Ma'am... A Coyote Ate Fluffy

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong.

And Geckie and he arms wrong yet I'm from Studio C C Signor.

It is a dimly lit room deeper than the bowels of the Armstrong and Getty Communications compound. And hey, y'all, today we are toiling under the tutelage of our general.

Manager the economy.

I was gonna go with Chinese manufacturers because they're hurting for certain holy calpa. Then the economic numbers for the US came out and that was a bit of an oof as well.

So here you go, ladies and gentlemen.

The first quarter of the United States GDP shrunk by point three percent. We went negative, We went backwards point three percent, barely, but we went backwards. And usually you're hoping for like three four percent positive. So it's not just so it's backwards, it's it's a good four percent below where you'd.

Like to be. Yeah, it's solidly in reverse.

And that was before quote unquote Liberation Day in early this month.

Right, So I guess the analysis will be how much this has anything to do with Trump? Since he took over January twentieth, and this is the first quarter January, February March.

But uh, yeah, that's it's not great. It's not great. Yeah.

Anybody who denies that there is rampant uncertainty in the air around the globe is a liar. Now, whether this is merely a period.

Of uncertainty followed by the greatest American century ever or the Golden Age or what have you, or it's just a mistake that needs to be rectified as quickly as possible.

It depends who you ask.

I believe though, that beats expectations, at least all the expectations I had read, not my expectations, buddy. So yeah, and then the whole anyway, more on that later. Hans and I just got into a conversation about next door. Are you on next door.

For your neighborhood? Uh?

I used to pay that's funny, that's what he said. That's what lots of people say. Oh yeah, people for the same reasons.

Are you on next door? Michael? I know my wife loves it, though, loves it.

Yeah, she gets tips from you know, like we were looking for an ac guy, so she'll asking around and stuff like that Katie.

On it, You're on it.

It varies hood by hood, sure, according to the demographics of the people involved in age.

Hanson's thing was, I don't want to know their political opinions over there.

I like them, we get along well.

I don't want to hear I don't want to read their opinions on some issue.

And there is a lot of that.

It's like, is it because you don't have your own talk show or something that you just feel like, you know what I think of Trump's first hundred days? Why are you putting this on next door? This is for lost cats? And hey, I found a good you know, air conditioner repairment.

Right exactly, And you know it's I always feel slightly guilty pitching. The idea is that you know, you don't need to tell everybody what you think, since I do it for a living. But on the other hand, I don't, you know, go around treating people's illnesses because I'm not a doctor and nobody wants me touching them.

So stay in your lane.

You know, I get the urge, trust me, I do, But you are alienating far more people than you are, you know, enlightening or or or impressing. In fact, and this is the part that's often left out. People are are often annoyed very much by people they agree with.

It's not just the people.

Who disagree with you that are annoyed, it's I don't need people spouting off about politics in my like my golf group.

What do you get out of it, Katie? What do you like about next door?

Kind of the same thing that Michael's wife does. I just you know, if I'm looking for tips for housework or you know, lost pets and whatnot.

Yeah, there's a lot of sadness, like tremendous sadness. Uh really, I feel remember that there's there's just you know, I don't know who they are, but there are a couple of blocks over and they got you know, a nineteen year old cat. It's dying leukemi and they can't afford it, and they're not dying themselves.

It's just I want too much, too much sadness.

And finally drove me away was the does anybody know who drives that red car?

It's very loud, yeah, because we were we were.

Adjacent to like a retirement community, and it was very much if you're into classic TV, A forum for missus Kravitz types, those who had just watched the neighborhood and look for fault or missteps or violations of the HOA rules or whatever, just never ending. Yeah, there is a lot of to the high school kid who drove by me today, you were way too close to the bike lane, you know, sort of like.

Yeah, hey, that's a legit concern. High school kid's not reading it.

There's one video that got posted the other day from a ring doorbell that somebody was outraged they got doorbell ditched at about six pm and they were.

This is your kid, My.

God, if I catched them, I won't be held responsible for what I do.

I found it interesting.

Emotionally that, like, in general, if there is a you know, a crime wave going through your neighborhood, you'd like to know about that, because that happens sometimes where you know, people come in from outside of town and they go neighborhood by neighborhood, and if that's happening, it'd be good to know about. But then, but then there's just apparently general malfeasance that happens in in the middle of night, always has, always will that you don't know about.

And I feel like I'm better off not knowing about it.

Being alerted to every tiny thing that happens overnight makes you paranoid.

And I assume it's always been that way.

So why was there yelling at eleven thirty last night? That's far past the time people should be yelling in public. Somebody was messing with my trash cans at two am. I could hear them. Oh right, I guess maybe it was a cat. I don't know, really needs moderating. It was right around speaking of cats. For that job, that'd be a fun job, be the moderator for your local next door.

Oh man, speaking of cats, there was a there were several cat.

Fluffy was out in the backyard last night around sunset and she's lost.

She's white and has a pink rib.

And there are several of these and I wanted to write them all, ma'am a coyote eight Fluffy because he's dead. Because that was absolutely You got people in the foothills of this year and event in California with outdoor cats.

I wondered what happened to their cat. I'll tell you what happened to your cat. A coyote ate.

It, ma'am, a coyote ate your cat. Your cat is dead dead, Yes it's Michael.

Yeah, we lost a cat or two to coyotes.

Yeah, yeah, I again, the political opinions just surprised me. I just it's the maybe this is a public service to those of you listening. You gotta tread really lightly on sharing political opinions. It's just this, man, there's a time and a place.

Yeah, and not everybody agrees with you.

So if you jump in with a if you care about your school for your kids, then you need to vote this way on H and and here's why. Okay, you know, I'm sure you feel passionate about it, but man, you're gonna alienate more friends than good you do in terms of convincing people to vote in my opp Although the argument is you just put it, I could take it's the argument that presumes everybody agrees with me, and it's only some weird lunatics that I'm not familiar with

You got two choices, get a new cat or not have a cat. Fluffy is dead.

Here tell me this, and Katie Michael, please feel free to weigh in. Political opinions are like medical symptoms. They're not to be brought up in most settings.

Yeah, as you would if you would not bring up your medical symptom. I mean, if you would not say, boy, my gums are bleeding a lot, look at this sore com Yeah, if you would not post a picture of your lesion. Don't you know, hit people with your political views.

I am staunchly in favor of political activism, political communication, involvement, forming of groups.

That's being running for the school, all that stuff.

Sure, that is fine. You got to realize you're weighing into it. I don't think most people realize they're weaying into it in the way that they are. I think they feel like there's a no cost to firing that stuff off.

Uh, yes, I would agree. Yeah. Facebook is infamous for it.

How many people just roll their eyes and keep scrolling at their old friends who just badger them with politics all the time.

Let's start the show officially. I'm Jack Armstrong, He's Joe Getty on this. It is Wednesday, April thirtieth, with a shrinking economy, you're twenty twenty five, where arms and getting We approve of this program.

Let's begin officially then, according to SEC rules and regulations.

So much to talk about, we'll talk about it at Mark. We've opened up.

Your faucets, and we've opened up especially me. I don't like taking a shower where the water goes drip, drip, drip onto.

My luxuriant air. I need a lot of water. I need everything I can get.

Is this really happening or am I still asleep and I'm dreaming? So Trump I did a big rally last night. We got a few headlines from that and more from an interview. He did a big, long set down on ABC News with Terry Moran, which you at one point says I'd never heard of you and I can see why, or something like oh no, oh god, that's funny. Anyway, you got two choices, a new cat or no cat. But those are your.

Two choices, according to Joe Fluffy's Soul Rest in Peace.

Katie's got her headlines, we got mail bag, We've got more news of the day.

Stay here.

So we mentioned the GDP numbers are out and we're the negative actually shrank and that's the first time since COVID that we've shrank, and then it was quite a while before that, so that doesn't happen very.

Often, No, indeed, and it depends what expectations you looked at, whether this was significantly worse than expectations or not.

But it's not good. There's no.

Solid reason the economy should be shrinking, honestly.

And then that sets us up for the traditional definition of a recession to shrinking quarters in a row. Yeah, yeah, And again this was before Trump launched the confusing abortive, chaotic mutual tariff thing with the charts and all. There was some anticipatory uncertainty leading up to that hostility with China.

But we'll have to see how it all plays out.

I mean, meanwhile, as we always point out, I am not the economy.

I still have a paycheck. I am not in recession, and neither is anybody else. So let's let's.

All keep cool here, all right, Let's figure out who's reporting what.

It's the lead story. It's Katie Green.

Katie hit it all right, starting with ABC, Trump marks one hundred days with campaign style rally.

Yeah, there was reporting that he was really like restless in the White House, and itching to get back out there.

He's almost freaking eighty years old.

Yeah, a lot of people who are almost eighty years old are itching to sit on their chair all day long, not getting up and stand in front of a crowd for an hour and a half and riff ad lib.

From CNN a quote pissed Trump called Jeff Bezos after learning Amazon considered breaking out a tariff charge.

Interesting story that played out while we were on the are yesterday. The news broke that Amazon was going to put a little blurb and when you paid for things, this is how much was the tariffs. Trump got wind of it, hated it, personally called Jeff Bezos, to which it sounds like Jeff Bezos said, oh no, it's a misunderstanding. We weren't planning on doing that at all, which either is or isn't true.

But if I said it was one department's idea, it was never going to be implemented. Please he's doney boy, which again may or may not be true.

But you've got a hot trophy wife. I've got a hot trophy wife.

Come on now, that's not fine.

From The New York Times, President Trump says he could bring back wrongly deported man, but won't.

Yeah, well, we'll play that. Excerpt from the ABC interview last night.

Now the important news, Jack from NBC Bill Belichick's girlfriend, Jordan Hudson, Post's coach email about book promotion.

Yeah, we had that yesterday, so exactly sure what a point was there after the dust stuff over the weekend. This this has the potential to be a great, little good distraction soap opera to follow. Does this have the potential land up in a homicide investigation?

No, no, No, it's not gonna be on.

There're weird dynamics at work here. Jack, It's not gonna be on dateline. I don't think, is it. But and the young hotty fifty year age difference.

That's it's a good story, which reminds me there might be a new break in the crime of the century, the kidnapping of the Lindenberg baby.

Read's right, the crime of last century.

Wow, I thought you're gonna go John Benet, but you went way one hundred years before that.

Yes, stay tuned. From the Washington Post.

Ups set to lay off twenty thousand workers as it reduces business with Amazon.

That's a lot.

Yeah, so Amazon's delivery they're doing their own deliveries now don trucks. Is that the big difference. Yep, they drive too fast. All you Amazon drivers drive way to flip and fast through the neighborhood.

Well, they would tell you, well, go ahead, Katie.

I was gonna say, and quit parking in the middle.

Of the street, right man. That's the yeah.

And they just they just like to shut off their vehicle wherever they want to. Yeah, they would respond to you, well, we're giving an in We're given an insane a schedule, and if we're not on time, we get yelled at or fired or whatever, to which Amazon would then reply, no.

We don't.

It's a perfectly reasonable schedule, and you can walk to and from your truck and still do your deliveries, to which they would.

Reply again, bull crap. That's an interesting topic.

The most dangerous driver in my neighborhood on almost any given day is either the ups or Amazon guy.

That shouldn't be m.

Are ups guys, very courteous. Your results may vary.

From Breitbart, Robert de Niro's son comes out as transgender woman at age twenty nine.

I saw that pretty effeminate looking.

Dude from the New York You do you, sir.

From the New York post Man con tracks a shocking skin disease from wearing thrifted clothing.

Wash it first.

Yes, I've worn a lot of either thrifted or ebaye used clothes lots, but yeah, you.

Wash them first.

Yeah, this looks like shingles all over his face.

Oh fishing.

And finally, from the Babylon b wife beginning to suspect husband's thoughtful relevant responses to her text messages might be AI generating.

Yeah, I don't do underwear socks or T shirts.

Oh, thrifted underwear.

I know how much money you make. I hope you're not buying used underwear. Be good to yourself, treat yourself. You for I don't buy used under said I'm not buying used underwear. I don't the the fact that you would even bring it up, that the fact that it's crossed your mind.

Apparently. How about the socks more news of the day.

No, not socks either, Oh wow, Armstrong and Getty.

I think maybe the border is the most significant because our country was really going bad. They were allowing people to come in from prisons, and now it's totally closed down. And you've seen just yesterday the Ann's ninety nine. Nobody thought that could happen.

So that is from the ABC interview that aired last night in prime time. The question was what do you think your biggest accomplishment in the first one hundred days, and he said the border, which is almost certainly true according to everyone. We've got more that coming up later, including his exchange about Pete Hegseeth, which I thought was really interesting and like classic, that's why Trump is who he is, indifferent than other people, with a very honest,

Yeah, just to drill down a little bit into some of the economic stuff. You need to separate China from everywhere else if you're gonna be talking tariffs and the wisdom or efficacy what Trump is doing. Those are two

Happens, Aikrambah, Yeah, you're not wrong not to mention. Well, here's a special case within a special case, pharmaceuticals, computer chips, other technologies that we need for our self defense that we bizarrely are.

Dependent on China for. I mean, it's just a terrible idea.

So that's a no brainer, as they say, although apparently we lost our brain for an extended period of time because here we are dependent on them. But anyway, so the high high tariffs against China, which are a precursor to Trump I suspect fashioning a much more reasonable deal that will accomplish some level of decoupling and yet not you know, blow up the economy, is having a hell of an effect on China. China's economy showed its first

So is this a who blinks first sort of situation?

Yeah?

I suspect very strongly that back channel negotiations are going on, or lower level negotiations.

Says they are, and she says they absolutely are not. So I don't know which is true. Yeah, very odd. I can't figure that one out.

But in a social media post earlier this week, the Chinese government urged other countries not to submit to US pressure and said China will quote never kneel down before Washington. Still, that's they're they're really hurting into China.

Glad to hear it.

Yeah good, they're dirty commis, they have slaves, they're they're one of the most racist cultures on earth. They're bent on world domination and then dominating every human being on earth and enslaving them.

So boo, they're the bad guys.

Trade war uncertainty prompts wave of companies to yank forecasts. Headline from the Wall Street Journal mentioned this yesterday. I think we were just talking about GM that said it might have been one other, but they said, you know, that forecast we put out a few months ago that we're going to have eight percent growth and profits around this Well, we have no idea what they're going to be now, so please chuck that in the garbage can.

New poll shows that more than eighty.

Percent of senior executives are worried about tariffs and other policy shifts. So you got GM, Jet, Blue, Snap, Volvo, all sorts of companies saying, yeah, forget our guidances, we have no idea what's going to happen this year. UPS did not update his outlook, though it predicted lower ship and volumes and revenue. It also announced twenty thousand workers would be laid off, as we discussed. And then Bill Galston in the Wall Street Journal He's an editorialist, is

You know, the Democrats hate him.

They hatten him before most Democrat voters, a lot of swing voters have turned negative, and indeed a small but sizable chunk of Republican voters have swung negative and his positives to negatives, which Jack you always point out, are going to flip as soon as the honeymoon period ends and events start to happen that sort of thing.

He was six points to the positive. He is now seven points negative.

It's a total negative swing of thirteen point three points since the beginning of his term.

It happened faster because he got involved in, you know, trying to change America faster. But look at Obama's approval ratings after he really got into pushing Obamacare, when he had the most political capital to spend. How much he dropped or Reagan after the first year or so doesn't mean that this tariff fang couldn't be a disaster and Trump ends up in the teens. I mean that is still on the table. By the way, the economic news it's out that the economy shrunk by zero point three percent.

Be patient. I hope he's I hope that's true. I hope he's right now. I hope that's true. Yeah, me too, I absolutely do.

I'm rooting for him to win on this for reasons I was about to dive into. But you know, I'm looking back at the history of foreign policy, for instance.

Well domestic policy too, for gonna sake. I mean, you got a hundred examples of this.

Presidents who were good people mostly or you know, really just good people surrounded by really smart advisors who got policies through that they thought would work, and they did not. It happens all the time history. I mean, you could go in just the last twenty years of history, and there are too many examples to go through during a

The economies like that too.

Do you think, well, on nudget that way, it'll go that way, and it doesn't.

So it's possible Trump's just flat wrong. I hope he's not.

But I'm looking at some of these poll numbers and and and thinking about, you know, the conduct of his administration so far, and immigration has been a victory, so complete, so swift, so inspiring, it's practically without precedent. It's like if Lincoln won the Civil War in a month.

Having said that, his numbers on immigration have really declined because and here's the Trump problem. You know the old saying that if you want to make an omelet, you gotta break a couple of eggs. You gotta break some eggs, which is true. Have you ever tried to make an omelet without breaking the eggs? They're they're horrible, very chewy. For one thing, the shell so much shell. Anyway, the problem with Trump is that if he's making a three egg omelet, he breaks seven eggs. He breaks some of

Didn't you just not break those eggs?

Here's the problem, ay, here, right now here, Boomber, you're a Reagan idiot. Rather I'll save you're writing your mark emails. I like that accent whatever that was. Anyway, Uh, here's the problem. Trump is doing magnificent stuff like this. This this judge in Wisconsin who I want to talk about, who's clearly guilty of obstructing justice and and she's gotten busted for it. If you don't know, the story will bring you up to speed.

It's unbelievable.

But so anyway, and the people on the left, that press and the Democrats, oh, this is Trump's will talk on the judiciary, bah bah bah, and the reforming education stuff, the getting rid of the woke stuff.

It's great, it's so good. I can't believe it.

But if he breaks too many eggs that aren't going into the omelets, Republicans get murdered at the midterms, murdered, and all the good stuff stops. All that's left is executive orders, and those are limited ineffectiveness, particularly as the judiciary gets involved in it, and they should, so please just break the three eggs. I want to tell you the most interesting thing I heard yesterday about the first one hundred days that has slipped by a lot of people.

Just pick two or more players across any sport or a couple of different sports if you want, and pick more or less under stat projection, you can win big money. But again, you play a five dollars lineup and you use our code Armstrong and get fifty dollars instantly to play around with down the road.

And again, you know, just play to your level of comfort. I'm kind of a small time guy. I think it's fun. Again, a five dollars lineup gets you fifty dollars to play around in.

Just use that code Armstrong.

Prize picks run your game must be present in certain states. Visit prize picks dot Com for restrictions and details.

So Congress has been been becoming more and more irrelevant, term by term my whole adult life, and it just turbo speed this first one hundred days with Trump, and I don't know where this ends up. I mean, Congress is you know, your Article one's supposed to be the most powerful thing we got in our government and now they do nothing.

Really But so nothing happened with Congress in the first one hundred days.

All this great stuff that you know you're just touting is great, but sure wish would have been an attempt to craft some legislation and run it through and vote and turn it into law, so it would be very difficult to overturn. They haven't even tried to approve a single judge in the first one hundred days. No mine, no major legislation.

Zero.

So when you talk about the one hundred day mark comes from FDR. But his first one hundred days it was tons of legislation. It was all passing these laws, many of which we still unfortunately live with. But that's the advantage of passing a law. They stick around for a very long time, but just presidents don't do that anymore. And it's been going that direction and Trump just amplified that greatly.

Yeah, the engine of the country is supposed to be Congress Article one branch. As Jack pointed out, And.

I was thinking about this the other day, Congress has become the kin to something like the Queen of England. It has ceremonial duties, right, and it shows up to uh, you know, verious ceremonies and then and we we respect it, and and they get together and and and do their their traditional things, but nothing ever.

Comes of it. Yeah. It's not good.

No, it's it's horrible, And you know, it's mostly horrible because someday, I'm told by historians, someday Democrats gonna win again and have the White House, and they're gonna go hog wild and pass all sorts of executive orders. In Congress having completely forgotten how to do anything.

Is just gonna sit there and say, well.

They'll just give speeches and raise money on Instagram. Yeah, we could be three years from all this stuff that happened in the first hundred days being turned back the other direction because it's be that easy to do mail bags on the way, a bunch of other stuff.

Stay here breaking news. Maybe we'll get into more an hour two.

Ukraine ready to sign landmark minerals deal with US today. I wonder if that's what Trump and Zelenski were talking about privately in those chairs of the Vatican. Look get disagreement. We're heavily invested. I think you know what that means.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd love to talk about that, and we wish we shall stay tuned.

Here's your freedom loving quote of the day, sent along by Alert listener David. This is from none other than so Crates Jack So pronounce his name Socrates. When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.

You suck. Trump is hitler.

God, my son, my son demolished me three times in a row in chess last night. Oh did you slander him?

And uh no?

But he is a uh what's a sore winner.

He's a show voter. Show voters get off his food supply.

That'd make the pay sanctions, son, I've announced sanctions against time.

You won't beating for a while for your show voting.

The mail bag feel free to correspond if you like our email address is mail bag at Armstrong and Giddy dot com. That's Mailbag at Armstrong and Giddy dot com. Correspondents on a number of different topics, but we'll lead with this one. Guys, why are we fighting to the gorilla's strengths? This is on our topic of could one hundred unarmed men defeat a gorilla in a fight, which we spent most of the show on yesterday. Probably, but it'd be a hell of a mess, is the answer.

Yeah, Ta Trice. Humans are persistence hunters.

You wear the gorilla down by getting it to constantly chase down different targets, goating it with the right timing so it doesn't ever reach anyone.

Then it's exhausted. Bam.

Well wait a minute. Gorillas can charge it twenty five miles per hour. I think, yeah, I think it would charge It would rip the heads off five guys, and then the.

Other ninety five guys would say, let us out this stuff? What have we done?

And then he points out we'll need thirty to forty sacrifices to determine the correct timing less if everyone's paying attention, then he writes, well, make that fifty sacrifices.

Yeah, I think people would be paying attention all right. Moving along, Chris on the topic of I'm sorry, it's a different email, burbank Luke writes on the topic of the Amazon alleged idea of showing on your price how much is a tariff charge?

Which that's it's I have problems with that idea.

I like it in spirit, but anyway, he says, I'd love to see you break down at taxes, tariff's fees, et cetera, at every point of sale, especially for gasoline.

Burbank Luke clearly a Californian.

I'm reminded of a convenience store owner in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the seventies. That's two fifty seven for the comic books and thirteen cents for the governor.

He would say to all his customers. He did this all day with every customer.

He's probably salty about Docacas raising the sales tax from three to five percent. I was a kid and didn't appreciate the business man like I do now. I just came across another guy doing the same thing right here in the people's republic.

Yeah, portion out the taxes. I think that'd be great.

And fees and everything else. Help people understand where their money is going.

Let's see on the topic of the UH thirty million, sixty eighty million dollar air aircraft falling off the aircraft carrier sixty to seventy depending on who the acts and if you get the better stereo. Yeah, exactly, as you've had, no doubt a zillion listeners inform you.

We actually haven't shown. But the nuclear carrier is extremely fast.

It is important to be able to swiftly generate a headwind while launching fighters for the lift that provides. That's a great point, show, But I did not know that, but I believe it. But can it turn on such a dime that it would cause a plane to fall.

Off the side?

Patience? My lad Robert writes, guys, I'm a retired O. His topic is do everything turn turn turn? Well played, my friend, I'm a retired marine. One of the most spectacular things I've seen was watching the aircraft carrier making an emergency turn. It had every appearance of a hard ninety degree turn. You see a stunt driver perform in a car now.

I was at some distance on the USS Bonholm Richard Richard, which famously caught on fire in San Diego. Will it's lit on fire by trees in a sailor. But the agility of US aircraft carriers is a sight to see. Could the loss of an aircraft be because of a hard turn with other factors at play?

Maybe?

I don't know anybody serve on a carrier like to that boy. We've got great notes on anger in Canada, on kids' library books and the woke books being shut down their throats, and much much more.

That's all good stuff, and if you miss an hour or a segment, you can get the product podcast. It's Armstrong and Getty on demand. Economic numbers out. If you haven't heard about that, I'm sure there'll be analysis throughout the day. The economy is actually shrinking first quarter, first time. I look great, Crazy Wisconsin Judge is going to be behind bars and deserves it.

Stay with us, Armstrong and Getty