Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Katty.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Techy and no He.
Speaker 3: Arms He live from Studio C, a dimly lit room
Speaker 3: deeput them the bowels of.
Speaker 2: The Armstrong and Getty Communications compound, which is surrounded by
Speaker 2: razor wire and barking dogs. Actually, I am happy. We
Speaker 2: got a security guard outside sitting there, and there's a
Speaker 2: little car with the splashing lights. Let you know, there's
Speaker 2: somebody with somebody carrying heat. Looks like he's carrying heat.
Speaker 2: I think that's a gun. Welcome, How you doing, Glad
Speaker 2: you're here? Oh, all right, today we're under the tutelage
Speaker 2: of our general manager. I'll go with Jimmy Kimmel, just
Speaker 2: because I think that's a danged interesting conversation. Jimmy Kimmel's
Speaker 2: show being taken off the air indefinitely. Nobody seems to
Speaker 2: know if that means. Usually in the world of broadcasting,
Speaker 2: indefinite is forever, almost always in my experience, but this
Speaker 2: one could be just temporarily hard to say. I found
Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimmel over the last many years to be an
Speaker 2: insufferably pompous. Well, I came across the word last night.
Speaker 2: Popped in my head. I thought that was the perfect
Speaker 2: word for him. I don't remember what it was, but
Speaker 2: pompous is close enough. Just just the whole our side
Speaker 2: is wonderful and everyone else is stupid. Just that whole.
Speaker 2: It's just so annoying. But I also don't want the government,
Speaker 2: you know, policing speech. So we'll get into both sides
Speaker 2: of that comment with as as the same with Colbert
Speaker 2: when he got taken off the air. Being left out.
Speaker 2: A lot is these people's ratings are really low compared
Speaker 2: to what these shows cost, really low, and they've gone down, down,
Speaker 2: down over the years, partially because they decided to say
Speaker 2: f you to half the country. If you say f
Speaker 2: you to half of the country, it's hard to have
Speaker 2: very high ratings. With all that said, I still don't
Speaker 2: want the government policing speech, so we'll handle all that. Yes, Michael,
Speaker 2: you already wanted to join in. I like that Michael
Speaker 2: year jumping at the bet.
Speaker 4: His contract is up in May, and I just wonder
Speaker 4: if you know the network just said here's an excuse.
Speaker 2: Or it's not going to do so that much. Du
Speaker 2: may of next year. Yeah, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean there's a there's another deal going through and
Speaker 2: people don't want trouble whatever. But have you heard what
Speaker 2: he said regarding the Charlie Cook assassination. He said it
Speaker 2: on Monday night, took till Thursday for it to land
Speaker 2: in such a way that he got taken off the air,
Speaker 2: And definitely will play that for you and talk about
Speaker 2: all the ins and outs of all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Got a lot of great guests lined up today on
Speaker 2: a bunch of different topics, everything from what do the
Speaker 2: interest rates going down a quarter point mean for you
Speaker 2: if anything at all? And doesn't mean a whole lot
Speaker 2: for you yet, just directionally it's good, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean a lot for you yet. And talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about Trump's trip to England. Did you see that
Speaker 2: meal that they had last night. That table was more
Speaker 2: than half a football field long. That's hard to even
Speaker 2: imagine sitting at table, eating dinner at a table more
Speaker 2: than half a football field long. The people down at
Speaker 2: the other end, you would hardly be able to see them,
Speaker 2: let alone have a conversation with them. Wouldn't even though
Speaker 2: they were there. You wouldn't even know they were there. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: You could meet them years from now and say, oh,
Speaker 2: we had dinner together, and you'd say we did. Eh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we were fifty yards away. Yeah, at that sixty yard
Speaker 2: long table. I was at the other end. You were
Speaker 2: at the other end. We had so I tell people
Speaker 2: we had dinner together. That is a giant table. Only
Speaker 2: in England, where they have castles, would even have room
Speaker 2: for a table that large. It was a little excessive.
Speaker 2: H Well, that's what they do. That's what the royal
Speaker 2: family does, is excessive. Because it was all about King
Speaker 2: Charles and the windsor castle, whatever the hell that is
Speaker 2: trumps special guests. You get to bring anybody you want
Speaker 2: to a state dinner. His special guests were the guy
Speaker 2: who runs video video, Sam Altman from open Ai that's
Speaker 2: the chat GPT guy, and then one other, Tim Cook
Speaker 2: from Apple. So he had really high level tech guy
Speaker 2: specifically around AI is his special guest. I don't know
Speaker 2: exactly what the message was there, which leads me to
Speaker 2: my headline. I don't understand of the day at least
Speaker 2: so far that I saw breaking news from the Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal. Video said it would buy five billion dollars
Speaker 2: worth of Intel a sign of how AI is reshaping
Speaker 2: the tech industry. I have no idea what that means,
Speaker 2: buying five million dollars of your competitor Intel, But it's
Speaker 2: all about the super high speed AI chips, and this
Speaker 2: bed is either going to pan out or it's not.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people with a lot of money,
Speaker 2: who we are very very smart, certainly smarter than me,
Speaker 2: seem to think it's the wave of the future one
Speaker 2: way or to'ther. It's funny. I was talking to a
Speaker 2: person yesterday who said they air kid was into coding
Speaker 2: as a senior in high school and has specifically decided
Speaker 2: to learn to weld because of AI. The idea that
Speaker 2: AI is going to do all the coding in the future,
Speaker 2: but AI will never be able to weld. I wonder
Speaker 2: which is true. I think maybe someday robots will be
Speaker 2: able to weld. It'll be a while though, It'll be
Speaker 2: a long time before robots can successfully do a good
Speaker 2: job of welding. I wonder how many young people are
Speaker 2: going to be making those decisions in the very near future,
Speaker 2: going back to maybe more your traditional work with your
Speaker 2: hands sort of the jobs anyway, that's a separate topic.
Speaker 2: There is a horrifying attack on police in Pennsylvania, worst
Speaker 2: one they've had in the state of Pennsylvania in a
Speaker 2: one hundred years. What a bunch of police officers being shot.
Speaker 2: I think it's just a random, one off, horrible story.
Speaker 2: It has no greater significance for America, I think. But
Speaker 2: if any more details come out, we'll hit you with that.
Speaker 2: There is some new stuff around the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Speaker 2: Knowing a little more about the the shooter and the
Speaker 2: process for getting this guy convicted and hopefully the death penalty,
Speaker 2: and hopefully he gets shot himself. That's the result I'm
Speaker 2: looking for. Some of my favorite conservative commentators are pretty
Speaker 2: uncomfortable with Jimmy Kimmel being driven off the air, if
Speaker 2: that's what happened by the FCC. The FCC Commissioner has
Speaker 2: said some fairly strong things in the last forty eight
Speaker 2: hours about what Kimmel said and about people not getting
Speaker 2: to keep their network licenses FCC the FCC Commissioner about
Speaker 2: not being able to keep their network licenses, the broadcasting
Speaker 2: licenses if they aren't towing the line politically or whatever.
Speaker 2: And like I said, some of my favorite conservative commentators
Speaker 2: are pretty uncomfortable with that for one reason, Like Joe
Speaker 2: and I always talking about whatever you do, the next
Speaker 2: administration is going to do two, and I don't know
Speaker 2: that I want an FCC commissioner saying, you know, talk
Speaker 2: radio is completely out of hand. Yeah, and that would
Speaker 2: be unfortunate. Yes, and they get to say whatever the
Speaker 2: hell they want, which we do, and we don't think
Speaker 2: that's good for the country. So we're gonna start yanking
Speaker 2: people broadcast license or threaten the Yank broadcast license if
Speaker 2: you don't get people like Armstrong and giddy off there.
Speaker 2: For instance, Randy Weingarten, Lady, I've been running the teachers
Speaker 2: Union for a long time and all through COVID. She's
Speaker 2: a witch, she is the devil. I believe she's actually
Speaker 2: actually works for the devil. I think she actually hates children. Now,
Speaker 2: that's a pretty strong thing to say. A democratic administration,
Speaker 2: their FCC commissioner might say, you know, Jack Armstrong just
Speaker 2: said the most important leader teachers in our country is
Speaker 2: the devil. We can't have that. That's not good, that's devisive.
Speaker 2: And I don't want a democratic administration and be able
Speaker 2: to do that anymore than I want a Republican administration
Speaker 2: to be able to drive Jimmy Kimmel off there, even
Speaker 2: though he said a really awful stupid thing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know that I have like a great argument
Speaker 4: for this, but something in me, this Charlie Kirk situation
Speaker 4: is so different.
Speaker 2: Right because it is possible. Well, let's start to show officially.
Speaker 2: We're going to play a little bit of Kimmel the
Speaker 2: Frock with the FCC watch out. Yeah, yeah, exactly got
Speaker 2: to start the show officially. The FCC gets on this.
Speaker 2: I'm Jack Armstrong, he's Joe Getty on this. It is
Speaker 2: how did it get to be? Thursday, September eighteenth to
Speaker 2: year twenty twenty five Armstrong and Geedy and we approve
Speaker 2: of this program. Will begin the show at Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: doing it on time, mister chairman Mark.
Speaker 5: We hit some new lows over the weekend with the
Speaker 5: Magga Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered
Speaker 5: Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and
Speaker 5: do everything they can to score political points from it
Speaker 5: in between the fingerpots.
Speaker 2: That's good. There was play the rest later, but that
Speaker 2: that's the line that got people all been out of shape.
Speaker 2: That was a crazy thing to say. That's just a
Speaker 2: nut job thing to say. To go on the air
Speaker 2: Monday Jimmy Kimmel and say stating as fact in his
Speaker 2: mind that the shooter is a maga person. Well, I
Speaker 2: don't even know where did that come from, although I
Speaker 2: saw I heard David French of the New York Times
Speaker 2: talking about a Yugo poll that came out over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Seventy percent of Democrats believe that that killer scumbag is maga.
Speaker 2: So somehow that story got started online or the rumor
Speaker 2: spread will be Wow, what are you base on that? On?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was some I saw in an interview watching
Speaker 4: Megan Kelly. She played a clip of another woman who
Speaker 4: was like, well, his dad was.
Speaker 6: In law enforcement, he was into guns. He's a white boy,
Speaker 6: and so clearly he's on their team.
Speaker 2: And it's like, what are you talking about. You don't
Speaker 2: know any conservative families across the country who's young The
Speaker 2: boys or girls went off to college and their politics
Speaker 2: became completely different than their parents. So because the parents
Speaker 2: are Republicans, the kid obviously is, oh.
Speaker 6: His dad's in law enforcement, so clearly they're maga.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so i'd that whole The fact that seventy percent
Speaker 2: of Democrats think the shooter was maga is weird. That's
Speaker 2: its own conversation. And then Jimmy Kimmel saying that it's
Speaker 2: just a weird, dumb thing to say. But okay, this
Speaker 2: was gonna be my point. I don't know if you remember.
Speaker 2: After nine to eleven, Bill Maher had a show on
Speaker 2: ABC at that time, very popular show called Politically Incorrect.
Speaker 2: You might be too young for this, No, I remember this.
Speaker 2: He had a show and he went on like days
Speaker 2: later after the buildings came down in New York City,
Speaker 2: he said, because George Bush or somebody had called the
Speaker 2: hijackers cowards, and he said, one thing you can't say
Speaker 2: is that they're cowards. They're obviously not cowards. They're obviously
Speaker 2: brave to fly planes into a building, which is sort
Speaker 2: of factually correct. But in that moment, days after the
Speaker 2: buildings came down, and the most show fucking thing, and
Speaker 2: it happened to America in seventy years, there was an
Speaker 2: outcry and ABC took his show off the air. That
Speaker 2: wasn't the FCC coming down or the government stifling free speech.
Speaker 2: That was just crossing a line for most Americans. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I don't know if Jimmy Kimmel reached that level,
Speaker 2: but he is close is close to the because a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of various smaller groups that have ABC stations
Speaker 2: in the middle of the country that aren't you know,
Speaker 2: New York and LA centric the middle and you know,
Speaker 2: I was about to say middle of Ore. I'm from
Speaker 2: the middle of Nore and probably so, but middle of
Speaker 2: the nowhere stations where you got lots of people who
Speaker 2: would hate to see that sort of thing on their television.
Speaker 2: It's not crazy that they would decide, all right, that's it,
Speaker 2: We're not gonna air Jimmy Kimmel here in Provo, Utah.
Speaker 2: That's a bad choice. Shootings were in Utah, here in Omaha, Nebraska,
Speaker 2: or you know, place in Texas or whatever. It's not
Speaker 2: shocking that they would make that decision that Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 2: crossed the line in the same way that Bill Maher
Speaker 2: crossed the line. Now, the FCC Commissioner has had said
Speaker 2: specific things that I find very very troubling in the
Speaker 2: last two days about policing speech that just I mean,
Speaker 2: I think fly directly in the face of the First Amendment.
Speaker 2: But Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, like I said, made
Speaker 2: a decision to say you not just hey, we're gonna
Speaker 2: rib you. I hope you can take the jokes just
Speaker 2: to with contempt for half or more of the country. Well,
Speaker 2: and those weren't jokes, all right, those aren't jokes. But
Speaker 2: if you do that, it really narrows your support and
Speaker 2: makes it a lot more likely that you can get
Speaker 2: fired like this. So I don't feel sorry for him
Speaker 2: in that way. It's like the lady at the end
Speaker 2: of our show, bye bye, all right, But I don't
Speaker 2: want a NFCC commissioner under President Gavin Newsom deciding that
Speaker 2: talk radio is out of control and something needs to
Speaker 2: be done. And I don't see a whole lot of
Speaker 2: difference between that and policing. Jimmy Kimmel, if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: text me for what what I forgot?
Speaker 4: The text line we have one five KFTC.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you know it X line she said, four
Speaker 2: one k FTC. Joe and I have been uh nearly
Speaker 2: run out of this job a couple of different times
Speaker 2: in the history of the show, like really close, and
Speaker 2: so I'm fairly sensitive the idea of losing your job
Speaker 2: over like going too far with a joke or a comment.
Speaker 2: But we'll talk more about that later.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 2: Regarding the whole Jimmy Kimmel being booted off the air,
Speaker 2: I really.
Speaker 4: I really want for them to replace Jimmy Kimmel Live
Speaker 4: with old episodes of The Man Show, just so his
Speaker 4: audience can see where he originated.
Speaker 2: Right right when it was him and all.
Speaker 4: And chicks jumping on trampolines, right, yeah, right while.
Speaker 2: They drank beer. Yeah, let's find out what all the
Speaker 2: headlines are with Katie all right.
Speaker 4: Starting with Fox News, sheriff says Charlie Kirk, assassin negotiated
Speaker 4: a gentle surrender and was afraid of being shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard that, and I think that was handled well.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of surprised that you do that because the
Speaker 2: guy that the shooter had shown himself to be incredibly violent,
Speaker 2: but they allowed him to, like calmly be brought into
Speaker 2: the sheriff's office.
Speaker 4: And because it's everywhere from NBC Disney's, ABC pulls Jimmy
Speaker 4: Kimmel Live after FCC share criticizes the host's Charlie Kirk comments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we will get into that quite a bit later.
Speaker 2: And Jack, I know you're a fan of these guys.
Speaker 4: From the Free Beacon embarrassment for MSNBC and CNN as upstart,
Speaker 4: News Nation wins out on primetime ratings.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. I watch News Nation every single day.
Speaker 2: They're pretty good. They are pretty good. They're not I
Speaker 2: haven't found a bias with them, So I like that.
Speaker 4: From ABC, the IDF is expanding it's Gaza City Operation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we might talk to one of our military analysts
Speaker 2: about that later. How that's going to unfold, what that
Speaker 2: will look like.
Speaker 4: From The Washington Examiner, Christy Nomes houts one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty thousand new ICE applications after recruitment push.
Speaker 2: Oh wow cool. Yeah. From the Washington Post, Fed cuts.
Speaker 4: Interest rates by a quarter point and signals more could
Speaker 4: be coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, like I said, it's headed in the right direction,
Speaker 2: but it's not going to have much of an effect
Speaker 2: on your car Loan credit card or buying a house yet.
Speaker 4: From the Verge, Business Insider reportedly gives journalists the green
Speaker 4: light to write stories with AI and doesn't tell.
Speaker 2: Its readers that's inevitable. Well, and one of the.
Speaker 4: Things they're using is chat GPT, which we've talked about
Speaker 4: being incorrect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, many a time making stuff up. Of course journalists
Speaker 2: are incorrect a lot.
Speaker 4: So yeah, good point, New York Post Wild chimpanzees consume
Speaker 4: two cocktails worth of alcohol a day by feasting on
Speaker 4: boozy fruit. Really, this is in Uganda, and these chimps
Speaker 4: are finding fermented fruit and they're just getting wasted.
Speaker 2: And if they've always done that, is that like, because
Speaker 2: that would be interesting to know if there's a beast
Speaker 2: out there that we share ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 2: genetic material that just likes getting hammered every day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I get it. Wow, sometimes you just want to check
Speaker 2: out from study fines.
Speaker 6: Fatty foods can scramble your memory.
Speaker 2: Just days later. Oh that's my problem. Mm hmm, that's
Speaker 2: why you forgot the text line.
Speaker 4: Also, just a side note, it's National Cheeseburger Day, so
Speaker 4: I'll let everybody know. And finally from the Babylon Bee,
Speaker 4: Trump deports Phillies Karen to L Salvador prison.
Speaker 2: Good. Do you know who Greg Lukianoff is. We quote
Speaker 2: him all the time, We've had him on the show
Speaker 2: multiple times over the years. He has been writing a
Speaker 2: lot about the political climate, where it's headed, what we
Speaker 2: might be able to do about it. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk to him coming up next. This will be good conversation, guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Stick around Armstrong and getty Man.
Speaker 2: Did we get lucky with the timing of this our
Speaker 2: next guest we could talk to or I could talk
Speaker 2: to for the next three hours easily, because he's one
Speaker 2: of the leading thinkers and a couple of the hottest
Speaker 2: topics going right now. So Greg lukian Off New York
Speaker 2: Times best selling author The President of Fire, which is
Speaker 2: a foundation for individual rights and expression, all about free speech.
Speaker 2: That's with Jimmy Kimmel loosing's job. Does that fit into
Speaker 2: that whole topic? Is the author of Unlearning Liberty, Campus censorship,
Speaker 2: and the end of American debate, canceling of the American mind,
Speaker 2: Canceled culture, all about cancel culture, which is hot right now,
Speaker 2: of course, and then part of this free press series
Speaker 2: on repairing America after the murder of Charlie Kirk and
Speaker 2: this particular piece that I've gotten front of me from
Speaker 2: Greg Lukianoff Berry. The whole words are violence cliche, which
Speaker 2: I would agree with anyway. Welcome back, to the Armstrong
Speaker 2: and Getty Show, Greg lukian Off. Greg, thanks for joining
Speaker 2: us today.
Speaker 1: Great to be back.
Speaker 2: Man, you obviously are the man of the moment for
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of these topics. Let's start with what
Speaker 2: you just wrote the Barry The words are violence, cliche
Speaker 2: around the whole, Charlie Kirk thing, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've been defending free speech at Fire
Speaker 1: for twenty four years now, and I'd say when I
Speaker 1: first started my job, the sort of activist argument that
Speaker 1: words can be just like bullets was something that people
Speaker 1: kind of rolled their eyes at because it was obviously
Speaker 1: a sort of self serving rhetorical right. But I'd say,
Speaker 1: like ten years ago, or maybe even as long as
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, this really started to become a common
Speaker 1: argument that I would hear on campus. And then you
Speaker 1: started having people who should have known better actually saying, well,
Speaker 1: words can cause stress, so therefore that is a lot
Speaker 1: like violence. And you know, me and John Hight, who
Speaker 1: I wrote probably in the American mind with we wrote
Speaker 1: a piece in the Atlantic saying, no, this is crazy words.
Speaker 1: We have a societal agreement essentially, and you're supposed to
Speaker 1: have it in a democratic society, that there's a bright
Speaker 1: line distinction between physical violence and expression of opinion. And
Speaker 1: I've been screaming to high Heaven to saying like, no,
Speaker 1: this is an incredibly foolish idea. It's not progressive. It
Speaker 1: gets you back to the thirteenth century A d or BC.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just as a side on that, I
Speaker 2: remember at one point when The New York Times a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago actually said intent doesn't matter. So
Speaker 2: not only had words become violence, but sometimes the way
Speaker 2: they took your words, even if you didn't intend it
Speaker 2: that way. So man, you're really into pre enlightenment then,
Speaker 2: but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 1: No, no exactly. And the thing is, of course, this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, foolish self serving rhetoric actually turns
Speaker 1: into a situation that justifies violence for speech. And this
Speaker 1: is oftimes coming from people who think that they're anti totalitarian.
Speaker 1: It's like, there's nothing more totalitarian than saying that I
Speaker 1: get tourst onto your words with violence or, in the
Speaker 1: case the horrifying case last week, murder.
Speaker 2: Right, So you want to do away with that because
Speaker 2: you think it's leading to violence, the saying words or
Speaker 2: violence because that can justify this particular maniac job as
Speaker 2: feeling like he's meeting violence with violence.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but also I think it's bad for people's
Speaker 1: mental health to have this kind of like catastrophizing way
Speaker 1: of thinking about that. And here's the most horrifying thing.
Speaker 1: We just released a massive study for our campus free
Speaker 1: speech ranking. About one third of the students we surveyed
Speaker 1: in about out of like seventy thousand said that at
Speaker 1: least in rare cases, violence can be acceptable in response
Speaker 1: to speech. Some schools that answer with over fifty percent
Speaker 1: of them, we have done something terribly wrong. If educated
Speaker 1: people are being educated in almost half of them think
Speaker 1: that violence and response to words. And the funny thing is,
Speaker 1: oftentimes it's not that they think it's just acceptable. They
Speaker 1: think in some cases it's noble to respond to speakers
Speaker 1: with usually the lighter forms of violence like shoutdowns or
Speaker 1: blocking people's access. But here we see it, and it's
Speaker 1: most chilling and horrifying.
Speaker 2: All right, Since you make this list every year of
Speaker 2: where what campuses have the least free speech, there's this
Speaker 2: contest going on right now. You know who's worse, which
Speaker 2: side is worse, which side commits more violence, which side
Speaker 2: does more cancel culture, that sort of thing. But when
Speaker 2: it comes to college campuses, it's pretty one sided, isn't it.
Speaker 2: That liberals can say whatever they want and conservatives can't.
Speaker 1: It's a little more complicated than that, but you know,
Speaker 1: the fire has been a second to no one and
Speaker 1: taking on sort of like what might be called woke censorship.
Speaker 1: But generally the rule is if the censorship comes from
Speaker 1: on campus, it comes from the left. If a censorship,
Speaker 1: because it does not that many conservatives on campus in
Speaker 1: the first place, but if it comes from off campus,
Speaker 1: it tends to come from the right. And what we're
Speaker 1: seeing right now is a big surge of cancelations of
Speaker 1: censorship actually being pressured from the right as well.
Speaker 2: So would the hope be that because I think you're right,
Speaker 2: I think this puts us in a bad headspace. If
Speaker 2: we buy into the idea that words are violence. You've
Speaker 2: been taught that you should react as if somebody's threatening
Speaker 2: to punch you or shoot you when you hear something
Speaker 2: you don't like, and that gets everybody's emotions running really,
Speaker 2: really high. And then if we could get away with that,
Speaker 2: maybe we wouldn't have things like Riley Gaines having to
Speaker 2: fight her way out of Berkeley, or Charlie Kirk being.
Speaker 1: Shot at exactly, it's a foolish idea. I think people,
Speaker 1: you know, people who are actually thinking people know that
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a rhetorical first, But I believe
Speaker 1: some of these younger people really do feel like they're
Speaker 1: in a simplistic battle of good versus evil, and evil
Speaker 1: must be stopped. And by the way, that's an anti
Speaker 1: intellectual way of thinking about that's not an intellectual way
Speaker 1: of thinking about the world.
Speaker 2: No doubt. Before I move on to the Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 2: thing and how it fits into everything, how optimistic are
Speaker 2: you for us, like really learning a lesson from this
Speaker 2: horrible assassination and turning some sort of corner.
Speaker 1: I would like to say I'm optimistic, but I think
Speaker 1: that we're probably in the beginning of a intensifying sort
Speaker 1: of free speech crisis, and it's happening not just in
Speaker 1: the US, it's happening globally right So unfortunately, business is
Speaker 1: booming in free speech Land. So I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get a lot of sleep, nor will the good people
Speaker 1: at fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on in England is just horrifying.
Speaker 1: Horrifying, and my mom is British, so it's very personal
Speaker 1: to me and they will continue to I did a
Speaker 1: piece on my sub sect, the eternally radical idea, where
Speaker 1: just pointing out the sheer number of people that they're arresting.
Speaker 1: It has no parallel. I don't think it has any
Speaker 1: parallel in British history. It certainly doesn't have a parallel
Speaker 1: in American history in terms of the scale.
Speaker 2: So you've written a lot about cancel culture over the years,
Speaker 2: and we've got an example in the last twenty four
Speaker 2: hours and since Charlie Kirk's death. So you've got people
Speaker 2: being canceled from their jobs for saying sometimes really awful,
Speaker 2: awful things. But should they lose their jobs over it?
Speaker 2: Should the government be getting involved in put pressure on
Speaker 2: broadcast licenses to get rid of someone like Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 2: because they don't like what they say. Where are you
Speaker 2: on this whole thing?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So you know, it really is the case
Speaker 1: by case thing and canceling of the American mind. You know,
Speaker 1: we give a definition of cancel culture, which is the
Speaker 1: uptick of campaigns to get people fired or otherwise punished,
Speaker 1: starting around twenty fourteen for speech that would be protected
Speaker 1: for say a public employee. So we choose a lot
Speaker 1: of like nuanced and common sense to it. But to
Speaker 1: be clear, some of the people who are getting punished,
Speaker 1: you know, we're saying things relatively tame things that we're seeing,
Speaker 1: at least some of the stuff we're seeing on campus.
Speaker 1: It's not all that guy had it coming. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit like I really disagree with that guy on
Speaker 1: a lot of things, which is, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: completely within bounds. But the Jimmy Kimmel stuff, I mean, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he Jimmy Kimmel was kind of a typical kind of
Speaker 1: Hollywood guy, Like he just he was desperate that this
Speaker 1: guy be right wing. And I saw this like in
Speaker 1: the media as well. It's kind of embarrassed for a
Speaker 1: lot of mainstream to be kind of like, well, look,
Speaker 1: his parents are Republicans. Must be like in what universe, right,
Speaker 1: the case that your parents are bubbled.
Speaker 2: Because no conservative family sends their kids off to college
Speaker 2: and they come back, you know, with completely different politics.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just thinking about family ties. Say, comey
Speaker 1: watched as a kid, like, right, yes, that's what That's
Speaker 1: more the way it goes it's a technical termce skinsmogenesis,
Speaker 1: but the so so, you know, it's kind of typical
Speaker 1: that he was kind of implying that this guy's got
Speaker 1: to be maga in some of his UH in his
Speaker 1: comedy routine on Monday. But then you know, the campaign
Speaker 1: and it was really clearly a campaign to get Jimmy fired.
Speaker 1: Taking this opportunity really got going, you know, with Brendan
Speaker 1: Carr being really clear about it. And and another thing
Speaker 1: that's really important to point out is that, you know,
Speaker 1: months ago they were saying Jimmy Kimmel's next, you know,
Speaker 1: so this was this was a you know, I think,
Speaker 1: a target about opportunity to get this guy fired. And
Speaker 1: I've never been to be clear, I've never seen something
Speaker 1: quite like this. And people will always do what about ism,
Speaker 1: like what about what about like Rose Ambar or some
Speaker 1: of these other cases. It's like, I just haven't seen
Speaker 1: this level of pressure on mainstream networks to silence to
Speaker 1: silence a comedian.
Speaker 2: Right well, because of my politics, I'm highly annoyed by
Speaker 2: the UH treating anybody to the right side of the
Speaker 2: aisle as a moron the way Colbert and Kimmel did.
Speaker 2: But The problem with the government putting pressure on networks
Speaker 2: to get rid of them, or broadcast licenses or whatever
Speaker 2: is there's gonna be a democratic president someday, and I
Speaker 2: don't want President Gavin Newsom telling his FCC hey, right
Speaker 2: wing talk radio is out of control and we need
Speaker 2: to do something about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is interesting, but the way the Trump administration
Speaker 1: has been running things, it seems like they don't care
Speaker 1: about the fact that someone else could have used this
Speaker 1: power in the future, with kind of like an idea
Speaker 1: that they're always going to be the ones who are
Speaker 1: making these calls, which I think is foolish. But it's also,
Speaker 1: by the way, rightfully banned it in a lot of
Speaker 1: these cases by the First Amendment. And fire's job in
Speaker 1: this situation like this is the call balls and strikes,
Speaker 1: and I will get people sometimes saying, oh, the political
Speaker 1: situation is so intense right now you have to pick
Speaker 1: a side that your quite little First Amendment thing that
Speaker 1: you know doesn't really apply it in this kind of battle.
Speaker 1: And I'm always like, no, right now, the rules of
Speaker 1: the road matter more than ever, and it's our job
Speaker 1: to defend them.
Speaker 2: Specifically, Charlie Kirk, while he was out there doing his thing,
Speaker 2: going to college campuses. Did you think that was a
Speaker 2: productive thing for free speech in America?
Speaker 1: I did. Actually, you know, my disagreement with Charlie Kirk
Speaker 1: is mostly due to their scholar their scholar database, the
Speaker 1: scholar Watch, which I was not a big fan of,
Speaker 1: because it resulted in a lot of people, a lot
Speaker 1: of tends to get people fired, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of cancer culture. We made a big distinction
Speaker 1: between just calling out professors, which you totally can do,
Speaker 1: but you know when you put like this is their
Speaker 1: supervisor and like all this kind of stuff to try
Speaker 1: to get them fired, I got an issue with that. However,
Speaker 1: you know, Charlie's murder has led me to, you know,
Speaker 1: go back and look at some of his discussions with students,
Speaker 1: and I think this is having this effect all over
Speaker 1: the country. By the way, yeah, definitely, So political violence
Speaker 1: tends to backfire, and I'm like, wow, Like he dealt
Speaker 1: with some frustrating questions and he dealt with them usually
Speaker 1: like that was the one that I saw with pretty civilly.
Speaker 1: So I've left with an impression that it was a
Speaker 1: productive dialogue.
Speaker 2: Right. I don't know if you've seen the it's on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk with Bill Maher. They had like a two
Speaker 2: hour conversation in Bill Maher's basement a couple of months ago,
Speaker 2: pretty recently, and it was it was as between two
Speaker 2: guys that agree on nothing is you could possibly imagine
Speaker 2: and if we can't do that, we're doomed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I'm actually speaking at Sun Valley at Sun Valley,
Speaker 1: at Utah Valley on October thirtieth, and what's crazy. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna admit it. You know, am I a little spooked?
Speaker 1: You know? Of course I am. But you can't ever
Speaker 1: let the you know, assassin veto win. You have to
Speaker 1: actually show up. You have to you know, pick up
Speaker 1: the mantle. You have to actually you know, have that discussion.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping to go there with a message of
Speaker 1: you know, essentially free speech belongs to us all or
Speaker 1: belongs to nobody, because I think the younger people are
Speaker 1: being taught that freedom of speech is the weapon of
Speaker 1: the bully, the big and the robber baron. And as
Speaker 1: I say all the time, that is just that history.
Speaker 1: You are being miseducated on this topic. So hopefully I
Speaker 1: can I'm going to try and Fire is always trying
Speaker 1: to contribute to a deeper, more philosophical understanding of the
Speaker 1: frankly beautiful role of free speech in human history.
Speaker 2: Well, we talk about your books all the time. The
Speaker 2: Coddling of the American Mind is my partner. Joe's one
Speaker 2: of his favorite books of all time. We mentioned stuff
Speaker 2: that you write all the time. What particularly would you
Speaker 2: like us to point people to right now before I
Speaker 2: let you go?
Speaker 1: Sure? I mean, you know, the most important thing is
Speaker 1: that Fire is currently overwhelmed, so we could really use
Speaker 1: support from people, and we need the people who care
Speaker 1: about free speech for their own side, but also for
Speaker 1: everyone else. We need those principal people are out there
Speaker 1: to come and help because right now, to use a pun,
Speaker 1: it's a free speech just kind of have a house
Speaker 1: on fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Greg Lukiana, thanks for your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I take care.
Speaker 5: Yea.
Speaker 2: He is really good and he's absolutely right. Like I
Speaker 2: can't stand Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, he makes my skin crawl.
Speaker 2: He's so smug. That's the word I was looking for.
Speaker 2: He is so freaking smug. But if the FCC can
Speaker 2: pressure him off the air, he can pressure Joe and
Speaker 2: I off. They can pressure joean eye off the air
Speaker 2: and a different administration absolutely, so that bothers me. I
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Speaker 2: slash armstrong. That's Trust Andwill dot com slash armstrong. I
Speaker 2: know a lot of you are going to be angry
Speaker 2: and feel like I'm standing up for Jimmy Kimmel because
Speaker 2: I'm not just really rolling around in glee that he
Speaker 2: got fired. But uh, once you allow that weapon of
Speaker 2: canceling people from the FCC to be wielded against your enemies,
Speaker 2: it's going to come back. I just know it is.
Speaker 2: We've got a lot more time to talk about this
Speaker 2: and other stuff. I hope you can stick around.
Speaker 7: Former MNA fighter Conor McGregor announced this week vide has
Speaker 7: withdrawn from the Irish presidential race after quote careful reflection,
Speaker 7: or as it's known in Ireland, sobering up.
Speaker 2: They now, okay, we're getting a number of texts from
Speaker 2: people saying the FCC had nothing to do with Jimmy
Speaker 2: Kimmel being fired. These various groups of stations decided they
Speaker 2: want to drop him. Okay, we'll play some quotes from
Speaker 2: the FCC commissioner. I'll read you some things that he
Speaker 2: said in recent days. He was absolutely pressuring people on
Speaker 2: their broadcast license. And I can tell you trust me,
Speaker 2: I'm in business. We have the radio stations have the
Speaker 2: same deal with broadcast licenses TV do as TV does.
Speaker 2: Owners get really nervous, really fast if there's even a
Speaker 2: whiff of trouble with their license, they just do. It's
Speaker 2: been that way my whole career. Just the most subtle
Speaker 2: hint of your on the wrong side of things makes
Speaker 2: people a pucker, if you'll pardon the expression. So we'll
Speaker 2: get into that next hour. The FCC did have something
Speaker 2: to do with this. I didn't mention this letter the
Speaker 2: other day. So I've been talking about prunes a lot.
Speaker 2: I will not explain exactly why. You could probably guess. Oh,
Speaker 2: I wonder why. It's just a treat I enjoy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just a nice little snack, the humble prune. Some of
Speaker 2: you like oranges, some of you like a candy bar.
Speaker 2: I enjoy it. Prune now and then, or at least
Speaker 2: I have for the last week or so. I had
Speaker 2: never had a prune in my life until my doctor
Speaker 2: recommended it for a perticigator situation. We don't need to
Speaker 2: get into hydration anyway. So the orders from the doctor
Speaker 2: was start with run one prune to day, and then
Speaker 2: if that doesn't work, go to two prunes. And I've
Speaker 2: found the sweet spot seems to be between four and
Speaker 2: five prunes today, maybe more than you wanted to do.
Speaker 2: Whatever works for you, Jack. Anyway, because we talked about
Speaker 2: prune so much, to California prune association or network or
Speaker 2: company or whatever they are had heard this and sent
Speaker 2: us a gift box the other day with all kinds
Speaker 2: of different kind of prune related treats and a prune
Speaker 2: hat and that my son is going to wear to
Speaker 2: school and it's good. But anyway, I didn't read from
Speaker 2: the letter. Dear Jack. I'm an avid listener and caught
Speaker 2: your recent segments about prunes and couldn't be happier to
Speaker 2: share our passion for this dried fruit. Now that you
Speaker 2: know what prunes are, we thought we'd level up your
Speaker 2: prune game. Yeah. I didn't know what a prune was.
Speaker 2: I'd heard about it my whole life. When I was
Speaker 2: a kid. They would always joke about him on sitcoms.
Speaker 2: Old people would joke about prunes. So I knew it
Speaker 2: had something to do with your you know, regulating your system,
Speaker 2: But I didn't really know what they were. I can't
Speaker 2: believe he didn't know what a prune was. Good grief.
Speaker 2: I'm that kind of person.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: I know what they are. Now. They're a part of
Speaker 2: my life. They're best friends. Me and prudes are best friends.
Speaker 2: That's funny that the Prune people sent me so much
Speaker 2: swag I have more prude swag than the who knew
Speaker 2: the Prune people even had hats. I wouldn't be mad
Speaker 2: at a prune hat. No, no, it's pretty awesome. Okay,
Speaker 2: we got a lot more news to get to, things
Speaker 2: that are going on in the world. Trump's in Great Britain,
Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimble got fired, this and that. If you miss
Speaker 2: a segment an hour, get the podcast Armstrong and Geddy
Speaker 2: on demand and uh, we'll get to all this other
Speaker 2: stuff coming up. Some great guests too, and a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of different topics, so please stay here, Armstrong and
Speaker 2: Getty