Let's Not Become Europe Today

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Katty arm Strong and Jettie and Key.

Arms from Studio C see signor it's the first time.

In a month.

I've made it through that, Doug Coffing, that's fantastic progress.

We're in a dimly lit room deep with from the bowels of the Armstrong and Getty Communications Compound. Hey, y'all on little Wednesday. We're under the tutelage of our general manager, and.

I couldn't decide to keep going back and Forest, do you have a favorite funny?

You would say that I was just.

Reading the morning newsletter I read every single day for Mark Alburn, and he said this is the first time in his career he can remember where when he got up in the morning, he checked his top twenty five news sources and No.

Two had the same headline.

Oh, and that was the lead story in that it's so spread out over what people think is a big story today, which obviously we get to decide what we think is a big story.

Sure, sure, and there are several. Honestly, if I was gonna go with one, I.

Don't even know Biden's nodule, the backlash, the nodule.

On his prostate, among other things. Where are you on that? Do you what do you think happened? I was just watching News Nation today is you're flipping around the channels and everything like that. MSNBC has decided to not cover the story anymore. I'll bet they got so much pushback yesterday, I bet they got killed by a lot of their viewers.

Wow to if it even in a minor way towards sanity in the center, they get.

Murdered for it.

They even they kind of led the way on the whole. Wait a second, this timing is beyond suspicious. They were like the lead on that yesterday. So but they were the first person to have a doctor on questioning that, but didn't cover it all today News Nation though, they just stated it flatly, like not like even analysis, just like news analysis. The guy they talked to, there are

I mean, they just stated it as fact. Do you think that that's that clear?

I just happened to read an email from one of our favorite correspondents who was rejecting that idea, saying that the announcement of the cancer thing would draw more attention to Biden's decline in age and that sort of thing. And I'm not buying the argument. I think it is injecting the cloud of sympathy, right and and and.

You know, here's an old fellow with a dread disease. He's near death.

We can't be talking about him critically. Yeah, that fits beautifully does. And the other explanation is inexplicable. Yeah real, they just never tested him and never had any symptoms.

No, come on, I.

Took in so much news coverag yesterday and I'd say ninety nine out of one hundred doctors say it's impossible.

But they didn't know about this earlier. I mean, it's just doesn't That's not the way it works. You don't get to the level nine whatever reading on your prostate cancer the first time you get checked, right as president of the United States. But anyway, here's one aspect of it that we should not put up with as a people.

I've been saying this for years. I wish we could demand as a as a self governing country to get information back. We should have been.

Able to demand yes yesterday, the media should have demanded, and people should have fell in line, knowing that voters will not put up with anything short of this.

The doctor that looked at Joe Biden should have been on TV yesterday afternoon answering the question did you ever check him for prostate cancer?

If not, why not? And if yes, what were the results? That should have happened yesterday afternoon. There's no reason for it to not. It's the president of the freaking United States, right, What's what's the reason to compel that? Though I agree with you, such a PARENTCYS as a governing body, everybody should have to tell us everything, all the time, immediately.

About their personal medical reality. That's a stretch.

I'm not saying I disagree exactly, but it's a stretch.

They do it physical every single year. They talk about it. Yeah, I think it in a completely dishonest way. Yes, I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask the question did you check for prostate cancer? Okay, you want to politically say it's none of your business, Okay, roll the dice on that. Go ahead and say it's not the public's business, my own personal health's.

I find this a really interesting conversation. Up where do we draw the line? I mean, if if the president has a rash on his ass, does he have.

To disclose that.

For instance, No, it's got a tendency toward acne, dandruff, And.

So where where do you draw the line? And I don't way on the other side of you had a cancer, that the treatment causes you to have mental difficulties and trouble walking.

Yes, that is one of the leading theories at this point. Yes, I would agree. I just again, it's the practicalities of it that I'm getting hung up.

Think a different topic then if you're if you if the medical one is too complicated for you, pick the dog bite one, or you know, any of the any of the many things that happened, somebody should have to answer questions immediately.

Yes, yeah, I absolutely agree with you in principle, the dog bite one.

That comes up because I was listening, I was watching a I was watching a podcast last night with reporters with with with one reporter making the point that early on in the Biden White House there they would cover up everything. He said, they wouldn't be transparent about the tiniest thing he said. At the very beginning, there was I don't know if you remember, way back, there was

It's people's house, taxpayer thing. You can't do that clause whatever it is. And they light about that, and the reporter's like, this is so, I mean, why are you lying about this? I mean, you're not being honest about this. The dog bites, they weren't. They weren't honest about that. From the very beginning. There was a whole bunch of different things that the guy saw. These are minor incidents, and why are you covering these up?

And it's just the way they operated. They weren't honest about anything ever.

Right.

I just don't know how to deal with this other than yelling about it on the radio. I mean, like Trump's first medical disclosures were hilarious.

I mean, he wasn't even trying.

He found a guy on the street who may or may not have been a doctor, who declared him the healthiest man to ever inhabit the planet Earth. And that was it was there a political price to pay, no, or at least not measurable.

So I got the Jake Tapper book last night and I started into it, and I read quite a bit to go, and I've got some highlights from Matt.

With the main takeaway being, first of all, it's hilarious.

It's unintentionally hilarious, really completely unintentionally hilarious.

They take themselves so seriously.

They're letting the world know, they're pulling back the curtain and allowing you to get a glimpse.

I mean, it's just that it's hilarious. Are you kidding?

I mean they open with a Shakespeare quote on the first page before they get into it. I thought, you've got to be kidding. You're going now way too self important here.

This really gets to are our core question about this? Your core question about this? The answer appears to be yes, Jake Tapper and the other fellow who did some good reporting for Axios.

At the time or whatever it was. But Jake Tapper is that bubbled in, that self delusional. He doesn't know that we know.

New That's one hundred percent right, I'm not trying to soften that at all, because you've got the evidence of polls showing that majorities of Americans knew. So if majorities of Americans new and with zero sources inside the White House, why do you need any of those of you have sources.

But and it's not like we had a vague suspicion it was denigible.

But it is more than I had realized. The tightest inner circle, we're lying to everybody like at the next level, Like I don't know how they're you know, Washington, d C. Is famously if you want a friend, get a dog, there are no you have no friends. I mean, everybody just doesn't what's in their best self interest. But I can't believe that there aren't more destroyed relationships. It'd be like if you were lying to me about something important to the show for years.

And because I would obviously I would believe you. I mean, that's that's the way it was.

It was.

It was like senators who had worked with other people who were now you know, chief of staff or whatever in the inner circle for for decades.

Yeah, who would say, damn, I'm a little worried about the president.

I mean he looked roughly, don't trust me behind closed doors, He's fine, you know. And you take their word for it because it's somebody you've known for years.

And you go out and repeat it yourself.

Yes, because they wouldn't hang out to dry. This is somebody you've known forever, your close friends, and they did. They lied to like the people that have known forever.

You know.

I think in DC, and Lord knows, I'm not a student of that culture. I find it horrifying in every way. But I have a feeling that the brighter the light in front of you, meaning the greater the power in front of you, the less the little lights behind.

You are even visible.

I mean, if you're next to the ultimate power, that senator you worked with for twenty years, I don't even see his light anymore.

Irony that Best Center, baby, because they're just crocodiles, those people.

I guess I got one more thing on the cancer thing I want to say, But first we should start the show officially.

I'm Jack Armstrong, He's Joe Getty on this.

It is Tuesday, May the twentieth, the year twenty twenty five or Armstrong and getting we approve of this program.

Yeah, remind me, Michael's gotta give me my monthly prostate exam during the commercial break.

I don't want to forget.

And full disclosure, we put all the pictures up on the website. Oh yeah, if you want to see them all, Right, here we go. Here's the beginning of the show.

Officially now, according to the FCC rules regulations, here we are Mark.

If they came out and said, yeah, Biden knew about it five years ago, I wouldn't be shocked. If they came out and said Biden found out on Friday, I wouldn't be shocked. And I understand the excitement over an insidious democratic cover up about Joe Biden's mental decline. The thing is, though, it was a terrible cover up because we all knew.

That new accept the big Foot media, and they would just such a fascinating psychological study. Yes, not only were they unaware, they were angry at the very suggestion that it was true, including the guy who wrote the book I was reading last night. Oh scream that Laura Trump for claiming it wasn't the stutter. Yeah, I'll have to.

I got some excerpts from the book that are funny. I'll do my screed about the playing on their emotions from the Biden family, which I think they're doing, which is just unconscionable. It is really unconscionable what they're doing. They should be ashamed of themselves.

We'll get there.

They lack the capacity apparently. Yeah, we got Katie's headlines on the way. We got lots today. I hope you can figure out.

Man.

The NBA has got to be happy that the New York Knicks have gotten on a roll because the final four teams are Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Indiana.

And New York. That is not the star power they want or the big markets that they want. Oh probably not.

I got lucky. New York made it in fantastic. I'm happy for them, the good folks, and they try real hard.

Man.

What a crazy show we have today. Just too much to describe, So let's dive into it. Let's figure out who's reporting what it's lead story with Katie Green Katie.

Starting with NBC, Trump allies shift from well wishes to suggesting Biden hid his cancer diagnosis because he obviously did.

The question is for how long? Yeah?

What was that?

Trump allies did that? Yeah? Trump? This is from NYC. Trump like Joe Scarborough.

Yeah, right, I was listening to NPR on the drive in and they said, while initially offering well wishes. Later in the day, Trump turned to conspiracy theories about Biden's diagnosis.

Is it a conspiracy theory? Really?

Every single doctor I heard yesterday, like one hundred doctors said no way.

They just found out about.

This on Friday, every single one.

I feel about.

The phrase conspiracy theory very much like I feel about.

The phrase fact check.

It's an indication that the opposite is happening, but somebody is just trying to, you know, deny without denying.

Please.

From the Hill, Natanya who says Israel will control all of Gaza take over aid deliveries.

The old weight didn't work very well, did it.

From the La Times, Palm Spring's bombing investigation turns to the explosives.

How are they sourced and built?

Yeah, that's what I asked yesterday. Where does this guy learn how to build a bomb and where to get this stuff? So, yeah, I'm gonna have to read that La Times.

Article the internet and around I'm guessing and what a lunatic? Oh anti human activist Shiemani from the Washington.

Post Supreme court allows Trump.

To cancel protected status for Venezuelans for now.

Yeah, that's quite the story.

I'd hate to be a Venezuelan who has given the gift of temporary protected status by Biden and then have it disappear.

But what are you gonna do?

So if the President can, with the stroke of a pen, declares something, the next guy can undeclare.

It From ABC.

Russia attacks Ukraine with drones after the Trump putin phone call.

Yeah, biggest drone attack over the weekend. They tried to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile but it either didn't fire, or they changed their mind or something.

Nobody's sure, but.

They almost fired off one of those over the weekend, of course, which would have gotten a lot of.

Attention USA Today, six inmates still on the run after escape from New Orleans jail.

Search enters day five. There are parts of.

The South, including Louisiana, that have a reputation for being a little fast and loose and sloppy and corrupt and old boyish, and a number of different descriptors. This would not discourage me from thinking some of those cliches are true. These guys just broke out with ease, were gone for eight hours before anybody had any idea.

My favorite part is they left the message we One of them left the message behind It said too easy spelled too easy y lol.

From the New York Post, French pizza chef confesses to killing reclusive man, then shopping and cooking his body in a pot of vegetables.

Oh delicious, a French pizza chef. That's the horn part to me, does that even mean? French pizza chef?

And finally, from the.

Babylon b experts say AI unlikely to replace government bureaucrats because it's not soulless enough.

And speaking of AI, so, there was a Shakespeare quote at the beginning of the new Jake Tapper book that I didn't understand and I was going to Google it, and I thought, no, I'm going to do chat GPT.

I put it in chet GPT. What does this mean?

Explained it at length with examples in a way that Google.

Could have never done.

Oh no, no, sell your stock, yes, man, if you're not using chat GPT to answer simple questions, it's so much better than going.

Or one of the other ones are terrific as well. You know the way I have stock in Oh sorry, I'll get out of the way.

Some of the revelations from the book, among other things on the way.

So they done, Armstrong and Getty.

President now claiming quote some progress in the effort to end the war in Ukraine, saying he thinks Putin quote has had enough, but Putin giving no indications Russia is any closer to a ceasefire. President Trump now saying he will leave it up to Ukraine and Russia to negotiate for now.

What about the Putin call? Remember we had a clip of that. What was that about? Show years ago? The Putin call?

That's from like eight years ago, so I don't remember it at the very beginning of Trump one. Yeah, any who, Trump was on the phone with Vladimir Putin for about two hours yesterday and takeaway seems to be I'm gonna let them work it out. Which where does that leave things?

Yeah.

I feel like those of us who would like to see the US backing Ukraine are digging through about our fifteenth pile of manure looking for the pony in Trump's negotiations. Just this, maybe he's got this up his sleeve, you know, feeling or hope. It's just it's been dashed over and over again.

Well, he does have to go one way or the other.

We are either going to continue to back Ukraine the way we have for three years or not. And if we're not, that's a major change.

I think it's more likely that one happens.

Will he announce it or will it will it just become evident at some point, I don't know, after this period of Zelensky in Ukraine and Europe doing everything conceivable conceivable.

To make it clear we want peace too, We're with you on this and putin never giving a single sign that he has any interest in Trump's piece too. No, if the US policy becomes well then you all are on your own. We're not going to support a Ukraine.

Well then we've but it's not a nothing. We've cided with right now. In my opinion, I know one hundred that's exactly my point.

Yeah, And what seemed to be the lean is indeed coming true. It was it was less than Putin showing you wasn't interested in peace right now. He gave Trump a long lecture of about why Ukraine belongs to Russia, and he said this will not end until the underlying problems are solved. Well, the underlying problems will not be solved until he has Ukraine correct.

Yeah. Yeah.

As Rich Lowry writes in The National Review, the play for the Kremlin is obvious here. It wants to keep pinching ahead with territorial gains, and if it continues to string along the negotiations, has to hope that Trump tires of the whole thing and cuts off USA to Ukraine. That would reward Putin's intransigent with an important diplomatic victory is split between the US and Europe, and a chance to make major advances against an increasingly hard pressed Ukraine.

Well.

Jd Vance presented it as as well, if you guys aren't interested, then hey, we're out. As if that is actually a neutral position, that is not a neutral position, that's a taking the side of Russian position. So I don't know if they're just trying, if they're trying to fool people by presenting it is like we're staying.

Neutral on this or what. So the ball is.

First off, I think in Trump's court, but then absolutely in Europe's court as they got to figure out what to do. So they had a big meeting over the weekend of European leaders with a couple of interesting things that came out of it. A big defense meeting of the Germany, the big people Germany, Britain, France, poland a

So that's a pretty big deal economically for Russia.

Yeah, they also announced in that meeting that Russia will does not present NATO a dilemma in five like had previously been thought if the war were to end soon, but could within a year, like they could be back up to speed enough within a year to present NATO a real bulemma of what do we do now? If they move on Estonia, they would be strong enough. That's what the European countries announced over the weekend. And then I really liked this quote that came out of it.

Oh that's some good ice sport metaphor slinging there, sir, Yeah, Adam, well done.

That went with also one of the leaders saying the years of two percent funding of our military are over.

It's going to have to be more like five percent. Yeah, if there were days.

I wish we had unlimited time for this sort of thing because it's so interesting.

I have all sorts of interesting.

Well I suppose you all will be the judge of that when I delivered it, but I found it really really intriguing analysis of Europe and everything that's wrong with it. I think the Russia attack on Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea and the attack on Georgia and everything else has has and Germany continuing to buy oil from Russia after that happened, and all those kinds of things.

Well, right, I think.

It's finally gotten to the point that it's shaken the dopey, dopey Euros out of their torpor, their their their sleepiness, their fantasy land that they've been living in for the past a bunch of years. After you know, the US security umbrella enabled them to invest vast sums of money into welfare states and socialism and the rest of it. And and I would I would like to issue a hammering indictment against them for all of that crap. But

Yeah, I love that. Here here's the takeaway.

And this was going to be the takeaway after I built a case over many, many minutes.

But I'll give you the takeaway.

We need to work every day as a country to not become Europe. And there are a couple of examples of a great piece by Walter Russell Mead about why democracy is in retreat, and he cites several cases in Europe about anybody who does not go along with the very very mainstream view of who ought to get elected and what policies ought to be passed is decried as undemocratic and dangerous, like the AfD party in Germany. And I could go into detail on that. The more I learned,

The most seats.

It's obvious the effort to keep them out because of a few crack pots and being a little soft down Russia or whatever is just it's twisting the German political system into knots.

They're subsessed with it.

The men declared a terrorist organization or whatever so people can listen to their phone calls and read their emails.

Well, yes, but actually, as long as we're talking about this is let me click over.

I think it's right there.

Yeah, So last week the German government officially designated the opposition party AfD as a confirmed extremist organization. The announcement came from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, their domestic intelligence agency, blah blah blah. Then on Wednesday they abruptly withdrew the extremist label. They will now monitor the party only as a suspected case, which still allows some surveillance in a way Americans would find repugnant, but

It's a juggernaut.

But you want to talk tech, Oh, it's sad, it's pathetic. Apple's market value is bigger than the entire German stock market, for instance. There's no Google, there's no Amazon, there's no Meta.

Don't become Europe.

That's what we as a country need to repeat to ourselves every morning. You gotta make your bed. It's a small act of discipline and positive something or other. I believe in it very much, and say, let's not become Europe today.

Like when you get up in the morning, use I'm going to be a good person today or or whatever your mantra is, right, I'm going to do kindness whatever, do God's will today and stay positive. Let's not become Europe today.

Yes, we're going to build a utopia through a million regulations.

Yes, our two.

I'll get into a little of what I pulled out of the first part of Jake Tapper's book that I started reading last night when I was in bed again unintentionally hilarious, along with some.

Interesting nuggets about what was going on there.

It's the biggest failure of media in our nation's history, and it should not just disappear as a minor thing. Luckily it has not been for at least the last couple of weeks. Now I need to promote a mail bag. It's going to go heavily into the two big topics of yesterday's show, especially Ai and Jack Black's grooming so fat so greasy is my headline. If I'm reviewing the Minecraft movie. You're not wrong. You can't wash your face before you walk out there. I mean, it's not asking

So the big beautiful, complicated bill, they had a vote Sunday night at ten That's the one we were talking about yesterday that it got out of committee. They voted at ten pm on Sunday night. I haven't heard a good explanation as for why the next vote is one am tonight tomorrow one am. Why are they doing that? Do you know? Are they voting after raves on Capitol Hill? Now? Oh, I can't imagine. Wake me up when it's time to vote.

I want there's got to be a reason though, if you know text four one two nine five KFDC. I know what the Democrats are claiming, but I don't think that's it.

They're trying to steal it away in the dark of night, right, yeah, okay, all right, Like it's not going to come out in the papers the next day because normally the American people, because it's at noon, can storm in there and demand that they do something different.

No, that's not the way it works ridiculous. Here's your freedom loving quote of the day. Love this one, Thomas Sowell. Keep it in mind. What's ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long. Ah. That's a good one, mail Bag. Although we all have our things like I'm that way with leaf moors.

I would like that to be banned by the government everyone, But just that that's reasonable. So speaking of quotes, oh, drop us a note mailbag and armstrung and giddy dot comes. Speaking of quote, we were talking about graduation quotes and what you might have on.

Your mortar board and that sort of thing.

And let's see this is rich Salt Lake City wrote my daughters graduating from high school.

Here's a photo of the quote she put in the yearbook.

I feel like I have somehow succeeding in raising her properly because of your homespun wisdom. Her graduation quote was stupid should hurt.

That's a good one. She credited her dad with that quote.

Cool, even though that's been our slogan for many, many years. But that's fine. We will lend it to you rich if that increases the bond with your beautiful daughter. Happy to lend that. I liked another gal who's listed on this sheet. Her quote is long story short, I survived.

That's good.

Well, let's see how about this JT and libermore rights to claim that there aren't two parties any longer. This is the point we were talking about this. There's not really time to reset the discussion. But the parties don't stand for anything fixed or even semi fixed.

They just change with the wind.

The two parties we have today are stronger and more unified than ever before in American history. How else to explain how party members will no longer date across political lines. How else to explain the left's use of basketed deplorables. Bitter clingers are Biden's short but awful garbage, and they're not too distant past. There were fiscally conservative Democrats, there are socially liberal Republicans. You're free to cross party lines

A lot of it has to do with Citizens United, which is correctly decided, but that doesn't mean it was good for the country. The fact that you can raise you all these small amounts or attack somebody, a pro life Democrat or a pro choice Republican for instance, would get killed in the modern era. Well, Citizens United was about corporations making political contributions, and the left thought that's going to ruin everything, But no, it is the Internet.

The Internet. Citizens United was completely insignificant compared to the Internet, which now moves mountains. Anyway, to finish up JT's point. To put in another way, we now have two parties defined by not being the other party called negative what is it called negative polarization? Yeah, anyway, Yeah, some good points there. Let's see, and he points out that.

We're worse than a credit card holder making the minimum payment because we're borrowing the money to pay the interest on our debt.

Good point.

You're borrowing from your parents to make the minimum payment on your credit card. That's you're in bad shape.

Yeah.

Twenty fourteen, Hunter Biden thinks for behaving irresponsibly as a country on the topic of artificial general intelligence, powow quotes several people as saying, we're not nearly as far down the road. The technology we have today is not sufficient to get there, says one super giant AI startup guy. Then he describes how it's just a predictive thing. It's not thinking. Consider something as mundane as customer service. Chat pots are terrible, even though they deal with fairly restricted

I want that to be true.

I also know that's a minority opinion, and it's always farther off than they say. On the other hand, you know, we've got a couple of examples, including yesterday when I came up with an edgy name for a political party and was designing a logo, and chat GPT said, now, do you want to steer into the edginess of the name.

With the illustration with the logo?

You want to make it more stock like a political party. Okay, maybe that's not the artificial general intelligence, but it's pretty impressive.

Another example of AI amazing this here. But we're out of time.

Yeah, we'll talk about that later. We'll talk about that for the rest of our lives, probably as it takes over the world. The robot good point, and the robots start to swing their arms and knock our heads off.

Boy, that video really made an impression on you, didn't it.

Oh The Jake Tapper book unintentionally hilarious. I got some highlights from that. I was reading it last night in bed. How fun is that?

An hour two Armstrong and Getty