will take the week if they can, and uh, you
know that's that's just the way it is.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
I think for better and worse ways of managing politics.
But to try to transcend the underlying reality of international
politics is where you run into trouble. Right you say,
you say to yourself, and this is you know, a
Kin says sort of you know, progressive capital p progressive
uh social programs you know inside the United States, which
(28:29):
is to say, if you're throwing up experts and regulations
and laws and a problem, you can transcend something that
is more fundamental about social life. And you know, the
unfortunate fact of international politics is that it's inherently competitive,
and I just think we need to get back to
sort of getting our heads around that the nature.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Of the problem. That's fantastic stuff, man, I really like
talking to you about these sorts of issues. You're really
good justin logan with Kato. Thanks for your time today,
my pleasure. Jack. Yeah, And that's that's a smart guy.
And maybe part of the reason I think he's so smart,
as I agree with what he's saying. But so Europe
(29:08):
is coming to the Oval Office to beg Trump to
do it because they don't want to or can't. That's
an interesting situation for the world, isn't it. That is
an interesting situation for the world. That story is obviously
a long way from over. Okay, Well, we got a
(29:29):
lot more to get to and Katie is going to
explain to us why Cracker Barrel is so woke, among
other things on the way. We've got a lot of
great guests today. I hope you can stay here on
the Armstrong and Getty Show. Armstrong, Hey, put up to
do our best joke, Michael. I thought you're playing our
best joke. I want to hear our best joke.
Speaker 8 (29:51):
An online video of former Saved by the Bell star
Tiffany Amber Theesen eating care cake while apparently naked, has
gone viral. What you are move, Chris Christy?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Please no, I need one more joke.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
A new survey seventy percent of American dog owners say
that the dog overeats during the holidays. Then their dogs
are like, it's called seasonal depression and telling everyone is
not helping it. You know your dog overeats when he
drops an alca cels are in the toilet boat before drinking.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
You know, dogs overeat during the holidays.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah. They It's kind of like we always talk about
if you don't like Generation Z, they didn't raise themselves.
Your dog didn't like go to the fridge in the
middle of the night and grab a piece of cake
that it shouldn't eat.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
All right, look at yourself and.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It doesn't just say no, I'd rather sit on the
couch all day and watch TV.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Mom, do you feed your dog from the table or
table scraps or whatever.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Mouth if she's being or if he's being really good,
I'll give him like a.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Piece of steak or something. Well, all right. You can
do it however you want, but in great shape. Thank
you very much. Don't be that shame my dog.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
You start giving your pet your food from the table.
That is the only thing they think about the rest
of their lives, whenever you're at the table, and that's
just part of your life.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Which is fine if that's what you want.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
A promise to our guests, writes Cracker Barrel, having not
enjoyed the blowback they've been getting for the remodel in
the last few days. If the last few days have
shown us anything it's how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel.
We're truly grateful for your heartfelt voices, they wrote. You've
also shown us that we could have done a better
job sharing who we are and what will always be.
(31:43):
What has not changed and what will never change are
the values this company was built on.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Blah blah blah. I don't eat values.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I eat food. When the Cracker Barrel first opened in
nineteen sixty nine, hard work, family and scratch cooked food
made with care, a place where everyone feels at home,
no matter where you're from or where you're headed.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
That's the Cracker Barrel you'll always find.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So basically, what they said, thanks for your input, We're
going to keep doing what we had planned.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Shut up. That is basically what that statement.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Is and how her tune has changed. In case, the
CEO was on Great Good Morning America last week and said.
Speaker 7 (32:19):
This, Honestly, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive, that people like
what we're doing. I'll give you another SoundBite. I actually
happened to be in Orlando last week with all of
our managers. We bring them together and once every other year,
and the number one question that I got asked Michael
was how can I get a remodel? When can I
get a remodel? How do I get on the list?
(32:40):
Real So, because the feedback and the buzz is so good,
not only from our customers but from our team members.
They want to work in a real restaurant. So okay,
so we're doing everything for our guests and our team members.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
First of all, I'll never.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Understand how CEOs of big companies are so incredible out
of touch with their customers that I don't get. I
do understand how CEOs of big companies are out of
touch with their employees.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
How do you not know this as a boss?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You think you roll out the big rammodel and explain
to people that any of your employees are gonna tell you,
I think that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
I think the customers are gonna hate it. Do you
think anybody's gonna say that?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Or is every single person one wrung below you and
then wrung one wrung below them, all gonna say, great idea, Boss,
Another great idea?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Boss? You always have great ideas? How do you not
know that?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It's blown my mind my entire life since I was
a kid and I got into business, and I see
bosses misled by.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Ass kicking, ass kissing underlings.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The people beneath you always say it's a great idea.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
It doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I don't know how you break out of that. I
don't know how you convince your you know, your vice
presidents and then the regional managers and everybody. I don't
know how you convince them to be honest. But of
course they told you it was a gonna The buzz
and the feedback people are saying, how do I get
a remodel? Yes, of course they are because they want
to move up from regional manager to you know, sectional
(34:19):
manager or whatever the hell is.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
And the way you do that is you go along
with the boss's ideas. Mm hmm, oh that does change
the whole thing. Oh great idea, Yeah, exact idea. What
and what is going to happen to you?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Normally if you say I think that's a terrible idea,
I'm not on board, you get fired and replaced by
somebody else.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
That's what happens.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
People who survive in companies say yes to everything, and
everybody knows that.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Now, as far as being out of touch with the customers.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
That I don't quite get, Man, did you did you
never go to your own cracker barrels and sit around
and look at the people and talk to the people
about what they.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Might like and what they don't like.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Probably not, probably probably probably not as exactly the right.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
And by the way, the little old white guy sitting
next to the barrel is uncle Herschel, and he will
still be on the menu as quote, he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
He's family, right. They hit him somewhere on the menu
away from the logo exactly. I don't think it's a
logo that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Though.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
If you've seen the inside of the new cracker barrels,
it's just a completely different kind of restaurant, completely different thing.
So okay, I gotta take a break from that just
a second to tell you about simply Safe. I'm a
big fan of simply Safe. I like the way it
makes me feel every time I pull out of my
driveway to go somewhere that I've got the AI powered
cameras and the live monitoring agents and they detect suspicious
(35:41):
activity before they break into the home. It's it's absolutely fantastic.
I got the sensors and the cameras and all the stuff,
and it doesn't cost that much.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
It's around a dollar a day.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Named the best home security system of twenty twenty five
by seeing it. Four million Americans trust simply Safe and
they're not locked into a contract. That's not why they're
and simply safe. No hidden fees, no contract. So here's
the deal. Visit simply safe dot com slash armstrong to
claim fifty percent off a new system with a professional
monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simply
safe dot com slash armstrong. There is no safe like
(36:14):
simply Safe. If I have one message today, you the boss,
need to know that the people underneath you are not being.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Honest about your ideas.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
They're also not being honest about how funny your jokes are,
or how good your suit looks, or anything else. They're
not being honest with you at all. All Right, you
need to know that when you're making decisions, do not
base any of your decisions on what some of the
people around a conference table looking at you or saying,
because they're just trying to make you happy.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
How do you not know that? Okay, we got a
lot more on the way that I'm really looking forward to.
Need a little feedback from you, though. See that's what
I'm doing. I'm getting some honest feedback.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
And trust me, the feedback I get from you on
the text line is often hurtfully honest. The text line
is four one five two nine five KFTC. Whether it's
about my appearance or things we say on the radio
show or anything, there's plenty of honesty on the text
line four one five two nine five k FTC. If
you missed a segment, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty
on demand.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Kaddy arm Strong
and Jaccade.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And he.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Arm wrong, dy Okay, gotcha? So apparently you did not
communicate this properly live from my car, which I'll describe
(00:46):
in just a second. The Michael, you were not allowed
in the loop on the fact that Katie was gonna
take it in and everything, so you probably didn't turn
on her microphone and gotcha. Hello, what are you gonna do?
So here's what happened. I'm solo today because Joe, can
you do it off to music? It's annoying me. The
whole day is falling apart. So I'm solo because Joe's
(01:12):
on vacation. He's in Great Britain, and hopefully he'll be
able to call in a little later this morning. When
you have a whole bunch of great guests lined up,
I get up extra early to do all the extra
work that you have to do when you do the
show by yourself, and I leave the house extra early,
like I don't know, I'm on the road like fifteen
minutes earlier than I usually am. Checking the GPS, the
whole time, make sure there's no recks and road is
(01:32):
clear and free. I'm on the phone with Hanson and
Michaelangelo and Katie and we're doing our pre show meeting,
which we do surprisingly every morning, and while I'm on
the meeting, the GPS goes to all red and it
goes from saying I'm going to be to work fifteen
minutes early to saying I'm going to be to work
forty five minutes late. So all of a sudden, so
(01:54):
I said, I got to get off the phone. Well,
Katie looked it up. There's been a fatality with a motorcycle.
A semi truck hit a motorcycle, which is just horrifying.
Is that all the detail you have so far, Katie, Yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Looked like it was.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
It started with a motorcycle and a semi and then
a third vehicle got involved, and eventually when the second
you saw red, all lanes got blocked.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
So I mean, is it stopped?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And we're I realized we're on whatever seventy stations across
the country and this doesn't have anything to do with you.
But we motorcyclists, which I am, really our ears perk
up when we hear about a motorcycle in an a wreck,
because there's no such thing as a minor motorcycle wreck.
It's not like as a fender bender. You can't have
a fender bender on a motorcycle wreck. Every wreck on
(02:41):
a motorcycle is horrifying. And I ride a motorcycle and
you worry about it all the time. And so I'm
trying not to be concerned about me and my traffic
situation given the fact that this guy I was probably
headed out to work on his motorcycle this morning and
ended up dead, which is a horrifying story. Anyway, I'm
sitting completely still, haven't moved a foot in a half
(03:02):
an hour, just now starting to move, which is fantastic.
And then I don't probably just zoom back home and
work from home, so I'll be on the microphone within
hopefully not too many minutes. Here's the story I'm trying
to wrap my head around this morning that I was
excited about talking to y'all about the whole cracker barrel remodel.
(03:22):
How closely have you been following this? Are you on
top of this? So I was surprised how many of
my favorite podcasts we're talking about the Cracker Barrel remodel.
Because I'm a rural Midwest guy. I've eat nick Cracker
Barrel one hundred times in my life, and the family
goes there when we all get together for Christmas or
(03:43):
Thanksgiving or whatever. We don't eat Thanksgiving meal there, but
like we got the whole family together and everything like that,
we regularly go to Cracker Brow. So when I found
out they were remodeling, and then there is I don't
care what the logo looks like, but they were remodeling,
I thought, oh, I don't know, I like the way
it was. But then it became just such an issue.
As listened to all these different radio shows and podcasts
(04:05):
where people were talking about it a lot, and again
I was surprised. I didn't know as many people were
into Cracker Barrel as they seem to be. Then I
saw the first pictures yesterday. Have you seen the first pictures, Katie. Yeah,
it's well, it's it's a completely different thing. Yeah, just
a completely different thing. It's gonna be. Well, it looks
(04:27):
like a McDonald's. It's it's booths. Well it's it's it's
booths and very minimal, and it just looks like the
inside of a McDonald's or a Wendy's or a Burger King.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
One of my friends, who's a big, a big Crackerbill fan,
said they took away everything we love about.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It, right, the whole vibe they claim. They claim the
food is going to be the same, But I wonder
about that. But then I started hearing it have you
heard this stuff about it's woke? And that I couldn't
grasp what it was that the blowback was because Cracker
Barrel's gone woke, and I thought, in what sense is
this woke? It just seems like they determined that they
(05:09):
needed to come up with a more streamlined, modern look
than the old time you look, which is fine. That's
a business decision. I don't think they're right, but but
I don't see how it's woke. But then I finally
heard today about some of the stuff they're doing apparently,
so you know the little triangle game where you have
the pegs and you jump one peg over another peg
to try to get it down to one peg. Is
(05:30):
there a name for that thing? I can't I remember,
but everybody knows what it is and that little game
and my brother, for some reason, could always get down
to one peg, and I never haven when my entire life,
not once, but on the old Cracker Barrel, the on
the on the little wooden triangle, it says, if you
get it down to one peg, you're a genius. If
(05:52):
you get it down to two pegs, you're pretty good.
If you get it down to three pegs, you're not
so smart. And then if you get it down if
you four pegs are more, you're an ignoramus. That's what
it used to say. I'm a little that's awesome triangle.
I know at Cracker Barrel. Well, now the new ones apparently,
and I don't know if this is in theirnet rumor
or it's true, but the new ones at Cracker Barrel
(06:13):
now say one year a genus, Two, pretty good, three,
keep trying four, Try even harder next time. You know.
It's that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah, no reason to what this one says, no reason
to be embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Try again.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, so, I mean that is a minor thing. But
if that's something they did, then yeah, they do have
their eye toward the modern cultural thing. We don't want
to hurt the feeld. So you've been a business, can
you let me know you probably got Wikipedia or something
open there. How long has Cracker Barrel been around my
whole lifetime? So for decades and decades and decades you've
(06:49):
been calling people who can't do the little triangle peg
game and ignoramus. Everybody's been fine with it. There's been
no protests. I don't remember any marches in the street.
I don't remember seeing any kids crying, and I've been
to Cracker Barrel with lots of kids. Everybody seemed to
be fine. Now you've got to say keep trying, you'll
do okay sport. In fact, maybe they bring out the
waitress brings out of participation, participating a certificate for the
(07:12):
fact that you played the little triangle game.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
So triangle game has just called the peg game. Cracker
Barrel was opened in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Okay, so it's been around my whole life. Yeah, and
everybody seems to have been fine. But now they're worried
about that now. I don't know if there's any other
wokeness besides that. There is.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Because they changed the logo and they took the little
white guy that's sitting next to the barrel off of it,
and they're claiming that they were trying to get a
rid of another white figure, was what I was reading.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
See, I can't tell what is guessing commentary and what
is actually cracker barrel's attitude. Now I did hear on
I guess I was on Fox. There was some concern
that the guy next to the barrel, it was seen
as a cracker, you know, the derogatory term for a
white person, cracker and a barrel cracker barrel, which I
(08:10):
don't know that anybody had ever thought about the logo
ever since nineteen sixty nine, one human being. But it's
actually there. There used to be barrels full of crackers
at old time country stores, and that's what it was,
with a cracker barrel. But if their concern was that,
then once again that would be reacting to something that
didn't exist. That would be trying to fix something that
(08:31):
wasn't the problem in the first place. Again, there were
not marches in the streets. I don't remember anybody crying.
I don't remember any disruption in society over the fact
that it was called cracker barrel and you had a
little picture of a kid nixed to barrel whatever.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Because there wasn't jack.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
So they lost a ton of money in the last
week since this news came out. I don't know if
that's merely the pull back of a business, a tried
and true business is changing. We're a little hesitant. We
don't know if you know it's going to be successful
(09:08):
or not pullback, or if people are actually angry like
they were with bud Light and Nike and a couple
of other products in recent years. But if it goes
to actually, if they actually do go through with this
remodel everywhere and it goes to booths and stuff like that,
I know my family won't be using it when we
all get together for our big gathering because you can't
(09:29):
pull booths together and get a big crowd there. And
because that's a popular thing. At cracker Brough, they put
some tables together and you got fifteen people, and you
got cousins and aunts and uncles and everything like that.
It's fun, fantastic, and the menu's broad enough. There's something
for everybody, and if you got little kids, it's fantastic.
There's enough to look at on the walls, or enough
stupid stuff to play with or whatever. It keeps everybody occupied, fine,
(09:51):
whatever minor problem in life. But if they thought they
were making people happy. From a cultural standpoint, that is
pretty moronic. They cracker Bell released some sort of statement
yesterday to try to walk it back, but it didn't
include any of or changing our mind. It just was,
(10:12):
you know, it was. It was the worst kind of
apology you can ever give somebody. Sorry, I hurt your feelings,
which is basically saying you're a snowflake and I'm sorry.
I said, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Up there with sorry you feel that way, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, yeah, it's just a different version of sorry you
feel that way to say sorry I hurt your feelings.
I'm not sorry. I said what I said. You should
have reacted differently. That's what you're saying. You should have
reacted differently to what I said. That's what sorry I
hurt your feelings mean. Okay, so that minor thing is
off the table. Have a whole bunch of great guests today,
(10:48):
and I won't run through the entire list, but I'm
looking forward to talking to our old friend Craig got
Walls a little bit later in the show. He and
I were actually texting in real life last night, and
he's got a bunch of stuff he's doing, including and
how he uses Ai he uses AI lot for his
business and just in his personal life, and he had
some tips for that that I thought were really really interesting.
(11:08):
I know, use AI, Katie, I use AI Joe does.
But he came across some chart that shows you which
AI to use for which sort of thing you're doing,
whether it's counseling questions, medical questions, imaging. Yeah, because there's
like ten different AIS out there, and if you know
which one's best at, which would be pretty handy. So
(11:30):
we'll talk a little bit about that later. I like
that at the topic. We better start the show officially
before I get in trouble real quick. I'm Jack Armstrong,
He's Joe Getty on this It is Tuesday, August twenty sixth,
year twenty twenty five or Armstrong and Getty, and we
approve of this program. Let's art to start the show
at Mark.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
You know, I do have to acknowledge under Gavin Newsom's leadership.
You know, California, they are number one in a lot
of things. Their number one in homelessness, they're number one
in public defecation, they're number one in tent cities, on
side walks and in public places.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You may recognize that voice as the governor of Florida
who kind of ran for president Ron Desantas talking about
how Gavin Newsom going around claiming California's number one is
hilarious and then you heard some of the lists there
number one in public defication, which I'm sure we are.
I'm sure California is far away number one in public defication.
(12:27):
I can't even imagine there's a close second.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
I can't think of another state with a crap map.
Remember how we had in San Francisco, well.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right, and it was needed. I don't know if Susantis
is actually thinking of taking another shot at it and
thinks maybe he could get the nomination if Trump's not
on the ballot. I don't know, but we'll talk about
that a little bit later. We are going to get
into Katie's headlines coming up. Got a great guest to
talk about Russia and Ukraine in a little bit. Hopefully,
I'm going to get off the interstate all on the
(12:55):
way stay here. Text line is four one, five, two,
nine to five kftc.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Armstrong, Hey Geeddy, yo yo yo man.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
We've lined up a pretty good show today. We got
a bunch of interesting topics to cover and some great
guests that we'll get to a little bit later, including
I want to do a Russia Ukraine thing coming up next.
I think that story's dead. Well, the peace process is
completely dead, so I think we're restarting with where we
are on that whole thing. The war still rages on
and Rush is on pace to lose another twenty thousand
(13:27):
men this month dead, which is absolutely amazing. But more
on that a little bit later. Let's check the headlines
with Katy Green find out what's going on.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
All right, let's start with the Hill. Trump administration quote
absolutely forbidden from removing Abrego Garcia, according to Judge.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I just I've never grasped this story as something I'm
interested in and jumped on it, and it's such a
political football. But well, you know what, We'll wait and
see how it turns out.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Well, let's jump on the flip side of that story
from the New York Post. Ukrainian refugee who fled war
for safer life in the United States knifed to death
by homeless career criminal in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Wow. So this one's got several elements to it, including
the you know, Trump sign an executive order yesterday to
try to do away with cash bail as a thing
across the country, with the idea that that's the reason
there's so many repeat offenders out there on the street,
people that have been arrested over and over and over again.
(14:39):
Are you get arrested for a violent crime and you
get right back out on the street. We got to
do something about that.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
From the New York Times, Israel faces growing pressure over
hostages and Gaza offensive.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
What was the first part, Israel faces the growing pressure.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Yeah, Israel is well, the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So it's it's very right.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
From the New York Times. They always they always failed
to mention that the vast, vast majority of Israelis want
to get a rid of hamas and want to get
the hostages back. They aren't. There are protests in the street,
but that's not the majority opinion. New York Times always
presents it like it's the majority opinion.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Yeah. From USA today, US stock futures lower after Trump
fires FED Governor Lisa Cook.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Another story. I'm not following, Go ahead and move on.
I don't care. I don't care. I'm just I'm just
not going to get baited into all of these outrageous authoritarian.
He's what I just I'm not doing it. I'm not
playing that game. Whatever. If you like that story, listen
something else.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
From NBC. National Guard troops now carrying weapons in Washington.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
D C.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, man, I don't know. My brother was a guardsman
for a long time, and I would I would be
really worried if he was walking the streets to Washington,
d C. With a gun, with the job of being
a policeman, urban policeman following UH civilian law. That's that's
a complicated position to put our our National guardsmen in.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
From the Free Beacon, Columbia Law School tells students to
avoid offensive terms like quote crazy uncle and grandfathering.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Wow. I thought that was over the knowledges at the
beginning of the year telling you the ridiculously woke terms
they used.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Oh and they even dropped the word microaggression back in there.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Wow. So Columbia is gonna die on that hill. They're
gonna good fight. Wow, good for you.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
From Breitbart dot com.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
DNC has spent over fifteen million dollars in twenty twenty
five on repaying Kamala Harris's campaign expenses.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, not enough people pay attention to that part of
running for president. There's a lot of well, first of all,
there's a lot of people that run for president just
for the perks of staying in nice hotels and needing
nice restaurants and raising money, and somebody else pays for it.
And then even the serious candidates take advantage of the
whole situation and somebody's paying the bill for her losing candidacy. Right.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Study findes more purpose less dementia Americans with life direction
fared twenty eight percent better.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Life direction.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, having about that later, Yeah, having a routine some Yeah,
one of the angs.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I want to discuss that at lengths later. That's a
good one.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
And finally from the Babylon B John Bolton elludes FBI
by blending into a herd of Walrus's.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh oh, that's the laugh of the day. That's a
good one. Right there. We got a great guest coming up.
We're gonna talk a little bit about the war in Ukraine,
a whole bunch of other stuff on the way. I
hope you can stay with us on the Armstrong and
Getdy show if you miss as he can get the
podcast arms Strong and Getty on the.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Bed Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I happen to think the whole Rushi Ukraine thing is
actually a very big story that has significance for the world,
as you know if you're a listener to the Armstrong
in Getty Show. I think the peace process, however, is dead.
I don't know if there's much to say about that. Well,
let's find out with someone who's way smarter than me,
Justin Logan with the Cato Institute. Justin Welcome to the
(18:44):
Armstrong and Getty Show. Good morning. So, first of all,
I guess do you agree with my assessment that this,
at least this round of the peace process is more
or less dead.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (19:00):
I mean you have to have a sort of context
with this. If you look back at the Korean War,
for example, there was talking while fighting that went on
for the better part for over two years. In fact,
there were over fifty meetings between the various sides to
try to bring it together. So I think there's an
argument that isn't super helpful in the present that this
should have started a long time ago, which again doesn't
help us today. But so I think there was a
(19:22):
big media push and everybody was like, ooh, is you
know Trump going to get Putin to agree to some
grand deal in Alaska, and those of US with a
little more salar disposition or arguably sort of more expectations, said, well, hey,
wait a minute, this is the sort of it's a
bad metaphor, but first date, right' it's you know, there
were too many hopes put in that first meeting and
(19:43):
then the meeting with the Europeans, and on the central issues,
the two sides are really far apart. The Ukrainians say
they want security guarantees from NATO or the United States,
and the Russians say they want big chunks of Ukrainian territory,
And the two sides are very far apart on those
two central issues. So there's going to have to be
some kind of budging that happens to bring him twitter
on those and that may take quite a long time.
(20:06):
Did you just reveal that your first dates you begin
the negotiations of who gets what right off the bat. Well,
I wouldn't wouldn't put it exactly like that on the radio, but.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So okay. So Trump's style of sure, I'll just meet
with Putin right off the bat before laying any groundwork,
I thought was kind of refreshing and getting away from
the point ahead of the academics who overthink things. But
maybe not.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
No, I mean I agree with that, right at a
certain point, you've just got to make a movie, you know,
you've got to do something. And Trump does not genuflect
at the sort of icons of the DC foreign policy establishment.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
He just does things right.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
There's things in his circles you could just do things,
and he just does things right. And so everybody you
know around where I work freaked out of it, and
I said, well, you know, he didn't give anything away.
You know, there was this great to cry about He's
going to sell out the Ukrainians. And he even said,
at the end of the day, it's going to have
to be the Ukrainians that make some kind of deal, right,
(21:09):
he can't give Ukraine away because Ukrainians are the ones
doing the fucking. So I think his style is so
anathema to the sort of Beltwegh nerds that they tend
to overstate the substance of what's being decided at these things.
But again, I think on the substance, you know, I
(21:30):
don't disagree with your setup that you know, we're still
quite a ways a part.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So that was really interesting info you brought about how
long it took for the Korean War to come to
a close. And I probably know less about the Korean
War than any major war in Neo's history. Maybe I
should look into that. But was one side like fairly
clearly winning at the end the way Russia seems to be,
(21:58):
or at least, you know, willing to fight on between
the careas well. And I think you've put your finger
on another problem, which is that in this case, the
Russians are brutally, gradually, incrementally winning and they know it.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
And that's the fundamental problem. Is that what's happening here
is they say to themselves, all right, we could, you know,
take half a loaf today, or we could keep fighting.
And we have some expectation that if we keep fighting
we could get more than we could get the diplomacy.
And that's the fundamental fact that confounds diplomacy in this case.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Right.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
What you would want is both sides feel as though
they're paying inordinate costs for trivial gains and to say
we need some off ramp off of this thing. And arguably,
I think the Trump administration's policy visa the Ukraine, if
you remember several months ago. They didn't even want to
go to an unconditional ceasefire, right, they wanted to keep
writing along. And I think the fact that no huge
(23:02):
bucket of American materiel arms is forthcoming has caused the
Ukrainians to move somewhat on this issue. On the other side, however,
Russians perceives the order of battle on the battlefield as
it is, which is tilted in their favor, and they
stay to themselves. Well, let's see how this plays out.
But in the meantime, fighting is serving our interests, so
(23:24):
we're going to keep paying.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Let's back up a second in terms of the importance
of this. How important do you super smart people at
CATO think this is? Because I definitely have been buying
into the idea of if Putin gets away with this,
I'm using my finger quotes. If Putin gets away with this,
it re establishes, you know, the great game as they
(23:48):
used to call it, where big countries get to take
small countries and China says, okay, it's on, we get
to take Taiwan. That it affects the way the whole
world works. Do you think it's that it has those
of consequences If Putin felt away with this.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
This won't satisfy you. But cynical realists like me think
that that's always the way international politics has been. And
we had this little interlude, this sort of unipolar moment
after the Cold War, where we told ourselves we had
transcended history, we had broken out of this sort of
tragic nature of international politics. And you know, to some
extent that was true in the sense that you know,
(24:28):
if you only have one great power in the system,
you know, it has a dampening effect. But I think
that the system itself is changing, and therefore we're reverting
back to the normal order of international politics, which is
a brutal and competitive enterprise. The one thing I will
say is that and this has been just a horrific
(24:49):
humanitarian catastrophe for Ukraine and also for Russian conscripts, et cetera.
But the one sort of if you will, silver lining
to this very our cloud that it was a huge
opportunity to force the issue of the Europeans right. The
United States has been complaining about European free riding on
America's exertion since the Eisenhower administration, and this gought the
(25:13):
Europeans attention, right the largest war in Europe since World
War Two. So if we were serious, as Trump administration
said that it was about shifting the burden to the
Europeans for European defense, this was a useful opportunity. Now,
I think again to bring back the dark class. I
think that to a certain extent, they're missing this opportunity
(25:33):
by taking sort of paper commitments to spend more in
the future and by not moving around America's pieces in Europe,
which is the one tool that we have that could
get the Europeans not just to promise to spend more,
or even to spend more, but to spend well and
effectively in terms of translating a euro spent into more
units of military power.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah. I don't know if you read that piece that
Stephen Cottkin wrote for the Wall Street Journal. I thought
it was interesting his take on why are the Europeans
Peans coming to the Oval Office to beg Trump to
let them do something they could do on their own, well,
because they feel like they have to, right.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
Mean, it was a quite striking visual and Trump is
a master of imagery and visuals and things, but he
was sitting on the other side of the resolute desk
with seven or eight European leaders a raid on the
other side like what they were, which is supplicants. Right,
they're coming to the United States to beg and plead
for the United States to take responsibility for Ukraine security
(26:35):
itself because the Europeans feel like they can't do it right.
The Europeans right now are pulling and begging and pleading
for the United States to commit to defend Ukraine from
Russia should Russia attack it again. In the same breath,
the Germans, the Italians, the Brits now are saying, but
we're not going to commit troops ourselves. And that is
(26:58):
the same bad deal that Americans have been getting out
of Europe for the past sixty five or seventy years.
And I think you know, the Trump administration is uniquely
positioned to push this issue and to hand off a
larger share, if not all, of the conventional deterreents in
Europe to Europeans, which after all, have an economy roughly
the size of the US economy iver six times Russia's population,
(27:21):
et cetera, et cetera. But if they don't force this
isue now we may be left with a one hundred
and fifty billion dollars a year liability on the books
that we would have done well to sort of hand
back to the Europeans.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, that's the quote from Donald Tusca Poland that I
like so much. Why are we the five hundred million
expecting the three hundred million of the United States to
protect us from one hundred and forty million, Which is
a good question. It's a very good question, and coming
from the considering the source, it becomes an even better question. Yeah. No,
I was not disappointed in your answer. I love that.
(27:58):
So this it's just the way the world has always
been and always gonna be. Uh. The big and powerful
will take the week if they can, and uh, you
know that's that's just the way it is.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
I think for better and worse ways of managing politics.
But to try to transcend the underlying reality of international
politics is where you run into trouble. Right you say,
you say to yourself, and this is you know, a
Kin says sort of you know, progressive capital p progressive
uh social programs you know inside the United States, which
(28:29):
is to say, if you're throwing up experts and regulations
and laws and a problem, you can transcend something that
is more fundamental about social life. And you know, the
unfortunate fact of international politics is that it's inherently competitive,
and I just think we need to get back to
sort of getting our heads around that the nature.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Of the problem. That's fantastic stuff, man, I really like
talking to you about these sorts of issues. You're really
good justin logan with Kato. Thanks for your time today,
my pleasure. Jack. Yeah, And that's that's a smart guy.
And maybe part of the reason I think he's so smart,
as I agree with what he's saying. But so Europe
(29:08):
is coming to the Oval Office to beg Trump to
do it because they don't want to or can't. That's
an interesting situation for the world, isn't it. That is
an interesting situation for the world. That story is obviously
a long way from over. Okay, Well, we got a
(29:29):
lot more to get to and Katie is going to
explain to us why Cracker Barrel is so woke, among
other things on the way. We've got a lot of
great guests today. I hope you can stay here on
the Armstrong and Getty Show. Armstrong, Hey, put up to
do our best joke, Michael. I thought you're playing our
best joke. I want to hear our best joke.
Speaker 8 (29:51):
An online video of former Saved by the Bell star
Tiffany Amber Theesen eating care cake while apparently naked, has
gone viral. What you are move, Chris Christy?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Please no, I need one more joke.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
A new survey seventy percent of American dog owners say
that the dog overeats during the holidays. Then their dogs
are like, it's called seasonal depression and telling everyone is
not helping it. You know your dog overeats when he
drops an alca cels are in the toilet boat before drinking.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
You know, dogs overeat during the holidays.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah. They It's kind of like we always talk about
if you don't like Generation Z, they didn't raise themselves.
Your dog didn't like go to the fridge in the
middle of the night and grab a piece of cake
that it shouldn't eat.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
All right, look at yourself and.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It doesn't just say no, I'd rather sit on the
couch all day and watch TV.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Mom, do you feed your dog from the table or
table scraps or whatever.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Mouth if she's being or if he's being really good,
I'll give him like a.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Piece of steak or something. Well, all right. You can
do it however you want, but in great shape. Thank
you very much. Don't be that shame my dog.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
You start giving your pet your food from the table.
That is the only thing they think about the rest
of their lives, whenever you're at the table, and that's
just part of your life.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Which is fine if that's what you want.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
A promise to our guests, writes Cracker Barrel, having not
enjoyed the blowback they've been getting for the remodel in
the last few days. If the last few days have
shown us anything it's how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel.
We're truly grateful for your heartfelt voices, they wrote. You've
also shown us that we could have done a better
job sharing who we are and what will always be.
(31:43):
What has not changed and what will never change are
the values this company was built on.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Blah blah blah. I don't eat values.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I eat food. When the Cracker Barrel first opened in
nineteen sixty nine, hard work, family and scratch cooked food
made with care, a place where everyone feels at home,
no matter where you're from or where you're headed.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
That's the Cracker Barrel you'll always find.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So basically, what they said, thanks for your input, We're
going to keep doing what we had planned.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Shut up. That is basically what that statement.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Is and how her tune has changed. In case, the
CEO was on Great Good Morning America last week and said.
Speaker 7 (32:19):
This, Honestly, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive, that people like
what we're doing. I'll give you another SoundBite. I actually
happened to be in Orlando last week with all of
our managers. We bring them together and once every other year,
and the number one question that I got asked Michael
was how can I get a remodel? When can I
get a remodel? How do I get on the list?
(32:40):
Real So, because the feedback and the buzz is so good,
not only from our customers but from our team members.
They want to work in a real restaurant. So okay,
so we're doing everything for our guests and our team members.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
First of all, I'll never.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Understand how CEOs of big companies are so incredible out
of touch with their customers that I don't get. I
do understand how CEOs of big companies are out of
touch with their employees.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
How do you not know this as a boss?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You think you roll out the big rammodel and explain
to people that any of your employees are gonna tell you,
I think that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
I think the customers are gonna hate it. Do you
think anybody's gonna say that?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Or is every single person one wrung below you and
then wrung one wrung below them, all gonna say, great idea, Boss,
Another great idea?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Boss? You always have great ideas? How do you not
know that?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It's blown my mind my entire life since I was
a kid and I got into business, and I see
bosses misled by.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Ass kicking, ass kissing underlings.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The people beneath you always say it's a great idea.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
It doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I don't know how you break out of that. I
don't know how you convince your you know, your vice
presidents and then the regional managers and everybody. I don't
know how you convince them to be honest. But of
course they told you it was a gonna The buzz
and the feedback people are saying, how do I get
a remodel? Yes, of course they are because they want
to move up from regional manager to you know, sectional
(34:19):
manager or whatever the hell is.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
And the way you do that is you go along
with the boss's ideas. Mm hmm, oh that does change
the whole thing. Oh great idea, Yeah, exact idea. What
and what is going to happen to you?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Normally if you say I think that's a terrible idea,
I'm not on board, you get fired and replaced by
somebody else.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
That's what happens.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
People who survive in companies say yes to everything, and
everybody knows that.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Now, as far as being out of touch with the customers.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
That I don't quite get, Man, did you did you
never go to your own cracker barrels and sit around
and look at the people and talk to the people
about what they.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Might like and what they don't like.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Probably not, probably probably probably not as exactly the right.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
And by the way, the little old white guy sitting
next to the barrel is uncle Herschel, and he will
still be on the menu as quote, he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
He's family, right. They hit him somewhere on the menu
away from the logo exactly. I don't think it's a
logo that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Though.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
If you've seen the inside of the new cracker barrels,
it's just a completely different kind of restaurant, completely different thing.
So okay, I gotta take a break from that just
a second to tell you about simply Safe. I'm a
big fan of simply Safe. I like the way it
makes me feel every time I pull out of my
driveway to go somewhere that I've got the AI powered
cameras and the live monitoring agents and they detect suspicious
(35:41):
activity before they break into the home. It's it's absolutely fantastic.
I got the sensors and the cameras and all the stuff,
and it doesn't cost that much.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
It's around a dollar a day.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Named the best home security system of twenty twenty five
by seeing it. Four million Americans trust simply Safe and
they're not locked into a contract. That's not why they're
and simply safe. No hidden fees, no contract. So here's
the deal. Visit simply safe dot com slash armstrong to
claim fifty percent off a new system with a professional
monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simply
safe dot com slash armstrong. There is no safe like
(36:14):
simply Safe. If I have one message today, you the boss,
need to know that the people underneath you are not being.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Honest about your ideas.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
They're also not being honest about how funny your jokes are,
or how good your suit looks, or anything else. They're
not being honest with you at all. All Right, you
need to know that when you're making decisions, do not
base any of your decisions on what some of the
people around a conference table looking at you or saying,
because they're just trying to make you happy.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
How do you not know that? Okay, we got a
lot more on the way that I'm really looking forward to.
Need a little feedback from you, though. See that's what
I'm doing. I'm getting some honest feedback.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
And trust me, the feedback I get from you on
the text line is often hurtfully honest. The text line
is four one five two nine five KFTC. Whether it's
about my appearance or things we say on the radio
show or anything, there's plenty of honesty on the text
line four one five two nine five k FTC. If
you missed a segment, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty
on demand.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
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