Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2: Arm Strong and Jetty and no he, I'm strong and Jetty.
Speaker 3: Our troops these to the Euphrates where prepaired with our
Speaker 3: SDF partners, are there to keep a lid on ISIS
Speaker 3: and permit violent extremist organizations from gathering strength and being
Speaker 3: able to attack the homeland of the United States. ISIS
Speaker 3: aspires to attack US, as we know ISIS launch a
Speaker 3: successful attack against Russia just a few months ago. That's
Speaker 3: why those troops are there. So any decision to bring
Speaker 3: them out would need to weigh that going forward, and
Speaker 3: I'm certain that the new administration will take a hard
Speaker 3: look on that when they come into office.
Speaker 4: So Trump said we should have nothing to do with Syria.
Speaker 4: Obviously we currently do have something to do with Syria,
Speaker 4: as we have nine hundred troops there and seventy five
Speaker 4: different airstrikes yesterday in Syria. Tom Friedman mister intervene in
Speaker 4: the Middle East, writing in the New York Times, they did,
Speaker 4: mister President, a letter to Donald Trump. We need to
Speaker 4: be very involved in Syria, and here's how so that's
Speaker 4: a different point of view, and then he got this
Speaker 4: La Times article. Today in Syria, militias armed by the
Speaker 4: Pentagon are fighting those armed by the CIA, which makes
Speaker 4: it quite complicated the always confusing Middle East major headline,
Speaker 4: the regime of Bashar Ala Sade has fallen in Syria,
Speaker 4: and that is sending shockwaves not only around the region
Speaker 4: but globally. Is various powers are revealed to be stronger,
Speaker 4: weaker than previously thought. All sorts of stuff to discuss
Speaker 4: with Doctor Jeff mccauslin.
Speaker 5: CBS News military analyst.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure, Jeff, How are you doing well?
Speaker 6: Guys? It's crazy with you.
Speaker 4: Well, what's your take over this stunning collapse of the
Speaker 4: government in Syria.
Speaker 6: I think I'd say three things quickly. First of all,
Speaker 6: an amazing surprise. The Assad family had controlled this country
Speaker 6: for over five decades in the brutal fashion in the
Speaker 6: Civil War, seamed to have frozen about four years ago,
Speaker 6: and suddenly in eleven days they have collapsed. Second of all,
Speaker 6: of course, this is an amazing geopolitical disaster, particularly for
Speaker 6: the Russians who supported USAD for many years with military forces,
Speaker 6: and the potential loss for them of two major bases
Speaker 6: they've enjoyed unaval based at Tartuuse and a major air
Speaker 6: base at Lakatia. And then also a major geopolitical disaster
Speaker 6: for Iran because Syria, as the hub of hubs is
Speaker 6: somebody once said in the region was a major conduit
Speaker 6: for men material and weapons to their primary proxy in
Speaker 6: the region, Hits Baalah. And now when you know things
Speaker 6: were going bad, it's Valava was unwilling to support Syria,
Speaker 6: Olivia was I unwilling to support Syria. Iran was unwilling
Speaker 6: to have its allies in Iraq Militia Group support Syria,
Speaker 6: and it collapsed. And last not as the least the
Speaker 6: United States. You have to be aware of so called
Speaker 6: catastrophic success. No one will weep for Bashir al Asada
Speaker 6: bootle dictator. But if in return you end up with
Speaker 6: a very extreme jihadi Islamic government in Syria that looks
Speaker 6: like Afghanistan, well that won't necessarily be good either. Ye.
Speaker 4: And for some reason it just popped into my head
Speaker 4: whoever's famous for the old saying, you Americans, you feel
Speaker 4: like you can fix everything. It was bad news for Russia,
Speaker 4: it's bad news for Iran. What can we do to
Speaker 4: make sure it's good news for us? Well, I think
Speaker 4: with the one, can we do anything?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's going to be very difficult. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 6: if you don't want a wider military intervention, those said
Speaker 6: well we shouldn't intervene might want to look around and
Speaker 6: realize that, as you guys said a moment ago, we've
Speaker 6: already gotten nine hundred troops Insuria number one, and we
Speaker 6: just did seventy five air strikes number two of the weekend,
Speaker 6: so we're already involved militarily. And now I think it's
Speaker 6: going to be an effort by US, with allies in
Speaker 6: the region and elsewhere, to try to find some mechanism
Speaker 6: diplomatically and politically to pull together some kind of a
Speaker 6: regime in Syria that can bring in together all these
Speaker 6: various the spirit groups. You know, you've got at least
Speaker 6: three major armies, one supported by Turkey, one supported by US,
Speaker 6: and in the northeast in this group HTS, can we
Speaker 6: get them to work together to come up with some
Speaker 6: kind of viable government or do they turn on each
Speaker 6: other and end up in some kind of subsequent civil war,
Speaker 6: bringing on greater misery for the Syrian people. And more
Speaker 6: and more refugees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whether they can be taking at their word that
Speaker 1: they'll be pluralistic and fair to religious minorities is anybody's guests.
Speaker 1: But Bear's just you know, doubling down on what you
Speaker 1: said that the inability of Russia to back their client
Speaker 1: and stave off this attack, I mean they did practically
Speaker 1: nothing really goes to show how weakened they are by
Speaker 1: their efforts in Ukraine, doesn't it?
Speaker 6: Oh, it absolutely does. You know, again, they were instrumental
Speaker 6: in making sure that Assad wasn't defeated several years ago,
Speaker 6: and had devoted massive air strikes to make sure that
Speaker 6: didn't happen. But now you know, when things become difficult,
Speaker 6: they were unwilling to do that. They made a few
Speaker 6: air strikes, but quickly back down. And so the question
Speaker 6: now becomes, can they salvage their bases as they try
Speaker 6: to confine some kind of relationship with the new regime.
Speaker 6: I think they'll do that. That's going to probably be
Speaker 6: pretty difficult, based on their track record at bombing Syrians.
Speaker 6: Number one, and now they also have accepted Bashir al
Speaker 6: Assad's application for asylum in Russia, where he'll likely live
Speaker 6: out his days.
Speaker 1: Well, correct me if I'm wrong. This is also, at
Speaker 1: least in the short term, a hell of a big
Speaker 1: win for Israel.
Speaker 6: Oh, without a doubt it is. But again it could
Speaker 6: be catastrophic success if you end up with that kind
Speaker 6: of extreme regime. He Israeli to have moved quickly to
Speaker 6: occupy a so called buffer zone. How they've been established
Speaker 6: at the end of the nineteen seventy three yob Kipoor war,
Speaker 6: just to make sure that groups did not have a
Speaker 6: greater ability to transit from Syria into Israel and threaten
Speaker 6: Israel and everyone. Israelis in particular are going to be
Speaker 6: concerned about what happens to the massive stockpiles of weapons
Speaker 6: left behind and the Syrian army collapsed. What's going to
Speaker 6: happen to, as we well know, some visual amount of
Speaker 6: chemical weapons that Assad had at his disposal in the
Speaker 6: aftermath that his armies collapsing. Certainly, what don't want to
Speaker 6: see those things being acquired by one on one or
Speaker 6: another of several extreme groups that operate in the leision.
Speaker 5: Do you think this.
Speaker 4: Helps with the pressure Trump's going to put on Putin
Speaker 4: to come to some sort of ceasefire agreement or end
Speaker 4: that war.
Speaker 6: I don't know if it helps, but it underscores just
Speaker 6: you know, how weak I think in some ways mister
Speaker 6: Putin's position is as well. I mean, we talk an
Speaker 6: awful lot about the fact on the news that Russians
Speaker 6: are gaining a more and more territory in the southeastern
Speaker 6: portion of Ukraine. And they are. They've gained more territory
Speaker 6: in the last month than they did in all of
Speaker 6: twenty twenty three by a large member measure. But they're
Speaker 6: doing that enormous cost. Estimates by the British intelligence is
Speaker 6: fifteen hundred casualties in any single day. Now the Russians
Speaker 6: exceeded two thousand casualties by most estimates on the twenty
Speaker 6: eighth November, and November of this year may have been
Speaker 6: the bloodiest month in the entire war for the Russians.
Speaker 6: So gaining territory, but just that enormous cost, and we're
Speaker 6: starting to see some of the effects on the Russian
Speaker 6: economy that we hope for for several years. Inflation rate
Speaker 6: in Russia right now is nine percent or higher, interest
Speaker 6: rates over twenty percent and higher, and the Russian government
Speaker 6: has now announced reduced payments to families of soldiers who
Speaker 6: are killed in action or families of soldiers who are wounded,
Speaker 6: because the costs that they have been bearing for those
Speaker 6: payments has just become enormous.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Jeff mccauslin on the line, Jeff, final question, slash thought.
Speaker 1: I know you were you're deployed to the Middle East
Speaker 1: in the early nineties, commanding artillery battalion and tell us
Speaker 1: just a.
Speaker 5: Little bit about that experience and.
Speaker 1: As you came away from it, what did you understand
Speaker 1: more clearly about that part of the world.
Speaker 6: Well, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: I'm sure you could write a book and answer to
Speaker 5: the question. Keep it break actually did.
Speaker 6: When I came away, knowing that it was the you know,
Speaker 6: the wide disparity across the region of various different groups,
Speaker 6: particularly based on religion Sea Ied versus Sunni. The support
Speaker 6: for Asad in the region had basically been because frankly,
Speaker 6: he was ahead of the Alawhites, which was a Sad
Speaker 6: based group and serious So that's why he gained so
Speaker 6: much support from Aura. These other groups are largely so
Speaker 6: because the map of the Middle East is really one
Speaker 6: drawn by Europeans in the colonial era. So consequently, in
Speaker 6: the aftermath of these pick your wars. All those old
Speaker 6: historical ties and ethnic and religious ties, there are so many,
Speaker 6: so fundamental to people's identity rise to the surface and
Speaker 6: make it enormously complicated for a country like Syria, which
Speaker 6: has you know, Arabs and Christians and Shoonies and sites
Speaker 6: and Alohites and whatever, to find some common ground where
Speaker 6: they can create a structure that they all find acceptable,
Speaker 6: that can also provide basic social services, pick up the garbage,
Speaker 6: deliver the mail, provide basic police in a community, those
Speaker 6: kind of things. So I definitely learned that. And then
Speaker 6: the other thing you learn when you're in conflex like this,
Speaker 6: it's just the dramatic problem and the plight of you know, refugees.
Speaker 6: We saw thousands of thousands of refugees playing ahead of
Speaker 6: dams as they moved back into southern Iraq. Will consider
Speaker 6: the fact that Syria has somewhere around thirteen to fourteen
Speaker 6: that million refugees, probably seven million displaced people inside Syria,
Speaker 6: five million displaced people outside of Syria, and we saw
Speaker 6: massive refugee flows early on in the civil war. So
Speaker 6: now when we come back in the aftermath of Asad,
Speaker 6: will this political conditions in the aftermath create conditions whereby
Speaker 6: those people can go home and rebuild their lives after
Speaker 6: thirteen years, or will this set off even more displacements
Speaker 6: which will be unsettling to the countries in the region
Speaker 6: and even beyond.
Speaker 1: CBS News military consultant Jeff McCausland, Jeff, always interesting, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 5: For the time.
Speaker 6: Take care guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I read about this stuff. I've read about this
Speaker 4: stuff for so many years, and I still don't know
Speaker 4: where I am. For instance, reading David Ignatius's column in
Speaker 4: the Post today for the moment, Syria is a violent mosaic,
Speaker 4: with Turkish back groups controlling western Syria all the way
Speaker 4: to Damascus, a US back Kurdish militia controlling the northeast,
Speaker 4: and Jordanians supported militias dominated in the south, along with
Speaker 4: all kinds of other different splinters of kind of al Qaeda,
Speaker 4: kind of ices, kind of whatever. I don't know is
Speaker 4: our history of being involved in these things, have any
Speaker 4: success stories?
Speaker 5: Boy?
Speaker 1: Getting back to what Jeff was saying, and to your point,
Speaker 1: I wish that you know, if I were some sort
Speaker 1: of supreme being, I would say, look.
Speaker 5: All those borders the Euros drew.
Speaker 1: Up in nineteen seventeen without a clue in the region
Speaker 1: or whatever. It was precisely No, no, you soony, you're
Speaker 1: over here. Gee, I go there, all right, courage, you
Speaker 1: get your own country. Finally, congratulations, call it whatever you want,
Speaker 1: Just redraw all those borders and maybe move people or whatever.
Speaker 1: But enough of the h R, never ending, stirm and drunk,
Speaker 1: you know, final point. And Jeff led me beautifully into this.
Speaker 1: I was gonna bring this up anyway. I was listening
Speaker 1: to an Iranian brit who now lives in America.
Speaker 5: Pick a country, what.
Speaker 1: But this woman was talking about how the one thing
Speaker 1: people don't understand is you remember the whole twelfth Madi thing,
Speaker 1: how a lot of Sheites are looking for, you know,
Speaker 1: the Judgment Day essentially, and the way you bring about
Speaker 1: Judgment Day is through a war against the unbeliever. Specifically
Speaker 1: a quote when the last drop of blood falls from
Speaker 1: the last Jew. Iran wants to wipe out Israel, not
Speaker 1: for mundane geo political stuff.
Speaker 5: It doesn't want the land.
Speaker 1: It wants the last Jew to be wiped from the
Speaker 1: face of the earth for religious reasons. How do you
Speaker 1: sign a treaty with people like that? And and if
Speaker 1: they're proxies hesbler Hamas.
Speaker 5: Or right next door to you? How are you gonna have.
Speaker 1: A ceasefire with that? So we're gonna have Mike lions
Speaker 1: On later today.
Speaker 4: Those are our two go to guys, mccauslin and Lines
Speaker 4: usually when there's a story like this, and they often
Speaker 4: don't agree. So I'll be interested to hear what Lyon
Speaker 4: says about the current situation.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Where I am in terms of how involved we ought
Speaker 4: to be for whatever reason right now might be to
Speaker 4: the level of coffee I've had, just I'm feeling more.
Speaker 4: How about we back out and let them all fight
Speaker 4: it out for a while and see how things turn out. Well,
Speaker 4: I have had precisely the right amount of coffee, and
Speaker 4: I disagree strongly.
Speaker 5: Okay, we got plenty to talk about. Today's stay with us.
Speaker 1: A man in Canada saved his wife after a polar
Speaker 1: bear lunched at her, and he leaped onto the bear's back,
Speaker 1: shouting finish her.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: By the way, nobody watches Saturday and Live but me.
Speaker 4: I watch it every week, have since nineteen seventy six
Speaker 4: or whenever started. But I thought that was one of
Speaker 4: the worst cold open and the history side of Alive
Speaker 4: and I love Dana Carvey, I loved David Spade.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was awful thought the jokes were terrible.
Speaker 1: It wasn't funny. I happen to see it after online.
Speaker 1: It was quaint, it was okay. It seemed like it
Speaker 1: just did see. It seemed like an anachronism. It seemed
Speaker 1: like something that somebody would have found funny in the
Speaker 1: early nineties. Maybe, yeah, yeah, I'm tempted to keep discussing
Speaker 1: the Middle Eastern Syria and religious fanatics and the impossibility
Speaker 1: of negotiating with them, but I won't. I also won't
Speaker 1: go too far down this road. We'll do it another time.
Speaker 1: But how Trump and company are going to attack the
Speaker 1: problem with America's university is becoming these indoctrination centers for
Speaker 1: postmodern neo Marxist the madness, and and we'll do that
Speaker 1: in full at some point, because it's all through accreditation, which.
Speaker 5: Is going to be really interesting.
Speaker 1: Look, if you're if you're not teaching, you're you're perverting
Speaker 1: all your teaching and all your science with this woke crap.
Speaker 5: We're not going to accredit you.
Speaker 1: So that could be a good cudgel to get them
Speaker 1: to come too, or come around, come correct, whatever phrase
Speaker 1: you want to use. But came across this. This is
Speaker 1: from Yale for the IVY League, Jack, the elite of
Speaker 1: the elite. Didn't Yale just or was it Princeton? I
Speaker 1: guess just passed Harvard as number one. As if I
Speaker 1: give a crap about any of.
Speaker 5: That, I refuse to dignify that comment.
Speaker 1: Agreed percentage of a's in their various concentrations. Economics, it's
Speaker 1: just over fifty two percent. As math, for instance, it's
Speaker 1: fifty five percent as well. Just cut to the bottom
Speaker 1: or the top rather Women's Gender and Sexuality studies.
Speaker 5: Ninety two percent.
Speaker 4: As Oh my god, there's no room for a final
Speaker 4: nail in the coffin of higher education. But I guess
Speaker 4: we'll have to squeeze another nail in between these two.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe just throw a rock at it. That's
Speaker 4: just embarrassing. You should be embarrassed for yourself. You made
Speaker 4: up a major that has no relevance to the real
Speaker 4: world or anybody's needs, and then you give everybody.
Speaker 1: An a well right, And to repeat a point that
Speaker 1: I made a while back, and it's one of the
Speaker 1: cleverest things I've heard about this. And when these professors,
Speaker 1: whether it's Claudine Gay at Harvard or whoever else, gets
Speaker 1: busted for plagiarism, of course they're plagiarizing. They are repeating
Speaker 1: the incantations of a cult. They're not trying to innovate.
Speaker 1: There's no science in women's gender and sexuality studies except
Speaker 1: maybe around the edges. It's the repeating of their doctrines.
Speaker 1: They're not. Of course, they're plagiarizing. That's what they're supposed
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 4: Wow, everybody who takes that major gets all a's pretty much.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's just whatever, what have to do it again?
Speaker 5: A B? Never mind us C.
Speaker 4: And then if I shoot the professor, I get a B.
Speaker 4: And then you go off to some lesser college and teach.
Speaker 4: I suppose is what you do? Oh whatever is in
Speaker 4: more minds.
Speaker 5: I guess for pro assassination. Now they too are strong and.
Speaker 1: They kickle tough for Matthew, right, this is for the division.
Speaker 5: For the Chiefs. Desions is the d bike for the
Speaker 5: defension to the Chiefs. My goodness. Then they shot their opponents.
Speaker 2: Sell me.
Speaker 4: The Kansas City Chiefs the most hated team in the NFL. Right,
Speaker 4: now except for by Chiefs fans because they always went
Speaker 4: on the last play something crazy they the other team
Speaker 4: went the game.
Speaker 5: I was at last Friday.
Speaker 4: The other team fumbles the snap before they're going to
Speaker 4: kick the winning field goal, block a punt. This that
Speaker 4: bounced it off the uprights and it went.
Speaker 5: Through the for the division.
Speaker 1: They God have mercy on his soul for saying that.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, and Patrick Mahomes almost looked embarrassed afterwards, just
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 5: I know, I know, I know everybody hates this. Wow wow.
Speaker 1: NFL season is definitely heating out the big fun So
Speaker 1: I don't know how to talk about this correctly.
Speaker 4: This is the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare.
Speaker 4: Oh the moment it happened, and when we first talked
Speaker 4: about it, I thought, this is going to be ugly.
Speaker 4: This is what people are going to talk about the
Speaker 4: way they hate insurance companies, and that's going to be
Speaker 4: the focus of this story. And it has been for
Speaker 4: a lot of people, including a lot of the crowd
Speaker 4: out there who's happy the guy's dead and things that
Speaker 4: needs to happen more often.
Speaker 5: Then you gotta factor this in last week and I
Speaker 5: don't have the notes in front of me.
Speaker 4: Whichever health insurance group came out and said, we'll now
Speaker 4: double the amount that we pay for anesthesia.
Speaker 1: And was that a caving to threats like so you
Speaker 1: don't get assassinated. The timing of it was a little
Speaker 1: uncomfortable at the very least. I'd say that was a
Speaker 1: frightened response.
Speaker 5: To the mood.
Speaker 1: Right he y'all hate us, hate us less because of this.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, so that's rewarding an assassination right, well, and
Speaker 4: I don't know, there's there's kind of a fevered mood
Speaker 4: in the land because it was who was it, Blue Cross?
Speaker 4: It said, hey, look we're gonna put in time limits
Speaker 4: for the amount of anesthesia for various procedures. And the jokes,
Speaker 4: which were pretty good jokes, were about, hey, we're at
Speaker 4: ten minutes turn off the gas in the middle of
Speaker 4: your amputation.
Speaker 5: You know, it's a nightmare. It's right, it's hard.
Speaker 1: You're getting heart surgery or something like that, and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Sorry, dude, the meter ran out.
Speaker 1: That's not what they meant.
Speaker 5: It's just we have to get into the weeds into
Speaker 5: these things.
Speaker 4: Well, one of my favorite podcasts were It was appalled
Speaker 4: at the idea of even discussing high insurance costs, because
Speaker 4: that makes it seem like it's justified even bringing it up, right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I don't know how to approach this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I just I think the Pandora's
Speaker 1: box is open on the discussion. I see their point exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: you're basically saying, like I don't, I shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: even have this argument. A man was assassinated on the
Speaker 1: street for having committed no at least direct crime, depending
Speaker 1: on who you ask. But oh, it's worth pointing out.
Speaker 1: And this is a note from somebody or other Henry
Speaker 1: who pointed out that this dude was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, the son of a grain silo worker, got
Speaker 1: an accounting degree from Iowa, married his college sweetheart, has
Speaker 1: two kids, worked his way up, joined United Healthcare, worked
Speaker 1: his way up there. Big supporter of the Special Olympics,
Speaker 1: you know, not some evil character out of a novel.
Speaker 1: He's a hard working iowe. Now, are there problems with
Speaker 1: health care and insurance companies and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But the idea that you just murder him in cold
Speaker 1: blood on a sidewalk is just yeah, but it's tough.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, it's obviously awful.
Speaker 4: It's awful, and if you go down that road even
Speaker 4: this much, it's a disaster. Were you going to try
Speaker 4: to affect policy, either in the government or private business
Speaker 4: by threatening people by them being scared of you?
Speaker 1: I mean that's just said to Everything falls apart at
Speaker 1: that point, and I mean everything.
Speaker 5: The whole thing falls apart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some executive, some executive at Ford says, hey, we're
Speaker 1: losing so much money on electric cars now that the
Speaker 1: federal mandate has gone. We're going to offer like one
Speaker 1: or two, but that's it. We're going to go back
Speaker 1: to doing what we do best. Then somebody guns him
Speaker 1: down on the sidewalk for reasons of climate change and
Speaker 1: climate disaster.
Speaker 4: Weasy to picture, Well, if that happened, I certainly wouldn't
Speaker 4: be okay with then having a conversation, well maybe we
Speaker 4: ought to take another look at electric cars.
Speaker 5: That wouldn't be cool.
Speaker 1: Right, Why are we talking about this and the other
Speaker 1: thing that bothers me? And again I want to get
Speaker 1: to Craig, the healthcare guru, back on to chat with
Speaker 1: him about this. But what people don't understand because I
Speaker 1: was reading some of the specific gripes online on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I read a story that included a bunch of them.
Speaker 1: Why people are mad about healthcare and it has to
Speaker 1: do with the whole delay or I'm sorry, deny delay,
Speaker 1: defend thing where and it could be argued by some
Speaker 1: And here we are entering the discussion.
Speaker 4: And that gut and that's those are exactly the words
Speaker 4: that were on the shellcasings of the bullets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a bit of a he said depose
Speaker 1: instead of.
Speaker 5: Delay.
Speaker 1: But anyway, a lot of what's going on, and people
Speaker 1: don't understand this is because of two things. Number One,
Speaker 1: the incentives and disincentives that Obamacare put in place for
Speaker 1: insurance companies. They dance to the federal government's pied piper.
Speaker 5: They have little flexibility.
Speaker 1: Granted, they're they're big, giant, nasty corporations that have lobbyists
Speaker 1: to and bribe politicians like crazy. That's still true. But
Speaker 1: the point is they are so interwoven with government policy
Speaker 1: at this point. And secondly, and Craig's talked about this
Speaker 1: a fair amount, the whole Medicare thing and and and
Speaker 1: medicaid is built on an absolute mountain of lies. The
Speaker 1: end result of which is doctor surgeon hospital gets paid
Speaker 1: like sixty percent of their costs to see a government patient.
Speaker 1: They lose money on every patient. And Congress said, you
Speaker 1: got to see them, or will put you out a business.
Speaker 1: You're gonna lose money on it because we don't have
Speaker 1: the guts to tell Americans how much tax they actually
Speaker 1: have to pay to get the benefits they're getting, which
Speaker 1: is why we have a deficit every single year. And
Speaker 1: the hospitals and doctors said, well, we'll go out of
Speaker 1: business in about ten minutes. And so the government says, well,
Speaker 1: what you do is you gouge the crap out of
Speaker 1: anybody with private insurance. They're gonna pay five times what
Speaker 1: a Medicaid patient pays for the same procedure, but they
Speaker 1: won't really notice it because it's all baked into their
Speaker 1: insurance from their employer or whatever. So Congress gets away
Speaker 1: with that, you guys are gonna make money and we're
Speaker 1: just gonna soak the crap out of people with private insurance.
Speaker 1: And so the insurance companies say, well, we're paying for
Speaker 1: a lot of that, so we've to see if we
Speaker 1: could limit these costs. Sometimes they do it in a
Speaker 1: way that's awful and unfair. Sometimes not, And again I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go down that road because I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert in it.
Speaker 5: But the fact that practically nobody.
Speaker 1: Knows of this unholy, dishonest relationship between the government and
Speaker 1: the assurance companies frustrates me. So you're okay to have people,
Speaker 1: innocent men gummed down in the streets, but you have
Speaker 1: no idea how the system works.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 4: The other aspect is, I assume that most of these
Speaker 4: people that have very strong opinions pro of this guy
Speaker 4: being assassinated, they should all be scared. I've seen that
Speaker 4: sort of thing. Ye, are that lunatic?
Speaker 1: Taylor Lorenz actually putting the name and birth date of
Speaker 1: the head of Blue Cross I think it was or
Speaker 1: something like that, and her whenever she was born nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one dash and then it was left blank. Is
Speaker 1: if yeah, let's figure let's fill that out. Taylor freaking
Speaker 1: Lorens is a monster anyway, thank you, and was a
Speaker 1: columnist for the Washington Post and the New Times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which gives you a Nightgaad is a great progressive mind.
Speaker 1: But I assume that crowd their answer would be government healthcare.
Speaker 1: You actually believe now the cost will be lower, at
Speaker 1: least it will seem lower because it'll all be in taxes.
Speaker 1: But do you if you actually believe you're not going
Speaker 1: to be denied when the government is running healthcare or delay,
Speaker 1: you think they're going to be responsive and have great
Speaker 1: customer service and be looking out for you.
Speaker 4: I spend a little time reading about NIH in Great
Speaker 4: Britain or Canada or any place on the way those
Speaker 4: healthcare systems work, you get denied all the time. Well,
Speaker 4: the DMV becomes your How do you like it when
Speaker 4: you go to the DMV and they tell you got
Speaker 4: the wrong form? Come back tomorrow with the different form.
Speaker 4: That's what all healthcare will be like. You're not going
Speaker 4: to be happier.
Speaker 1: That's nice or it's well right, or again read about
Speaker 1: the various you know, federal health plans in other countries
Speaker 1: where there are only a certain number of cancer doctors.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be eighteen months so you can
Speaker 1: see a cancer doctor. Excuse me, the cancer is growing.
Speaker 5: Get in line.
Speaker 6: Anyway.
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Speaker 5: I don't know how many.
Speaker 1: Of you all celebrated National pan Sexual and Panorromantic Pride Day,
Speaker 1: which was yesterday.
Speaker 5: Had a moment of silence.
Speaker 4: Now, we often mocked the various days and say, you know,
Speaker 4: whatever National Strawberry Day or National chuncoln Hip Cookie Day
Speaker 4: or whatever. A lot of those are just dumb, completely
Speaker 4: made up by calendars or websites some of the governments.
Speaker 4: Some of them are actual government wins. And then this
Speaker 4: one is this was This is a post from HHS yesterday. Wow,
Speaker 4: HHS dot gov, you paid for everything that went into this.
Speaker 4: It's probably ridiculous how much money was involved in this?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 4: This was their post today on pan Sexual and panor
Speaker 4: Romantic Pride Day. Uh what percentage of people could tell
Speaker 4: you what the hell that was? Or have ever heard
Speaker 4: that word before in their lives? That'd be a good question.
Speaker 4: Any Americans have ever heard that word ever in their
Speaker 4: lives before reading this government tweet?
Speaker 5: Panda?
Speaker 1: Oh well of course, yeah, But what do we gotta tree?
Speaker 1: Is there carols just saying a gift? So what is
Speaker 1: there our parade? How do we celebrate.
Speaker 4: Today on pan sexual and pan romantic Pride Day. Everyone
Speaker 4: deserves to feel seen, respected and supported, no matter who
Speaker 4: they love. Create a world where everyone feels proud to
Speaker 4: be themselves. And then a rainbow and a big something
Speaker 4: or other.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: The government does not need to be involved in this
Speaker 4: at all. The government shouldn't have had There shouldn't have
Speaker 4: been a vote to declare this that there shouldn't be.
Speaker 4: There are probably people who make their living dealing with
Speaker 4: the messaging around this or the role of the government.
Speaker 4: The government should not be involved in this crap at all,
Speaker 4: at any level, not one taxpayer dollar.
Speaker 5: Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: Is that Rachel Levine character, the former dude in chargehas
Speaker 1: no xavir bessera. She's under secretary of something, right, what
Speaker 1: does she do? It doesn't matter. Yeah, the whole transgender
Speaker 1: madness things. Stop it with your pan sexual whatever. I
Speaker 1: don't care, get with dudes, get with women, whatever. Just
Speaker 1: quit sexualizing the little kids in school.
Speaker 5: Well I actually got that.
Speaker 1: I think might have been from elon or Vivik's website.
Speaker 1: It was just another Why is the government involved in this?
Speaker 1: The government? We need to shrink the government.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if the government is big enough that you got
Speaker 4: time for that. The government's too big.
Speaker 1: Good lord, no kidding. Yeah, that's a good point too. Oh,
Speaker 1: speaking of that sort of thing. Clip number eighty two, Michael,
Speaker 1: this is the good folks that gaze against groomers who
Speaker 1: are quite appropriately saying, hey, gay rights has got nothing
Speaker 1: to do with trying to convince little kids that they're
Speaker 1: the wrong sex, That we're not them, they're not us.
Speaker 1: It's LGB. You get to the Q and the T.
Speaker 1: You got weirdness going on. Good for you people standing
Speaker 1: up and staying it. Go ahead, Michael, And.
Speaker 3: What age do you think most trans kids determine that
Speaker 3: they're trans?
Speaker 5: Told us when she was one and a half.
Speaker 4: She's been telling us since she could speak, so she
Speaker 4: knew since birth. Not freaking chance that that's true, not
Speaker 4: even the slightest chance that that is true.
Speaker 1: I love the bit of wisdom. Uh yeah, a trans
Speaker 1: kids like a vegan dog. We know who made that choice.
Speaker 5: As a one year old.
Speaker 4: Your kid, who has no concept whatsoever of generosexuality, has been,
Speaker 4: you know, making it clear. Give me a break. Merriam
Speaker 4: Webster's Dictionary is out with their Word of the Year.
Speaker 5: Among other things. On the way.
Speaker 1: Armstrong Hetty.
Speaker 7: You can see these little girls here as well. Lava
Speaker 7: been winko, okay, shut up into.
Speaker 5: They said, they're very happy has fallen.
Speaker 4: That's Claris's Award of CNN. And she was in this
Speaker 4: traffic jam near the border is Syria, and everybody was
Speaker 4: so happy, like a level of happy most of us
Speaker 4: will never understand, because we haven't had family members disappear
Speaker 4: or tortured by the government and then the government has fallen.
Speaker 4: But those little girls were just thrilled. I also thought,
Speaker 4: you speak whatever language that is they speak, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: How'd you learn that Clarissa Award is amazing? She knows
Speaker 4: no fear for one thing, or doesn't show it. Secondly,
Speaker 4: I just hope those little girls aren't don't have their
Speaker 4: lives ruined by islamis nut.
Speaker 1: Jobs or take over. We'll talk to the terrific Mike
Speaker 1: Lyons about that next hour. I hope you can stick around.
Speaker 1: If not, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand.
Speaker 4: A couple of quick things. Webster's Dictionaries out with their
Speaker 4: word of the year. They went withation. Okay, fantastic. Oh,
Speaker 4: I got nothing to say about that. I thought this
Speaker 4: was an interesting article in uh Politico about how Biden
Speaker 4: is Trump is already the president in many people's eyes,
Speaker 4: including Democrats in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: More on that Street st had a piece on that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's notable, Oh, i'd say, but I don't know.
Speaker 4: If you saw Trump yesterday in France, he was at
Speaker 4: Notre Dame for the reopening their first mass since they
Speaker 4: rebuilt it and everything like that. It absolutely looks fantastic.
Speaker 4: I really want to see that in person. They scrubbed
Speaker 4: that church. You know, it's not been cleaned nine hundred years.
Speaker 4: So these pillars, like if you've been to Notre Dame,
Speaker 4: I know a lot of you have. I haven't, but
Speaker 4: those pillars that were like gray were actually gold and
Speaker 4: painted with beautiful paintings on them all these years, and
Speaker 4: nobody knew it. So or if you didn't know it,
Speaker 4: you didn't see it. I mean, so they scrubbed the
Speaker 4: whole bang church. The whole thing leams and looks like
Speaker 4: it probably did to people centuries ago. And if you
Speaker 4: saw the sixty minutes piece a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4: They brought in all these artisans around the country, woodworkers,
Speaker 4: glass workers, masons that you get to work at the
Speaker 4: county fair and show off their crafts. Usually got to
Speaker 4: go into Notre Dame and actually do the old time
Speaker 4: he work to do it just the way it was
Speaker 4: done throughout the centuries and bring it back to life.
Speaker 5: So it looks really cool.
Speaker 4: But anyway, Trump is there and all the world leaders
Speaker 4: are treating him like he's the President of the United States,
Speaker 4: not like he's hitler, including Joe Biden sitting there and
Speaker 4: talking to him and smiling, and that got a lot
Speaker 4: of attention. Of course, Joe Biden one seat away, and
Speaker 4: they look to be getting along really well. And then
Speaker 4: Trump puts out an ad on his truth social about
Speaker 4: his cologne which is called his Colonne, which is called
Speaker 4: Fight Fight Fight, and it said something like, look, my
Speaker 4: colonne even attracts Jill Biden or something.
Speaker 5: Wow, what a Trump thing to do. Just hilarious.
Speaker 1: I just I can't get past the hole. He's literally
Speaker 1: a hitler. Oh he won, So how you doing? Don't
Speaker 1: come over for tea right?
Speaker 4: No kidding, no kidding, There'll never be another election again
Speaker 4: if he wins. A. Hey, I'll sit here and laugh
Speaker 4: and joke with you as we're waiting for the match
Speaker 4: to start. But so he meets with McCrone, the leader
Speaker 4: of France, and everything like that. Afterwards, Trump says in
Speaker 4: an interview he said he's a good man. He did
Speaker 4: a good job with the church. I told him, you
Speaker 4: have no idea what a good job you did on
Speaker 4: that chapel. That's very hard to do, painstaking. It's such
Speaker 4: a Trump thing to say. I love Trumpet.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame named after the late great Virgin Mary.
Speaker 5: Many people are saying, not a virgin. I don't know,
Speaker 5: not my type.
Speaker 1: A late great Virgin Mary. I'm saying to McCrone, Uh,
Speaker 1: A lot of you have no idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah I do. I have a good I spent years
Speaker 5: at this. Thanks though, I guess that's it's compliment. Sure,
Speaker 5: a Trumpian compliment is so hilarious.
Speaker 1: Oh, we ought to talk about that AI video I
Speaker 1: sent to the team of Trump and doctor Jill looking
Speaker 1: at each other then getting into a fist fight, generated
Speaker 1: on by AI and totally realistic.
Speaker 5: Looked regardlessly real.
Speaker 4: We're gonna talk to Mike Leins about Syria and US
Speaker 4: involvement in our three Armstrong and Getty