Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Shoe Getty arm Strong
Speaker 1: and get Ki and he Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2: But he should have taken it serious in allowed the
Speaker 2: United States to engage. President Trump is the only one
Speaker 2: that could have prevented this war from taking place. And
Speaker 2: President Trump now is cleaning out the mess of Biden
Speaker 2: left behind and and President Trump will get it done.
Speaker 2: He will negotiate an end to this war. He wants
Speaker 2: to see the war ended, regardless of how that takes place.
Speaker 2: He wants to see a win for Ukraine and a
Speaker 2: win for Russia at the same time, because there's a
Speaker 2: lose lose going on for both growth countries.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 2: People are dying, and the President said he wants people
Speaker 2: to stop dying.
Speaker 1: As Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, friend of the Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Getty Show, we're in the stage of Trump communication where
Speaker 1: Trump says something outrageous and sometimes ridiculous, and then his
Speaker 1: allies reinterpret it for us in a more sane way.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the things Trump said and done lately is they try
Speaker 1: to move toward a solution of the Ukraine Russian conflict specifically,
Speaker 1: but first a general discussion with Mike Lyons, military analyst
Speaker 1: to Mike served with various military organizations in both the
Speaker 1: US and Europe throughout his career and joints US. Now, Mike,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 3: Good? Good?
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's always a pleasure, thank you. So before we
Speaker 1: get into some of the specifics of the Ukraine Russia
Speaker 1: thing right now, you're a student of history as we
Speaker 1: know it is, I think beyond question that there is
Speaker 1: a serious change in the chemistry the magnetic fields. However
Speaker 1: you want to describe it post World War Two, NATO
Speaker 1: and the Western Powers. Where would you start in you know,
Speaker 1: telling a class about that.
Speaker 5: I'd start at nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety when the
Speaker 5: Soviet Union falls as the West completely screws up what
Speaker 5: happened of the Russian Empire back then? And you go
Speaker 5: back at that point, had you know, NATO wins the
Speaker 5: Cold War and Russian's bankrupt. Ronald Reagan a lot of
Speaker 5: it has to do with what he wanted to do
Speaker 5: with Russia and decides and the Soviet Union breaks up,
Speaker 5: and instead of managing that properly and making sure that
Speaker 5: the Russian Empire had zero chance of ever coming back again.
Speaker 5: The West decided to bring countries into NATO one at
Speaker 5: a time or so over the course of the next
Speaker 5: thirty years since then, and thinking that that was going
Speaker 5: to be a stable way to go, as opposed to
Speaker 5: recognize not recognizing that you can't have every member of
Speaker 5: NATO to be everybody except Russia, because that's how the
Speaker 5: First World War started. So we're seeing now the effects
Speaker 5: of lack of NATO doing anything in six when Georgia
Speaker 5: gets invaded. We're definitely seeing the effects of fourteen when
Speaker 5: Obama and Merkele does do nothing when Crimea is taken.
Speaker 5: And then very clearly Joe Biden when he was president,
Speaker 5: was the reason why Vladimir Putin decides to go after Ukraine.
Speaker 5: And now we're faced with a NATO that's disarmed on
Speaker 5: the continent that if not but for the United States
Speaker 5: nuclear umbrella, that the defenses don't happen.
Speaker 4: The last twelve years.
Speaker 5: Historians are going to look back at the European countries
Speaker 5: and say they had multiple warnings to rearm and remobilize
Speaker 5: their forces to put some kind of leverage behind any
Speaker 5: kind of military operations, and they didn't. And I think
Speaker 5: that's where we're at right now, and that's why the
Speaker 5: messag is being cleaned up.
Speaker 1: Which leads me beautifully to the next topic I'm on
Speaker 1: to address, and that is I've been reading a lot
Speaker 1: about the domestic politics and economics a lot of the
Speaker 1: European countries now, particularly because several of them are having
Speaker 1: important elections. Virtually all of the biggies are. And it
Speaker 1: strikes me, whether you're talking about technology or the economy
Speaker 1: in general, the politics, the freedom of speech policies in Germany,
Speaker 1: which has been much discussed lately, it all feels like shrinking,
Speaker 1: not growth. Europe just feels like a diminished force that's
Speaker 1: continuing to be diminished with few signs of life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the thing is, we needed each of those
Speaker 5: individual countries to have their own individual leaders that had
Speaker 5: that same vision with regard to where they were going,
Speaker 5: but instead each of them have been more aligned with
Speaker 5: i'll just say, more liberal tendencies of unlimited immigration. The
Speaker 5: free speech conversation that's taking place in Germany right now
Speaker 5: is appalling. I mean, what happened over with the sixty
Speaker 5: minutes interview and they're arresting people for putting memes on
Speaker 5: the Internet and then trying to equate that summer reason
Speaker 5: like because of free speech, that's why we had the Holocaust.
Speaker 5: I can't even connect these dots, or whoever thought they
Speaker 5: were going to get connected is just virtually insane at
Speaker 5: this point.
Speaker 4: But what's happened is and then go back to Germany.
Speaker 5: You know, they've they've gotten rid of all their nuclear
Speaker 5: energy power plants.
Speaker 4: The world runs on energy.
Speaker 5: You have to you can't have a country unless you
Speaker 5: have that, so they rely on Russia.
Speaker 4: So you kind of bring all this together.
Speaker 5: I saw a good quote the other day that talked about,
Speaker 5: you know, when the Roman Empire fell, it's not because
Speaker 5: of the elites, you know, didn't improve their their their
Speaker 5: cost of living, or didn't improve their their lifestyles. It
Speaker 5: fell because the barbarians had hatchets. And that's still the
Speaker 5: same for today. You've got to have a military presence
Speaker 5: and show leverage and show capability of doing things.
Speaker 4: And all of those countries, to include England.
Speaker 5: England is no less guilty in any of these countries
Speaker 5: right now, and they really risk Europe in particular England, France, Germany.
Speaker 5: Some of these countries really risk losing their cultures, losing
Speaker 5: everything that's about.
Speaker 1: Them well, and every sign is that they have no
Speaker 1: inclination whatsoever to do the things that need to be
Speaker 1: done to fix it. In fact, the minute somebody suggests,
Speaker 1: for instance, hey, our welfare state is draining our coffers
Speaker 1: and we don't have the money to defend themselves, they
Speaker 1: get voted out of office. So I don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of hope. So let's get a little more specific
Speaker 1: about Ukraine and Russia. You can either address some of
Speaker 1: the incendiary things Trump has said lately or not. It's
Speaker 1: up to you. But as the folks gather for various
Speaker 1: peace talks, how does the whole thing strike you overall?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, he said some outrageous things. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 5: the dictator here is Prutin, and Russia did invade Ukraine.
Speaker 5: It's unjustifiable, and the Russian aggression is something that has
Speaker 5: to be dealt with. The question is how what's the
Speaker 5: leverage that we can apply back in order to have
Speaker 5: them not do it again? And Trump's transactional view of
Speaker 5: this whole thing is it has to stop. Once it
Speaker 5: does stop, we create an armacist, but he's afraid of
Speaker 5: the same thing over and over again. We land European
Speaker 5: troops there, we put American troops there. American troops will
Speaker 5: before this and they became really what will be a
Speaker 5: trip wire. I mean, again, I appreciate what the British
Speaker 5: Prime Minister was talking about sending troops to Ukraine.
Speaker 4: I'd like to know exactly which troops.
Speaker 5: There's less than one hundred thousand active duty troops that
Speaker 5: are in the UK Army right now, which is ridiculous
Speaker 5: for a country of that size for once was once
Speaker 5: a great power.
Speaker 4: I mean, they might as well be Portugal, they might
Speaker 4: as well be you.
Speaker 5: Know, some some mid Atlantic uh, you know, the Middle
Speaker 5: Eastern country right now. So so again, none of these
Speaker 5: countries have got really any capability to do this. But
Speaker 5: I think I think the question is I think we're
Speaker 5: going to get to the spot that everybody is you know,
Speaker 5: Pete Heiks that said the quiet part out loud. Russia
Speaker 5: will contain, will have the twenty percent of that they've kept,
Speaker 5: they'll likely keep CRIMEA, they will put up a border.
Speaker 5: Lato won't be won't be bringing in Ukraine anytime soon,
Speaker 5: and they'll be lucky to get some some EU you know,
Speaker 5: kind of money they're going forward and to try to
Speaker 5: get the fighting to stop. I think that's where it's
Speaker 5: going to go, and that's that's where it should have
Speaker 5: went back when the first thing started four years ago,
Speaker 5: three years ago at this point.
Speaker 1: And honestly, whatever's next is not going to play out
Speaker 1: in the next year. It's going to play out in
Speaker 1: the next thirty years. So we'll all find out together.
Speaker 1: Military analyst Mike Lyons online, Mike, we're really putting you
Speaker 1: through the paces today, and we appreciated another topic speaking
Speaker 1: of Pete Hegzeth and in Trump's order to take a
Speaker 1: serious look at the Pentagon, cut budgets, cut the fat.
Speaker 1: What do you think of that in general? And you,
Speaker 1: as an experienced Pentagon hand, tell us about the efficiencies
Speaker 1: and inefficiency of the Pentagon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they go through this every once in a while.
Speaker 4: They've tried a couple of different administrations.
Speaker 5: What you're seeing though, is Pete Heggsuff being very overly transparent.
Speaker 4: He put about an eight minute video out.
Speaker 5: Last night with regard to what that was going to
Speaker 5: be about, specifically left certain things out of its certain
Speaker 5: domains that won't be cut. But like anything else, there
Speaker 5: are things that are redundant within the Pentagon that it's
Speaker 5: an easy place for fivictoms to be built and for
Speaker 5: for kingdoms to kind of move forward as people try
Speaker 5: to stay in one location and don't change their jobs.
Speaker 4: So I think he's looking to knock down some of
Speaker 4: those stilos.
Speaker 5: Some of those stilos are calcified, I'll put it that way,
Speaker 5: in terms of where they don't talk and now eleven
Speaker 5: did actually a pretty good job of knocking those silos
Speaker 5: down when it came to information and communication, but they
Speaker 5: still get rebuilt and they still get re established, and
Speaker 5: I think that's what Pete wants to do. Up He's
Speaker 5: up against a very strong momentum on the other side
Speaker 5: because there's people that are going to dig in pretty
Speaker 5: deeply and they're going to want to keep their victems
Speaker 5: and keep their dollars.
Speaker 4: But when you think about if the Pentagon is the.
Speaker 5: Most the largest discretionary budget that we have right now,
Speaker 5: and so if we can get some savings out of
Speaker 5: their ten percent, then I think that'll be a win, right.
Speaker 1: And we have always said around here at the A
Speaker 1: and G Show that the kindest, best thing we can
Speaker 1: do for our actual fighting men and women is to
Speaker 1: ensure there's efficiency at the Pentagon. And the idea that
Speaker 1: scrutinizing the Pentagon or re ordering budgets to somehow weakening defense,
Speaker 1: I think is foolish. Final question, speaking of our military
Speaker 1: in these turbulent times, what do you see as our
Speaker 1: greatest strength right now as our forces exist? And what's
Speaker 1: your greatest concern or our greatest weakness.
Speaker 5: I think our greatest strength remains this intangible of being
Speaker 5: an American.
Speaker 4: I think anytime you see.
Speaker 5: Americans in a situation where they have to rally and
Speaker 5: put themselves together, not just in the military, you see
Speaker 5: it in corporate America sometimes. But but there's this thing
Speaker 5: about being an American, which is why everybody wants to
Speaker 5: come here, why everybody.
Speaker 4: Wants to be part of this thing.
Speaker 5: When when when push comes to shove, when a mission
Speaker 5: has to get done, I remember, you know, my time
Speaker 5: in active duty, that that people would say, you know,
Speaker 5: this is we're going to get this done.
Speaker 4: We're going to you know, look left and look right
Speaker 4: and take care of each other.
Speaker 5: So I think our greatest strength is this tangible that
Speaker 5: runs in our DNA of of being an American and
Speaker 5: what that means and being on the high on the
Speaker 5: high ground and doing whatever it takes. I often think about,
Speaker 5: you know, I look at these videos and I watch
Speaker 5: the Russians leave their soldiers behind and things like that.
Speaker 5: I remember being in when I was at combat, thinking that,
Speaker 5: you know, you never see Americans surrender and things like that.
Speaker 5: So we have this intangible that's there, But then that
Speaker 5: greatest strength is a weakness. If we still don't have
Speaker 5: the technology and don't have the equipment, and if we
Speaker 5: come up with somebody that has better, better kind of things,
Speaker 5: we're not going to no matter no matter how great
Speaker 5: that intangible is, it's not going to overcome that. So
Speaker 5: we still have to have military might, we have to
Speaker 5: have material might, and be able to put our money
Speaker 5: where our mouth is.
Speaker 4: I think those are the two biggest things.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's so perfect. I was just going to
Speaker 1: interject it. In reading about Germany and the elections and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, a German analyst was saying, what
Speaker 1: really weakens us and strengthens the Americans is that we
Speaker 1: have a culture of we'd better be careful, we'd better
Speaker 1: not Here are the things that can be wrong, that
Speaker 1: could go wrong. Rather, whereas the Americans have a spirit
Speaker 1: of let's try it and see what happens, learn from
Speaker 1: it and go from there. And yeah, if we ever
Speaker 1: lose that including technologic as you're saying, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're screwed. Uh. Military analyst Mike Clons Mike, great to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Coming up in just a moment or two, a
Speaker 1: couple of interesting perspective studies I've come across in the
Speaker 1: last few days about the technical world, what it's doing
Speaker 1: to our brains, and how to unplug from it. I
Speaker 1: think you'll find it interesting.
Speaker 3: Stay with us, very stars.
Speaker 6: What's that for?
Speaker 7: Call future done it again inside the Tady garden.
Speaker 1: Well, look back on that moment and understand that's what
Speaker 1: started the Great Canadian American War Canada viciously and unprovokedly
Speaker 1: is that a word, Uh, scoring against our poor goalie
Speaker 1: in overtime and brutally winning the hockey game, which did
Speaker 1: not start with a bunch of fights. By the way,
Speaker 1: I was hanging out with my buddy Gordy, who is
Speaker 1: a former elite hockey player, not quite NHL, but very
Speaker 1: very good hockey player and still as part of the
Speaker 1: world of sports. And I said, hey, they're going to
Speaker 1: be a bunch of fights to the night. And he said, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: too important a game. It'll come out just win. Scores
Speaker 1: have been settled. Now let's play hockey. And he was
Speaker 1: absolutely right. He also pointed out that hockey is the
Speaker 1: only sport where there are absolutely rock solid rules unwritten
Speaker 1: but you cannot violate. About fighting. You watch an NBA fight,
Speaker 1: guys are are sucker punching each other and punching each
Speaker 1: other from behind and swinging wildly like lunatics. In hockey,
Speaker 1: you tell the guy we're fighting, he says, yes, you
Speaker 1: drop your gloves, you slug each other in the head.
Speaker 1: If you can, you can't. It's very hard to fight
Speaker 1: on ice. If you've never tried it, don't, but trust
Speaker 1: me when I tell you it's very difficult, especially when
Speaker 1: somebody's grabbing your jersey and pulling it up and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. The minute anybody's getting hurt, the referees
Speaker 1: dive in and break it up. And the minute anybody
Speaker 1: goes to the ice, the other guy says, oh, it's over,
Speaker 1: and they back off. You'll never see an NHL player
Speaker 1: like pounding another guy who's down. They just don't. It's
Speaker 1: very honorable. It's like the dueling culture thing we were
Speaker 1: talking about yesterday. You don't have to be in favor
Speaker 1: of it. But it's not like straight thugs beating each
Speaker 1: other to death on the pavement or anything like this.
Speaker 1: Very very different than that. It's a gentlemanly punching another
Speaker 1: man in the face. Anyway, I thought this was good, interesting,
Speaker 1: thought provoking because I worry about this all the time,
Speaker 1: not just for the younger generation, although I certainly do,
Speaker 1: but also about myself, and that is our addiction to
Speaker 1: the endorphin bursts of in put after input after input
Speaker 1: from smartphones in particular, technology in general. Here's a story
Speaker 1: about how popular these unplugged nights are among young Brits.
Speaker 1: Offcom is the name of the organization. They unplug and
Speaker 1: they get together for offline nights, they call them, and
Speaker 1: they do whatever, whether it's drinking or dancing or even
Speaker 1: playing games or whatever, just talking to each other, no
Speaker 1: tech allowed. Katie joins us, Yeah, I love this idea. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. And they you know, anybody old enough to
Speaker 1: remember this doesn't need a description, but they mentioned one
Speaker 1: group that was playing games and scattered around the room
Speaker 1: table stacked with board games is an excited hum echoed
Speaker 1: around the walls. Here's this twenty five year old engineer
Speaker 1: that he found leaving his phone at the door, freeing.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize the addiction. Then too often I feel
Speaker 1: the urge to look at my phone and scroll. He
Speaker 1: talked about fomo, but this is growing in popularity. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it will achieve any sort of critical mass,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely a response to what we're all feeling.
Speaker 1: I think. And then this, which is of similar content obviously,
Speaker 1: but a big study out multiple universities across the USA
Speaker 1: and Canada worked with hundreds and hundreds of iPhone users,
Speaker 1: average age thirty two to test how we're moving Constant
Speaker 1: internet access would affect their daily lives. And I'll squeeze
Speaker 1: in the analysis real quickly as we look forward to
Speaker 1: a chat with Lanhi Chen in just a moment or
Speaker 1: two about domestic policy. Blocking mobile internet for two weeks
Speaker 1: led to mental health improvements with an effect size larger
Speaker 1: than typically seen in antidepressant studies. Improved sustained attention comparable
Speaker 1: to reversing ten years of age related decline and increased
Speaker 1: well being in ninety one percent under participants in at
Speaker 1: least one key area. There's more to it, and we'll
Speaker 1: dip back into it. But it's like better for depression
Speaker 1: than drugs and better for memory than being ten years younger.
Speaker 1: Holy cow, stay with us, Lanhi chennext, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 8: Cut jobs, save the government money, sant Americans a check
Speaker 8: for the difference. That's the Trump plan being floated at least,
Speaker 8: But is it realistic? Is it feasible? And might it
Speaker 8: hurt your wallet more than it would help?
Speaker 1: Where He's gone too far?
Speaker 3: A slim majority using presidential power fifty two percent say
Speaker 3: he's gone too far There cutting federal programs.
Speaker 1: Fifty one percent of Americans say gone too far. This
Speaker 1: is the.
Speaker 6: Chainsaw for bureaucracy, turns off change saw a variety of
Speaker 6: opinions and thoughts there having to do with domestic policy,
Speaker 6: budget cutting, bureaucracy taming, et cetera, which is one of
Speaker 6: the major initiatives going on in the Trump administration right now.
Speaker 1: Who better to discuss this with than Lanhi Chen, David
Speaker 1: and Diane Steffi fellow in American Public Policy Studies at
Speaker 1: the Hoover Institution and the Director of Domestic Policy Studies
Speaker 1: at Stanford University Lanai.
Speaker 3: How are you great to be with you?
Speaker 1: How are you just terrific? Thank you. Earlier in the show,
Speaker 1: we were comparing and contrasting the democratic reaction to a
Speaker 1: lot of the cutting and restructuring and examining the giant bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: which has been essentially any cuts are a horror in
Speaker 1: a constitutional crisis, with Lincoln's statement that we absolutely have
Speaker 1: the right to amend to reconstruct and you know he
Speaker 1: didn't say this supposedly, but cut or grow government in
Speaker 1: the way we the people see fit.
Speaker 3: It's quite a contrast, it is, And I would just
Speaker 3: say this, I mean, I think there is a fair
Speaker 3: amount of hysteria over some of the activity that we're seeing,
Speaker 3: and the effort I think that's underway by some in
Speaker 3: the media is to try and define some of these
Speaker 3: cuts as existential. We're deeply problematic. So let's just step
Speaker 3: back and take a look at one of them that
Speaker 3: they talk about. For example, the IRS. This is one
Speaker 3: of my favorite ones. The IRS has reached record levels
Speaker 3: of staffing in the last couple of years, and they
Speaker 3: have significantly expanded their workforce. So they went from about
Speaker 3: seventy thousand employees to one hundred thousand employees over the
Speaker 3: course of a couple of years. Now, the cuts that
Speaker 3: DOZE is talking about sixty eight hundred employees, we're talking
Speaker 3: about sixty eight hundred probationary recent hires that they're looking
Speaker 3: to essentially trim from the IRS bureaucracy. We're talking about
Speaker 3: between six to seven percent of the workforce. And it
Speaker 3: doesn't even account for this significant, as I said, increase
Speaker 3: in the workforce we've seen recently. So people just need
Speaker 3: to look at the facts and try to figure out
Speaker 3: exeguly what's going on here, because fundamentally there is this
Speaker 3: notion and that well, no, we can't cut anything. This
Speaker 3: is going to cause a degradation of service. Look, the
Speaker 3: service of the IRS wasn't all that great before. So
Speaker 3: the notion that we have this challenge that's being created
Speaker 3: because of the things that government is doing, the things
Speaker 3: that DOGE is doing in particular, it's just not true.
Speaker 1: Well, and the idea that to even autit something is
Speaker 1: improper or threatening is just it's it's obscenely backward. One
Speaker 1: of the things Kim Strassel's writing about is how the
Speaker 1: Trump administration is taking a serious look at the agencies
Speaker 1: that Congress created to perform executive functions, Like, well, they
Speaker 1: administer laws, but they're free from the executive branches control.
Speaker 1: It's like Congress created its own executive branch. And any
Speaker 1: thoughts on where we are as a country with that,
Speaker 1: and what are the chances of doing something about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's another great question, because you've got a whole
Speaker 3: host of agencies that are they're called into pendent agencies, right,
Speaker 3: they're created Usually they end in a B or a
Speaker 3: C so commission or board, and these are the organizations
Speaker 3: that essentially are part of the executive branch, but they
Speaker 3: have some independent authority. So they've got, for example, board
Speaker 3: members or commission members who are appointed by a president
Speaker 3: for a set amount of time, confirmed by the Senate,
Speaker 3: and they're supposed to sit for that set amount of time.
Speaker 3: And the idea was, well, you've got some of these
Speaker 3: institutions that are supposed to create some separation from the
Speaker 3: rest of the executive branch. And this doesn't make a
Speaker 3: whole lot of sense though at some level, And so
Speaker 3: what this administration, what the Trump administration is now trying
Speaker 3: to do, is to say, for example, hey, if you,
Speaker 3: as a commission, a supposedly independent commission, issue a new
Speaker 3: regulation something that you're saying people can or cannot do,
Speaker 3: you need to take that regulation and you've got to
Speaker 3: run it through the White House. We've got to know
Speaker 3: what it is that you're doing, even as a quote
Speaker 3: independent agency. I don't think that's unreasonable, right, because the
Speaker 3: independent agency has elements of independence. We understand that because
Speaker 3: they're regulating, let's say, for example, whether a merger can
Speaker 3: go through or not. But at core, what the White
Speaker 3: House is saying is, if you're going to regulate, we
Speaker 3: have to know about it. And again, this is one
Speaker 3: of those things where there's been a lot of writing
Speaker 3: in the media, a lot of misunderstanding, this notion of
Speaker 3: Trump's trying to take over the entire bureaucracy, when the
Speaker 3: reality is there's certain things here that independent agencies, for example,
Speaker 3: been doing for a long time where we probably do
Speaker 3: need a little more political oversight. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: people again just got to understand what the real story
Speaker 3: is versus what the media is reporting.
Speaker 1: Sure, and we've been plenty harsh about the unchecked growth
Speaker 1: of executive power and how the gigantic executive branches come
Speaker 1: to be. In many ways, it mimics all three branches.
Speaker 1: It writes rules and laws like Congress, then it enforces
Speaker 1: them like the executive branch, I guess, and then decides
Speaker 1: on your fines. And here's the appeals and everything, like
Speaker 1: the judicial branch. And so obviously it needs to be
Speaker 1: looked at. And the other aspect of this that has
Speaker 1: never talked about in the media is that the president,
Speaker 1: as for instance, they're howling that Elon Musk is unelected,
Speaker 1: you know, like the president's virtually the only person in
Speaker 1: the executive branch who is elected. But the idea that
Speaker 1: a huge chunk of the executive branch wouldn't be answerable
Speaker 1: to the voters at all, except, like, you know, three
Speaker 1: steps down the line. While I fear unchecked executive power.
Speaker 1: If the executive is in charge, they can do good
Speaker 1: things and be rewarded with reelection or their party or reelection.
Speaker 1: But if they do bad things, they can be voted out.
Speaker 1: Right now, if the giant, sprawling executive branch does bad things,
Speaker 1: what the hell do I do about it?
Speaker 3: Well, This is the most important thing that people don't realize,
Speaker 3: which is that there is actually check on what the
Speaker 3: executive branch can do. And that's Congress.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: If Congress actually did its job and was functional as
Speaker 3: opposed to just being a bunch of people running around
Speaker 3: yelling all the time. If Congress actually yeah, if Congress
Speaker 3: actually functioned the way Congress is supposed to function, that's
Speaker 3: your check on the executive branch, right, that's your check
Speaker 3: on what the executive is doing. They have the oversight power.
Speaker 3: They can have hearings, they can run legislation, they can
Speaker 3: do all sorts of stuff to constrain if they're really
Speaker 3: worried about if Chuck Schumer and Democrats and the have
Speaker 3: Hakeem Jeffreyes and all the rest, if they're really worried
Speaker 3: about what the executive branch is doing, if they're worried
Speaker 3: about what those is doing, they have the ability in
Speaker 3: Congress to try and work together with Republicans there to
Speaker 3: figure out a way to conduct oversite. They can conduct
Speaker 3: oversite on their own, by the way, they don't need
Speaker 3: Republicans to do it necessarily. So the idea that there's
Speaker 3: no check on the executive first of all, you're right,
Speaker 3: the voters can set a check. But more importantly, Congress
Speaker 3: needs to do its job, and Congress completely seated the
Speaker 3: playing field in a lot of waste the executive. This
Speaker 3: is not a Trump problem. This happened during the Biden administration,
Speaker 3: has happened during Obama. That the Congress has just gotten
Speaker 3: less and less willing to do its job. And that's problem.
Speaker 1: Is it just that if they're not on the record
Speaker 1: having done anything, they can't be blamed for anything going wrong.
Speaker 1: Where does this cowardice, laziness, whatever it is come from.
Speaker 3: Well, part of it is that the incentives for members
Speaker 3: of Congress are really different now than they work for
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: Now it's all about.
Speaker 3: How many likes can I get on social media, how
Speaker 3: can I generate a following on social media? How can
Speaker 3: I do all of that, as opposed to you know,
Speaker 3: where I think there were members of Congress that did
Speaker 3: the hard work of actually trying to get things done.
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's been a few decades since
Speaker 3: we've really seen a lot of that activity. But I
Speaker 3: think part of it is the incentive structure has changed.
Speaker 3: And then part of it is, you know, unfortunately I
Speaker 3: do think we're electing in a lot of places more
Speaker 3: extreme members of Congress who are really more interested in
Speaker 3: advancing ideology than actually passing legislation and getting the done. Now,
Speaker 3: some of that's the reflection of us as the American people,
Speaker 3: becoming more more polarized and more ideological in some ways.
Speaker 3: But overall, I do think that the composition of Congress,
Speaker 3: the nature of Congress who were sending to Congress, all
Speaker 3: of these things have impacted quite frankly, Congress's ability to
Speaker 3: do its job and congress members of Congress's willingness to
Speaker 3: do their job.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a big and that's a big and we
Speaker 1: don't really have time to talk about how to reform
Speaker 1: our entire primary process. Yeah, and the rest of it. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what I was going to ask, and I'm debating,
Speaker 1: can you hang on for a few minutes through a break?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Okay, because what I was going to ask, because
Speaker 1: folks like me and perhaps you are more than willing
Speaker 1: to geek out on the you know, the inside baseball
Speaker 1: structural stuff a government and then forget to explain what
Speaker 1: a success reigning in the giant bureaucratic state would look
Speaker 1: like to real human beings in their lives. So why
Speaker 1: don't we take a break, catch our breath, and let's
Speaker 1: talk about what it would look on look like on
Speaker 1: main Street. If that sounds good to you, be here,
Speaker 1: beautiful Lanhi Chen of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, more
Speaker 1: to come. Thank you for tuning in, Armstrong and Getty here.
Speaker 1: Jack is off for today, but we're pleased to have
Speaker 1: terrific guests like Lanhi Chen of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Alanhi,
Speaker 1: thanks for hanging around. We really appreciate it. And so
Speaker 1: for folks just tuning in especially, we've been talking about
Speaker 1: and a lot of this has gone on unnoticed or
Speaker 1: untalked about by many people in the media in the
Speaker 1: midst of Trump cutting, you know, transgender polo matches for
Speaker 1: Dubai or whatever the heck. A lot of the serious
Speaker 1: looking at and rejiggering the administrative state, all these commissions
Speaker 1: and boards and making everybody go through all the rules
Speaker 1: and see if any of the rules violate the Constitution,
Speaker 1: exceed legislative power, go beyond the clear words of the
Speaker 1: Congressional Statute, harm the national interest, a stripping down of
Speaker 1: the gigantic administrative state, and those of us who've been
Speaker 1: praying for that sort of thing are super excited. But
Speaker 1: as I said before the break lawn, he can we
Speaker 1: help understand, help people understand rather how that helps their lives,
Speaker 1: you know in everywhere America.
Speaker 3: Well, look, we want an effective and efficient government, right
Speaker 3: and obviously everyone wants government to do things that's supposed
Speaker 3: to do. But when you have I think there's a
Speaker 3: couple of issues. One is when you have government that's
Speaker 3: grown so big and particularly has so many people that
Speaker 3: it becomes kind of a constituency in and of itself, right,
Speaker 3: that it becomes about defending the institution, which really means
Speaker 3: making sure that nothing ever changes. What you end up with, fortunately,
Speaker 3: is a situation where government doesn't have to improve. I mean,
Speaker 3: let's just compare that to a minute to let's just
Speaker 3: think about a business.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: If you think about a business, the reason why businesses improve,
Speaker 3: really the only reason why they improve is because of competition.
Speaker 3: And you've got a marketplace where you've got different businesses
Speaker 3: competing for people's support and for people's business, and that
Speaker 3: ends up forcing them to improve and to change and
Speaker 3: to evolve. Think about government for a minute. What forces
Speaker 3: government to change and evolve and get better. The answer
Speaker 3: is nothing on a regular basis unless you apply some
Speaker 3: sort of pressure. There is no competition. There's no other
Speaker 3: government out there that's going to do national security, that's
Speaker 3: going to do processing to make sure that we have
Speaker 3: clean air and clean water. That you don't have that
Speaker 3: unless you apply some political pressure on government to do better.
Speaker 3: And that is fundamentally why we need to think about
Speaker 3: some of these changes that are going on. You know,
Speaker 3: are some of them unorthodox, Are some of them going
Speaker 3: to raise eyebrows? Sure, but fundamentally, the only way government
Speaker 3: gets better is if you apply some pressure on it
Speaker 3: to be more efficient and more effective. And by the way,
Speaker 3: here's another thing, Joe, that really drives me nuts is transparency.
Speaker 3: If you look at, for example, in California where I'm sitting,
Speaker 3: the lack of transparency we have into what government is
Speaker 3: doing and spending money on is remarkable. And at the
Speaker 3: federal level we've got some similar issues. It's not as
Speaker 3: bad as it is in California, But why can't we,
Speaker 3: as the people who fund government, have a better idea
Speaker 3: of what government's spending our money on. This is something
Speaker 3: that's always drove me. Thats is why I ran for
Speaker 3: controller several years ago. It's why I continue to believe
Speaker 3: we've got to push this transparency message because if we
Speaker 3: don't know what government is doing, it can ever get better.
Speaker 3: We can't ever make it do the things that's supposed
Speaker 3: to do, and instead it ends up doing things that
Speaker 3: after the fact we read about it, we're like, what
Speaker 3: our money's been going to?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: Because no one was able to see along the way
Speaker 3: where all that money was going. So anyway, I'll get
Speaker 3: off my soapbox now, but I really think transparency is
Speaker 3: hugely important.
Speaker 1: Well so, and how that lands on main street though
Speaker 1: is number one. We're not being stolen from and our
Speaker 1: tax money merely distributed to cronies. That is what I
Speaker 1: would like very much. But secondly, wouldn't we see less
Speaker 1: regulation therefore more efficient economic growth and change and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing and rising wages? I just think I
Speaker 1: think scaling back the administrative state would have a specific
Speaker 1: material benefit to average Americans wherever they are.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, look aside from people getting better
Speaker 3: service and having a government that's more responsive. You're right,
Speaker 3: I mean, not to get too wonky about this, but
Speaker 3: there is always this worry about government crowding out the
Speaker 3: private sector, and what that means is that the government
Speaker 3: becomes so big that it starts to make it difficult
Speaker 3: for you know, private entrepreneurs and small business owners to
Speaker 3: do what they're doing. And the more debt we take on,
Speaker 3: the more people are going to have to pay in
Speaker 3: taxes to pay off debt. And why we why do
Speaker 3: we carry debt? We carry debt to have a bigger government.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, there is a real impact for people
Speaker 3: on main street, and that is that if government gets bigger,
Speaker 3: taxes go up and people pay more because we have
Speaker 3: to pay more to support the mechanism of government that's
Speaker 3: been created. So there is a direct effect on our
Speaker 3: pocketbooks and something that that people.
Speaker 1: Need to be aware of. And just you know, a
Speaker 1: personal example. I've been very fortunate, Jack and I have
Speaker 1: done well in this business. I'm reasonably financially comfortable, but
Speaker 1: my taxes are breathtaking. And if I were not paying
Speaker 1: those taxes like that, It's not like I would go
Speaker 1: out and buy a yacht. I would love to invest
Speaker 1: in smart people with great ideas. That's what I would
Speaker 1: do if I was not spending X amount of money
Speaker 1: on taxes and help them grow their businesses and hire
Speaker 1: a bunch of people and to get start an insurance
Speaker 1: plan and the rest of it. So yeah, the idea
Speaker 1: that government crowds out free enterprise and private enterprise is
Speaker 1: absolutely true. So Alanie, we appreciate the time and thoughts
Speaker 1: anything else on what the Trump administration is doing domestically
Speaker 1: that's got you excited or you're feeling really good about.
Speaker 3: Well, Joe, I mean, look, I think the some of
Speaker 3: the stuff that the doge is doing in terms of
Speaker 3: right sizing government, I think that's long overdue, quite frankly.
Speaker 3: But what I would also say is we've got a president.
Speaker 3: I mean, whether you like what he's doing or not,
Speaker 3: he's doing something okay, And I think that that is
Speaker 3: fundamentally what in many ways in our in our country,
Speaker 3: we feel like we've been lacking this. We've been lacking
Speaker 3: this kind of leadership and direction. And we can have
Speaker 3: a real debate about whether all of these things are
Speaker 3: right or wrong, whether we like everything that's happening, whether
Speaker 3: we think the direction that's that the US is taking
Speaker 3: around the world is the right one. But fundamentally, we
Speaker 3: have an action oriented executive branch and an action oriented government,
Speaker 3: and maybe we can kind of wake everyone up and
Speaker 3: sort of say, listen, there's some things that have to
Speaker 3: get done here, and there's some ways in which we
Speaker 3: need to push forward to improve our country. And I
Speaker 3: just think that we can have a real debate over
Speaker 3: these things and this level of activity and action that
Speaker 3: is truly exciting to be and you know, let's see
Speaker 3: where it goes.
Speaker 1: Lanhi Chen of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Lonie is
Speaker 1: always a pleasure. Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 3: Yep, great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Likewise, thanks and to Chuck Schumer and those who have
Speaker 1: been denigrating the Supreme Court and talking about how it's
Speaker 1: illegitimate and the rest of it. The plan is all
Speaker 1: the stuff we've been talking about to really look at
Speaker 1: the foundations of the giant, obese Washington Colossus and dragged
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. Questions like these commissions and boards
Speaker 1: and departments of since they're no longer doing what Congress
Speaker 1: told them to do and they're not accountable to the
Speaker 1: executive agent, the executive branch, can we end them or
Speaker 1: how can we trim them and restructure them? And if
Speaker 1: it runs a foul of any constitutional principles we have,
Speaker 1: thank God and Trump. Frankly, we have a lot of
Speaker 1: constitutionalist judges who are very, very protective of the bones
Speaker 1: of the Constitution, the original intents of the Constitution. So
Speaker 1: I think it's the perfect circumstance. We've got an agent
Speaker 1: of change and agents of stability that are going to
Speaker 1: work together to make the government better for all of us.
Speaker 1: Hey la hey, law I love it. Stay with us,
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty