Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe, Katty.
Speaker 2: Armstrong, and Jettie I know he Armstrong and Yetty. Everybody's conservative.
Speaker 3: We believe in limited government, and we believe in individual
Speaker 3: freedom and the rule of law and peace through strength
Speaker 3: and fis responsibility and free markets and human dignity, the
Speaker 3: things that are all wrapped into this bill.
Speaker 2: Who is that and what year was that?
Speaker 1: That's Mike Johnson pretending that this bill is responsible and conservative.
Speaker 4: Was that in nineteen seventy eight? Is the Republican Speaker
Speaker 4: of the House talking about legislation?
Speaker 2: Play that again.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of words there at the beginning. I
Speaker 4: don't know the definition of everybody's conservative.
Speaker 3: We believe in limited government, and we believe in individual
Speaker 3: freedom and the rule of law.
Speaker 2: That's a new strength.
Speaker 4: What's what the conservative and limited government? I want to
Speaker 4: hear your definitions of conservative and limited government, which Mike
Speaker 4: Johnson might be conservative and he might believe in limited government,
Speaker 4: but the bill you just passed does not.
Speaker 1: It is not an example of that. No, doesn't represent
Speaker 1: those principles at all. I guess what a beautiful bill,
Speaker 1: or as I'd prefer to call it, the ridiculous rotten retreat.
Speaker 4: BBW. No, that's a different thing, BBB. That's what that's
Speaker 4: what passed last night, the big beautiful bill. And it
Speaker 4: happened in the middle of the night. And here's here's
Speaker 4: a Fox reporter with a little bit of what's in it.
Speaker 5: What's in this bill.
Speaker 3: It's huge.
Speaker 5: It makes permanent those Trump twenty seventeen tax cuts, no
Speaker 5: taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime border security. They
Speaker 5: went after waste, fraud and abuse to make up for
Speaker 5: all that loss, and revenue reforms to medicate worker requirements
Speaker 5: and medicate start in twenty twenty six. That's a huge
Speaker 5: win for those holdouts. Increase is in state and local
Speaker 5: tax deduction caps that goes from ten thousand to forty thousand.
Speaker 5: That's a big win for Republicans and those high tax
Speaker 5: blue states. And it also raises a debt ceiling by
Speaker 5: four trillion. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has to be breathing
Speaker 5: a sigh of relief this morning.
Speaker 4: It's not at all not true what she just said.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's one hundred percent true. But for the reporter,
Speaker 4: on Fox to let you know about the big beautiful
Speaker 4: bill and say it's a win for those Republicans and
Speaker 4: blue states. Right after they played by the way, it
Speaker 4: wasn't just us, they played Mike Johnson saying it's a win.
Speaker 2: For fiscal conservatives.
Speaker 4: There's nothing that could be less conservative than that salt
Speaker 4: deduction portion of the bill.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I despise it. It's indefensible. We actually got one
Speaker 1: email saying, guys, I disagree. Yeah, here's a conservative defense
Speaker 1: of the salt degreement. As a conservative, we want smaller
Speaker 1: federal government and more power in the hands of the
Speaker 1: state and local governments that have a greater and more
Speaker 1: direct impact on our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've said that a million times.
Speaker 1: By deducting our local taxes from our burden of the
Speaker 1: federal government, we're taking power away from that centralized dentity,
Speaker 1: because money really is power in this case of no
Speaker 1: other chugging off the revenue stream, and theory with a
Speaker 1: fiscally responsible administration for its federal government to work within
Speaker 1: its means, well, that would be lovely.
Speaker 2: If that's Oh, I'd.
Speaker 1: Rather fight locally for what I believe and direct where
Speaker 1: my money goes than try to push the giant flacid
Speaker 1: rope that is Washington d C. I appreciate the imagery.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I don't like the word flacid. Get over it.
Speaker 1: So the problem with your argument, though, is that that
Speaker 1: empowers the most egregiously wasteful states. California is not spending
Speaker 1: the money in the way that you reference there, sir.
Speaker 2: That's the way you're in the way you're describing.
Speaker 1: It's squandering it on handouts to Crony's as this New
Speaker 1: York It's absolutely shameless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's got it. They have it.
Speaker 2: He had. That person has it completely backwards.
Speaker 4: It's it's a crime against humanity that red, fiscally conservative
Speaker 4: states have to pick up the slack for blue states
Speaker 4: that can run up their tax bills. It's just it's
Speaker 4: just absolute unelievable. Anyway, Again, what what Mike Jensen would
Speaker 4: say is there is not an appetite for fiscal conservatism
Speaker 4: in this country. Rush Limbaugh said, how many years ago
Speaker 4: was that? I should ask chat GPT what year did
Speaker 4: rush Limbaugh get a fair amount of flack for coming
Speaker 4: out and saying fiscal conservatism is dead. Nobody cares about that.
Speaker 4: I remember when he said it, and it was like
Speaker 4: it hurt my heart. Yeah, but he was just present hinting,
Speaker 4: you know, As George will says, one of the essence,
Speaker 4: one of the maybe core tenets of being a conservative
Speaker 4: is recognizing what is. Rush Limbaugh was recognizing what is.
Speaker 4: There is not a constituency for being.
Speaker 1: Fiscally conservative, and if they've got to tuck that behind
Speaker 1: the curtain and win elections to get done what we
Speaker 1: can get done.
Speaker 4: Until we, you know, collapse in ruin because we spent
Speaker 4: more than we could take in for too long, and
Speaker 4: eventually there's a price to pay for that. Well, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm reminded of and I think this is rock solid.
Speaker 4: When Winston Churchill, who spent as you may know, the
Speaker 4: nineteen thirties, howling to anybody who had listened, including his
Speaker 4: beloved in England, that the Nazis were building a war
Speaker 4: machine and were soon to be using it, and nobody
Speaker 4: paid attention to him, or at least they told him
Speaker 4: to shut up, he was wrong. We could negotiate instead,
Speaker 4: And then of course the invasion began and the war began,
Speaker 4: and then the very things he'd been pleaing for pleading
Speaker 4: for done, and Churchill said famously, nothing changes until you
Speaker 4: get invaded.
Speaker 1: I think the Mike Johnson's of the world is Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 1: The great Rush recognized back in the time, we'll continue
Speaker 1: spending like Hunter Biden on a coke binge until we're
Speaker 1: actually in a disaster.
Speaker 2: Katie, didn't you tell us he said it in twenty nineteen, so.
Speaker 4: Six years ago that he recognized what was clearly true
Speaker 4: then and is even more true now. Yeah, there aren't
Speaker 4: votes for being fiscally conservative. So somebody I don't know, uh,
Speaker 4: tweeted out after this, and it's true. It's like when
Speaker 4: it comes to losing weight. I've heard people say you
Speaker 4: can't outwork a bad diet. It's the calories you're taking in,
Speaker 4: not the exercise. You got to do both, but you
Speaker 4: can't out work taken in on those calories. I think
Speaker 4: this is the same premise here. The issue isn't taxes,
Speaker 4: it's spending. The issues isn't taxes, it's spending. The issue
Speaker 4: isn't taxes, it's spending. It repeats that for quite a while. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you can, you can deal with taxes all you want.
Speaker 4: It's the spending. You gotta stop spending so much money,
Speaker 4: and there's no appetite for cutting spending. And then Brit Hume,
Speaker 4: who is the senior analyst over at Fox Television and
Speaker 4: really really good, even though he's ancient.
Speaker 2: When I started covering Congress back.
Speaker 4: In the late seventies, I thought the two hardest votes
Speaker 4: you could make in Congress were for war.
Speaker 2: And raising taxes. I was wrong.
Speaker 4: The hardest thing, by far for Congress to do is
Speaker 4: clearly cut spending. That's the one vote you can't take
Speaker 4: as a Republican or a Democrat.
Speaker 2: Apparently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the ratification of the idea that the government is
Speaker 1: Santa Claus and Mammi is now.
Speaker 2: It's complete, it's solidified. It's just part of our culture.
Speaker 4: So anyway, I have one good another good summer of
Speaker 4: what should have happened.
Speaker 1: Right after this, and then more cheery fair absolutely yeah.
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Speaker 2: One of my.
Speaker 4: Favorite fiscal conservatives is Charles CW. Cook of the National Review,
Speaker 4: who retweeted a GOP that can't simply extend the twenty
Speaker 4: seventeen tax cuts defund Biden's ridiculous green energy blowouts period
Speaker 4: is worthless. In other words, you got the presidency, you
Speaker 4: got the Senate, you got the House. You could have
Speaker 4: come in and just done extend the tax cuts, defund
Speaker 4: the green energy period, but nope, had to add in
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of other goodies for a variety of people.
Speaker 4: That is going to grow the deficit by how many
Speaker 4: trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Three trillion over a decade. But those numbers are never
Speaker 1: too conservative? No, no, no, no, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: It's discouraging, discouraging. You know. I read a great piece
Speaker 2: by Carl Rove.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of folks, you know, despise as
Speaker 1: an old timey Republican needs.
Speaker 2: Don't get my brother started on Carl Rove, Oh.
Speaker 1: Boy, I won't, thanks to fair warning. But he wrote
Speaker 1: a piece called how the GOP can win Medicaid. Democrats
Speaker 1: won't let Republicans duck the issue, so go on the
Speaker 1: offensive instead, And I agree with him completely in this
Speaker 1: case GOP silence as the Democrats, and I've got great
Speaker 1: examples of this, try to terrify everybody that, oh, they're
Speaker 1: going to take away healthcare for blind babies, even though
Speaker 1: that's utterly fiction, just complete fiction. But rodwrides GOP silence
Speaker 1: will make the inevitable democratic assault more powerful, and Republicans
Speaker 1: have a lot of ammo with which to prevail on
Speaker 1: this front. And then he goes into some of the numbers.
Speaker 1: But here's a possible script for the Republican Medicaid off offense.
Speaker 1: Start by declaring a strong commitment to save the program.
Speaker 1: We're here to save it because of Democratic policies, Medicaid
Speaker 1: is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on people it shouldn't,
Speaker 1: who are able bodied, in working age. Republicans want this
Speaker 1: assistance to go to the people who is meant for
Speaker 1: the elderly, poor, disabled children, and low income families. Without reform,
Speaker 1: the program on which those Americans depend is at risk
Speaker 1: of rapidly becoming unsustainable. And the GOP should say able
Speaker 1: bodied adults on medication should be required to work or
Speaker 1: look for work, No freeloaders on a program meant for
Speaker 1: the truly vulnerable. That's a great argument, and listen to
Speaker 1: this more fact Jack.
Speaker 4: No mainstream media is reporting it that way, though they're
Speaker 4: only reporting eight million people will be cut from their
Speaker 4: health insurance, health coverage, or they usually say health care
Speaker 4: rear right, you're.
Speaker 2: Right, like you can't get medicine and you'll just die.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, So this is so interesting. A couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that sixty two
Speaker 1: percent of Americans support, and this is a quote from
Speaker 1: the uh poll, sixty two percent support requiring nearly all
Speaker 1: adults to work or be looking for work to qualify
Speaker 1: for medicaid. Thirty eight was a post It was sixty
Speaker 1: two to thirty eight. But if told that such a
Speaker 1: requirement quote could ensure that Medicaid is reserved for groups
Speaker 1: like the elderly, people with disabilities, and low income children,
Speaker 1: it was seventy seven.
Speaker 2: To twenty two. It's an eighty twenty issue. So this
Speaker 2: is either a measure of Republican cowardice or yes sting, or.
Speaker 1: How difficult it is to sell something to the American
Speaker 1: electorate in the year twenty twenty five that you don't
Speaker 1: even try to win a seventy seven to twenty two battle.
Speaker 2: Well, I would.
Speaker 4: I would be more willing to side with the it's
Speaker 4: just hard to do if I ever saw him do it.
Speaker 4: Plenty of Republicans on all these various talk shows on Sunday,
Speaker 4: and I ever see him make that argument try and fail.
Speaker 1: I mean, what if your kid said, no, I can't
Speaker 1: do that, son. You haven't even tried, but I can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess you shouldn't try it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta have your kids taken away. I'll raise them,
Speaker 1: send them my way. I'd be delighted. I got lord,
Speaker 1: it's a seventy seven to twenty two and they don't
Speaker 1: have the balls to fight that battle.
Speaker 6: And Trump isn't doing it either. No testicles boo boo.
Speaker 6: I say, that's the sound I was making at my
Speaker 6: Testla yesterday. I got so mad at Tesla yesterday. I
Speaker 6: may sell the cars and and give up on them.
Speaker 6: I got so angry at the technology, among other things.
Speaker 2: On the way stay here, don't take it. They'll backpedal
Speaker 2: of three from the hym and oh, I think that's
Speaker 2: a two. That is a two. You're right, that's gonna
Speaker 2: be a two. That only tells the game, that ties
Speaker 2: the game. We're going to be going over to you,
Speaker 2: sure are, man.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of build up for Pacers Nicks
Speaker 4: because it was such an exciting rivalry way back in
Speaker 4: the day, and I thought, Okay, that's great, same uniforms,
Speaker 4: but none of the players ended up being one of
Speaker 4: the best playoff games I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 4: That's in a lot of guts to come back from
Speaker 4: fourteen late in the game in front of.
Speaker 2: That Madison Square Garden crowd, but they came back in one.
Speaker 1: So look at this kind of a funny notion that
Speaker 1: it was a great rivalry thirty years ago, therefore we
Speaker 1: should be excited. And literally, that's not the same uniforms.
Speaker 1: They've probably changed them. But yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: If it's fun, it's fun. Life. Life is tough.
Speaker 1: Enjoy you know, the things you enjoy. If it's fun,
Speaker 1: enjoy the things you enjoy. Joe gives you permission to
Speaker 1: go out this Memorial Day weekend. Enjoys talking to you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy shut up, put money. I was talking to a
Speaker 1: friend of mine last night whose daughter is really into Buddhism,
Speaker 1: and she has taught him that life is suffering and
Speaker 1: and and part of the suffering is we reject change.
Speaker 1: We want stasis, but it'll never we will never get it.
Speaker 1: And so enjoy the love, you know, enjoy the joy
Speaker 1: when you can enjoy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, when I'm in that mindset, it really works.
Speaker 4: One of my favorite prayers from Saint Teresa of Avila, Uh,
Speaker 4: it's very short by one of the lines is everything
Speaker 4: is changing, and that is you know, you can use
Speaker 4: it on both sides when things are not working out. Well,
Speaker 4: this is not gonna last, never has in the past,
Speaker 4: and a good thing to remember when things are, you know,
Speaker 4: going well, this isn't gonna last either, so enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Well it's last, This too shall pass.
Speaker 4: Everything is constantly changing, and it's all finding the balance though.
Speaker 4: That's the that's the hard part of life, or at
Speaker 4: least for me, it is the balance on everything. Like
Speaker 4: I watched way too much sports when I was younger,
Speaker 4: way too much. I would I could have those probably.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's years that's too sad to contemplate,
Speaker 4: but certainly months of my life watching regular season NFL
Speaker 4: games or whatever. I wish I could have that time back.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, watching zero sports pretty much since
Speaker 4: I started raising kids.
Speaker 2: I watch an NBA game here.
Speaker 4: And there, and I have a really good time for
Speaker 4: a couple.
Speaker 2: Hours, Like I'm really happy.
Speaker 4: Why would I want to deny myself that even if
Speaker 4: it is frivolous useless, has no more meaning. I enjoyed it,
Speaker 4: so I don't know. For in charging the batteries, that's
Speaker 4: the meaning. Oh, speaking of batteries, here's my one. I
Speaker 4: got so angry at Tesla yesterday and I still.
Speaker 2: Haven't figured it out.
Speaker 4: I'll have to google it today. So I go to
Speaker 4: get in my car. There was a software update. That's
Speaker 4: one of the cool things about Tesla is the new
Speaker 4: model just came out overnight and it got downloaded into
Speaker 4: your car and you come out and the tech is
Speaker 4: different because they came up with a better way to
Speaker 4: do things.
Speaker 2: Like that happened on Monday. I got in my car
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, now the blind spot cameras show
Speaker 2: up here to see. Oh, that's cool. They just changed it.
Speaker 2: It is, it is. It's amazing.
Speaker 4: But yesterday I get in my car and I gotta
Speaker 4: go pick up my son from school. So I go
Speaker 4: get in my car. I gotta leave right now to
Speaker 4: make it on time, and you can't put it in
Speaker 4: drive and it says welcome to the new blah blah
Speaker 4: blah something or other.
Speaker 2: Download upload the up update the app.
Speaker 4: You gotta be kidding, and it gives me one of
Speaker 4: those whatever you call those things that you have to
Speaker 4: take a picture of to take you to a website.
Speaker 2: Oh, QR code, Yeah, gives me a QR code on
Speaker 2: my screen.
Speaker 4: When I get in my car, I do the QR code.
Speaker 4: It takes me at a website, then asks me for
Speaker 4: information that I don't have handy, and I just say
Speaker 4: screw it and go get my other vehicle where I
Speaker 4: put a key in the ignition and drive off anytime
Speaker 4: I freaking.
Speaker 2: Want to age. Man, Oh, that made me so mad.
Speaker 4: You're gonna leave me stranded here because you updated the
Speaker 4: software and improved my life somehow. Af you elon, what
Speaker 4: if your kid is bleeding and you're trying to get
Speaker 4: to the hospital or like a true emergency.
Speaker 2: That made me so mad, And I haven't figured it
Speaker 2: out yet.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I can, but you shouldn't need to go
Speaker 4: through any hoops to get in your car and drive off.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was furious much more to come stay with us,
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty whatever.
Speaker 2: You think of Hunter Biden.
Speaker 7: And there's certainly a lot of people in this town,
Speaker 7: Democrats and Republicans.
Speaker 2: That do not think a lot of him.
Speaker 7: There is a certain kind of like cruelty to the
Speaker 7: campaign against him.
Speaker 2: Where is Hunter? Where is Hunter? Where is Hunter?
Speaker 7: The right wing is going crazy with all sorts of
Speaker 7: allegations about Biden and his family, too disgusting to even
Speaker 7: repeat here. I mean, some of the ones I've seen
Speaker 7: from the President's son and the president some of the
Speaker 7: President's supporters are just wildly unhinged. I think that you
Speaker 7: came here and leveled a bunch of accusations and allegations.
Speaker 2: About it about Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I just said the facts.
Speaker 4: So that's a little montage of Jake Tapper back in
Speaker 4: the day attacking anybody who went after Hunter Biden for anything. Now,
Speaker 4: his book has got all kinds of background stuff about
Speaker 4: what a scumbag Hunter was, which he knew at the time. Wow,
Speaker 4: and I thought this was interesting. This is a couple
Speaker 4: of more things on the whole. Biden declined cover up
Speaker 4: Jake Tapper book all that it's a giant scandal or.
Speaker 2: It should be.
Speaker 4: One of the biggest scandals in American political history, the
Speaker 4: biggest media failure in American history easily, I think. But
Speaker 4: so Tom Bevin, a real Clear Politics wrote another nauseating
Speaker 4: fact about the Tapper Thompson book. They've gotten more media
Speaker 4: in two days than most authors get in a lifetime,
Speaker 4: all of it from liberal media.
Speaker 2: Except for Megan Kelly.
Speaker 4: None of these outlets would have given a minute to
Speaker 4: conservatives if they had written the same book.
Speaker 2: Case in point, how.
Speaker 4: Many legacy outlets and networks and late night shows and
Speaker 4: podcasts had Miranda Divine of The New York Post, on
Speaker 4: who wrote her book Laptop from Hell, that every bit
Speaker 4: of it was true about Hunter Biden's laptop.
Speaker 2: I mean, and this is after it.
Speaker 4: Got proved, prove the cover up that the laptop was true.
Speaker 4: This wasn't at the time even though it was true.
Speaker 4: This was after even the Washington Post was saying everything
Speaker 4: in there was accurate and the FBI and all that
Speaker 4: she wrote a book.
Speaker 2: Called Laptop from Hell.
Speaker 4: Didn't get to go on any of these shows or
Speaker 4: podcasts zero And then she responded to those tweets saying,
Speaker 4: this is true.
Speaker 2: I did not. Nobody asked me to come on any
Speaker 2: of those shows.
Speaker 4: I got zero appearances on any shows, No New York
Speaker 4: Times bestseller list either.
Speaker 2: She said.
Speaker 4: The book did launch it number one on Amazon and
Speaker 4: still sells its little socks off, which is exactly the
Speaker 4: same as the everybody in America. Two thirds of Americans
Speaker 4: knew Biden was too old, but the media didn't cover it.
Speaker 4: Most of America understand the laptop story and and.
Speaker 2: Actually bought it.
Speaker 4: See the New York Times bestseller List is a compilation
Speaker 4: of sales and reviews and opinions of what they think
Speaker 4: are important books. Amazon is just flat out sales. So
Speaker 4: she was number one on Amazon because actual, real people thought, well,
Speaker 4: that's an interesting story that I would like to read about.
Speaker 2: New York Times didn't think it was worthwhile, not even
Speaker 2: worth mentioning. Yeah, and anything.
Speaker 1: I want to give you this quote again. We're talking
Speaker 1: about how Giana scandal, the Joe Biden stuff was Again,
Speaker 1: this is one of the cabinet secretaries from the Taper
Speaker 1: Thompson book. I've never seen a situation like this before,
Speaker 1: with so few people having so much power, they would
Speaker 1: make huge economic decisions without calling the Treasury secretary.
Speaker 2: Bah bah bah.
Speaker 1: The evidence is mounting that these aids didn't just hide
Speaker 1: Biden from the public, they hid information from Biden, including
Speaker 1: the reality of how.
Speaker 2: Many elected Democrats wanted him out.
Speaker 1: So you had that small cabal of advisors shielding Biden
Speaker 1: from the world and shielding the world from Biden and
Speaker 1: making all the decisions.
Speaker 4: That is amazing, Yeah, Tappa writes, and I'm only she's
Speaker 4: of twenty percent. Through the book, Tappa writes about how
Speaker 4: that inner circle had become more about protecting the Biden
Speaker 4: family myth than protecting the country, democrats or anything else.
Speaker 4: It was just about protecting the Biden family and that's
Speaker 4: what their job was on a day by day basis.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, this reminds me this is another one of those
Speaker 1: situations where there is one response slash excuse that I
Speaker 1: would have to accept. I just wish somebody had the
Speaker 1: guts to offer it up honestly, and that would be Guys,
Speaker 1: what you're suggesting would have brought Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: To the Oval office, and we.
Speaker 4: Thought that was too terrible, right, which might actually be
Speaker 4: the reason, although I think it's more likely that it's
Speaker 4: we really really liked our power.
Speaker 2: We had enormous power, and we grew to like it.
Speaker 4: You combine the two, right, you have the one you got,
Speaker 4: the Kamala Harris excuse.
Speaker 2: We've all done this in our lives. You've got a way.
Speaker 4: To excuse what you want to do that might not
Speaker 4: be self indulgence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Tapra was
Speaker 4: on Morning Joe yesterday. I didn't actually watch it.
Speaker 2: I should.
Speaker 4: We had a clip that we didn't play. Tapa was
Speaker 4: on Morning Joe explaining that Biden had targeted, had made
Speaker 4: a targeted effort to convince Scarborough he was fit for office.
Speaker 2: We've talked about this before.
Speaker 4: These cable news shows have no ratings, but particularly Morning
Speaker 4: Joe on MSNBC is hugely important to Democrats. They actually
Speaker 4: get up in the morning and watch that. The Obama
Speaker 4: people did, and the Biden people do, and I think
Speaker 4: Trump does to a certain extent. But so they have
Speaker 4: an oversized influence on these White houses. And Biden went
Speaker 4: out of his way to make sure Scarborough believed he
Speaker 4: was he was okay. Scarborough talking about on Halprin's show
Speaker 4: about how he sat with Biden for three hours and
Speaker 4: he was sharp at least at that moment, which is,
Speaker 4: you know, still ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You saw him all the other moments on television.
Speaker 4: As as Mark Halprin says, you don't even need to
Speaker 4: have a cable you not only do you not need
Speaker 4: to have a source within the White House. You don't
Speaker 4: even need to have cable because it was on se SPAN.
Speaker 4: If you just watch se Span every day, you could
Speaker 4: see that Joe Biden was unfit for office.
Speaker 2: Right. I have one more nugget, Oh.
Speaker 4: So Ezra Kline, columnist for the New York Times, who
Speaker 4: often makes me insane.
Speaker 2: Because I disagree with him so much.
Speaker 4: He did write a piece way back saying that Biden
Speaker 4: should not be the nominee and he wasn't fit.
Speaker 2: And they need to move on. And he got killed
Speaker 2: by the left for it.
Speaker 4: It was a pretty gutsy thing for him to do,
Speaker 4: a pretty honest thing for him to do, and he
Speaker 4: got killed for it. And he did an interview with
Speaker 4: Jake Tapper yesterday that I have not watched yet because
Speaker 4: it just came out y the afternoon, but he writes
Speaker 4: this in his column.
Speaker 2: I think there is a point here.
Speaker 4: Before Biden's announcement, I spoke to Tapper about the book
Speaker 4: and about the ways in which I think that a
Speaker 4: cover up would be an almost more comforting explanation for
Speaker 4: the group think and denial that characterized Democrats in this period.
Speaker 4: There's a question in here that is relevant beyond just Biden.
Speaker 4: How do you see what is right in front of
Speaker 4: your eyes when you very much don't want to see it?
Speaker 4: So as reclient getting to what since the essence of this,
Speaker 4: which we've been talking about for a while, that's the story.
Speaker 4: Can human beings want something to be true so much
Speaker 4: that you're just blind to what's right in front of
Speaker 4: your face now? Orwell wrote about it eighty years ago.
Speaker 4: I think that's a lot of what.
Speaker 2: Was going on here.
Speaker 4: Some of it was just cold calculated you have no spine,
Speaker 4: you don't care about your country lying.
Speaker 2: But I think there's a lot of it.
Speaker 4: You didn't want that to be true so much you
Speaker 4: convinced yourself that it was a stutter, or that evil
Speaker 4: Trump was exaggerating him and his crowd were exaggerating how
Speaker 4: bad it was. I think, yeah, I find myself thinking
Speaker 4: about Jake tapperan and owned up to that, though I
Speaker 4: wish he would.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking about how different people have different needs,
Speaker 1: speaking of rationalizing things for belonging and different levels of skepticism.
Speaker 1: I've talked about my three kids, how they're very different
Speaker 1: from each other. I just need to accept or try
Speaker 1: to understand that there are people whose capacity for self delusion,
Speaker 1: their inability to see what they don't want to see,
Speaker 1: or their ability to kind of squash it and push
Speaker 1: it back so they get the acceptance of the peers
Speaker 1: that they really want their acceptance. It's way, way beyond mine.
Speaker 1: I would be sick the whole time. I think, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are things I don't recognize, but it's got
Speaker 1: to exist on a continuum. I mean, you look at
Speaker 1: a really impressionable, alienated, whatever, nineteen year old college girl.
Speaker 1: If she gets social reinforcement, she will say anything, She
Speaker 1: will chant anything at Columbia, she'll throw on the kafia
Speaker 1: and and and believe the most.
Speaker 2: You know, like the whole the whole world.
Speaker 1: Is divided into victims and our oppressors, and victims can
Speaker 1: do no wrong and opressures can do no right.
Speaker 2: I've said before, if my dog.
Speaker 1: Espoused a philosophy that's stupid, I'd hit them with a
Speaker 1: rolled up newspaper.
Speaker 4: You have a talking dog, and you're hitting it with
Speaker 4: the newspaper really sitting on You're sitting on a gold mine.
Speaker 4: So your thing is it'd be cool to have a
Speaker 4: talking dog. But if I disagree with it it ain't
Speaker 4: worth well, no, no, not if it annoys me.
Speaker 2: No politics.
Speaker 1: So you can get otherwise intelligent young particularly although I
Speaker 1: look at some of the long haired hippie boomer jackasses
Speaker 1: at various marches and wonder about youth.
Speaker 2: But anyway, you can get people.
Speaker 1: To say inane, stupid things if you reinforce it socially.
Speaker 1: You can convince a boy that he's a girl if
Speaker 1: people pat him on the back and say good for you.
Speaker 1: And we people like us, just have to accept that
Speaker 1: there are some people who's whose ability to delude themselves
Speaker 1: is way beyond what we can imagine.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do about it except yell
Speaker 2: at him.
Speaker 1: It seems.
Speaker 2: It seems to be just human nature.
Speaker 4: And I assume, like everything else in human nature, it's
Speaker 4: a continuum and it varies from person in person, But
Speaker 4: it seems to be human nature that we can delude ourselves.
Speaker 2: If we want something to be true.
Speaker 4: Here's my here's a great example that I always that
Speaker 4: I think about a lot. And I know I've said
Speaker 4: this before, but it's it's worth hearing if you haven't
Speaker 4: heard it.
Speaker 2: So David Frand.
Speaker 4: She's currently a columnist for The New York Times used
Speaker 4: to be at the Dispatch. He is a conservative. He
Speaker 4: went to Harvard Law blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Very smart guy. We've had him on the air before.
Speaker 4: I heard him talking about one time he said, I,
Speaker 4: like a lot of lawyers when we when you know,
Speaker 4: when we're going to law school and we we're going
Speaker 4: to go out into the world of law, wonder about
Speaker 4: how am I going to defend somebody that's done something horrible?
Speaker 2: Even though I understand the whole.
Speaker 4: Justice system and everybody gets a defense and it strengthens
Speaker 4: our system, how do you defend somebody who's done He said,
Speaker 4: It has never been an issue once because you always
Speaker 4: find a way to justify defending the person you just do.
Speaker 4: And I think that's an example of it. You could
Speaker 4: find the way to believe them no, but you find
Speaker 4: one aspect of it that you can hang on to
Speaker 4: that can help you justify defend you.
Speaker 2: So it's never a conundrum for your conscience.
Speaker 4: And I'll bet that it's the same thing with the
Speaker 4: whole Biden thing, or lots of things in people's lives,
Speaker 4: but the whole Biden thing, you just needed a nugget
Speaker 4: or two, whether it's Kamala or how much you hate
Speaker 4: Trump or something that you could justify it and your
Speaker 4: and your conscience wouldn't bother you.
Speaker 1: I can hear it unfolding. You rewrite it, and then
Speaker 1: you justify it. You say, yeah, Biden slowed down a step,
Speaker 1: but Trump is the new Hitler. So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to spend my time worrying about that. And so you
Speaker 1: rewrite it into a form that is acceptable and.
Speaker 2: You move on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Yeah, well, you know, we got to call
Speaker 1: people out on it.
Speaker 2: Understanding is not the same as condoning.
Speaker 4: No, and Jake Tapper does, and and and until Jake
Speaker 4: Tapper finally does an interviewer, he says, I had deluded myself.
Speaker 4: I've gone back and looked at this Biden stuff, and
Speaker 4: now you know, it's just I can't I can't believe.
Speaker 4: I'm horrified at the things I said on the air.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't see it, and that horrifies me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be worth saying.
Speaker 2: He hasn't come close to that yet.
Speaker 4: No, and again, so he said on Megan Kelly the
Speaker 4: other day, he said the conservatives were right, the liberals
Speaker 4: were wrong.
Speaker 2: You didn't say that in your book.
Speaker 4: You've come to that conclusion in the last two weeks,
Speaker 4: when your pr thing it's gone nuts, when people keep
Speaker 4: you tucking you. You thought you would be hailed as
Speaker 4: a truth teller and you're being mocked as a hypocrite
Speaker 4: and a dope.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely right. God, I hope we get an
Speaker 2: interview with him. I can't wait. I can't wait.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go full Tanya Harding for those of you
Speaker 4: who've been listening long and.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, she canceled the rest of her tour.
Speaker 2: All right, stick around. I got a question for fancy
Speaker 2: Joe Getty.
Speaker 1: So that is a moniker I've never heard used to
Speaker 1: describe me before.
Speaker 4: So I've recently, I feel like I've gotten into espresso,
Speaker 4: which until I was forty five years old I pronounced
Speaker 4: with an ex experts lord.
Speaker 1: Room.
Speaker 2: I don't think I knew what it was anyway. I
Speaker 2: just do like.
Speaker 4: A capsule sort of thing, you know, when you're cheeryg
Speaker 4: or an espresso or whatever.
Speaker 2: Nothing super fancy. Do you do you do fancy?
Speaker 4: Do you like got a machine that like grinds beans
Speaker 4: and makes your own this and that and heats up milk,
Speaker 4: And do you have one of those is a fancy person.
Speaker 1: I've gone like halfway down that road in the past,
Speaker 1: but I just I don't want to spend the time.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. That's what I was wondering, is the time,
Speaker 4: because I kind of like.
Speaker 1: MEI coffee is wonderful, fresh ground coffee is just fabulous.
Speaker 4: But I kind of like the idea since I don't
Speaker 4: drink so I can't do you know, different kinds of
Speaker 4: beers or whiskeys or scotches or.
Speaker 2: Wine or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Maybe you know, becoming an espresso freak wray, you know,
Speaker 4: buy some good stuff and grind them whatever.
Speaker 2: But if it takes a lot of time, I just
Speaker 2: know I'll never do it.
Speaker 4: Somebody sent me a link the other day to this
Speaker 4: like thousand dollars william Snoma espresso machine thingy, and I
Speaker 4: started fantasizing about that and how cool that would be intervented.
Speaker 2: But if it's gonna take fifteen.
Speaker 4: Minutes of cleaning after every time having an espresso shot
Speaker 4: or setting it up or whatever, I just know I'll
Speaker 4: never use it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the few advantages to getting a little older
Speaker 1: is I'm more realistic about will I use this? Will
Speaker 1: I be willing to, as you point out, clean it
Speaker 1: the rest of it.
Speaker 2: And I've decided, nah, not for now.
Speaker 1: You know, I could see some day when and if
Speaker 1: I ever retire doing that, because I'll have a little
Speaker 1: more time.
Speaker 2: But no, I haven't bothered.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really really gym equipment. Like would just I think,
Speaker 4: sit there on the counter and mock me daily.
Speaker 2: Remember what you spent on me? When's the last time
Speaker 2: you use it?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 1: I do have a semi fancy I mean just it's
Speaker 1: kind of just one step beyond the very basic an
Speaker 1: espresso machine and the pods are considerably more expensive than
Speaker 1: a Kurg for instance.
Speaker 2: But it's really really Oh, you gotta tell me what
Speaker 2: that is? What is that? What is secret?
Speaker 1: What do you use it?
Speaker 4: No, it's then espresso machine and an espresso pods. Oh,
Speaker 4: it's it's one step beyond the currig?
Speaker 2: Is what you use it?
Speaker 1: Okay, I see, it's one step beyond the very basic espresso.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not not by much. I can't do
Speaker 1: it froth anything. I might go to the very end
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 4: I might hire a Colombian who lives in my house
Speaker 4: and like he stomps the beans with his bare feet
Speaker 4: every morning.
Speaker 1: Grow.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, he brings the beans into my kitchen on
Speaker 4: a burrow then puts them up in the thing.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, yeah, you know what.
Speaker 1: You love coffee, and the coffee's wonderful when you do that.
Speaker 2: But you gotta make it one.
Speaker 4: Of those cats that craps it out on my counter
Speaker 4: and then you put it in.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, none, that's a commitment. What do you
Speaker 1: got to feed those things? Well, you feed them coffee
Speaker 1: means I think right. Anyway, you put it's crap in
Speaker 1: your coffee.
Speaker 2: There you go. That's fine.
Speaker 1: Maybe you famously never read directions. I would go ahead
Speaker 1: and read those directions. How Jack die well? Civet cat fever?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: So coming up next hour, it's going to be a blockbuster.
Speaker 1: This is going to be our Tony or Amy or
Speaker 1: whatever they give out in radio. Not only do we
Speaker 1: have a really good, interesting, and very funny campus madness update,
Speaker 1: but following up on the Jake Tapper discussion and our
Speaker 1: abilities to delude ourselves, do you know what mimetic thinking is.
Speaker 2: I've just learned about this.
Speaker 1: Humans are intensely social animals, and we care even if
Speaker 1: we deny it about our status are standing with others,
Speaker 1: and the things we do or don't do, or say
Speaker 1: or don't say, or believe or don't believe can be
Speaker 1: heavily influenced by that.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 4: I'm sure it's part of an evolutionary survival mechanism that
Speaker 4: we need to have Afterbible as a beast. But like
Speaker 4: everything else I was talking about earlier, it's about moderation.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. It's a question of balance.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned if you can't grab it ya podcast
Speaker 1: Armstrong You Getty on demand Strong and Getty