Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Katty Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Jettie and he arms wrong. I'm a tram a studio
Speaker 1: see see senior, A dimly let room deeper than the
Speaker 1: bowels of the Armstrong and Getty Communications Compound. Today we
Speaker 1: are under the tutelage of our general manager, not the tariffs,
Speaker 1: not the terrors, our first ever negative general manager. They everbind.
Speaker 1: So I'm slightly distracted. Then I'm going to get my
Speaker 1: act together. I know I can. I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to get my egg together. Okay, I was out spitting
Speaker 1: in the bushes before I walked in here. I really
Speaker 1: thought I was going to throw up in my car
Speaker 1: on the way to work. Oh. I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna throw it before I got into the building. And
Speaker 1: I haven't yet, but I'm really close. Oh golly, So
Speaker 1: if I duck off real fast, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I stop and snack on roadkill
Speaker 1: on the way in again, did you it looked like
Speaker 1: the squirrel had just been hit to me? Oh really recently? Wow?
Speaker 1: I was afraid I'd gone too far I don't know
Speaker 1: why I feel like this. I have no idea, but
Speaker 1: I really it is subsided a little from when I
Speaker 1: was just downstairs kneeled wishes, which you know is not unusual.
Speaker 1: In front of this building, I thought I'll join the
Speaker 1: other people who are pop passed out in either vomiting
Speaker 1: or other or worse, any of them employees. Yes, just
Speaker 1: see Hans in the the RV. There's an RV parked
Speaker 1: out where that the car is gone that everybody was
Speaker 1: working on for a couple of days. But there's a
Speaker 1: big RV there. They even have the slides out today
Speaker 1: like they're camping. I mean, they've got the full slide.
Speaker 1: Nice climate, pleasant setting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my kid is going to law school far
Speaker 2: enough from the radio ranch.
Speaker 1: It's irrelevant. But man, the neurovirus is everywhere, is it really? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: pupkin and poop, and it's just it's rough. I haven't
Speaker 1: come in contact with anybody sick. But I hope I
Speaker 1: don't have that, you know of if I brought that
Speaker 1: into the radio station, that would be awful. You remember
Speaker 1: the stories about those cruise ships. I don't want to
Speaker 1: repeat any of it, but it's rough. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: what management would do here. They would lock the doors
Speaker 1: and make us all live in here like a cruise
Speaker 1: ship until we were over it. Right. You know, I
Speaker 1: would love to throw in some good graphic detail, but
Speaker 1: I just it's not appropriate. People wouldn't enjoy it. I'll
Speaker 1: restrain myself for once. Oh man, all right, So explain
Speaker 1: the whole tariff situation.
Speaker 2: They look well, Donald J came hard at the Mexicans
Speaker 2: and Canadians and Chinese Chinese, completely separate case.
Speaker 1: We got to put that aside. Their dirty comedies. They're
Speaker 1: trying to take over the globe. They commit genocides, that
Speaker 1: they're they're they're a horrible regime. But our neighbors are
Speaker 1: our friendly neighbors to the north and the south. He
Speaker 1: came at them hard with the big giant tariffs if
Speaker 1: they didn't help us with the border and a couple
Speaker 1: other things, and and and honestly, and I kind of
Speaker 1: predicted this. They came with some small to medium concessions
Speaker 1: and he said, I I'll put it off for a while.
Speaker 1: We'll hold back on those big giant tariffs. So they're
Speaker 1: going to help out on the border. Some it's really
Speaker 1: minor stuff in the case of Canada Mexico a little
Speaker 1: more significant. So America's hat and America's pants got a
Speaker 1: stall for a month. That's not over yet. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: going to keep the sword of Damocles hanging over there
Speaker 1: their heads. I like, I kept saying yesterday, this is
Speaker 1: not my area of expertise or interest. Really, uh this
Speaker 1: economic stuff like this. But Wall Street Journal has an
Speaker 1: editorial piece saying Trump blinked. You have people on the
Speaker 1: Trump side saying, you know, it was the art of
Speaker 1: the deal. He's squead them and they backed down and
Speaker 1: gave his stuff that they wouldn't have otherwise given us.
Speaker 1: So don't I don't know which is accurate. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's plenty of truth to both points of view.
Speaker 1: I think Trump became more aware that more people were saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this could really hurt the economy, which would dirt you know.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it was always a threat opposed
Speaker 1: to get some concessions on the border. I like it
Speaker 1: so the like the MSNBC world is portraying it as
Speaker 1: Trump backed down and laughing. Sure, So which is it.
Speaker 1: You hate him because he was gonna go through with
Speaker 1: this and he's a mad man, or you hate him
Speaker 1: because he he's not a mad man and realized this
Speaker 1: was going to do more harm than good and so
Speaker 1: adjusted his sales. I mean, which is it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of the whole cold Open a Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Live a couple of weeks ago, or they were trying
Speaker 1: on the fake MSNBC trying to convince each other, Look,
Speaker 1: we can't go nuts over everything he says, and then
Speaker 1: they would literally go nuts over everything he says, and
Speaker 1: you know, you just it. It takes a while, folks,
Speaker 1: It's just a early February. We've got to get used
Speaker 1: to the unique Trump style of chaotic leadership and not
Speaker 1: getting nuts every time he threatens a twenty five percent
Speaker 1: there on our largest trading partners over nothing we can
Speaker 1: figure out. Speaking of MSNBC, I was watching Stephanie Rule's
Speaker 1: show last night, and I like to watch these various
Speaker 1: things to see what their big story is. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the media's really got their panties in a
Speaker 1: bind over Trump trying to shrink government in a variety
Speaker 1: of ways, whether it's you know, sending the email to
Speaker 1: all the workers saying, hey, you all can quit if
Speaker 1: you want, We'll pay it. Till September just quit or
Speaker 1: trying to do away at the Department of Education or
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has gotten access to a bunch of information
Speaker 1: that is supposed to be scary, and it's trying to
Speaker 1: run the government like a business. You saw what he
Speaker 1: did at Tesla and Twitter. Yeah, he got rid of
Speaker 1: the waist at Twitter. I mean, I don't understand how
Speaker 1: that's a threat, but the it's it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: how for because I don't have this mindset. So's it's
Speaker 1: almost shocking to me that exists the crowd that is
Speaker 1: horrified by the idea of a government employee losing their
Speaker 1: job or a government program going away. We're the other
Speaker 1: half of the country. I think we're thrilled whenever we
Speaker 1: hear that, we think that's awesome. So I just I
Speaker 1: don't even need to hear the details exactly exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't even need the details. And the other side
Speaker 1: is the same way. I don't even need to hear
Speaker 1: the details. It's a horror that any government agency or
Speaker 1: department would be shut down, and a horror that any
Speaker 1: government workers would lose their jobs. It's just awful. I
Speaker 1: think you're onto something really important there. I would love
Speaker 1: to see a set of interviews with you know, four
Speaker 1: or five people on each side and examine their their
Speaker 1: attitudes about the government and stroll and their own lives
Speaker 1: and how they're I just I think that would be
Speaker 1: incredibly revealing.
Speaker 2: I mean, for here's a for instance, let's look at
Speaker 2: the other side of the coin. Well, I was gonna say, uh,
Speaker 2: now you know what I'm under reminded me. I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, you never hear anybody saying the federal government
Speaker 2: is just too small. But they wouldn't put it like that.
Speaker 1: They would put it like the federal government should be
Speaker 1: solving this problem, that problem, doing this for me, and
Speaker 1: doing that for me. So I guess they do, in
Speaker 1: a essence think it's too small, which is a hell
Speaker 1: of an attitude. And I don't know, I think they're
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes of Civics education would go so far in
Speaker 1: this country. But I'd love to grab those people by
Speaker 1: their shirtfront and say, you live in a state. It's
Speaker 1: a big, powerful government, it collects taxes, you live in
Speaker 1: a county of town, you have your own you run
Speaker 1: your own home. Why are you looking to them to
Speaker 1: fix your problems? In that distant city where nobody gives
Speaker 1: a crap about your life. But I don't get it. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: a bunch of people running around making a good salary
Speaker 1: can't get fired, get much better uh oh benefits than
Speaker 1: the rest of us in the private sector and call
Speaker 1: themselves public servants. Well, if you're a public servant as
Speaker 1: in your you know you're taking a hit to yourself
Speaker 1: to serve the public. Okay, we're saying you don't have
Speaker 1: to do that anymore. Go out in the private sector
Speaker 1: and make the bigger money with better benefits that you
Speaker 1: seem to think you could do. You're just doing public
Speaker 1: service to help us all out.
Speaker 2: Good wishes it exactly. I got a great example of
Speaker 2: that coming up.
Speaker 1: So I was just listening to a report on NPR
Speaker 1: about how the Trump administration's trying to wind down the
Speaker 1: Department of Education and the stuff that they can do
Speaker 1: and the stuff that they can do. There are big
Speaker 1: chunks in the Department of Education that were created by
Speaker 1: the executive branch by executive orders, so they can be
Speaker 1: unwound by executive orders, and then there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that can't be But the other pushback that drives
Speaker 1: me crazy is in the government is not Twitter. You
Speaker 1: can't just walk in and fire people. Okay, well let's
Speaker 1: have a conversation about that. Why not Why can't you
Speaker 1: just walk in and fire people? Maybe you should be
Speaker 1: able to walk in and fire people. How about we
Speaker 1: do something about How about you figure out if anybody's
Speaker 1: doing anything. If you got a room full of fifteen people,
Speaker 1: do you need all fifteen? Do you need fifteen at all?
Speaker 1: Do you need any of them to start with? And
Speaker 1: then could you get by with half as many? I'm
Speaker 1: thinking in a lot of cases you could.
Speaker 2: I would argue if there is one entity on earth
Speaker 2: where you should be able to quote, walk in and
Speaker 2: fire people, it.
Speaker 1: Would be the government. Why not? It is responsible to
Speaker 1: the taxpayers, and only the taxpayers, to be as efficient
Speaker 1: with their money as humanly possible. They have no profit motive,
Speaker 1: They have no board of directors, they have no shareholders.
Speaker 1: All they have is responsibility to taxpayers. The why not
Speaker 1: is the government is the only industry that can make
Speaker 1: rules where they can't get fired. If we could make
Speaker 1: rules around here where nobody could get fired, we'll probably
Speaker 1: all ban together and vote for them. But you can't
Speaker 1: do that, and the government has the opportunity to do that. Now,
Speaker 1: it's so maddening. Now, it's frustrating to me because I
Speaker 1: don't think Trump and Elon are going to get very far.
Speaker 1: And the fact that they are taking the biggest swing
Speaker 1: at it in my lifetime and probably won't get very
Speaker 1: far as depressing. Yeah, let's see. I hope they're drawing
Speaker 1: attention to it at least.
Speaker 2: Let's see, and let's see if Trump in this one
Speaker 2: term can lay the groundwork for perhaps another four to
Speaker 2: eight years of progress.
Speaker 1: Who knows, chip away, chip away, Let's start the show efficiently. Oh,
Speaker 1: what's on the table of options here for me? Eight?
Speaker 1: Something bad? I don't think that's on the table. Yeah, illness.
Speaker 1: I suppose that's a possibility. I don't know where I
Speaker 1: would have gotten it. That's pretty much on it, right
Speaker 1: condition Oh some sort of like, yeah, there's something really
Speaker 1: wrong with me?
Speaker 2: I doubt Well no, no, no, I don't mean like
Speaker 2: life's threatening. I mean like you know, it was your
Speaker 2: gall bladder saying digestive issues. Maybe you just a little
Speaker 2: too much of something last night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. You know what I should do
Speaker 1: is I should just google fatigue nausea? What could that
Speaker 1: be hopefully stage four bank grant cancer. It's the only thing.
Speaker 1: Let's start to show you slept poorly last night, one
Speaker 1: of the other. Exactly, I'm Jack Armstrong, He's Joe Getty
Speaker 1: on this. It is Tuesday, February four, the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, where I'm strong and getting. We approve of
Speaker 1: this program. Let's begin then officially, according to FCC rules
Speaker 1: and regulations, here we go, leaving you new action at
Speaker 1: mark at the Mexican Cartel plans on using drones as
Speaker 1: well as firing upon our agents m military. If this
Speaker 1: were to happen, what would be the response of something
Speaker 1: like this.
Speaker 3: Or obviously I could stand for that lawrence, the most
Speaker 3: powerful military in the world will not be intimidated by anybody,
Speaker 3: let alone cartels.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the cartels, just what is their association with
Speaker 1: the Mexican government. The nice lady president said it was
Speaker 1: horrifying and slanderous to suggest they had any relationship with
Speaker 1: the cartels. Oh yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: little story there is from a memo that's circulating that
Speaker 1: came out somehow from Mexico. But the cartels are talking
Speaker 1: about putting drones and armed people at the border to
Speaker 1: take on the terror. You start shooting at them with
Speaker 1: the idea that they'll go away or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: And you heard Secretary of Defense Pete hegsas theory. They're
Speaker 1: saying no, they're not, No, you're not. We ain't going away.
Speaker 1: So that could turn pretty crazy. Wow. Absolutely, yeah, quickly,
Speaker 1: how's mailbag look outstanding? Blockbuster cool? Here's our tannic. That
Speaker 1: word was blockbuster. The text nine four one five nine
Speaker 1: five k FTC by way overnight. Maybe you missed it.
Speaker 1: China has launched a fifteen percent tariff on US colon
Speaker 1: gas and retaliation for Trump's tariffs, So we can talk
Speaker 1: more about that later. This will be fun, all righty.
Speaker 2: Here's your freedom loving quote of the day from Jim Rown.
Speaker 2: You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances.
Speaker 2: The seasons are the wind. But you can change yourself.
Speaker 2: That is some thing you have charge of.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: They're in that theme. You are not a victim of
Speaker 2: your life. You are the captain of that ship. In short,
Speaker 2: be that mailbag.
Speaker 1: Some days it's easier than others.
Speaker 2: We sometimes the captain of the ship needs only to
Speaker 2: keep it off the rocks and avoid all lives being lost.
Speaker 1: And that's being a good captain. Doesn't mean you can
Speaker 1: just go to the Bahamas.
Speaker 2: It's a thing about captaining ships. Jack, just ask me
Speaker 2: my seafar and days are beyond me. But that one
Speaker 2: went on a whale watch once. Anyway, here's mail bag.
Speaker 2: You can drop us a note mail bag at Armstrong
Speaker 2: and Giddy dot com. Definitely not Scott in Danville, California.
Speaker 1: Rights.
Speaker 2: I keep asking my wife to try no wine February
Speaker 2: with me. She says I'm bothering her. I inform her
Speaker 2: she can't say that during no wine February.
Speaker 1: This is not going well. Wine with an h. The
Speaker 1: idea is to not whin the whole month. See if
Speaker 1: you can do it, that's right.
Speaker 2: Don't whine if you see no wales on your whale watch.
Speaker 1: Correct the pro illegals.
Speaker 2: Demonstration la very in Thailand, Rights guys, letting you know
Speaker 2: that a big part of me enjoyed what I saw
Speaker 2: on TV. A far left democratic state with sanctuary cities
Speaker 2: up and down deserves It just looks the mayor's governor,
Speaker 2: senators and congress people. When will they ever learn there's
Speaker 2: a big up with up with illegals.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the message is. Demonstration going on
Speaker 1: in a town near me yesterday we turned a corner
Speaker 1: and there was a whole bunch of Mexican flags and
Speaker 1: people beating on drums and stuff like that. I would
Speaker 1: like to have asked him, so, what's your position that
Speaker 1: criminal criminals who are here illegally should get to stay?
Speaker 1: Is that your position? No human is illegal? No, no,
Speaker 1: no no. Specifically, they're rounding up dangerous criminals.
Speaker 2: So built bridges, not walls. They have no arguments. They're
Speaker 2: like children, idiot children. As long as we're talking about that,
Speaker 2: we'll skip to this one from Drew the Millennial regarding
Speaker 2: the rioters blocking the UH one oh one in La
Speaker 2: waving Mexican South American flags. I was just in Mexico
Speaker 2: with my bride for our honeymoon. Anyway, very common protest
Speaker 2: tactic there is to block the highway from these resort
Speaker 2: towns to the major airports. Typically it's taxi drivers protesting
Speaker 2: the introduction ride share services like Uber. The cabbyies will
Speaker 2: set up a long blockade in the road where they
Speaker 2: will essentially live in barbecue and party for days or weeks.
Speaker 2: Subsequently causing tourists to miss flights and pressuring the local
Speaker 2: government to capitulate this. Where they learned the tactic, wouldn't
Speaker 2: be surprised.
Speaker 1: That's a good point.
Speaker 2: We're asking about Beyonce when in a country the best
Speaker 2: country album or and best overall album for an album
Speaker 2: that doesn't seem to be country other than the Cowboy
Speaker 2: had and.
Speaker 1: A couple of years.
Speaker 2: Jeff points out John Rich, the Great country Star once said,
Speaker 2: folks asking me, how do music awards shows work? Labels
Speaker 2: and publishers all have blocks of votes. They make deals
Speaker 2: with each other for you vote for mine, will vote
Speaker 2: for yours type thing. It has zero to do with
Speaker 2: who made the best music. Thus, Beyonce with Country Album
Speaker 2: of the Year, nice right, same is true with the CMAS,
Speaker 2: ACM's Billboard, et cetera. All work exactly the same. Last night,
Speaker 2: the Grammys out of themselves in a big way.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. I would love to know what the what
Speaker 1: the trades were. We'll vote for fonce for best Country
Speaker 1: Album if you'll what what did they give away? I wonder?
Speaker 1: And do they like give draft choices for two years
Speaker 1: from now and stuff like that? How complicated it is?
Speaker 1: It get Yeah, I wonder do you owe me one
Speaker 1: next year when I get you know? Somebody over the line? Interesting?
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones won for best Rock Album. I'd missed that.
Speaker 1: I love the Stones, but are you serious? I didn't
Speaker 1: know they had an album, but it was the best
Speaker 1: rock album of the entire year. Yeah, that's impressive. Only
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're doing at this point. They're
Speaker 1: in their eighties. Seriously, we got a bunch more great emails.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll sprinkle them in throughout the day. I love
Speaker 1: the idea that we got some more news of the day.
Speaker 1: On the way, what does it mean that China has
Speaker 1: launched some tariffs at us? What's that gonna do anything?
Speaker 1: I need to know? And the groundbreaking history making transgender
Speaker 1: actress is being canceled by the left. Oh boy, I
Speaker 1: hadn't heard that that's taking their own That's an interesting development. Also,
Speaker 1: all on the Way sounds like a big news day
Speaker 1: stay with us, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3: Good news for anyone hoping to score a last minute
Speaker 3: Super Bowl ticket. Tickets for the could be historic game
Speaker 3: are fifty percent cheaper than last year's. The cheapest ticket
Speaker 3: price is under four thousand dollars. On resale websites, which,
Speaker 3: while still expensive, has falling in recent days. Resale experts
Speaker 3: say the lower prices could be due to less fan
Speaker 3: interest in New Orleans, especially after the recent terrorist attack,
Speaker 3: or that fans are just less excited about seeing those
Speaker 3: annoying Chiefs in the big game for three years in
Speaker 3: a row.
Speaker 1: I don't think that has anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: I don't think who play. I don't know you have
Speaker 1: any explanation why Super Bowl tickets would be half what
Speaker 1: they were no when it was Chief. Yeah, I'm I
Speaker 1: am too. I don't know think about it, but no
Speaker 1: clue I did. I did the thing I mocked. It's
Speaker 1: you should Nobody should ever do this. I did a
Speaker 1: quick google of my symptoms, and it's just such a
Speaker 1: terrible idea, Like before you finish typing, it will say
Speaker 1: sign of cancer and for whatever symptoms you put in there.
Speaker 1: Just it's really kind of hilarious in a macabre way.
Speaker 1: Nobody should ever just google their symptoms hoping for a
Speaker 1: good information. I've got my medical websites I like, and
Speaker 1: even them, you have to stay fairly disciplined because just
Speaker 1: to be thorough, they'll say, and you know, it could
Speaker 1: be you know, Mongolian brain aids could be the worst
Speaker 1: kind of cancer that exists, but we're just you know,
Speaker 1: could be right. Thanks for that. We got this text
Speaker 1: which leads into what we're going to talk about. Sorry,
Speaker 1: my iPad I got up type in the code? What
Speaker 1: is the code? Zero zero? Code zero six? The code?
Speaker 1: Huh what does zero six zero zero? Now? But Chinese
Speaker 1: will be able to hack into your iPad? Know what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about? Day to day? Oh no,
Speaker 1: you guys are starting to be a couple of negative nannies.
Speaker 1: Yesterday you were whining about Trump's tariffs. Thirty minutes later,
Speaker 1: Mexico caved in a little while later, candidate gave in.
Speaker 1: Now you're whining and saying you won't be able to
Speaker 1: shrink the government. Just hide and watch Trump is getting
Speaker 1: it done. Yeah, shut up. You had rhinos, which may
Speaker 1: be true. That may that may be true. And then
Speaker 1: in any day by day, hour by hour, Trump is
Speaker 1: being successful or not successful. Is obviously silly. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at this morning console pole that's out today, yet another pole.
Speaker 1: Trump is at fifty two approved thirty eight disapproved, the
Speaker 1: highest net approval rating for Trump ever recorded by that
Speaker 1: well respected pulling organization. He's at the highest he's ever
Speaker 1: been in his life. That will that will not last,
Speaker 1: as I keep hearing pundit's point out, but of course
Speaker 1: it never does for anybody. It's just part of the
Speaker 1: whole governing thing. In fact, if you have high approval
Speaker 1: ratings and they don't go down, I would say, you're
Speaker 1: not trying to do anything. You're supposed to spend that
Speaker 1: capital on some of the things you want to accomplish.
Speaker 1: Barack Obama did it with healthcare. Lots of people do it,
Speaker 1: but then he got like this headline in the New
Speaker 1: York Times today, empowered by President Trump, Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: waging a largely unchecked war against government, one that already
Speaker 1: has far reaching consequences. That's the other scary thing that's
Speaker 1: out there a lot is the whole Elon Musk. Nobody
Speaker 1: elected him? What is he as if we don't have
Speaker 1: hundreds or thousands of unelected bureaucrats making giant decisions every
Speaker 1: single day about billions of dollars? Why are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the way the whole agency thing?
Speaker 1: You know, Tim so sanderfer is great, No bad things,
Speaker 1: Bill gets passed, and then it goes to some department,
Speaker 1: and then they just start filling in all the rest
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of unelected bureaucrats. Michael, give me clip
Speaker 1: number forty three.
Speaker 2: This is a Congressman, Jamie Raskin, who evidently has his
Speaker 2: panties custom made so that they're never unwadded, wakes up
Speaker 2: in the morning, pulls on some nice, tight wadded panties.
Speaker 1: We don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon
Speaker 1: Musk two. There was more to it than that anyway,
Speaker 1: The idea that there are bureaucrats who have power in
Speaker 1: the executive branchet, we won't.
Speaker 2: Have it coming from Democrats. I mean that is really like,
Speaker 2: all right, guys, we need an argument for the dumbest
Speaker 2: ten percent of our voters who like are completely unaware
Speaker 2: of any issues or any.
Speaker 1: Facet of government. I think it's probably pretty good politics,
Speaker 1: because you know, you can a certain kind of crowd
Speaker 1: is scared of super rich people, and a bureaucrat is
Speaker 1: like just doing what's good for America. But Elon is
Speaker 1: going to be evil, sohow and only what's in it
Speaker 1: for him? And I also don't get the regular Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg right there at Trump, the three
Speaker 1: richest men in North Okay. So if you had a
Speaker 1: dozen men who added up to the same amount of money,
Speaker 1: are all at the Democrat thing? That isn't the same
Speaker 1: I don't understand why that's not the same thing. Well,
Speaker 1: they were at the Democrat thing, sure, exactly too. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The more I live, the more I see, the more
Speaker 2: I'm convinced that hl Menken was right. The aim of
Speaker 2: practical governance is to frighten the voters with a never
Speaker 2: ending series of hobgoblins. Please, Elon Musk is going to
Speaker 2: become some sort of king. I'll bet you a dollary doesn't.
Speaker 2: Before we get to what China just announced. I thought
Speaker 2: Mark Helprin's right up on the tariff thing of the
Speaker 2: last twenty four hour was interesting. First, he lays out
Speaker 2: a couple of paragraphs on people who say Trump blinked,
Speaker 2: and a couple of paragraphs on people who say Trump
Speaker 2: showed how he is the master of the art of
Speaker 2: the deal. Halpern writes Trump got exactly what he wanted
Speaker 2: in a rare moment of day trader playing a medium
Speaker 2: term game demonstrating to Europe that, as with Columbia, the country,
Speaker 2: not the university, they can do this the hard way
Speaker 2: or the easy way.
Speaker 1: Let me read you a quote from the New York Times.
Speaker 1: It gets Trump just right on this topic. He thrives
Speaker 1: in chaos, he thrives in uncertainty. John Feeley, the former
Speaker 1: US Ambassador of panamaon deputy Chief of Mission in Mexico,
Speaker 1: said of mister Trump, he doesn't need to have a metric.
Speaker 1: You're making a mistake if you think he's sitting there
Speaker 1: at a spreadsheet. He's not. He's sitting there looking at headlines.
Speaker 1: And if he feels like the headlines are mostly that
Speaker 1: the other side back down, which I think that is
Speaker 1: what the headlines mostly are, then he considers it a win.
Speaker 2: Right, and he obviously his modus operandi is chaos is
Speaker 2: when we to describe it, everybody being uneasy and everything
Speaker 2: being up in the air, and everybody else like with
Speaker 2: wide eyes. He has, like a predator realized, Okay, that's
Speaker 2: when I'm at my most efficient.
Speaker 1: That's when I get the most stuff done.
Speaker 2: So he shows those seats, Hey, can we get back
Speaker 2: to the federal workforce thing for a minute. The idea
Speaker 2: of government jobs going away to being terrible and Elon
Speaker 2: Musk being some sort of horrific, befanged creature. It's it's
Speaker 2: chewing up lives and souls as he ranges unchecked across Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: Love this from the Free Press. I think it's Nelly
Speaker 2: Bowles writing. She points out that Bill Clinton, because everybody's
Speaker 2: freaking out over Doge and the White House sending out
Speaker 2: that email saying fork in the road, if you'd like
Speaker 2: to quit your government job, will let you collect eight
Speaker 2: months worth of pay for not working, and blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and everybody's pretending like that's some sort of outrage or
Speaker 2: maybe if it's even illegal to send emails to.
Speaker 1: The government workers or something.
Speaker 2: So she's talking about that, and she talked about how
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton offered did the same thing. He offered a
Speaker 2: buyout for all federal workers back in the day. The
Speaker 2: move saved the government almost one hundred and ten billion
Speaker 2: dollars over five years, but this time federal workers have
Speaker 2: responded with rage. Reddit is full of government workers saying
Speaker 2: they feel unsafe about the email.
Speaker 1: Oh please, I know, Oh my god, you are a
Speaker 1: I most use the P word, which is a little harsh.
Speaker 1: You should be you should be ashamed of yourself, embarrassed
Speaker 1: for yourself. Yeah, America needs, I don't know, to start
Speaker 1: producing testicles in factories so we can hand them out
Speaker 1: to people. You have become such a and there's so many,
Speaker 1: There are so many tough, smart women in the world.
Speaker 1: I hate to even use some of those metaphors because
Speaker 1: it's there are plenty of women who endure much and
Speaker 1: complain little and kick ass. But it's just there's got
Speaker 1: to be a better way to describe it. Anyway. A
Speaker 1: bull of workers decided might actually be.
Speaker 2: Illegal to email them all in ur suing the Office
Speaker 2: of Personnel Management. If you work through the government, the
Speaker 2: whole point is you never get emails, or at least
Speaker 2: you never have to respond to them.
Speaker 1: I saw one saw TikTok.
Speaker 2: A one federal worker explaining that work from home is
Speaker 2: essential because now our colleagues are going to have to
Speaker 2: figure out childcare, which was the first time I learned
Speaker 2: that federal workers are also full time stay at home moms.
Speaker 2: NPR has dived into the new reign of commuting terror,
Speaker 2: highlighting a government worker who commutes to the office two
Speaker 2: days a week by driving twenty minutes to the train
Speaker 2: and then taking a train for forty minutes. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm so exhausted at the end of the day, this
Speaker 2: worker says, Oh my god. By that third morning, when
Speaker 2: I'm you know, waking up and teleworking, I'm just so
Speaker 2: brain dead.
Speaker 1: It's actually hard to focus that next day. And I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine trying to get in the car and go
Speaker 1: in a third day. You've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: A third day, Nellie writes, I bet this guy's running
Speaker 1: the irs. Wow. Wow, So asking you to ease back
Speaker 1: to coming to work, I don't know, two or three
Speaker 1: days a week is so awful, so cruel, So it's.
Speaker 2: Practically slavery ish. It's completely out of bounce. Wow, folks.
Speaker 1: I don't think our government is too unbloated. I'll just
Speaker 1: say that, yeah, And I know we're gonna get pushed
Speaker 1: back on the text line from people in government work
Speaker 1: who talk about how hard they work and some other project.
Speaker 1: And that my very, very true. But I do think
Speaker 1: people who work in government, especially over time, completely lose
Speaker 1: track of how in the private sector, you think you're
Speaker 1: gonna get fired every day of your life, every day
Speaker 1: of your freaking life. Certainly recognize it's possibility, yes, And
Speaker 1: it happens regularly and out of nowhere and at bad times,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing you can do about it, and nobody
Speaker 1: writes an op ed piece about it. It's just the
Speaker 1: company cuts back ten percent and sends out an email.
Speaker 1: And you know, a thousand of your friends are gone
Speaker 1: across the country, right and you text them or go
Speaker 1: out to lunch with them and say how it sucks.
Speaker 1: And it happens every single day. You know. I was
Speaker 1: gonna give the metaphor of.
Speaker 2: Sports teams that they get rid of a fair number
Speaker 2: of their players every single year because they figure they
Speaker 2: can do better, because their pursuit is of excellence. It's
Speaker 2: not some sort of jobs program where everybody assumes they
Speaker 2: will be employed for life. It's well, it's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons FDR was staunchly against public employee unions. But
Speaker 2: we have definitely gotten ourselves into a place where there
Speaker 2: are a perverse set of beliefs about anyone employed by
Speaker 2: the government.
Speaker 1: Reverse and utterly unhealthy. And I can understand how the
Speaker 1: people that have those jobs push back. I'm just surprised
Speaker 1: that there's such a big constituency out there of people
Speaker 1: in the private sector who are so for a big,
Speaker 1: bloated government full of government workers getting your money that
Speaker 1: can't be fired without paying any attention to how much
Speaker 1: they get done or accomplish anything, or are needed.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably hard for people like us and
Speaker 2: a lot of the folks listening to get inside the
Speaker 2: head of somebody who considered as considers it an article
Speaker 2: of faith.
Speaker 1: I mean, just it's an unquestionable truth that the government
Speaker 1: is here to help me.
Speaker 2: The more government it is, the more problems they will solve.
Speaker 2: I just I can't imagine what the sky looks like
Speaker 2: in your world.
Speaker 1: It seems crazy to me. So we didn't get to
Speaker 1: the China announce some tariffs on us, but maybe we'll
Speaker 1: do that now or two. We got Katie's headlines on
Speaker 1: the way stay here. You know what it makes me feel
Speaker 1: better is a chocolate covered strawberry crem frappuccino that hits
Speaker 1: Starbucks today. I guess it's one of their popular Valentine's
Speaker 1: Day themed drinks. Even though Starbucks announce the other day
Speaker 1: they're cutting their menu by a third, the number of
Speaker 1: the drinks they have by a third, because I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason there businesses down. They have
Speaker 1: too many options and it's confused things. But uh, chocolate
Speaker 1: covered strawberry crim frappuccino you got at the coffee shop, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's your you're gonna get. I'm gonna stop buy and
Speaker 1: get some coffee. Does it tell you how many grams
Speaker 1: of sugar or in that thing? No? I should look
Speaker 1: that up. Yeah, the faton and sugar would be insane
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah. Yeah. I talked to Gal the other day.
Speaker 1: I was telling me about how she stopped every single
Speaker 1: day and got a big old one of those and
Speaker 1: not slender either. But you don't each the first of all,
Speaker 1: have our challenges. First of all, it's like that's probably
Speaker 1: ten dollars a day. Yeah uh and then yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, let's figure out who's reporting what it's knock
Speaker 2: story with not one that it sounded like my dad.
Speaker 1: Non capable of restraints. That was at the lead story
Speaker 1: from Katy Green Katie starting.
Speaker 4: With NBC Elon Musk and Doge are hacking at the government.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you either you're either like reflexibly think awesome,
Speaker 1: I hope they can pull it off or you're horrified.
Speaker 1: Apparently just looking at the reddit thread. The fed worker
Speaker 1: reddit thread will be reading some of that later. It's
Speaker 1: its own industry. They feel like they're an industry, which
Speaker 1: they are, and they're under attack, and so they're rallying
Speaker 1: the troops.
Speaker 2: I think you were absolutely right, though, that the dynamics
Speaker 2: of the free market that the rest of US deal
Speaker 2: with all the time, they've drifted so far from it.
Speaker 2: It's inconceivable to them that a job would go away.
Speaker 1: How would a job go away? I don't understand.
Speaker 4: From the Washington Post, China strikes back at Trump's tariffs
Speaker 4: with levies on US imports.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Decoupling is going to be painful and difficult and long
Speaker 2: with China, but absolutely necessary, particularly critical goods and industries.
Speaker 2: We can't be getting our drugs from China, nor our computers,
Speaker 2: nor our weapons.
Speaker 4: For ABC News, Gabber gave support from two key GOP
Speaker 4: senators ahead of confirmation votes.
Speaker 1: So the votes are today right on Gabbard and RFK Junior,
Speaker 1: So that'll be big news from USA today.
Speaker 4: Rubio says El Salvador has offered to jail US criminals
Speaker 4: and deportees of any nationality.
Speaker 1: Well think I have information on that. It's really interesting, cool,
Speaker 1: and there are a couple of aspects of it that
Speaker 1: are probably a bit too much, but we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: From the Wall Street.
Speaker 4: Journal, the Super Bowl has never seen anything like these
Speaker 4: five gigantic humans. Apparently the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line is historically.
Speaker 1: Large, really average six foot six. Do you have that
Speaker 1: those numbers in front of you, Katie, I do. They're
Speaker 1: be a myths. That's how they pull off the whole
Speaker 1: tush push thing. That's a big part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where they us, they're just so big they can just
Speaker 1: move any line forward a foot or a yard or
Speaker 1: whatever they need.
Speaker 4: On average, they stand at six six and weigh three
Speaker 4: hundred and thirty eight pounds.
Speaker 1: That's the average sheeperidge. Holy crap, an average three thirty
Speaker 1: eight for every slender three point fifteen, or you got
Speaker 1: a three sixty guy out. Wow, six six mid threes
Speaker 1: is a big dude. Yeah, I mean, holy crap.
Speaker 4: From brightbart dot com, waffle House adds fifty cent surch
Speaker 4: charge per egg due to bird flu.
Speaker 1: There you go, huh, I'm gonna start throwing chairs, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The only waffle house is gonna cost three dollars. The
Speaker 1: only thing you can do a waffle house if they
Speaker 1: hit you at that price is walk over to that
Speaker 1: guy and punch him in the face. Exactly from the
Speaker 1: Smoking Gun.
Speaker 4: Twenty two year old stripper busted for banana battery at
Speaker 4: seven to eleven store.
Speaker 1: She beat up the clerk with a banana. That's kind
Speaker 1: of hot. Wow.
Speaker 4: You know I expected something, but not that.
Speaker 1: Wow. What disgusting?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, on that note, the Babylon Bee illegal immigrants
Speaker 4: helpfully wave flags, so I snow which country to send
Speaker 4: them back to.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I love that. I saw two strippers fight
Speaker 1: at a bar one time, and there were lots of
Speaker 1: guys around watching. The interesting thing was a midget broke
Speaker 1: up the fight. That's what made it the Hemingway like
Speaker 1: short story that it was two strippers and a bar
Speaker 1: fighting and a fight broken up by a midget, a
Speaker 1: small person. I'm sorry, we're on acid right now? Does
Speaker 1: somebody slip acid in my coffee? Where was I? We
Speaker 1: had crossed the border from North Carolina to South Carolina
Speaker 1: where they shut down the bars two hours later, so
Speaker 1: it was like three in the morning or something. All right, Hemingway,
Speaker 1: you gotta paint a picture for me. What was the
Speaker 1: the the exotic dancer's state of dress and or undressed
Speaker 1: At that point, they were wearing clothes. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a bar. They were just probably wearing like Jeane
Speaker 1: shorts and a tank top or something good enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly enough. Yeah, I don't know what they were fighting about. Uh,
Speaker 1: we have more details in the Chinese tariffs and other
Speaker 1: things on the way. Our two Armstrong and Getty