February 12, 2025 • 35 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- Worst flu season in years, the Westminster Dog Show & falling fertility rates
- Which side are you on?
- Elon & Trump talk to the press
- Elon's snark is hilarious & more money waste revealed
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe, Ketty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Arm Strong and Jack Katie and He Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is one of the most severe flu seasons in
the United States in the last fifteen years. It's so
bad in some states school districts are closing because so
many students and staff are getting sick.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Worst flu season in over a decade and a half.
As you heard Jake Tapper say, there, how do you
get the flu? How do I catch that? Somebody sneeze
on me or.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
They live on surfaces for a long time the flu
virus as well.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, I'd rather not get the flu. Wash your hands
a lot. Is that good idea?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It can't hurt. Yeah, yeah, I try not to touch
your eyes and nose. You remember what that idiotic was it?
That the scarf lady j Burks who said, now don't
touch your eyes and nose, and if she's given the speech,
she's like dabbing in her eyes and the robin and
we cried that that was one of the early signs
that wait a minute, this is completely ridiculous. And it
(01:18):
didn't get any better though. Oh even the lefty media
now is admitting keeping the schools closed was a horrifying debacle,
and we're struggling mightily to come back from that debacle,
and it's not going well. Among many other topics we'll discuss,
probably ought to get to the lead story today, Jack,
(01:40):
of course, which is that the Westminster Dog Show, which
is held every three weeks now apparently, yeah, exactly, has
designated a dignified giant Schnauzer Monty is the nation's top
ranked dog.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
What they didn't they had the show again?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
When yesterday? Every day cliche? Now, I know, I know,
Hell how often do they hold that show? I don't know.
I remember when I'd gotten the idea it was annual.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, I always thought so, I swear it was like congratulations,
giant Snaz how giant like the size of a school bus.
It's like fifty feet long, like Clifford, an amazing dog
cleaning up after it's no treat.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Moving along. So, the question of falling fertility rates and
reproductive rates and indeed coupling in general and marriage all
over the industrialized West and the East and China and
all sorts of places, I mean everything, but like the
(02:47):
sub Saharan Africa, and those figures are not as easy
to come by anyway. But populations are falling like crazy
in the developed world. And this is a note from
a frequent correspondent deep thinker, Paolo.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I'm guessing this came in after did the thing yesterday
from the New York Times where they did, like their
monthly opinion piece about oh, is it okay to bring
a child into this world with climate change and whatnot?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, exactly, and that is it responsible?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And then they just jumped to the conclusion that people
aren't having kids because of climate change.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
All right, if you say so. I don't believe that.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
But idiotic reasoning, idiotic conclusion just anyway. So this is
an expansion of note Polo dropped us earlier with just
kind of expanding on a theory which I think has
nailed it beyond uh, you know, any scientist. Between Polo
and our thinking, and we've been kind of going back
(03:45):
and forth on this. You're talking about the falling birth
and coupling rates and how people commonly attribute that to
the world being such a horrible place that they don't
want to bring a child into it. That just doesn't listen, right,
I've never I don't think i've heard that expression. Well,
doesn't sound right. It's a very on that. It's kind
of clever as you point it out. The world is
arguably the best it's ever been. And you know, we
(04:05):
could certainly make that case or read Thomas Paker's Enlightenment
Now in terms of life expectancy and health and just
one hundred measures, particularly the best it's ever been.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
You pick any point in history, place or point in history,
you can't really do better than being in the United
States now.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Our poor people are astoundingly wealthy by historical standards and
global standards. Anyway, our response to perceived tough times, oh,
I'm sorry, it's arguably the best it's ever been. Yet,
the birth rate here in many other places is suicidally low.
Our response to perceived tough times is suicide. I think
there's a more likely explanation for the low fertility rate.
(04:44):
And then he quotes a paragraph from a scholarly journal
slash article. Animals can change their reproductive output depending on
certain environmental conditions, and one of those environmental conditions is
population density. Notes this lead author, So, if you have
lots of neighbors and you're competing for the same food,
it can lower reproduction, and that's what we saw. At
(05:07):
very high population densities. Female ground squirrels basically shut down
their reproduction. Imagine the frustration of the male ground squirrels,
and that was done in order to sustain their own survival.
When lashes were better, they would start reproducing again, unless
the male ground squirrels also have no interest, which might
happen due because we're seeing it. Yeah, yeah, I'm not
sure why they phrased it that way exactly, but yeah,
(05:28):
that is the case among humans. But then we get
to and I remember y'all probably do too. When we
had had this discussion a couple of weeks ago, I
made my usual joke. Anybody who thinks the world is
overcrowded should drive across Nevada, or from Kansas City to Sacramento,
say a long I eighty. It's a vast thousand mile
(05:51):
stretches of virtually nobody but a handful of farmers anyway.
But then Paolo jumps to what I think is his
most brilliant conclusion, reached again in concert with the Armstrong
and Giddy show, the degree to which we're interconnected. Think
the Internet likely makes our animal brains think we're even
more crowded than we are and triggers behaviors that limit
(06:13):
reproduction vess winning interest in reproducing. This is what I'm
always hammering going on on about, is our level of
input or stimulus is one hundred times what it is
designed to be. In the average day, the average human
being would have so much less interaction, so much less
(06:36):
input of ideas and arguments and anger and passion and
poorn and everything else. They're just your brain is made
to be bored or daydreaming for long stretches of time.
That's what it's made to do. That's how it keeps
itself sane.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I don't know if this is it, but that's a
unique idea that I hadn't heard before. The one thing
I am positive of is it's not a choice. I
do not believe people are choosing, you know, with climate
change and the rent, we're deciding I'm not going to
get married or have kids.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
No, No, that's not you're not.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
There's something going on way deeper than that. And maybe
it's this Internet. I think you're one hundred percent right.
So anyway, and I'm sorry I didn't connect the dots
completely for anybody who hasn't done it on their own.
The condition of being constantly badgered by the Internet of
our own free will most of our cases is extremely
(07:36):
similar to that of a serious overpopulation, as if we're
crammed into a Tokyo subway car in terms of our
brain's perceptions. The only thing I don't know, while you
got all kinds of examples with beasts, what was the
birthrate of London when it was the biggest city in
the world and you know, people were living hip to
(07:59):
hip in the eighteen hundreds, where people still cranking out
babies like crazy or not.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I don't know. That's a really really interesting question to
test the premise. I suspect that the birth rates were
lower than they were in less crowded places. And if
you're used to twelve kids per couple and you go
down to eight, that's still a lot of kids. I
wonder if they have that's a decline.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I wonder if they have numbers in Japan for what
is like Tokyo as it grew into one of the
biggest cities in the world through the seventies and eighties,
the breath rates.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Led the way in lowly productive rates.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Sure, no doubt, But me this makes this makes more
sense than practically any other theory I've ever heard.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent, and just I'll let them
bring it home, just to credit his fabulous arguments. We
don't recognize the real cause for these behaviors, so we
try to formulate an explanations, such as the world is
so awful that I don't want to bring a child
into it, or perhaps it's just too expensive slash hard.
The world was a lot harsher place hundred year ago,
thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago. Lucky for us,
(09:02):
our ancestors viewed things differently than we do, and likewise,
he points out that the very sparse population of our
distant ancestors was probably strong motivation of mate like bunnies.
Not to mention, it's just kind of fun. I think
this is important.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
We're gonna figure all this out too late, though, Whether
it's the plastics in our brain or oh it's the Internet,
it's social media that's keeping us from having babies. There
will be no you know, we'll be at the point
of no return on population and our brains will be
full of plastic we'll have no sperm count whatsoever, couldn't have.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
A baby if we wanted to.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Yeah, and I'm not a particularly religious fellow, but I
always go back to the Book of Genesis and the
apple from the Tree of Knowledge. And that always confused
me as a kid, because here I was being sent
to school five days week and doing homework and reading
and the rest of it, and I think, Wow, knowledge
is fine, it's great. In fact, it's great. In fact,
(10:07):
if I don't get my daily knowledge, my parents yell
at me. So I always found that somewhat mystifying. But
the older I get and the more I see, the
more I think I understand that it's simply a message
that man's abilities and lusts will be man's undoing.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yes, well, you can't blame Elon Musk for not having kids.
As he was in the Oval office yesterday with his
cute little kid on his shoulders as he talked about
trying to gut the federal government because he's part of
a dictatorship of volig arts or plutocrats or something.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Oh, he's unelected.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
We got from that press conference and a bunch of
others the Westminster Dog Show, Giant Snauger wins.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
It's no, I'm good. We're looking dog though. Boy, this
word to god, we had a different winter two weeks ago.
Do you want to hear the announcement.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I suppose for a best in show at the ninth
and I hope it's the Giants.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Sinster Kennel Club dogs.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I choose the Giant Schnauzy to three years of fires show.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Unfortunately, the Giant Schnauzer bounded to accept the awarden, crushed
five people and under its mighty pause.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well you didn't see as a cameras panned away, but
there was a middle aged woman in sensible shoes who
kicked her beagle.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
You ugly beagel, You suck jack. Many in the crowd
were disappointed that were they. Crowd favorite German Shepherd Mercedes
did not win the crown, snubbed again this year. It's
been a tough couple of years for Mercedes the German Shepherd.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
This year, and by this year, we mean this week,
because we have this show every week.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I think something's gone wrong there. I gotta watch beston
Show now.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Yeah. I think the German Shepherd also carried with it
some of the guilt over World War two.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
German Shepherd lifted I ever forget looked reminiscent of Elon
Musk's signal to the ground.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
That's what I oh wan The Norman Shepherd w bad dog,
bad dog.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
We got a lot more in the way. Stay here, Hey, getty,
Joge's for organst. It is all the rage. Somebody texted
that Marjorie Taylor Green is on the floor of the
house right now. They wrote this, making a great case
for why we need to cut spending and shrink our debt.
She's hitting a home run, a crazy blonde, sort of bitchy.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Home run, and everyone knows it.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Wow. Meanwhile, Jack, I've discovered what I believe to be
the we Shall Overcome of twenty twenty five, The we
are the world of the twenty first century. Ladies and gentlemen.
I give you, which side are you on? Which side
are you on? Which side?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Are you a side?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Are you? Which side are you on? We'll fight against
joh Well fights no way lanscap within our walls, will
fight from dong to dusk. Which side on you w
(13:19):
shide on you? I'm on whichever side I'm sure's I
never have to hear this song again.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Play it, Michael, play it, damn it trying. Did somebody
tell you turn it off? For unions?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
He wants us so to fame, he.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Wants us to bow to him, but we want him
in jail.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You know, I don't forget who wrote this or said this,
and I thought it was really good. One of the
problems we got going on in America is we we
had this period in the sixties where there was a
whole bunch of late fifties mid sixties particularly where we
had all kinds of this sort of thing, songs and
protests and you know, the look at the Bob Dylan
movie and the Civil Rights Act and all these different
(14:06):
sorts of things where there was like a real major
issue to be dealt with and and people rallied around
and there was a which side where you're on?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
And people it was righteous, It.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Was righteous, and people want to relive that all the time,
even if that issue doesn't exist right now. And you
can't like put that level of intensity on dose. He's
trying to cut spending by a few percent and shrink
the government.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Which side are you on?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Which side? Musk?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Thanks for asking you.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
It's about the moral question of our times, as you
exactly as you point out.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
It's just so nakedly a strategy of we've got to
change these incremental cuts that aren't nearly enough to have
bloated federal workforce into the civil rights issue of our day.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, good luck with that.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I mean, you want to talk about trying to make
a silk purse out of a sell's ear, that's like
a silk press out of the pig's crap.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Never mind it's ear this it's not gonna work. The
singing the lyrics was that a Saturday night live bit.
Good Lord, do take government by.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Translies Heaven God a chance unless organize.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
No pretending that the Union is standing up for goodness
and righteousness, when indeed they're just standing up for continuing
to have way too many workers paying way too many
dues to enrich themselves. Hi, we're onto you, friends.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I sure hope I'm right about this, and I think,
but the vast majority of America doesn't look at government
jobs as sacropyged protected by all that is good. They
should never go away under any circumstances. The way they think.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
We do well. They have managed to jam through every
bit of wasteful spending and redundant taxation and similar stuff
for years and years, and we're most familiar with California,
but by by always it's the teachers and the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
If there are any cuts, it's.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Gonna you know, the firefighters are gonna have to fight
fires with Dixie cups full of water. And the teachers, well,
they're just going to be in prison apparently, if we
don't pass this tax increase. Well, now it's extended. Like
all government workers who are sacrosanct and sacred and so
valuable to society, we dare not question them for a minute.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The great civil rights issue of our day is making
sure mid level government employees who do something that you
can't even tell what it is, don't lose their jobs,
all right, no matter how unnecessary their jobs are. Right,
And there's also the issue in that I don't think
Elon's been hammering this enough, although he has many times
(16:46):
in his Twitter threats. There are important jobs and important
agencies that are gonna have to go away if you
don't have enough money. It's like if you're broke, you
really really want to do this or that, but you can't.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
You just flat don't have the money.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
And you better eliminate the not necessary stuff before you
have to eliminate all of it.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Speaking of Elon, he was in the Oval office, did
kind of a press conference yesterday.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Some highlights of that on the limp, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
And we're going to be signing a very important deal today.
It's aid DOGE and I'm going to ask Elon to
tell you a little bit about it and some of
the things that we found, which is shocking billions and
billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. And I
think it's very important, and that's one of the reasons
(17:37):
I got elected.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
I say we're going to do that.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Nobody had any idea it was that bad, that's sick,
and that corrupt.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, he ran on he was going to cut waste,
fraud and abuse. He had Elon on stage all the time.
The term doge was out there for months. The idea
that this is some sort of unelected, olive arc takeover thing,
I don't know where that comes from. You left out
coup and constitutional crisis. You can be against it if
you want, but you're you're making stuff up. If you
(18:05):
claim that the president can't appoint people to advise him
on things that the executive branch then enacts.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
He's unelected. You full, can we save time and just
call it a constitutional constitutional acoustus. Oh, that's pretty as.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Time saves, because I know how you like combining words
to save time. Eight.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I'm very busy.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So Trump's there behind the desk, Elon is standing next
to him, wearing his dark Maga hat with his cute
little kid's cute little kid factors in here?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Oh, so the UH at a high level?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
If you say, what is the goal of dose or
and I think a significant part of the presidency is
to restore democracy. Let'spa say, seems like, well, aren't we
in a democracy? Well, if you don't have a feedback
with okay, we'd have to if you're sorry until your
gravitas can be difficult sometimes.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So how old is that kid?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
He's a little I would guess four or five.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And he's dressed in a little suit. Very cute.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
His name is X.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Spend a lot of time on dad's shoulders. But it
Elon's an interesting dude. And I don't want to get
sidetracked by this. He's four, by the way, he's four,
thank you, Michael. I don't want to get sidetracked by this.
I mentioned it many times. He's got a dozen kids,
how does he choose which one he's hanging out with
(19:31):
on any given day, with a number of different women.
And then since this is actually a pretty big policy
discussion and point of attention, I mean, it's been leading
the newscasts for a week of the three weeks.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Of the world's leading superpower, of leading superpower.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yes, maybe you have one of the moms or a
sitter or somebody hang on to the kid and you
know of an iPad in the other room during the
press conference.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yeah, it's an interesting move. I'm so pro kid and
pro family. And though his family structure is not one
I am familiar with or approve of, I like dad
being with the kid. It was it was cute, but
it was it was odd. Yeah, but utterly irrelevant to
the gigantic questions which confront us.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, let's roll on with Elon Musk press conference.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
So if if there's not a good feedback loop from
the people to the government, and if you have rule
of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, and
then what meaning does democracy actually have if the people
cannot vote and have, they will be decided by their
(20:44):
elected representatives in the form of the President and the
Senate in the House. Then we don't live in a democracy.
We live in a bureaucracy. So it's incredibly important that
we close that feedback group, we fix that feedback loop,
and that the public, the public elected representatives, the President
of the House and the Senate decide what happens as
(21:05):
opposed to a large unelected bureaucracy.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I can understand a monster. It's a constitutional crisis. I agree.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I can understand why people are so frightened when you
hear that sort of talk straight out of Hitler.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Tribalism will ruin us the inability of a significant chunk
of the population. It's less than half, but it's significant.
To reject his words before they've even heard them for
purely tribal reasons is troubling. There was nothing he said
there that was not not only uncontroversial, it was patriotic
and fantastic.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
So there's some dude, there's words in front of it
on the TV, somebody with the Project on Government Oversight.
So he's in the DOGE so DOGE subcommittee. Anyway, he's testifying.
He looks like he's twenty two and he's wearing sunglasses.
I feel like Doge doesn't help themselves sometimes with their
(22:01):
little too cool, little too young, little too you know,
Elon renaming himself on Twitter yesterday Harry Balls, I don't feel.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Like it helps his cause.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
You know, do you think he had any idea that
that is a suggestive nickname? Wait a second, and thought
of that the sunglass young man isn't named Hugh g.
You can guess the rest is.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
He Let's hear a little more of Elon Musk plutocrat.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
Does not to say that the good There are good
people who uh are in the federal bureaucracy. But but
you can't have an autonomous federal bureaucracy. You have to
have one that's responsive to the people. That's the whole
point of a democracy.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
And so.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
And if if you looked at this, if you asked
to look at the pound US today and said, what
do you think of the way things have turned out? Well,
what we have this unelected, fourth unconstitutional branch of government,
which is the bureaucracy, which has in a lot of
ways currently more power than any elected representative. And this
is uh, there's not something that people want, and it's not.
(23:15):
It does not match the will of people. So it's
just something we've got and we've got.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
To fix again.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Like I said, I don't know two weeks ago when
people started screaming about who nobody elected, Elon Musk, we
have this unelected You know how many unelected people are
controlling your lives right now?
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Come? All of them? Yeah, practically all of them. And
the counter argument to what he just said is that
the president is in no way in charge of the
executive branch, which he is the head of. It's absolutely nonsensical.
And oh you want to talk nonsensical, then we've got
(23:51):
some more great clips to play. But this is so
great the New York Times. It's just even when it's good,
it's bad. Here's your headline, and then subhead appearing with Trump.
Musk makes broad claims of federal fraud without proof.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Here's your subhead.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
The billionaire whose federal cost cutting team has been operating
in secrecy, asserted that he had uncovered waste and fraud
across the bureaucracy without offering evidence.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Are you trying to insinuate you don't think there is fraud?
Speaker 4 (24:21):
In the related story, Elon Musk suggested without evidence that
rich white guys play golf disproportionately, and suggested, without citing
proof that they have cocktails after what the.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Hell more elon.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
And they're also going to address the deficit. So we've
got a two twelvey dollars deficit and if this, if
we don't do something about this deficit, country's going bankrupt.
I mean, it's really astounding that the the interest payments
alone on national debt exceed the defense department budget, which
is shocking because we've got our larst We spent a
(25:00):
lot of money on defense, but and if that just
keeps going, we're essentially going to bank up the country.
So what I earlier to say is like, it's not optional
for us to reduce the federal expenses.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
It's essential.
Speaker 6 (25:13):
It's essential for America to remain solvent as a country,
and it's essential for America to have the resources necessarily
to provide things to its citizens and not simply be
servicing vast amounts of debt.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
That is the most important thing that's been said politically
in the United States in the last fifty years. And
whether it falls on deaf ears or is heated is
the pivot point for the next.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Fifty years for US history and maybe world history, if
we can't continue to be the hyper power that we
have been. Some of my favorite pundits are like really
critical of this elon being involved thing. But if you
had your typical gray man blue ribbon committee appointed.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Nobody'd be paying any freaking attention.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
It's been done over and over again, and they came
up with great recommendations that Washington felt more than free
to completely ignore and shove under the dish cabinet over there,
never to be thought of again. Right, that's the problem.
The politics part of it is where it really makes
sense to have somebody of Musk's profile so he can
(26:24):
get people's attention.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Yeah, yeah, I am.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
First of all, I can't even imagine his life. I mean,
how many hours has he put into this project? It
sure looks like it would take a tremendous amount of
effort to be doing what he's doing now while you
run one of the biggest social media platforms on the planet,
while you're running the top electric car company on the planet,
while you're running the most effective rocket company in the planet.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And he got twelve kits. But I just I don't
even understand how he functions.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
But I wonder point because he does this a lot
where I mean, he gets really energized for things, he
gets super into him and then I don't know if
he gets bored with it or what, but he turns
his attention to one of his other projects.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
And I wonder when that will happen with this. And
he has good people to mind the store in his way, certainly,
but this is an exaggeration, but just barely, given the
utter obviousness of our deficit and debt problems, and as
he pointed out quite eloquently that we are now paying
significantly more just interest on our death than we are
(27:31):
in national defense, which is astonishing and troubling given how
obvious and undeniable this problem. Is the fact that a
significant chunk of our media and population are acting like
this is just Trumpian stupidity and or a constitutional crisis
and we don't have to listen, and we're not going
to listen, and we're not going to help, and the
rest of it. I think the exaggeration that says if
(27:53):
Trump cured cancer, these people would go ahead and die
of cancer rather than take the cure. We're getting close
to it. What was a reductio ad hit lorum.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
The longer an online discussion goes, the more likely it
becomes somebody references Hitler. I think we are getting close
to the I'd rather die of cancer point in our
national quote unquote conversation. It's just bizarre. And that's not
to suggest that Trump is incapable of missteps or or
or even doing bad things. Some of his recent pardons
I think have been inexcusable and indefensible, for instance, and
(28:29):
I'm happy to talk about them. But on this trying
to rein in the federal.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Deficit, well, this is just it's it's undeniable. Well, the
fact that Trump and Biden and every president for a
while now has said our entitlement programs are off limits,
nobody can touch them is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
The fact that you're up there talking about our.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Two trillion dollar annual deficit and our debt uh and
not talking about that because they're off limits is insane.
You're gonna pair it with significant tax increases, right, But
that's that's what that is.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Something voters have asked for.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
At some point, some leader has got to stand up
and tell the voter something they don't want to hear,
we got it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We gotta do something about this. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I mentioned a great Thomas Soul quote I came across
a couple of weeks ago in which he explained that
I got a paraphrase because I don't have it in
front of me. But the fact that our politicians are,
you know, in large numbers congenital liars, is partly our fault.
Because if we the electric continually to demand that which
is impossible to deliver, for instance, a dollar thirty worth
(29:38):
of government for a dollar, year after year after year,
the only person who can win an election is a liar.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Right, Well, that's where we are on that, all right.
I've seen the giant Schnauzer enough. What the hell is
that dog? That dog shouldn't be What is that thing
with its hair?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You know what that is? Michael, see, I'm in tellivision.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
What the hell? I had no idea?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
What the hell is that? I walk into your house
and you got one of those run up at me?
I shriek and pepper spread.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
What is that? That's not a Is that a dog?
That's an alien?
Speaker 4 (30:12):
The hairless cats an unnatural creature shouldn't exist.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
God doesn't want that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
God doesn't want that you have any thoughts on Elon
and that press conference or anything else. And we got
more on the way text line four one five n
KFTC Arrayetty. Now the disruptor in chief, Elon Musk, who
apparently has adopted the alias at least he changed his
social media handle to Harry Balls. What Elon at least
(30:43):
briefly changed his Twitter handle to Harry Balls and they
had to announce it there in Twitter. Of course, he
responded on Twitter with laughing, lol, how funny he thought
it was that the media was reporting it.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
And I'm sorry, this is the same Fellows in charge
of the most important governmental reforms in the last one
hundred years.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, here's a couple Quinn doing a hell of a
job at it. A couple quick tweets before we get
back to Harry Ball's laundry listing the government waste out there,
so ao.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
We call him Harold. At least Harold.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
AOC had tweeted out LMAO at a billionaire earnestly trying
to sell people on the idea that free speech on
free speech when it's eight dollars a month to have
a subscription on Twitter, Elon said, your feedback is appreciated,
and now pay eight dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But this is what I really like an idiotic. It
is Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair
share period. Elon's response was, I keep forgetting that you're
still alive.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Oh my god, oh my, oh my.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
This is generation X in charge. It really is. It
really is a nark.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Of the grew up with Watergate and then the Vietnam
and it's in Stern, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
It's the Letterman and Stern generation. Here's a little more, Elon, And.
Speaker 7 (32:09):
Also, could you mention some of the things that your
team has found, some of the crazy numbers, including the
woman that walked away with about thirty million?
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Right. Well, we often we do find it's sort of
rather odd that, you know, there are quite a few
people in the biocrasy who have ostensibly a salary of
a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue
tens of millions of dollars in that worth while they
are in that position, which is, you know what happened
(32:41):
to usaid, we're just curious as to where it came from.
Maybe they're very good at investing, which case we should
take their investment advice, perhaps, but just there seems to
be mysteriously they get wealthy. We' don't know why, where
did it come from? And I think the reality is
that they're getting wealth to touch by expense.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
That's the honest truth of it.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So Elon being pretty measured. There Trump the politician, he
knows where the gold is. What people want to hear
the laundry list of wasted money, and that's what he
was prompted Elion for.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Here's a little more of that.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
I can't paign on this.
Speaker 7 (33:17):
I can't paign to the fact that I said government
is corrupt, and it is very corrupt.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
It's very very it's also foolish.
Speaker 7 (33:26):
As an example, a man has a contract for three
months and the contract ends, but they keep paying him
for the next twenty years, you know, because nobody ends
a contract.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
You get a lot of that. You have a contract
that's a three month contract.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
Now, normally, if you're in a small in all fairness,
it's the size of this thing is so big.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
But if you have a contract and you're in.
Speaker 7 (33:48):
A regular business, you end the contract in three months.
You know, it's a consultant, here's a contract for three months,
but he goes on for twenty years, and the guy doesn't.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Say that he got money for twenty is.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
They don't say it and just keep getting checks month
after month. And you have various things like that, and
even much worse than that, actually much worse.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Or the guy tried fifteen times right to contact the
federal government say hey, you gotta stop paying me. And
the response to all this from The New York Times
is appearing with Trump. Musk makes broad claims without proof,
offered no evidence that the federal government is bloated and
overspends and corrupt.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, we've heard from people over the years who like
tried to send their check back that they weren't supposed
to get, like their husband died and they're still getting
the Social Security check and he tried to send them
back and you just get nowhere.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
He claimed without proof that ice cream parlors are generally
not jammed with thin people.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Come on and.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Trump hitting on really the core thing that there are
people out there who it's just playing the scam and
fraud from the beginning. They're trying to slip one by
the goalie. But a lot of it's is just so
big nobody can keep an eye on everything.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Right right, which is a perfectly valid point. George Washington
warned us about factionalism. He said, it's the only thing
that can kill the country. And if you are so
factional that you're not for saving taxpayers money, I don't
know how we can work together.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
If you miss a segment or nowur get the podcast
Armstrong and Getty on demand
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe, Ketty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Arm Strong and Jack Katie and He Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is one of the most severe flu seasons in
the United States in the last fifteen years. It's so
bad in some states school districts are closing because so
many students and staff are getting sick.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Worst flu season in over a decade and a half.
As you heard Jake Tapper say, there, how do you
get the flu? How do I catch that? Somebody sneeze
on me or.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
They live on surfaces for a long time the flu
virus as well.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, I'd rather not get the flu. Wash your hands
a lot. Is that good idea?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It can't hurt. Yeah, yeah, I try not to touch
your eyes and nose. You remember what that idiotic was it?
That the scarf lady j Burks who said, now don't
touch your eyes and nose, and if she's given the speech,
she's like dabbing in her eyes and the robin and
we cried that that was one of the early signs
that wait a minute, this is completely ridiculous. And it
(01:18):
didn't get any better though. Oh even the lefty media
now is admitting keeping the schools closed was a horrifying debacle,
and we're struggling mightily to come back from that debacle,
and it's not going well. Among many other topics we'll discuss,
probably ought to get to the lead story today, Jack,
(01:40):
of course, which is that the Westminster Dog Show, which
is held every three weeks now apparently, yeah, exactly, has
designated a dignified giant Schnauzer Monty is the nation's top
ranked dog.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
What they didn't they had the show again?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
When yesterday? Every day cliche? Now, I know, I know,
Hell how often do they hold that show? I don't know.
I remember when I'd gotten the idea it was annual.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, I always thought so, I swear it was like congratulations,
giant Snaz how giant like the size of a school bus.
It's like fifty feet long, like Clifford, an amazing dog
cleaning up after it's no treat.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Moving along. So, the question of falling fertility rates and
reproductive rates and indeed coupling in general and marriage all
over the industrialized West and the East and China and
all sorts of places, I mean everything, but like the
(02:47):
sub Saharan Africa, and those figures are not as easy
to come by anyway. But populations are falling like crazy
in the developed world. And this is a note from
a frequent correspondent deep thinker, Paolo.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I'm guessing this came in after did the thing yesterday
from the New York Times where they did, like their
monthly opinion piece about oh, is it okay to bring
a child into this world with climate change and whatnot?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, exactly, and that is it responsible?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And then they just jumped to the conclusion that people
aren't having kids because of climate change.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
All right, if you say so. I don't believe that.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
But idiotic reasoning, idiotic conclusion just anyway. So this is
an expansion of note Polo dropped us earlier with just
kind of expanding on a theory which I think has
nailed it beyond uh, you know, any scientist. Between Polo
and our thinking, and we've been kind of going back
(03:45):
and forth on this. You're talking about the falling birth
and coupling rates and how people commonly attribute that to
the world being such a horrible place that they don't
want to bring a child into it. That just doesn't listen, right,
I've never I don't think i've heard that expression. Well,
doesn't sound right. It's a very on that. It's kind
of clever as you point it out. The world is
arguably the best it's ever been. And you know, we
(04:05):
could certainly make that case or read Thomas Paker's Enlightenment
Now in terms of life expectancy and health and just
one hundred measures, particularly the best it's ever been.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
You pick any point in history, place or point in history,
you can't really do better than being in the United
States now.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Our poor people are astoundingly wealthy by historical standards and
global standards. Anyway, our response to perceived tough times, oh,
I'm sorry, it's arguably the best it's ever been. Yet,
the birth rate here in many other places is suicidally low.
Our response to perceived tough times is suicide. I think
there's a more likely explanation for the low fertility rate.
(04:44):
And then he quotes a paragraph from a scholarly journal
slash article. Animals can change their reproductive output depending on
certain environmental conditions, and one of those environmental conditions is
population density. Notes this lead author, So, if you have
lots of neighbors and you're competing for the same food,
it can lower reproduction, and that's what we saw. At
(05:07):
very high population densities. Female ground squirrels basically shut down
their reproduction. Imagine the frustration of the male ground squirrels,
and that was done in order to sustain their own survival.
When lashes were better, they would start reproducing again, unless
the male ground squirrels also have no interest, which might
happen due because we're seeing it. Yeah, yeah, I'm not
sure why they phrased it that way exactly, but yeah,
(05:28):
that is the case among humans. But then we get
to and I remember y'all probably do too. When we
had had this discussion a couple of weeks ago, I
made my usual joke. Anybody who thinks the world is
overcrowded should drive across Nevada, or from Kansas City to Sacramento,
say a long I eighty. It's a vast thousand mile
(05:51):
stretches of virtually nobody but a handful of farmers anyway.
But then Paolo jumps to what I think is his
most brilliant conclusion, reached again in concert with the Armstrong
and Giddy show, the degree to which we're interconnected. Think
the Internet likely makes our animal brains think we're even
more crowded than we are and triggers behaviors that limit
(06:13):
reproduction vess winning interest in reproducing. This is what I'm
always hammering going on on about, is our level of
input or stimulus is one hundred times what it is
designed to be. In the average day, the average human
being would have so much less interaction, so much less
(06:36):
input of ideas and arguments and anger and passion and
poorn and everything else. They're just your brain is made
to be bored or daydreaming for long stretches of time.
That's what it's made to do. That's how it keeps
itself sane.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I don't know if this is it, but that's a
unique idea that I hadn't heard before. The one thing
I am positive of is it's not a choice. I
do not believe people are choosing, you know, with climate
change and the rent, we're deciding I'm not going to
get married or have kids.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
No, No, that's not you're not.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
There's something going on way deeper than that. And maybe
it's this Internet. I think you're one hundred percent right.
So anyway, and I'm sorry I didn't connect the dots
completely for anybody who hasn't done it on their own.
The condition of being constantly badgered by the Internet of
our own free will most of our cases is extremely
(07:36):
similar to that of a serious overpopulation, as if we're
crammed into a Tokyo subway car in terms of our
brain's perceptions. The only thing I don't know, while you
got all kinds of examples with beasts, what was the
birthrate of London when it was the biggest city in
the world and you know, people were living hip to
(07:59):
hip in the eighteen hundreds, where people still cranking out
babies like crazy or not.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I don't know. That's a really really interesting question to
test the premise. I suspect that the birth rates were
lower than they were in less crowded places. And if
you're used to twelve kids per couple and you go
down to eight, that's still a lot of kids. I
wonder if they have that's a decline.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I wonder if they have numbers in Japan for what
is like Tokyo as it grew into one of the
biggest cities in the world through the seventies and eighties,
the breath rates.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Led the way in lowly productive rates.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Sure, no doubt, But me this makes this makes more
sense than practically any other theory I've ever heard.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent, and just I'll let them
bring it home, just to credit his fabulous arguments. We
don't recognize the real cause for these behaviors, so we
try to formulate an explanations, such as the world is
so awful that I don't want to bring a child
into it, or perhaps it's just too expensive slash hard.
The world was a lot harsher place hundred year ago,
thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago. Lucky for us,
(09:02):
our ancestors viewed things differently than we do, and likewise,
he points out that the very sparse population of our
distant ancestors was probably strong motivation of mate like bunnies.
Not to mention, it's just kind of fun. I think
this is important.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
We're gonna figure all this out too late, though, Whether
it's the plastics in our brain or oh it's the Internet,
it's social media that's keeping us from having babies. There
will be no you know, we'll be at the point
of no return on population and our brains will be
full of plastic we'll have no sperm count whatsoever, couldn't have.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
A baby if we wanted to.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Yeah, and I'm not a particularly religious fellow, but I
always go back to the Book of Genesis and the
apple from the Tree of Knowledge. And that always confused
me as a kid, because here I was being sent
to school five days week and doing homework and reading
and the rest of it, and I think, Wow, knowledge
is fine, it's great. In fact, it's great. In fact,
(10:07):
if I don't get my daily knowledge, my parents yell
at me. So I always found that somewhat mystifying. But
the older I get and the more I see, the
more I think I understand that it's simply a message
that man's abilities and lusts will be man's undoing.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yes, well, you can't blame Elon Musk for not having kids.
As he was in the Oval office yesterday with his
cute little kid on his shoulders as he talked about
trying to gut the federal government because he's part of
a dictatorship of volig arts or plutocrats or something.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Oh, he's unelected.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
We got from that press conference and a bunch of
others the Westminster Dog Show, Giant Snauger wins.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
It's no, I'm good. We're looking dog though. Boy, this
word to god, we had a different winter two weeks ago.
Do you want to hear the announcement.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I suppose for a best in show at the ninth
and I hope it's the Giants.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Sinster Kennel Club dogs.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I choose the Giant Schnauzy to three years of fires show.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Unfortunately, the Giant Schnauzer bounded to accept the awarden, crushed
five people and under its mighty pause.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well you didn't see as a cameras panned away, but
there was a middle aged woman in sensible shoes who
kicked her beagle.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
You ugly beagel, You suck jack. Many in the crowd
were disappointed that were they. Crowd favorite German Shepherd Mercedes
did not win the crown, snubbed again this year. It's
been a tough couple of years for Mercedes the German Shepherd.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
This year, and by this year, we mean this week,
because we have this show every week.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I think something's gone wrong there. I gotta watch beston
Show now.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Yeah. I think the German Shepherd also carried with it
some of the guilt over World War two.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
German Shepherd lifted I ever forget looked reminiscent of Elon
Musk's signal to the ground.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
That's what I oh wan The Norman Shepherd w bad dog,
bad dog.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
We got a lot more in the way. Stay here, Hey, getty,
Joge's for organst. It is all the rage. Somebody texted
that Marjorie Taylor Green is on the floor of the
house right now. They wrote this, making a great case
for why we need to cut spending and shrink our debt.
She's hitting a home run, a crazy blonde, sort of bitchy.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Home run, and everyone knows it.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Wow. Meanwhile, Jack, I've discovered what I believe to be
the we Shall Overcome of twenty twenty five, The we
are the world of the twenty first century. Ladies and gentlemen.
I give you, which side are you on? Which side
are you on? Which side?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Are you a side?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Are you? Which side are you on? We'll fight against
joh Well fights no way lanscap within our walls, will
fight from dong to dusk. Which side on you w
(13:19):
shide on you? I'm on whichever side I'm sure's I
never have to hear this song again.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Play it, Michael, play it, damn it trying. Did somebody
tell you turn it off? For unions?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
He wants us so to fame, he.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Wants us to bow to him, but we want him
in jail.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You know, I don't forget who wrote this or said this,
and I thought it was really good. One of the
problems we got going on in America is we we
had this period in the sixties where there was a
whole bunch of late fifties mid sixties particularly where we
had all kinds of this sort of thing, songs and
protests and you know, the look at the Bob Dylan
movie and the Civil Rights Act and all these different
(14:06):
sorts of things where there was like a real major
issue to be dealt with and and people rallied around
and there was a which side where you're on?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
And people it was righteous, It.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Was righteous, and people want to relive that all the time,
even if that issue doesn't exist right now. And you
can't like put that level of intensity on dose. He's
trying to cut spending by a few percent and shrink
the government.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Which side are you on?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Which side? Musk?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Thanks for asking you.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
It's about the moral question of our times, as you
exactly as you point out.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
It's just so nakedly a strategy of we've got to
change these incremental cuts that aren't nearly enough to have
bloated federal workforce into the civil rights issue of our day.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, good luck with that.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I mean, you want to talk about trying to make
a silk purse out of a sell's ear, that's like
a silk press out of the pig's crap.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Never mind it's ear this it's not gonna work. The
singing the lyrics was that a Saturday night live bit.
Good Lord, do take government by.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Translies Heaven God a chance unless organize.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
No pretending that the Union is standing up for goodness
and righteousness, when indeed they're just standing up for continuing
to have way too many workers paying way too many
dues to enrich themselves. Hi, we're onto you, friends.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I sure hope I'm right about this, and I think,
but the vast majority of America doesn't look at government
jobs as sacropyged protected by all that is good. They
should never go away under any circumstances. The way they think.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
We do well. They have managed to jam through every
bit of wasteful spending and redundant taxation and similar stuff
for years and years, and we're most familiar with California,
but by by always it's the teachers and the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
If there are any cuts, it's.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Gonna you know, the firefighters are gonna have to fight
fires with Dixie cups full of water. And the teachers, well,
they're just going to be in prison apparently, if we
don't pass this tax increase. Well, now it's extended. Like
all government workers who are sacrosanct and sacred and so
valuable to society, we dare not question them for a minute.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The great civil rights issue of our day is making
sure mid level government employees who do something that you
can't even tell what it is, don't lose their jobs,
all right, no matter how unnecessary their jobs are. Right,
And there's also the issue in that I don't think
Elon's been hammering this enough, although he has many times
(16:46):
in his Twitter threats. There are important jobs and important
agencies that are gonna have to go away if you
don't have enough money. It's like if you're broke, you
really really want to do this or that, but you can't.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
You just flat don't have the money.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
And you better eliminate the not necessary stuff before you
have to eliminate all of it.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Speaking of Elon, he was in the Oval office, did
kind of a press conference yesterday.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Some highlights of that on the limp, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
And we're going to be signing a very important deal today.
It's aid DOGE and I'm going to ask Elon to
tell you a little bit about it and some of
the things that we found, which is shocking billions and
billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. And I
think it's very important, and that's one of the reasons
(17:37):
I got elected.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
I say we're going to do that.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Nobody had any idea it was that bad, that's sick,
and that corrupt.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, he ran on he was going to cut waste,
fraud and abuse. He had Elon on stage all the time.
The term doge was out there for months. The idea
that this is some sort of unelected, olive arc takeover thing,
I don't know where that comes from. You left out
coup and constitutional crisis. You can be against it if
you want, but you're you're making stuff up. If you
(18:05):
claim that the president can't appoint people to advise him
on things that the executive branch then enacts.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
He's unelected. You full, can we save time and just
call it a constitutional constitutional acoustus. Oh, that's pretty as.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Time saves, because I know how you like combining words
to save time. Eight.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I'm very busy.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So Trump's there behind the desk, Elon is standing next
to him, wearing his dark Maga hat with his cute
little kid's cute little kid factors in here?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Oh, so the UH at a high level?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
If you say, what is the goal of dose or
and I think a significant part of the presidency is
to restore democracy. Let'spa say, seems like, well, aren't we
in a democracy? Well, if you don't have a feedback
with okay, we'd have to if you're sorry until your
gravitas can be difficult sometimes.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So how old is that kid?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
He's a little I would guess four or five.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And he's dressed in a little suit. Very cute.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
His name is X.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Spend a lot of time on dad's shoulders. But it
Elon's an interesting dude. And I don't want to get
sidetracked by this. He's four, by the way, he's four,
thank you, Michael. I don't want to get sidetracked by this.
I mentioned it many times. He's got a dozen kids,
how does he choose which one he's hanging out with
(19:31):
on any given day, with a number of different women.
And then since this is actually a pretty big policy
discussion and point of attention, I mean, it's been leading
the newscasts for a week of the three weeks.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Of the world's leading superpower, of leading superpower.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yes, maybe you have one of the moms or a
sitter or somebody hang on to the kid and you
know of an iPad in the other room during the
press conference.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yeah, it's an interesting move. I'm so pro kid and
pro family. And though his family structure is not one
I am familiar with or approve of, I like dad
being with the kid. It was it was cute, but
it was it was odd. Yeah, but utterly irrelevant to
the gigantic questions which confront us.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, let's roll on with Elon Musk press conference.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
So if if there's not a good feedback loop from
the people to the government, and if you have rule
of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, and
then what meaning does democracy actually have if the people
cannot vote and have, they will be decided by their
(20:44):
elected representatives in the form of the President and the
Senate in the House. Then we don't live in a democracy.
We live in a bureaucracy. So it's incredibly important that
we close that feedback group, we fix that feedback loop,
and that the public, the public elected representatives, the President
of the House and the Senate decide what happens as
(21:05):
opposed to a large unelected bureaucracy.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I can understand a monster. It's a constitutional crisis. I agree.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I can understand why people are so frightened when you
hear that sort of talk straight out of Hitler.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Tribalism will ruin us the inability of a significant chunk
of the population. It's less than half, but it's significant.
To reject his words before they've even heard them for
purely tribal reasons is troubling. There was nothing he said
there that was not not only uncontroversial, it was patriotic
and fantastic.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
So there's some dude, there's words in front of it
on the TV, somebody with the Project on Government Oversight.
So he's in the DOGE so DOGE subcommittee. Anyway, he's testifying.
He looks like he's twenty two and he's wearing sunglasses.
I feel like Doge doesn't help themselves sometimes with their
(22:01):
little too cool, little too young, little too you know,
Elon renaming himself on Twitter yesterday Harry Balls, I don't feel.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Like it helps his cause.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
You know, do you think he had any idea that
that is a suggestive nickname? Wait a second, and thought
of that the sunglass young man isn't named Hugh g.
You can guess the rest is.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
He Let's hear a little more of Elon Musk plutocrat.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
Does not to say that the good There are good
people who uh are in the federal bureaucracy. But but
you can't have an autonomous federal bureaucracy. You have to
have one that's responsive to the people. That's the whole
point of a democracy.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
And so.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
And if if you looked at this, if you asked
to look at the pound US today and said, what
do you think of the way things have turned out? Well,
what we have this unelected, fourth unconstitutional branch of government,
which is the bureaucracy, which has in a lot of
ways currently more power than any elected representative. And this
is uh, there's not something that people want, and it's not.
(23:15):
It does not match the will of people. So it's
just something we've got and we've got.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
To fix again.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Like I said, I don't know two weeks ago when
people started screaming about who nobody elected, Elon Musk, we
have this unelected You know how many unelected people are
controlling your lives right now?
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Come? All of them? Yeah, practically all of them. And
the counter argument to what he just said is that
the president is in no way in charge of the
executive branch, which he is the head of. It's absolutely nonsensical.
And oh you want to talk nonsensical, then we've got
(23:51):
some more great clips to play. But this is so
great the New York Times. It's just even when it's good,
it's bad. Here's your headline, and then subhead appearing with Trump.
Musk makes broad claims of federal fraud without proof.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Here's your subhead.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
The billionaire whose federal cost cutting team has been operating
in secrecy, asserted that he had uncovered waste and fraud
across the bureaucracy without offering evidence.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Are you trying to insinuate you don't think there is fraud?
Speaker 4 (24:21):
In the related story, Elon Musk suggested without evidence that
rich white guys play golf disproportionately, and suggested, without citing
proof that they have cocktails after what the.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Hell more elon.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
And they're also going to address the deficit. So we've
got a two twelvey dollars deficit and if this, if
we don't do something about this deficit, country's going bankrupt.
I mean, it's really astounding that the the interest payments
alone on national debt exceed the defense department budget, which
is shocking because we've got our larst We spent a
(25:00):
lot of money on defense, but and if that just
keeps going, we're essentially going to bank up the country.
So what I earlier to say is like, it's not optional
for us to reduce the federal expenses.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
It's essential.
Speaker 6 (25:13):
It's essential for America to remain solvent as a country,
and it's essential for America to have the resources necessarily
to provide things to its citizens and not simply be
servicing vast amounts of debt.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
That is the most important thing that's been said politically
in the United States in the last fifty years. And
whether it falls on deaf ears or is heated is
the pivot point for the next.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Fifty years for US history and maybe world history, if
we can't continue to be the hyper power that we
have been. Some of my favorite pundits are like really
critical of this elon being involved thing. But if you
had your typical gray man blue ribbon committee appointed.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Nobody'd be paying any freaking attention.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
It's been done over and over again, and they came
up with great recommendations that Washington felt more than free
to completely ignore and shove under the dish cabinet over there,
never to be thought of again. Right, that's the problem.
The politics part of it is where it really makes
sense to have somebody of Musk's profile so he can
(26:24):
get people's attention.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Yeah, yeah, I am.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
First of all, I can't even imagine his life. I mean,
how many hours has he put into this project? It
sure looks like it would take a tremendous amount of
effort to be doing what he's doing now while you
run one of the biggest social media platforms on the planet,
while you're running the top electric car company on the planet,
while you're running the most effective rocket company in the planet.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And he got twelve kits. But I just I don't
even understand how he functions.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
But I wonder point because he does this a lot
where I mean, he gets really energized for things, he
gets super into him and then I don't know if
he gets bored with it or what, but he turns
his attention to one of his other projects.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
And I wonder when that will happen with this. And
he has good people to mind the store in his way, certainly,
but this is an exaggeration, but just barely, given the
utter obviousness of our deficit and debt problems, and as
he pointed out quite eloquently that we are now paying
significantly more just interest on our death than we are
(27:31):
in national defense, which is astonishing and troubling given how
obvious and undeniable this problem. Is the fact that a
significant chunk of our media and population are acting like
this is just Trumpian stupidity and or a constitutional crisis
and we don't have to listen, and we're not going
to listen, and we're not going to help, and the
rest of it. I think the exaggeration that says if
(27:53):
Trump cured cancer, these people would go ahead and die
of cancer rather than take the cure. We're getting close
to it. What was a reductio ad hit lorum.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
The longer an online discussion goes, the more likely it
becomes somebody references Hitler. I think we are getting close
to the I'd rather die of cancer point in our
national quote unquote conversation. It's just bizarre. And that's not
to suggest that Trump is incapable of missteps or or
or even doing bad things. Some of his recent pardons
I think have been inexcusable and indefensible, for instance, and
(28:29):
I'm happy to talk about them. But on this trying
to rein in the federal.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Deficit, well, this is just it's it's undeniable. Well, the
fact that Trump and Biden and every president for a
while now has said our entitlement programs are off limits,
nobody can touch them is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
The fact that you're up there talking about our.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Two trillion dollar annual deficit and our debt uh and
not talking about that because they're off limits is insane.
You're gonna pair it with significant tax increases, right, But
that's that's what that is.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Something voters have asked for.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
At some point, some leader has got to stand up
and tell the voter something they don't want to hear,
we got it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We gotta do something about this. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I mentioned a great Thomas Soul quote I came across
a couple of weeks ago in which he explained that
I got a paraphrase because I don't have it in
front of me. But the fact that our politicians are,
you know, in large numbers congenital liars, is partly our fault.
Because if we the electric continually to demand that which
is impossible to deliver, for instance, a dollar thirty worth
(29:38):
of government for a dollar, year after year after year,
the only person who can win an election is a liar.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Right, Well, that's where we are on that, all right.
I've seen the giant Schnauzer enough. What the hell is
that dog? That dog shouldn't be What is that thing
with its hair?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You know what that is? Michael, see, I'm in tellivision.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
What the hell? I had no idea?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
What the hell is that? I walk into your house
and you got one of those run up at me?
I shriek and pepper spread.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
What is that? That's not a Is that a dog?
That's an alien?
Speaker 4 (30:12):
The hairless cats an unnatural creature shouldn't exist.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
God doesn't want that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
God doesn't want that you have any thoughts on Elon
and that press conference or anything else. And we got
more on the way text line four one five n
KFTC Arrayetty. Now the disruptor in chief, Elon Musk, who
apparently has adopted the alias at least he changed his
social media handle to Harry Balls. What Elon at least
(30:43):
briefly changed his Twitter handle to Harry Balls and they
had to announce it there in Twitter. Of course, he
responded on Twitter with laughing, lol, how funny he thought
it was that the media was reporting it.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
And I'm sorry, this is the same Fellows in charge
of the most important governmental reforms in the last one
hundred years.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, here's a couple Quinn doing a hell of a
job at it. A couple quick tweets before we get
back to Harry Ball's laundry listing the government waste out there,
so ao.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
We call him Harold. At least Harold.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
AOC had tweeted out LMAO at a billionaire earnestly trying
to sell people on the idea that free speech on
free speech when it's eight dollars a month to have
a subscription on Twitter, Elon said, your feedback is appreciated,
and now pay eight dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But this is what I really like an idiotic. It
is Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair
share period. Elon's response was, I keep forgetting that you're
still alive.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Oh my god, oh my, oh my.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
This is generation X in charge. It really is. It
really is a nark.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Of the grew up with Watergate and then the Vietnam
and it's in Stern, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
It's the Letterman and Stern generation. Here's a little more, Elon, And.
Speaker 7 (32:09):
Also, could you mention some of the things that your
team has found, some of the crazy numbers, including the
woman that walked away with about thirty million?
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Right. Well, we often we do find it's sort of
rather odd that, you know, there are quite a few
people in the biocrasy who have ostensibly a salary of
a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue
tens of millions of dollars in that worth while they
are in that position, which is, you know what happened
(32:41):
to usaid, we're just curious as to where it came from.
Maybe they're very good at investing, which case we should
take their investment advice, perhaps, but just there seems to
be mysteriously they get wealthy. We' don't know why, where
did it come from? And I think the reality is
that they're getting wealth to touch by expense.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
That's the honest truth of it.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So Elon being pretty measured. There Trump the politician, he
knows where the gold is. What people want to hear
the laundry list of wasted money, and that's what he
was prompted Elion for.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Here's a little more of that.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
I can't paign on this.
Speaker 7 (33:17):
I can't paign to the fact that I said government
is corrupt, and it is very corrupt.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
It's very very it's also foolish.
Speaker 7 (33:26):
As an example, a man has a contract for three
months and the contract ends, but they keep paying him
for the next twenty years, you know, because nobody ends
a contract.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
You get a lot of that. You have a contract
that's a three month contract.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
Now, normally, if you're in a small in all fairness,
it's the size of this thing is so big.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
But if you have a contract and you're in.
Speaker 7 (33:48):
A regular business, you end the contract in three months.
You know, it's a consultant, here's a contract for three months,
but he goes on for twenty years, and the guy doesn't.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Say that he got money for twenty is.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
They don't say it and just keep getting checks month
after month. And you have various things like that, and
even much worse than that, actually much worse.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Or the guy tried fifteen times right to contact the
federal government say hey, you gotta stop paying me. And
the response to all this from The New York Times
is appearing with Trump. Musk makes broad claims without proof,
offered no evidence that the federal government is bloated and
overspends and corrupt.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, we've heard from people over the years who like
tried to send their check back that they weren't supposed
to get, like their husband died and they're still getting
the Social Security check and he tried to send them
back and you just get nowhere.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
He claimed without proof that ice cream parlors are generally
not jammed with thin people.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Come on and.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Trump hitting on really the core thing that there are
people out there who it's just playing the scam and
fraud from the beginning. They're trying to slip one by
the goalie. But a lot of it's is just so
big nobody can keep an eye on everything.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Right right, which is a perfectly valid point. George Washington
warned us about factionalism. He said, it's the only thing
that can kill the country. And if you are so
factional that you're not for saving taxpayers money, I don't
know how we can work together.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
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