A New Low for Journalism? - Scott Pelley Implodes + Rep. Pfluger Joins the Progrum

Summary

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Ruthless Podcast: "A New Low for Journalism? – Scott Pelley Implodes + Rep. Pfluger Joins the Progrum"

Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug (on leave), Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Guest: Rep. August Pfluger
Date: June 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the implosion of CBS anchor Scott Pelley, using his recent firing and public statements as a lens on the broader decline—and self-image—of legacy media. The hosts unpack the cultural and political shifts underpinning network journalism’s fall from grace, and how insular attitudes among news elites keep them oblivious to public distrust. The show later pivots to the farcical Maine Senate race, Democratic Party dysfunction, California’s chaotic election practices, and ends with a guest appearance by Rep. August Pfluger discussing GOP strategy and Congressional baseball. As always, Ruthless blends sharp media criticism with inside-baseball political banter.

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Main Segments & Key Takeaways

1. Scott Pelley and the Death Rattle of Legacy Media

[00:00–32:30]

Key Points:

• Scott Pelley’s 60 Minutes firing becomes a “cause célèbre” among liberal journalists for standing up to newsroom changes under Bari Weiss’s new leadership.
• Hosts argue his indignation and melodramatic self-comparison to war heroes and firefighters only underscores elite press detachment.
• Pelley represents an old guard unable to grasp shifting audience demand or the reasons behind diminishing credibility and viewership.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps:

• Josh Holmes [00:22]:
  “When your boss is an ignorant slut essentially, and then you're shocked that that comes with repercussions, you have built yourself a silo that no person in America can relate to.”
• Scott Pelley [07:16]: “I've never worn the uniform, my God, but I've been in combat for this country ... You become a journalist because you love the country.”
• Michael Duncan [08:06]:
  “You can't become a journalist without caring first and foremost about yourself. … He’s the reason why people don’t watch network news anymore.”
• John Ashbrook [09:15]:
  “There’s low demand for what Scott Pelley was trying to do to journalism. … They think the media is some philanthropy.”
• Josh Holmes [10:14]: “He’s just aghast ... he fundamentally doesn't understand ... people might come to see a long form magazine to present ... not the liberal talking points.”

Memorable Moments:

• Mockery of Pelley comparing newsroom work to the military and FDNY [13:34].
• Holmes and Duncan riff on Pelley’s generational arrogance, likening his self-concept to outmoded GOP “kingmakers” replaced by Trump’s movement.

Discussion of Media Bias:

• The hosts lampoon Pellley’s claim CBS is unbiased, highlighting broader liberal groupthink and the failure to recognize alienation of half the country.

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2. Political Headlines: Senate Drama, Antisemitism, and Democratic Discord

[32:32–45:53]

Key Points:

• The show examines the Maine scandal involving Democratic candidate Platner, his Nazi tattoo, and the party leadership’s refusal to speak out.
• Juxtaposes the media’s double standard in covering stories that threaten their side versus those involving Republicans.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [40:07]:
  “A Nazi tattoo, no problem. Many people have them. An Israeli flag, a Star of David—yes, problem. Because I don’t support genocide.”
• John Ashbrook [43:47]:
  “Chuck Schumer has to win a primary against AOC. So he’s all in for the Platners of the world.”

Memorable Moments:

• “Who would win in a fight: Platner or Fetterman?”—hosts argue Fetterman’s “Andre the Giant” hands would crush Platner [36:13].
• General exasperation at Democratic politicians’ evasions on the Platner crisis and antisemitic dog-whistles.

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3. California Chaos & Voter Integrity Theater

[48:47–64:31]

Key Points:

• Dissection of post-election drama in LA: ballots counted weeks after election night, with outcomes magically shifting.
• Producer Lee Wolf’s experience: still getting a California ballot 10 years after moving, despite multiple attempts to correct voter records.
• San Francisco Chronicle runs a “debunk” piece, focusing on straw-man claims instead of Lee’s real issue.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [54:57]:
  “All we did was point out that he’s been living in Virginia for a lot of years—and still ... receives a live ballot for California’s primary.”
• John Ashbrook [61:25]:
  “Except there is something stopping him. Federal law. Wait, if it’s federal law then no one ever commits a crime.”

Memorable Moments:

• Hosts lampoon California’s election system: “a voting biennial—basically, you can vote for three plus months until our candidates figure out how to win, we’re not going to stop the count.” [51:46]
• Ruthless rails at media “theater” and the expectation that voters not the state ensure voter roll accuracy.

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4. Charity, Clown Robots, & Inside-Baseball

[65:10–76:27]

Key Points:

• Recap of hosts’ participation in Tunnel to Towers Freedom Tower climb, raising over $18,000.
• Banter over who raised more and who finished the climb fastest, with John Ashbrook coming out as the speed winner, Duncan the fundraising champ (by $69—a number the crew milks for laughs).
• Discussion transitions to viral video of a clown robot drop-kicking a child in China.

Memorable Moments:

• “If you’re gonna win, you gotta win with style.” – Michael Duncan on orchestrating a precise $69 fundraising difference [73:46].
• “China is really at the forefront of the menace ... what the kid needed was a set of stairs.” – Holmes, on robot menace [76:20].

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5. Interview: Rep. August Pfluger on GOP Unity, Policy, and Congressional Baseball

[76:32–97:44]

Key Points:

• Pfluger (R-TX) discusses efforts to pass a “Reconciliation 3.0” legislative package touching culture, fraud, affordability, and defense—emphasizing a unifying GOP message.
• Cites examples of healthcare, anti-fraud, and housing reforms under consideration.
• Acknowledges the challenge of Democratic party drift leftward and the loss of moderate policy actors.
• Recaps the annual Congressional baseball game and the Republicans’ dominance, with characteristic locker-room humor.

Notable Quotes:

• Pfluger [83:42]: “There’s over 400 [hospice] businesses that popped up in LA County alone, and 99% ... were not valid companies. They’re stealing hundreds of billions of dollars. … That has got to stop.”
• Pfluger [88:01]:
  “They want to start over with this socialist thing that we know doesn’t work. It has its roots in Marxism and government replacing…”
• Pfluger [96:58]:
  "This is a great country ... you can move in as an immigrant, start a business, raise your kids, buy a home. ... I'm proud to be an American and living in this country. We're going to fight hard for it every single day."

Memorable Baseball Moments:

• Pfluger [94:09]:
  On John Ossoff: “Like any good Democrat, he got greedy. ... He never came back.”
• Ashbrook [92:15]:
  “Very error prone—just like they’re legislating.”

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Additional Notable Quotes & Moments

• Michael Duncan [23:56]:
  “Hardened partisanship inside these news organizations has created a culture where they only need to listen to one side … The newsmaking ultimately becomes almost a reflection of what the internal fighting at the DNC is.”
• Josh Holmes [31:03]:
  “There’s no dignity in journalism. … Would have been willing to tip the cap … Thanks for what you do. See you later. Nope. Gotta go out in the ugliest way possible …”
• John Ashbrook [61:00]:
  “Voter integrity is up to you.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – 13:15: Scott Pelley’s self-aggrandizement, CBS, and old media’s cultural blinders
• 13:15 – 24:56: Media’s self-importance vs. public trust; generational arrogance; echo chambers
• 32:00 – 40:35: Platner scandal, Democratic base radicalism, and Antisemitic undercurrents
• 48:47 – 64:31: CA election chaos and SF Chronicle’s failed debunk of Lee Wolf’s ballot story
• 65:10 – 74:22: Tunnel to Towers recap, friendly fundraising rivalry, clown robot incident
• 76:32 – 97:44: Rep. Pfluger interview: policy priorities, Democratic infighting, Congressional baseball
• 98:18 – end: Wrap-up, Reconciliation 3.0 prospects, and episode close

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Tone & Style

• Fast-paced, irreverent, and combative—heavy on wit, sarcasm, and media/political inside jokes.
• Ruthless regularly mixes substantive criticism with raucous banter and hyperbole; the political right’s “variety show” with both news critique and culture war as entertainment.
• Constant references to inside-DC life, media habits, plus listener interaction and crowd-sourced bits.

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For Listeners New to the Episode:

This episode of Ruthless serves as a sweeping, satirical rebuke of the old media establishment’s inability to adapt—or even see—the rot in their own culture, as symbolized by Scott Pelley’s melodramatic exit. Meanwhile, the hosts shine a critical light on Democratic Party dysfunction, the credulity of legacy journalism toward blue-state electoral shenanigans, and the shift on the American left away from both practical politics and common sense. Featuring both a granular takedown of California’s election integrity kabuki and a policy-focused interview with Rep. Pfluger, the show mixes sharp political analysis with locker-room humor and irreverent asides—all designed to keep listeners "owning the libs" and staying in on the Ruthless joke.

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Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

There's no dignity in journalism. For people like Scott Pelley, this is

[Michael Duncan]

one of the most sanctimonious self important people in political media.

[Josh Holmes]

He feels like he needs to speak for a quote, unquote journalist. What he means is old school left wing gatekeepers.

[John Ashbrook]

He did his whole tirade. Scott Pelley did, you know, and got fired for it.

[Josh Holmes]

When you walk in and say you're, when your boss is an ignorant slut essentially, and then you're shocked that that comes with repercussions, you have built yourself a silo that no person in America can relate to.

[John Ashbrook]

Fox News recently reported that the 340B federal health care program designed to provide discounted drugs to low income patients at hospitals is facing, quote, allegations of widespread healthcare fraud and abuse. According to reports, the program has morphed into a windfall for hospitals and outpatient clinics, leaving behind those who can least afford it. A federal judge blocked a North Dakota law that sought to exploit 340B to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from drug makers to hospitals and pharmacies, noting that the program is, quote, being abused to provide a windfall for hospitals. The Wall Street Journal editorial board weighed in, calling abuse of 340B grift and a scam to taxpayers. According to an economic consultancy, the abuse of 340B raises the cost of other major health care programs like Medicare, Medicaid, which lost a combined $20 billion last year due to lost rebates in this program. Learn [e-mail]

[August Pfluger]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Michael Duncan]

This program has become one of the

[Josh Holmes]

most influential podcasts in America. I love the personality.

[John Ashbrook]

You guys are killing it.

[Michael Duncan]

I just saw your number, so congratulations.

[Josh Holmes]

It's an honor and a pleasure to welcome the great Sean Hannity. Guys, I love you. Congratulations on all your success.

[August Pfluger]

This is why you listen to the

[Josh Holmes]

Ruthless podcast, because nobody else would ask that question.

[August Pfluger]

The only political podcast worth listening to is the Ruthless Podcast.

[John Ashbrook]

It's time for our main event, the Ruthless Podcast.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety program. I'm Josh Holmes along with Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Comfortably smug as have. He has an arduous end of the week and he's got a new family to consider here. And so we've baked in one of those liberal leave days and this is one of those, those days that he's going to have to take advantage of you just nodding along.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait, is this, is this the week of his big speech?

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Where he's, he's going to make an address to the Republicans of North Carolina.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I cannot wait for that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm in it like I'm in a hearing on Capitol Hill. I'm going to reserve the balance of my time until he returns to the show that I can provide my thoughts.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you're going to do it directly.

[John Ashbrook]

I want him to be here for it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. No, you'd like to look him right in those sunglasses.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I get it.

[Josh Holmes]

I get it. But we have plenty to talk about. I don't know that I've had more incoming from a text message standpoint of just friends around the city than I did about this Scott Pelley, CBS 60 Minutes deal that played out over the weekend where people were just enchanted by the idea that we might weigh in. And so we thought we'd avail ourselves about this. For those of you who missed that particular transaction, Bari Weiss over at CBS News has been making some changes and it has dawned upon her at the onset of her hiring that CBS had somewhat of a negative reputation with at least 50% of the country in large part because they had demonstrated bias in basically every facet of the news. But the old grandfather of CBS News is of course, 60 minutes. It's the most successful long running news magazine show in American history. And it was anchored at the time by just legends in the field, right. The Mike Wallaces and morally Safers and Ed Bradley's and well, it's, it's lost its luster. And of course, over the last 15 years or so, really since Dan Rather did the George W. Bush hit piece that they all had to retract before the 2004 election, it just slid sideways. But there's some revealing stuff in here and that she came in and wanted to change a bunch of different things because not necessarily upset the apple cart. And like it goes to show, like if you ever taken over anything big, big, you ought to fire everybody at the outset and rebuild it. Like trying to work within a system that is geared against you provides problems.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, yeah, and, and he did his whole tirade. Scott Pelly did, you know, and got fired for it. And you thought maybe. All right, well, he's, he's gone on, on to the next thing. Yeah, not the case. It's now become a cause celebra in liberal journalism. And I think that's telling. Right. Because what Barry Weiss is doing at CBS, I think threatens the entire ecosystem of established media in a lot of ways. And so there's a lot of people in liberal media who are happy to share what Scott Pelley thinks about the direction of CBS News, no question about it.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, my first takeaway, and we're going to get to a whole bunch of clips and react to it so we'll get more detail. But my first takeaway from all of this is they really don't know, which is what we've talked about a lot on the ruthless Variety program is that you get this like cloister of industries and different facets of life. And journalism is not immune to that. Now it's literally made to try to see outside the bubble that you live in, to try to tell the story that not just your neighbor, your colleague or your social circle see, but you know, that of America and politicians and business and all kinds of different things. But what is so evident about the Scott Pelly story and how he reacted to any changes at 60 minutes and how ultimately he reacted to his own firing. When you walk in and say you're, when your, your boss is an ignorant slut essentially, and then you're shocked that that comes with repercussions, you have built yourself a silo that no person in America can relate to. Like that's not the way that we do that. Like you couldn't, nobody could go into their place of business and act the way he did and not expect to be fired. Well, of course it was all news to Scott Belli because he thinks he's bigger than the brand and everything. El Got to get into these clips and we'll jump off on this. And I know, Smash, you're going to have a lot to say about all of it.

[Scott Pelley]

Clip 1 I've never worn the uniform, my God, but I've been in combat for this country in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kuwait, been shot at.

[John Ashbrook]

Is he going to cry?

[Scott Pelley]

Spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert. You become a journalist because you love the First Amendment. You become a journalist because you love the country. There is no democracy without journalism. It can't be done. And that is why I am a journalist.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, what he forgot to say is you can't become a journalist without caring first and foremost about yourself. And I think that is where this guy has found his career path over the years. I mean, this is one of the most sanctimonious self important people in political media. And it's just the truth. You know, he wasn't wearing glasses there, but one of the things he gets a hard time for on Internet memes and everything is how he's always taking his glasses off every time he's making an important point. Exactly. Because one time he sold Walter Cronkite taking his glasses off when a guy was landing on the moon and Walter Cronkite was getting emotional because naturally somebody's landing on the moon, you're going to take your glasses off and get emotional. It's not every time you're thinking about how important you are and you're a character in the news, and therefore I'm going to take my glasses off and make a point while I stick out my chin and tell you how much better I am than you. He's the reason why people don't watch network news anymore. But people like him are the reason

[John Ashbrook]

Scott Pelley would make you think that America is in low supply of qualified journalists like him.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

And the reality with dictation, the reality is there's just low demand for what Scott Pelley was trying to do to journalism. There is plenty of people out there who do good journalism, who have careers.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Nobody's buying what he's selling. Right. In fact, I think, like, that really is the whole problem in the way the media talks about itself. They think media is some philanthropy. It's a thing that should be funded by the public good. And the quality of the product or the demand for it is irrelevant.

[Josh Holmes]

What he says it right there, it's alongside of democracy itself in that you can't really. What he's saying is you can't really have a country without people like me. And what it is that I do like.

[John Ashbrook]

Journalism's an art gallery and we're all supposed to show up and be like, wow, Scott, that is. That is beautiful.

[Michael Duncan]

Great work.

[Josh Holmes]

It's also a generational component. And you see this in many walks of life. I'm involved in politics, so that's what I get. Like, I've never been in different silos of, of things, but media and politics is basically where I've lived my professional life. And you saw it in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, where there were a lot of gray beard Republicans. We now play a game, King of the Hill, to commemorate these folks where they spent an inordinate amount of time making their names on being experts on Republican politics, conservative movement. We are leading this whole thing. And then Donald Trump came in, smashed it into tiny little pieces, and they couldn't come to grips with the fact that a conservative movement could go on before they were ready to do something else with their lives. And so then therefore, they had to abandon the conservative movement altogether and become, you know, just sort of like loathsome. Democrat light, which is, which is what they've done. If you look at the media, Scott Pelly is a perfect emblematic, like parallel track on that in that he was a part of the best brand in media forever and did a lot of stuff. He became a household name. I'm sure he's made millions and millions of dollars, probably generations of pellies that are taken away, you know, from the experience that he had. But he gets to a point where they're not selling what he's buying or not buying what he's selling to your, to the point that you were making. And in that moment, he can't believe that it can go on without him, that they have to rebrand and change what it is that they're doing. They can't do this dogmatic Georgetown cocktail party each and every week and expect people to just slop it up like a soup kitchen, which is what they've done for the last 15 years. And he's just aghast. And you're gonna see in these next clips, he puts a fine point on it in that he just fundamentally doesn't understand the marketplace that he now resides in, one that has gone away from the three major nets in the four major daily newspapers. He doesn't understand that that audience has changed. And what people might come to see a long form magazine to present is not the liberal talking points about how fucking climate change is Ru Africa, which is what they spend an enormous, enormous amount of time over, right? Or how they're going to harangue Donald Trump on like X, Y and Z and then bring in brain dead Joe Biden and not in pretend like he's giving you real answers in an hour long interview that they clip down to 13 minutes because they can't show you the rest, right? Like that's what they've done. Like that's what, that's what they've done. So look, check out clip two.

[Scott Pelley]

I felt that somebody had to stand up for the broadcast. Not just the broadcast, but the people.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my God.

[Scott Pelley]

There are people in that room who go to war zones when they are pregnant.

[Josh Holmes]

Micah. Micah.

[Scott Pelley]

Newsrooms are sort of like the military or the police.

[Josh Holmes]

Come on.

[Scott Pelley]

The beautiful people at the FDNY down the street. It is a life threatening job in many instances.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't even know how to, like, I don't know how to react to that.

[Michael Duncan]

Here's, here's the thing. Okay? Here's the thing. Newsrooms are important. Journalism is important, the media is important, but not him. You know what I mean? Like, people open a newspaper because they want information, because they're hoping that somebody else is out there gathering data that they put in print that helps the person become informed about something they don't have time to make phone calls about because they're going about their, you know, their job, their family, basketball practice, whatever. Like, they open a newspaper for information. And so in that sense, the people who filled the newspaper with information, I think, can be just as important as anything else in society. It's a cornerstone of society. But when somebody mistakes that service for their own personal aggrandizement, and there's a need for me to be in the service of journalism, and I am just as important as a firefighter. Like, that's where you miss the boat.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like the stolen valor of hiding behind a pregnant woman is your human shield so you can pretend you still need to have a job. Scott Kelly. I mean, I don't even know where to begin with.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I mean, but it shows that he's a politician.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That he's not a journalist.

[Michael Duncan]

He is a politician.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. He's bringing up how I'm just like the firefighters, or I'm just like our men and women in uniform, or I'm just like. Nobody's fighting for the pregnant women. What? Dude, all we ask is that you put together a decently consumable news program.

[John Ashbrook]

Just entertain me for an hour after football.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Tell me something I didn't know. That's all I needed to know. This is not. And look, he's emotional. I think the emotion is genuine. I don't think that that's fake.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it's the end of an era

[Josh Holmes]

for him, but that's what it's about, is it? A recognition. Your time is gone. And there's an awful lot of you who are listening to this program who are at a certain point in age and a certain point of your career where you've had to come to that uncomfortable point to realize that you're not as good at what you once were or that the market has moved on to a point where they've devalued the place of prominence that you previously had. I don't care if you're, like, making auto parts or you're mowing lawns or you're, you know, king of the hill. It doesn't matter what you are. At some point, that comes for everybody. It came for Scott Pelley this week in a way that he was unprepared for. But instead of gracefully giving an answer that he is thankful for, the opportunity and looking forward to doing whatever it is that his future holds. It's about the pregnant. Somebody's fighting for the pregnant women. I'm a firefighter. I mean, are you fucking. Are you kidding me? Right? Come on.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, like, no.

[Josh Holmes]

How do you even come to that conclusion?

[John Ashbrook]

He's a troop. He's a firefighter. He's a pregnant woman in Afghanistan. He's all of those things. He's not just the guy doing 60 Minutes.

[Josh Holmes]

He's all about this. But then. But then his professionalism comes into greater focus here in clip 3. What was the feeling about that particular opening salvo to the team?

[Michael Duncan]

Uh.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh.

[Scott Pelley]

She, I am told, said something to the effect of, why do you think the country thinks you're biased? But she didn't offer any kind of a metric. You know, what's your metric? Why do you think so? Do you have a poll? Is there market research? What are you talking about? Because we certainly didn't believe that in

[Michael Duncan]

2024, CBS was the most biased network news outlet, period. And I'm not saying that because I needed a poll to say that. I'm saying that because I could news just like everybody else. And I remember very well when they edited interviews with Democrats at key moments so that Democrats look better ahead of the election. You don't need a poll to tell you that. If you're working in this business, you know, who is trying to even stories up and who is trying to make it look good for Democrats. It's just. It's just a.

[Josh Holmes]

But also the information silo that I talked about just a moment ago, where somehow that information never permeated to Scott Pelley, that the nation has been having a conversation about CBS News, ABC News, NBC News, the way they present journalism, and whether or not it reflects the body of this great nation. And we've had this conversation on 11 volume. And it's playing out for years in every possible way. It came to an absolute apex in the 2024 election when every single possible thing that could have been done was done by these networks. Cbs, the foremost offender of all of them, which is why Bari Weiss exists in the network news. Because they look at it and we're like, we gotta get out from underneath

[John Ashbrook]

this, the Margaret Brennan, the Norah o' Donnell situation. I mean, like, this has been done over and over and over again, over

[Josh Holmes]

and over and over again. Look, we play Hack Madness where you all vote, you, the listener vote on who the most biased journalist is in the entire country. And we provide you 67 options for two years in a row you came up with CBS journals.

[Michael Duncan]

And also, isn't the base of journalism intellectual curio? Like, somebody has to come to him and prove to him a point. Like he's some kind of, like, never heard it, like all powerful judge.

[Josh Holmes]

He said it was news to him.

[Michael Duncan]

Isn't he supposed to be asking questions and wondering why so many Republicans seem uncomfortable with the way that we're presenting this news? And by the way, Republicans aren't just like one small category of this country. 77 million of them voted for Donald Trump for president in 2024.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but he's not catering to that because they keep their market share as it relates to the rest of the market share. And now a bifurcated country of information flow. And so they have a couple million people that watch this thing, which is fine by them, but it never occurred to somebody like Scott Pelley that they're basically servicing the Manhattan to Philadelphia to D.C. corridor.

[John Ashbrook]

If everybody at the Met gala thinks I'm doing a good job, I'm doing a good job, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Because I've now consolidated a left wing viewership. And that became extremely apparent to everyone who takes news consumption seriously. He said it never occurred to them. He said, can you play that clip? Play that clip again. This is, I think, the most important point. What was the feeling about that particular opening salvo to the team?

[Scott Pelley]

Oh, she, I am told, said something to the effect of, why do you think the country thinks you're biased? But she didn't offer any kind of a metric. You know, what's your metric? Why do you think so? Do you have a poll? Is there market research? What are you talking about? Because we certainly didn't believe that.

[Josh Holmes]

Because we certainly didn't believe that. That is the kind of ignorance that is so. On Technicolor, it's gambling. In Casablanca, it's like, how the fuck did you turn a computer on? Did you talk to anyone outside of Manhattan or D.C. or LA? Like, did you ever encounter a normal human being? I understand that you're supposed to report on the Sahara in Africa, but like, did you never encounter anywhere in your travels, someone, anyone?

[John Ashbrook]

You'd have to try really hard not to be even vaguely aware of the discourse around the journalism you're producing. Because the Internet exists, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, totally. I mean, you see it from time to time when you get like the old journal where it does the Republican pounce thing. And like, they're unaware of the fact that this is a meme online that the entire Internet makes fun of every time you write a headline that says, republicans pounce on something a Democrat did that was illegal.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, right.

[John Ashbrook]

The illegal thing's not the legal thing

[Josh Holmes]

is not the story. It's the Republican pounce thing. But they still do it. And you're like, that's an information silo thing. If you think you can get away with that, it's, it's because basically you don't know any Republicans. You've never met one.

[Michael Duncan]

And that goes to the point of the, the fact that the, these newsrooms are all Democrats. Okay? Like 20 years ago, newsrooms leaned left of center. The industry, like, attracted more sort of left leaning, creative types, whereas, like, business attracted more right leaning number, you know, numbers types, people. And it's only gotten worse and worse and worse. And if they would just have half of a newsroom be Republican, half of a newsroom be Democrat, and then behind the scenes you fight out what the actual news of the day is or how a story should be presented. I think that things would be written in a way where a consumer base which is half Republican and half Democrat in this country would understand a little

[Josh Holmes]

better, or just smart people who are not overwhelmed by the allure of a chilled glass of Chablis.

[Michael Duncan]

That's true.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I mean, I think that's, that's like, I don't really give a shit if they're a Republican or not, but it's the culture that is embodied by Scott Pelly that has created four generations of journalists underneath them that think that you have to report back to your colleagues.

[Michael Duncan]

That's kind of my point, because I think hardened partisanship inside of these news organizations has created a culture where they only need to listen to one side. And so the newsmaking ultimately becomes almost a reflection of what the internal fighting at the DNC is. Yeah, you know, it's like, oh, no, we need to go further left. And our balance is taking a comment from Rahm Emanuel. You know what I mean? We have to go further left because that's where the culture is, because that's where all of these new hires that we brought in after we fired, all the old timers with their buyouts, all these new radicals, hey, boy, they sure make a lot of sense because it's the only people they're talking to. They have zero contact with the average person. And then when you suggest, hey, why don't you go to a dying and like, meet with people? They're like, oh, another diner segment. I don't want to do another diner segment. It's like unwashed masses Somebody's just trying to come up with a suggestion so that you talk to some. To a person who doesn't live in, you know, New York. Right. It doesn't. Doesn't think the way you think.

[Josh Holmes]

Clip 4. In a meeting, you accused Bari Weiss, the head of the network, of wanting to murder the show, of coming into 60 Minutes with the agenda to dismantle the institution. And you did not think that that was going to have repercussions that could lead to your firing.

[Scott Pelley]

We used to be able to have conversations like that at CBS News.

[Michael Duncan]

Really?

[Scott Pelley]

But the difference today is that the people running CBS News will not be questioned.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you kidding me?

[John Ashbrook]

You're trying to murder the show.

[Michael Duncan]

And yet he wants us to believe that he is allowed to be questioned. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, you're not allowed to question him. He's the only one that asks the questions of the execs. Nobody who's watching his stupid show is allowed to ask, you know what? Why didn't he take into consideration 77 million people have a different point of view? It's like that question can't be asked.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe the 36 minutes of gibberish that Kamala Harris had should have been not completely edited out.

[Michael Duncan]

Not the relevant question. The only question that's relevant is what he wants to ask the execs.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like more edits than a TikTok video.

[Josh Holmes]

It is. And it's become a joke. And I hate this. I do, too, because I, you know, unlike a lot of you that are probably listening, you just hate these people. And smug would just give me a super hard time.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, here we go.

[Josh Holmes]

I grew up with it.

[Michael Duncan]

Me too.

[Josh Holmes]

I grew up with it. It was on after football. I watched it. My dad, my mom, they loved 60 Minutes. To this day, I think they DVR the thing, although they're heavy on the Fast Forward segments. You know, it's like, tell me something about pop culture or whatever.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, yeah, the C block usually gives you something very interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. But I grew up with it. And I know that it's a treasure because it used to be something that you spent an awful lot of time trying to ask the right questions. You may not agree with ultimately the presentation of the program itself. And I can't imagine there was ever a moment at any point in 60 minutes where huge right leaning, but it was the right questions and how people answered it told you an awful lot about the subject. And, like, that's what we do on the Ruthless Friday program. We don't come in Here and like need a. Need you and be a dick about it. But how you answer the questions tells the audience a lot more than the question itself because the flow and the presentation, he lost it. And this went from like Andy Rooney wrapping the whole thing up in the absurdity of the day to becoming the absurdity of the day.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no, that's well said.

[Josh Holmes]

The first two segments of every show are this is, this is the talking points or this is the agenda that we were given three and a half months ago. Which, by the way, that's how long it takes now to do one of these segments. Unless they do like an interview that is long form that they just throw on the air that week when they're doing an actual package. It takes like three and a half months to put it together. That in and of itself is unfucking believable to me. We've sat through a couple, I've had to do a couple professionally and watch what it takes to try to put these things together. But it's all based in an agenda and they may not recognize it. And we've said this a lot on the Ruthless Variety program. It's not that all journos come to their line of work being like, I'm a partisan Democrat, I'm gonna go rip up the Republicans. It's that they don't know any better because they've never actually spoken to a Republican ever in their life. And their entire social circle, their professional reward circle, the hierarchy, their hiring, firing and promotion is all controlled by the same like minded individuals.

[Michael Duncan]

Look, Uri Berliner at NPR famously blew the whistle on this whole thing. 96% of the people he was working with at NPR were liberal Democrats. He's a Democrat and he wrote a letter saying, hey, maybe we should have a few other perspectives in this newsroom. They were like, you know what? You're fired. Yeah, like how dare you suggest sort of breadth of thought at this point.

[Josh Holmes]

I remember Scott Pelley coming out and having a lot of problem about the death of journalism when that happened.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't either.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I thought that was a big deal. No, no, no comment from him because it didn't happen to him and it didn't happen to his network because he had a COD lock on it. And this poor bastard is now in a situation where he's put himself above all else and he feels like he needs to speak for a quote unquote journalist. What he means is old school left wing gatekeepers.

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

That's what it is. It's nothing to do with journalism at all. It's that there used to be a handful of us who could keep or dispense information from the American public at our own decision that we thought about and thought, well, this is the right amount of information and I will provide it. That's what he's concerned about. That's what he thinks is the death of journalism, which is remarkable. So how does he cast off his. Like, you know, how. How does he wrap this thing up? Check out graphic one. There he is.

[Michael Duncan]

Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

Sailing a sailboat, hair in the wind, off he goes on a new voyage.

[John Ashbrook]

American flag waving in the background. I must say, real James Comey vibes.

[August Pfluger]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

From this. This setup, it's like the same thing that Comey did it.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a. There's a similarity to it.

[John Ashbrook]

Elevating yourself, you know, I am justice. I am journalism.

[Michael Duncan]

Somebody take my photographs. Yeah, not that one. Not that one. Use this one. Use the one. Use the 17th version of what you took of me, because that makes me appear resolute, just like the Kennedys I'm sailing.

[Josh Holmes]

I just think it's sad, man. You know, it's like there's no dignity in journalism. First, people like Scott Pelly, who, I think, even for those who disagreed vehemently with his latest 10 years of work, would have been willing to tip the cap and be like, hey, you know, this guy was a huge mainstay of political journalism, of every kind of journalism for a long period of time. Thanks for what you do. See you later. Nope. Gotta go out in the ugliest way possible and try to pretend. How many of you, like, does anyone ever think that you can walk in to an office with your boss, call him a fuckface, and then walk out and expect to have your job?

[Michael Duncan]

Nobody.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, of course not.

[Michael Duncan]

Not even in journalism.

[Josh Holmes]

Nobody.

[Michael Duncan]

You don't. You don't do that.

[Josh Holmes]

But, like, it's all news to him. News to him that they were seen as biased. News to him that you can't berate your new bosses in front of staff.

[John Ashbrook]

I think he did it on purpose. I think he did it deliberate. I think this is his way of joining the resistance and raging against Barry Weiss. Raging against the machine. I look forward to his sub stack

[Michael Duncan]

that no one will read from the sailboat.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's well said. Listen, when we come back, we got a great segment because two prominent Democrats are fighting. Platner's involved. Oh, Platners involved. And I just want you, before we come back to it, we have a question of the day that Revolves around this. The question of the day is who would win in a fight between Plantner and Fetterman?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, no.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a real heavyweight battle. Yeah, we don't know when you like and subscribe to the ruthless variety program, we read all of your answers and I want you to consider that question when we get to this, right after this. You know what's wild? There's a federal program called 340B designed to help low income patients afford medicine. And tax exempt hospital systems have exploited loopholes to turn it into a billion dollar cash machine. They collect massive drug discounts, but families still pay full price. And when anyone asks where the money actually goes, hospitals lawyer up and they go silent. If they're helping patients, prove it. Open the books. Learn [e-mail] okay, so it was only a matter of time that Fetterman weighed in on the Platner situation. Because in addition to embarrassing every Senate Democrat over the last week who's had to answer questions every day about this guy's indefensible behavior, there are relatively few who are willing, unwilling to be clown themselves in defense of somebody that they don't know and whose motivations they may object to. Fetterman is one of them. Senator Fetterman is one of them. And so this whole thing kicks off with Cliff Five.

[John Fetterman]

Yeah, well, I know, of course I never heard from P Hustle, but what's strange with P Hustle is back in April, he was doing an interview on that pro Hamas zodiac or whatever that thing is, and he said that I am. I am the bane of his existence and really was angry how I dress too. And now I said, now, Pete Hussle, here's a great chance, you know, you can just prove that all these people that you're dropping those dick pics and saying these things to were over 18. And now I will. I will wear a suit every day in the Senate. And now you can set the record clear and provide all those texts and all those conversations that you were having as a newlywed before you were going to run for the Senate.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, my God.

[John Ashbrook]

That was a complete destruction. I mean, first of all, using P Hustle. Yeah, it's like, I guess that was his username.

[Josh Holmes]

That was it. That was his username on kick.

[John Ashbrook]

It's the only way Fetterman refers to the guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he just calls him P Hustle.

[John Ashbrook]

Puzzle number two. Just dropping a dick pics. Live with Kaylee, but Kaylee, of all

[Josh Holmes]

hope, do you see your eyes on that? She Was like, oh, I'm not gonna react to that. Yeah, I'm not gonna react to that. Like, I don't know where to take this one way or another. And then he just continues for like a full minute. Absolutely eviscerating this guy.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's like, he's got such clarity, and I don't know what it. We've talked about this a lot when it comes to Fetterman about, like, what gave him the level of clarity, because he'll take on Republicans with the same amount of clarity where he disagrees with it. But it's like, if he disagrees, he's just gonna. There is no mealy mouth political calculation. He's just gonna give it to you. He doesn't like Platner. He just doesn't like him.

[Michael Duncan]

That much is clear. Yeah, he just. Can I. Can I just make a quick observation? You know, I was thinking about the question of the day. Who would win in a fight between Platner and Fetterman? And, you know, I was thinking Fetterman would simply on the reach advantage. He's a really tall guy, long arms. But can we put up just a screen cap of that, that interview quickly so we can take a look at something that I noticed. Look at the size of the mitts on that guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, those are big.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

I feel like, you know, Andre the Giant may have died. And then when he came back, he came back as John Fetterman's hands. And I think that Fetterman reaches out to Platner and GR Grabs him, and there's no Platner. Can't do anything about it.

[Josh Holmes]

Also a formidable risk there, which would support your theory that there. There could be hand work that could subdue a Platner.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, there are NFL tackles, all pro tackles who do not have hands the size of John Fetterman.

[Josh Holmes]

When you like and subscribe, you can weigh in on that.

[John Ashbrook]

It could be a tantalizing undercard for the President's UFC fight at the White House.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, that would be. I mean, everybody would tune in for that.

[Josh Holmes]

It would be fun to see. All right, so Platner decides that he wants to come back at this graphic. 1a. John Fetterman seems to genuinely think that the reason no one likes him is because he refuses to wear a suit. It's not the hoodie, dude. It's because you become a stooge for AIPAC in the Republican Party. Oh, I see what's happening here.

[August Pfluger]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, we just have to shift a little anti Semitism underneath the Rug tough

[John Ashbrook]

look when you have a Nazi tattoo.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. You know, how does this guy get away with this?

[John Ashbrook]

Well, you got to remember who's running his campaign. These are far left lunatics, Right.

[Josh Holmes]

But like, if you have a Nazi, they say aipac.

[John Ashbrook]

Like they have Tourette syndrome.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, like these people can't help themselves. And these are the people who are running his campaign. So I'm not surprised by.

[Michael Duncan]

I think they say apac, but they mean something very much more specific. Yeah, I think they do. Dude. I'm not.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, there's no question they do. Look at the Michigan race.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Look at how Josh Shapiro is not the vice presidential nominee. Look at all the base of support and what they talk with all of these primaries. It's always like AIPAC is supporting, AIPAC is doing. And all that means to the layman is there is an American Israeli contribution on behalf of one candidate or another. But these guys find that to be the most offensive component of their opponent. That's an amazing specific observation.

[Michael Duncan]

Why.

[John Ashbrook]

Why do they keep making it over

[Michael Duncan]

and over and over again? You know, it also struck like. It's a pretty weak comeback. It's a pretty weak comeback. It's like Fetterman as Vince Carter and Platner is like a poor man's Rick Smith, you know, like barely moving with the ball.

[John Ashbrook]

Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

An Indiana blast.

[John Ashbrook]

Why are we attacking Rick Smith? The Flying Dutchman? Rick Smith is a hell.

[Michael Duncan]

How about Velade Divat?

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, okay, we can attack him.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, we can.

[Michael Duncan]

George A Murison, you know, smells like cabbage.

[Josh Holmes]

But you wonder why it is that this Apex stuff is going on. Well, you need to go to a little man on the street stuff to go find the Plantner supporters themselves. Clip seven. The Nazi tattoo. What? Like, what's. How do you kind of.

[Michael Duncan]

Somebody said that they talked to somebody who.

[Josh Holmes]

Who had seen one of those or wore one of those and it was silver and it didn't even occur to

[Michael Duncan]

him that it was the same thing.

[Josh Holmes]

I think people are making as much of it as they can. These don't have a lot of substance around anything else. And if they did, we'd hear about it. Believe me. They are trolling for. For dirt. What if he had like a Israeli flag tattoo or something? Would that be a deal breaker for me? Yeah. Honestly.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah,

[Michael Duncan]

yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because I don't support genocide and he doesn't need.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude.

[Josh Holmes]

It's unbelievable. This is the state of the Democratic Party. A Nazi tattoo, no problem. Many people have them. An Israeli flag, a Star of David yes. Problem. Because I don't support genocide. You don't support genocide. You say you don't support genocide, but the Nazi thing is fine. What the is going. Are you insane? Are you people Nazi? Are you nuts? They're nuts.

[Michael Duncan]

They're nuts.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't support genocide, but I'm totally good. I'm totally good. I don't have any problem at all with a Nazi flag. Do you know about the genocide? Of course. Like, these people are literally the most dim witted human beings to grace the political electorate in my lifetime. And they're all compact in one party in this state of Maine. It is unbelievable.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't believe it either. I mean, honestly, like, I was shocked. I mean, like, you know that Democrats have some crazy people on their side, but I was literally shocked to hear that come out of her mouth.

[Josh Holmes]

She's a, she's one of the more reasonable people they have in that room. That, that's a lady who's sitting out back at the country club drinking tip toppers of chardonnay on the regular, telling everybody about how human justice is this and human justice is that, and that's why we ought to support all of these things. And they're like, what about Hitler? And she's like, fine, what about Israel? I don't like genocide. Personally, I don't like genocide.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[John Ashbrook]

Huh?

[Michael Duncan]

Their mind. What? Their minds are made out of the softest clay this earth has to provide. I'm telling you, they can be shaped by absolutely any little thing they see in left wing blue sky or from people like Scott Pelley. Like, all they want to do is believe that the left will rise in this country, that communism is possible. The Nazis are okay as long as we're socialist in America. Like, they are so brain dead, it's really hard to know where to start.

[Josh Holmes]

The great wraparound on this is how the brain death of a democratic base persists. Because in my experience, over a long period of time, the Republican party's had this, and I think it still does. But Democratic politics has always had a little drift to it from time to time where it gets off the mark. And they want to eliminate capitalism and democracy and all those things. But there's always the grandfathers of the party at some level that are like, oh, I'm blowing the whistle. We are a left of center party. We are still Americans and we believe in American ideals. We understand our history, we understand international politics. We get it. Like, this is who we are. They don't have anybody blowing that whistle

[Michael Duncan]

Democrats do not have that sort of a person today. And remember when Bill Clinton was a candidate for president, the sister soldier moment when he criticized one of his own supporters because they were expressing something that he thought was out of step with where voters were nationally. And a lot of people on this show are not huge Fans of John McCain. John McCain did something very similar when he was running for president. And some, some would argue, ultimately to his detriment, when somebody said, oh, well, Obama's not American, he was like, no, I'm not, not going there. Obama is, is American. You know, like Democrats absolutely do not have anyone who is willing to stand up for normal Americans and against the lunacy of the left.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, of course not, because Chuck Schumer has to win a primary against aoc.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

So he's all in for the platners of the world.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's just about surfing wherever they think the electorate is going. No matter how toxic it gets, as long as you're on top of it, it doesn't particularly matter what direction it goes.

[Michael Duncan]

Let me just step back on something I just said because it seems like Fetterman is doing that. But they move him to the side.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, no, they're primary him.

[John Ashbrook]

They're going to primary.

[Josh Holmes]

They're trying to kick him out of

[Michael Duncan]

their party because they don't want.

[Josh Holmes]

Kirsten Sinema did a similar thing. Joe Manchin did a similar thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Where are they? They're sitting at home. They're sitting at home like that's. And that soon will be John Fetterman. Unless he joins the Republican Party. They're going to give him a short term Senate pension and a gold watch. And it's, that's what they, that's what they do to people like that.

[Michael Duncan]

It's the state of Pennsylvania. There are a lot of people who are independent, you know, people who probably voted for George Bush and then Barack Obama and then Donald Trump. You know, like it's sort of a middle of the road state.

[Josh Holmes]

So look at the current leadership. And this is Hakeem Jeffries, the guy who wants to be speaker of the House, who wants to be the most powerful elected Democrat in this nation in what, 1, 2, 3, 4 months time. Listen to what he has to say.

[Michael Duncan]

What happened to believe all women? I haven't followed these allegations closely, but what I have said is that violence against women in any way, shape or form is unacceptable. It's a red line and nobody should cross that. And any accuser who comes forward has to be treated with dignity and respect. I haven't talked to Ro Khanna about this particular race. And in fact, I haven't gotten involved in this particular race because we're focused on taking back control of the House of Representatives.

[Josh Holmes]

So you don't have an opinion on the guy who has commandeered 10 days worth of headlines defining your party, who has a Nazi tattoo, a history of denigrating men and women in uniform, masturbating in a porta potty, assaulting women and otherwise being objectionable? No comment. No, I haven't observed it. If you've picked up a newspaper, even the liberal rags, fuck 60 minutes might even do something on that.

[John Ashbrook]

I have noticed it's really interesting with this whole Platner scandal or multitude of scandals, a new tactic from Democratic politicians and that is, you know, AOC did this as well last week when she was like, you know, I haven't weighed into that primary.

[Josh Holmes]

Weighed in.

[John Ashbrook]

I haven't.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait.

[John Ashbrook]

And then he did a similar thing during that hit. Like they're like a super pack. Like they're not a politician with opinions of their own. They're like, oh, I haven't placed any ad buys there, so, you know, I don't have to weigh in on that race. It's like Janet Mill suspended her campaign. He's the presumptive nominee. You know, I reserved zero media in Maine, therefore it'd be inappropriate for me to comment.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like there's Supreme Court Justice. I mean, it's just, it's completely wild. It leads us back to our question of the day. When you like and subscribe to the ruthless Friday program, we read absolutely all of them. Get back to you the very next episode. In this case, it would be on Thursday. And the question is, who would win in a fight between Plantner and Fetterman? I don't know. There's cases to be made here on both sides.

[John Ashbrook]

I have a question for Ashbrook. If Fetterman is Andre the Giant, who is Platner?

[Michael Duncan]

Iron Sheik.

[August Pfluger]

Iron Sheik.

[Michael Duncan]

I think it's pretty clear.

[John Ashbrook]

Absolutely no expectation immediately.

[Michael Duncan]

But I think here's another thing that he's that serious. Here's another thing Platner has going against him. You know, Germans, Nazis, they over engineer things. Okay. That's why they had a hard time against us in World War II, because the Panzer tank seemed so great when you looked at it. But it had all these different parts and everything was custom made. Everything is absolutely custom made for Graham Platner by his party. And I, I just think that Fetterman is going to Give him one shot with the right hand and that's it.

[Josh Holmes]

One of those formidable mitts.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That we were talking about. I think that could do damage.

[Michael Duncan]

100% it's going to do damage. You've seen that. You've seen the fights with Tyson where like sometimes in the first round he's taking a lot of shots. Taking a lot of shots. He hits a guy one time and they go down.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the only Fetterman just. And he's got the reach advantage. So Platner may be engineering a way to get inside, but he's not going to get there.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's just a depressing story if you're a Democrat. But when we come back, chaos in LA in all of California, really, with these late mail in ballots and how they shift the outcome. And our very own Lee Wolf plays a role right after this.

[John Ashbrook]

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[Josh Holmes]

Okay. A lot of you have taken notice of a couple of things that have happened in the great state of California. I think chiefly because of Spencer Pratt's campaign, how viral that went in the national notoriety about the uphill battle that this gentleman was waging in the bluest of blue cities of la and seemed to sort of captivate a different way of looking at politics and started to make inroads into what was previously incomprehensible that any sort of like center. Center right politician ever could. And then we had Election day. And Election day seemed to validate what it is that Spencer Pratt was talking about. Of course, Karen Bass, the incumbent mayor, placed first, outpacing Spencer by several percent, but he was up 12%.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Or so over Nithya Raman, who was. She's a socialist.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. And I really thought he would hold on. And I, I think I said in that episode based solely on the fact that Nithya Rahman was crying in her election night speech.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, it seemed clear to her he was going to come up short. It was done below and behold.

[Josh Holmes]

So now we've had a. What is it? It's got to be 10 days. Two weeks. Two weeks, yeah. Two weeks, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

May 26th.

[Josh Holmes]

They're still counting.

[Michael Duncan]

Valid. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Tomorrow.

[Michael Duncan]

Today is the 9th. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And they're not done, but they're still counting ballots. We'll get to that in a second. This is the latest in graphic 2. Pratt edged out of the runoff election. At this point it would be Karen Bass and Nithya Rahman if all holds now, they are still counting and it is a razor's edge as you see right there. But she has made up some 13% in the post election count where California loves to facilitate

[Michael Duncan]

magic.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like a voting biennial. Basically you can vote for three plus months and until our candidates figure out how to win, we're not going to stop the count. Well, that's happening here in this race and a lot of people are disappointed about it. It does put a fine point on California's voting rules. Look, this kind of like fits into the Scott Pelly thing, but it's like, what about California and their board of elections, the governor, all of the Democratic officials that inhabit this state about the last six years of American politics, they would lead them to believe that there's total faith in what it is that they're doing here and what is it about them doubling down any process that produces results on election day and then for the course of a month just throw in ballots from God knows where until they just numbers change and whatever and you have no real idea who wins an election until a month later. Like, what is it about these people who would look at their constituency and albeit it's California Democratic constituency, would say there's going to be no suspicion about the results here. Nobody's concerned that this has all of the hallmarks of impropriety. Nobody's gonna be concerned about the social media and online traffic, about fixing elections or anything else. Like they have not changed a thing. In fact, they've codified it essentially.

[Michael Duncan]

It's especially puzzling given the fact that that state is basically the Garden of Eden for the most advanced technology that mankind has ever seen in history. Efficiency, accuracy, anything you want from technology has been created within the borders of that state. Anything that is, except an election that's counted in the same way that every other state counts their election.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I think what's fascinating to me is no one can actually defend the process as it exists in California and tell you it's good. No Democratic politicians in California will acknowledge it goes too long. Journalists who are quick to jump on, you know, people talking about election fraud will concede this process looks horrible. And of course, like, voter confidence in the process is half the ball game, folks.

[Josh Holmes]

Which has been at an all time low over the last six years for obvious reasons, after 2020. But they've done nothing.

[John Ashbrook]

But the only thing they can do, and that is they defend the system by attacking the people who attack it. And that's their bank shot of letting the failure continue.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

In fact, it was the San Francisco Chronicle. Is that it? Yeah, dude. This story attacking our producer, Lee Wolf. So in case you missed the episode, we helpfully, I think, pointed out how

[Josh Holmes]

we may have done Lee a disservice.

[John Ashbrook]

No, no, no. I think he was happy to oblige.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

But all we did was merely point out the fact that he's been living in Virginia for a lot of years.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And still where he used to live in California, he receives a live ballot.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

For California's primary. And that, I don't know, maybe that might be a problem in the chain of custody of a ballot guy who's 3,000 miles away. We merely point that out and the San Francisco Chronicle writes up an entire hit piece on the guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Bay Area Official Debunks viral Claim about a Virginia Voter Being Mailed a California Ballot. Okay, so the title says it all to begin in that he never claimed that there was a ballot mailed to Virginia.

[Michael Duncan]

Of course not.

[Josh Holmes]

What he said very specifically is, I am still getting my California ballot at my California residence, a place that I haven't lived in in over a decade, and made several different inquiries into the state, including, by the way, having to dispute a jury notification. He talked to the state about the fact that he did not live in the state. He lived in Virginia because they were trying to summon him to jury duty. Did that translate to the Board of Elections? Certainly not. Certainly not. It wasn't at that point that they decided to take him off the voter rolls.

[John Ashbrook]

But. But if you're a conservative and you've ever read PolitiFact or one of those other fact check sites, don't do it. This is a very familiar tactic of the left in journalism.

[Josh Holmes]

What about the TPS report?

[John Ashbrook]

Instead of, instead of arguing the actual claim, they, quote, debunk a straw man they've invented to prove it wrong.

[Josh Holmes]

It's true. So now what they've done is taken a claim that never was made about ballots being mailed to Virginia and debunk that, but totally set aside the fact that for 10 years this man has not lived in this place, has notified the state on several different occasions through several different agencies that he does not in fact have residency in California. And yet these stays on the voter rolls. And in the end, if you read through this entire shitty article, Sarah Dina Talley.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that's her name.

[Josh Holmes]

Sarah Dina Talley.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that's the author of this shit piece.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm assuming that this gal has like worked there for four days or she's like 23.

[John Ashbrook]

I think this entire thing was wired up at the Board of Elections who sent her all this. And they dutifully wrote it up. And they didn't give Lee an opportunity to actually.

[Josh Holmes]

Case in point, there was a, a letter, a handwritten letter from the Board of Elections to Lee that was sent again to the old address.

[John Ashbrook]

After all of this goes down, they, they, they, rather than just taking them off the voter rolls. Yep, Right. They're gonna, I mean, this is the classic theater going right back to the Scott Pelly thing at the top of the show, right? Instead of just taking them off the voter rolls, they spend the time to a place that takes two weeks to count ballots. Took the time to hand write a letter to a guy in Virginia. Then instead of just taking them off the voter rolls. Right, folks, this is what we're talking about here. This is all fucking theater. These people are making it up.

[Josh Holmes]

This is it. They hand wrote the letter, they dated it like the end of May. And then like at the beginning of June, he gets a call from the reporter about a letter that this is this whole thing. So they pitched it to him or to her.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And they started up working up this piece. Never waited for a response from producer Lee Wolf to write the story. What they did is debunk a claim. Now, now in the backdrop of all of this is still a live ballot sitting in the mailbox that they have had now 11 long years to verify through many different state departments that you do not have a citizen resident of California living in that. They have refused to clean that up. Now when you, as conservatives, you hear the argument like, we have to do everything we can do to eliminate live ballots that are going in the wrong direction because there are a bunch of nefarious actors out there and some people can just fill out ballots and deliver. You don't want live action ammo out there because then it's on an after the fact Department of Justice or something else to try to prosecute people who have cast Ballots illegally and how can you prove it? And yada, yada, yada, they just wipe that away, Just hand wave all of that shit away like none of it matters that they've been delivering a ballot to a guy who hasn't lived in the state for 10 years. The problem was that Lee didn't put a change of address form when he moved out of California in his 20s to go to something else. And had he done that, they then would have sent a subsequent letter to the address forwarded to the new address that he then could have discussed about whether or not he still lived in the state or not. So the onus ultimately in the state of California. I want to hear this very clearly because this is the way the Democrats ran rule election law. The onus for the integrity of the election in the state of California is on an individual voter to be proprietary in the information. You have a state board of elections, you have an Attorney General's office, you have a Secretary of State's office, you have a governor's office. You pay fucking millions of dollars to all of these people to oversee this question. But the onus, according to the state of California is on a 20 year old just out of the Marines in search of work to file a change of address form.

[John Ashbrook]

Voter integrity is up to you. Dude, the funniest way they said here in the article, I gotta read this because it's hilarious. Here's what Lee wrote. If not for my integrity, there's nothing stopping me from voting in the June primary from the comfort of my home in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Except there is something stopping him. Federal law.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, federal law.

[John Ashbrook]

Wait, it's federal law then no one ever commits a crime. All of those homeless people in la, they can't be doing fentanyl. That'd be a federal crime.

[Josh Holmes]

Federal law. Well, certainly there isn't any illegal immigration. That's a federal law.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, you're right, that's a great point. I never even thought about it that way.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what? But sometimes people have guns. Those are state and federal laws. My God, did you ever consider the fact that these closed down every CVS in San Francisco because people were robbing the joint blind? You know what? Those are laws. Fuck you. I mean, it's just, it's, it's incredible because I. Look, this is what wraps conservatives around the axle and not seeing clarity in what it is that the Democrats are doing here. The fraud exists, but the fraud in Democratic jurisdictions is legalized. It's both through negligence, intentional negligence. In the case of this situation. Or by creating a system which you can benefit one party over another, where you have things like ballot harvesting, where they just go out and, and find like homeless residents, low income residences, all compact. In a small amount of places, you have either union workers or, or some other NGO non profit.

[John Ashbrook]

All the DSA people, all the DSA

[Josh Holmes]

folks, they go up and picked up all those ballots, chuck them in the box and they count. They count because they have created an election system that allows them to count.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And that is the fundamental problem. It's why we've been at war for this forever. And these people have taken so advantage of it. And when you call them on something as simple as maybe you ought to clean your voter rolls and the fact that somebody who's not lived there for 12 years still gets a ballot, they're like, did you file a TPS report?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it's on you. They'll write you a letter and photocopy it so they can give it to a journalist.

[Josh Holmes]

I would love to look. I didn't look. I should have looked before this. What was dedicated in the California state budget for voting or election administration, I guarantee you it's in the tens of millions. And I guarantee you they have thousands of employees. And I guarantee you that not one of their jobs is to ensure that a registered California voter is actually living in California. Think about that up.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I mean, these people, it's just, what a state.

[Josh Holmes]

What a state. And there's so much more. Like if you got Lee going on this thing, I mean, he'll give you the full. He could give you the full run. And that's our Cliff Notes version. But it. Because when it happens to one of our own here on the Ruthless variety problem, we're certainly not gonna let that lie. And it's in the name. It's in the name Ruthless, so. God, go fuck yourself, Sarah. I mean, if you're gonna do some journalism, call, ask.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Before you print the story, Lee, did they even, did they even take your comment before the story went up?

[John Ashbrook]

No, no, no.

[August Pfluger]

About two and a half hours to respond.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

It was on a Friday night or something. Yeah, Friday night, after he's home taking care of his kid, they email and by the time he sees it, story's already up.

[John Ashbrook]

But they already had the handwritten letter

[Josh Holmes]

from the six days previously.

[John Ashbrook]

Wow, that's so weird. I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally. That's the way. I mean, Peli knows. Peli knows it. These are the journalism.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what he was trying.

[John Ashbrook]

It's just like being a firefighter, just like frauds.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, speaking of firefighters, you gentlemen did a very big thing over the weekend. We've been covering it here on the rituals variety program on this Tunnel to Towers charity event where you were to walk and, or run up the entirety of the Freedom Tower. And I gotta thank all of you listeners for participating in the process. Huge one. I think you guys raised almost 20 grand for this thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that's right. Thanks to the, I mean, the listeners. Our, our audience is the absolute best. Yeah, I mean they care about stuff like Tunnel of Towers, which is a great organization, but continue.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I mean, it's what makes us think very wisely about the groups that we choose to talk about on this program. We appreciate the trust that you put on in us to give you the right direction because this is truly a great charity that does amazing things. But as a part of this, the old man had like a four month workout routine.

[John Ashbrook]

I did that.

[Josh Holmes]

He put himself through.

[John Ashbrook]

Look, I was committed to winning and that was important to me. And I did, I did in fact win quite handily, I might add.

[Josh Holmes]

And, and we'll get to that in a second. Your knees, which were in question, seemed to hold up just fine.

[Michael Duncan]

They did, you know, I was, I was very happy that they held up. You know, get, you get to like the 75th floor and you're like, okay, I'm just waiting for creaks and aches and pains and those never came.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we, can we pop up graphic 3? So this is the side by side, Duncan and Ashbrook. You'll notice that Michael Duncan finished all the floors of the Freedom Tower in 22 minutes and 52 seconds in incredible time. But I thought really impressively. Smash came in under 30 himself. 29. 29. That is a, that boat, guys. Good work.

[Michael Duncan]

So the old man, I was there, so I can say as an eyewitness, when they told us to start. You start one at a time. The old man started he at a sprint. He literally ran up that first flight of stairs. And I was, I looked at the guy we were walking up with, I was like, I'm walking just so you know, I'm going to set a pace and I'm just going to keep going at that pace. But the old man didn't stop. I mean, the only thing that was slowing him down here and there was just, you know, it's crowded, there are a lot of people on, you know, walking up is very popular event. A lot of people are, you know, getting into the spirit I think that he would have been competitive for the overall victory had he been given a clear road to the top.

[Josh Holmes]

I noticed you guys did an interview with Fox and Friends afterwards. You were joined by Lawrence.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right, Lawrence Jones. Great dude.

[Josh Holmes]

He's a great guy. And I can say that for the audience. I don't think he's been on the program. We should have him on because he is just a spectacular guy. But I'm genuinely curious. Did you beat Lawrence?

[Michael Duncan]

We did that.

[Josh Holmes]

Because here's why I ask. He looks like a formidable athlete to me.

[Michael Duncan]

He is.

[Josh Holmes]

I saw him when we were at, what was it, the Patriot Awards last fall, and I was surprised. He is a. He's a dude. He looks like he could bench press me.

[Michael Duncan]

He is. And I think you guys beat him. I think he's. He does. I think he does jujitsu or something. So this guy is always, you know, into something. Yeah. You know, but Duncan sprinted up the stairs. Lawrence sprinted right up after him.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh.

[Michael Duncan]

And I don't think that Lawrence had the same, like, pre. Game plan.

[Josh Holmes]

He didn't have a game plan.

[Michael Duncan]

He wasn't doing what Duncan was doing ahead of this thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay. But Duncan knew what he was capable of, and I think he was like, oh, well, if Duncan's sprinting, I guess that's what I'm going to do.

[Josh Holmes]

So he tried to sprint up. Up until he couldn't, and.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And then.

[Josh Holmes]

Then that becomes. It unravels a bit. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And, you know, I think he's also got some knee problems. You talk to him, he's like, he's. He's got. If you have a knee problem, a race upstairs is really a challenging thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

That's why I was so worried about it.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, like, I. I think for my part, like, I was really battling myself.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

I. I just wanted to prove I could do it as fast as I thought I could, and I did that. And in the grand scheme of things, like, it's not about that.

[Josh Holmes]

You're trying to be altruistic at this point. That beating Ashbrook was not your.

[Michael Duncan]

That was absolutely what he wanted.

[John Ashbrook]

Absolutely my goal. Yeah. I would say, and I said it on fox, I was like, you sort of lose yourself in that stairwell, you know, trying to do as well as you possibly can, but then you get to the top and you look out at that view.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And then you can't help but think about the people. The people.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And the people who are up there staring out at that view. On 9, 11, 25 years ago. And it really does, like, overwhelm you,

[Josh Holmes]

people carrying up all kinds of gear.

[John Ashbrook]

And Ashbrook made this point, too, when we were on the train home. I'll let you make it.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you can't help but be inspired by the guys who are to your left and right, and a lot of them are firefighters and cops from different cities around the country. You know, and you're looking, you're sort of like, you get to the 60th floor and you're like. Like, you know, kind of. I mean, the legs start burning. Yeah. And then you look and you're like, man, these. These guys are heroes.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't. I. I have to. I have to stick up and do what I'm supposed to do.

[John Ashbrook]

And they're. And they're 20 year younger versions of people who were wearing the oxygen tank and the gear on that day, climbing those stairs with the very.

[Josh Holmes]

In the real Trade center, which ultimately came to fruition, that that thing would collapse on top of. And they were doing it meanwhile.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly. And you know what occurred to me? Walking up those steps, like, looking left and right, it's like every single one of these guys would do the exact same thing if they were in the exact same situation. You know, that's a humbling thing.

[John Ashbrook]

It just.

[Michael Duncan]

It really, like, I think that we are surrounded by so many actual heroes in this country whose names we'll never know. You know, we got to sit and listen to people like Scott Pelley talk about how important they are. And then you're. You're walking up steps with guys from, like, Reading, Pennsylvania, you know, who. Who drove down the night before, got a hotel room just so that they could be a part of something that's bigger than them. And it's like, those are the guys I want to be around. You know, Those are the guys who actually make America better. And I. I just thought it was such a great event. I want to do it next year. I think Duncan's going to do it next year, too. Yeah, he. He beat me, by the way, if I'm. If I may say.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, boy.

[Michael Duncan]

In the race, he beat me. Beat me by seven minutes. Okay. But in the fundraising, I beat him by more than $7. I don't know if Lee has the graphic.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's pop that up. Let's see the graph. Total 18,407. Good job, boys.

[Michael Duncan]

From our audience to Tunnel to Towers. You know, Michael made it about himself, but.

[August Pfluger]

Well,

[Michael Duncan]

I just want to point out it doesn't say it on the graphic, but I definitely raised More money than he did have more donors. And I think that a lot of people were concerned about my knees. I was very grateful for that.

[John Ashbrook]

I was leading on.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, how much did you beat him by? Can we throw?

[Michael Duncan]

Do we have that?

[Josh Holmes]

Do we have that?

[Michael Duncan]

We don't have that, but I do think.

[Josh Holmes]

Hold on, let me do some math.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay. All right. While you're doing the math, let me just explain again how decidedly I defeated him on the fundraiser.

[John Ashbrook]

You lost the race by saying seven minutes. It took me 22 minutes.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know if you fixed the amount. Okay, but the difference. Ashbrook did win. He is correct.

[John Ashbrook]

He didn't at the fundraising, actually.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, he won at the fundraising.

[John Ashbrook]

He kept chipping in every time I took the lead on Sunday.

[Josh Holmes]

You self donated.

[Michael Duncan]

I chipped into Duncan's account. I felt so bad for Duncan because his fundraising was so far behind.

[John Ashbrook]

No, I was winning on Sunday. And then. And then he kept donating.

[Michael Duncan]

I gave. I gave Duncan 250 because he was way behind me and he had, like, a dozen fewer donors.

[John Ashbrook]

That's not true.

[Michael Duncan]

I was like. I don't want him to feel so bad for himself.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, is it not true that he didn't. He didn't give you $250?

[Michael Duncan]

I did. No, he didn't. You want me to prove it?

[Josh Holmes]

I'll prove it right now. Okay. But the difference is $69.

[John Ashbrook]

You're kidding. You're sick. You're sick.

[Josh Holmes]

You're a pervert.

[John Ashbrook]

You're a pervert.

[Josh Holmes]

You are a pervert. Sir, did you contribute to get to $69 difference?

[Michael Duncan]

If you're gonna win, you gotta win with style.

[John Ashbrook]

Hey, look, it's a funny goof. And it all goes to charity. I can't complain.

[Josh Holmes]

You have daughters. That's an outrageous number to win by $69. All right, we need one more piece of variety. Thank you, guys, for doing that. That was huge. It's a great. Tunnel of the Towers is a great, great charity, and you made us proud out there. Ruthless. So thank you very much. One more piece of variety. You know how we'd like to do robot things? This one.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This one caught my eye. Clip 9. It's a clown robot. It's. It's out there doing stuff in that.

[John Ashbrook]

I just kicked the kid in the stomach.

[Josh Holmes]

So apparently, this is. The incident occurred June 1 in Zhejiang, China, during China's Children's Day.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, my gosh.

[Josh Holmes]

The child was not seriously injured. Let's get it one more time.

[August Pfluger]

Sorry.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's get it one more time.

[Michael Duncan]

I've seen it 80 times and I just.

[Josh Holmes]

Aye, aye, aye. I mean, this is the kids up there checking it out. Oh, it just delivers a complete roundhouse, you know. You know, wheel kick.

[Michael Duncan]

You saw he was surrounded by three or four of his buddies.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, they've been laughing about it ever since. I mean, like, once they were. Once it was clear that he was okay, they were like, they're going to give him a hard for the rest of his life.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

They're going to be sending this on their text chains.

[Josh Holmes]

Look at this. The kid for a YouTube audience. The kill. I just took the boot. Right? The best part, the best part is this, this, this thing, which by the way, it's got like sort of a pride flag carpet in China, means something entirely differently. That's not. That's not. They're not celebrating the month of June.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

They're doing something different there in which they have robots beat up children.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, frankly, I don't know who to blame in this scenario, honestly. Like, obviously I want to blame the robot menace, but if a robot starts doing karate moves.

[Josh Holmes]

Get out of the way.

[John Ashbrook]

Get out of the way. Wide berth.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, wide berth. It's like the people you watch do it. Those, those spin out of the cars and they're standing in the front row and you're like, what good can come of that?

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

You know, like, you're gonna catch a bumper to the knee.

[John Ashbrook]

How close do you have to be?

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know. I don't know. But this thing, the wig on it is also.

[Michael Duncan]

That's something.

[Josh Holmes]

That's a choice. Anyway. China is really at the forefront of the menace. Remember the stairs thing? Oh, yeah. What the kid needed was a set of stairs.

[Michael Duncan]

He did.

[Josh Holmes]

He'd have been just fine. That thing would have been absolutely disabled.

[Michael Duncan]

Or a bucket of water.

[John Ashbrook]

Or a bucket of water right into

[Michael Duncan]

the circuit banana pool.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, we got a great interview for you. You've heard him here before. Here we have Rep. Pfluger. Well, he's the biggest fighter pilot that you've ever met in your entire life. That I'm absolutely certain. He's also the chairman of the Republican Study Committee. He's been here before on Ruthless Variety Program. August Pfluger. How are you, sir?

[August Pfluger]

I am doing well and I'm going to introduce you to some of my fighter pilot friends. Who would disagree.

[Josh Holmes]

I just. Are you kidding?

[August Pfluger]

So glad you said it, because now I've got proof.

[Josh Holmes]

I just can't believe it. I mean, the fact that you can Fit into a cockpit. You're a big man.

[August Pfluger]

We had a basketball looking squadron, six four. Really six five. You know, I'm six three. It was amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

I feel like the recruiter missed the assignment. Like the big guys, they gotta go do other stuff. You gotta fit the tiny guys in. Well, you did it well for a long time. Thank you for your service as always. I want to talk to you a little bit about what's going on in the House of Representatives and just government in general. I think for your layman view, there's always moments where you're focused on one or two issues. You guys deal with all of it all the time. Like, like, what are y' all working on?

[August Pfluger]

We are working very hard to further the agenda that I think Donald Trump was elected on. And I'll tell you, it's a tough environment. I mean, it's just tough, you know, politically divided. People are mad at each other. There's protest in the House on, you know, every committee. You know, it's like it's just a soap opera. I coming over here, I, I passed Jamie Comer, you know, he's walking up to the building and I'm like, man, he's got the toughest job in Congress on that oversight committee. The crazies that he has to deal with on dug in, they're just dug in, you know. But I mean, despite all that, I still do town halls, by the way, back home and they've gotten a little sporty, you know, I mean even in west Texas. But we, I'm hopeful about this country, but it is a sad state of affairs when you have to do partisan only bills like reconciliation, which I know you, we want to talk about some of that especially for like defense related things, national security related things.

[Josh Holmes]

Stuff that used to be just everyone agreed had to get done post 9, 11.

[August Pfluger]

It's like we're going to fund DHS because we don't want terrorists attacking our country.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah.

[August Pfluger]

You know, what happened to that? I mean, it's a tough environment.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I'm not surprised to hear that you're still doing town halls because you're the kind of guy who would do that sort of thing, feel a lot more comfortable without a tie on than with the tie on. But unfortunately, when you're in the House of Representatives and you're voting and you're dealing with all these people, you have to wear a tie. So that's why the man is dressed up today. But I'm wondering if you could just walk us through this situation with reconciliation. Reconciliation 2.0, you hear about that. You heard a lot of conversation about reconciliation 3.0. I mean, is that actually something that can happen? You know, could you just sort of ballpark what to expect for our audience?

[August Pfluger]

You bet. I mean, to rehash what the Republican Study committee is, we're 190 members, the largest committee, it's a caucus, but we, our role is to go on offense. Our role is to champion our members legislation and to bring people together. We're the good, solid, governing, thoughtful, reasonable people that came up here. You probably don't know most of the names. I mean, and that's kind of the way we like it. You know, we fly under the radar, we do our jobs. So 2.0, I mean, that just kind of happened. Right. Because of the, the lack of bipartisanship. We had to fund dhs, ice, Border Patrol, all those people.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you know, they forced it.

[August Pfluger]

They forced it.

[Josh Holmes]

And in a partisan basis. When something that should be consensus, particularly at a time of war, used to be an afterthought.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[August Pfluger]

And, and this is what we have to do. It's sad. 3.0 is different. 3.0 is us going into our districts, listening to our constituents who are saying, hey, things are pretty expensive. We know it's not your fault, we know it's Biden and the inflation that he created. But what can we do for housing and energy and health care? Like, do you guys have an answer on healthcare? Yeah, we do. We have some really good answers on healthcare. What about fraud? Yeah, we've got some great answers on fraud. In fact, the RSC has helped over, has helped push over 50 pieces of legislation from our members across the finish line this year and we're proud of that. Some of these are going to come together in 3.0 and I know everybody is like, there's no way you're going to get it done. There's just no way. Well, I'm going to take the opposite view for a couple reasons. Number one, because our constituents are asking us to unify, to come together to get something done. Number two, President Trump thankfully is standing up for our military and we need to recapitalize, which means we need more money. And the Democrats are never going to do that. They're not going to spend another dime on the military, which is sad. So for all those reasons, on affordability, on fraud and on defense, I think that we're going to run a two minute drill. In fact, we're in the middle of planning for it right now and I think we're going to be successful. It's not going to be the one big beautiful bill. The scope of it is not going to be like that.

[Josh Holmes]

That.

[August Pfluger]

And I know you guys know a lot about the Senate. When we send it over to the Senate the last week of July, they're going to look at this bill and go, damn, that's good. Like, that's what we've been asking for.

[Josh Holmes]

So, so is that. That's the general timeline is to try to get something clear the House before the August break, get the August body in the United States Senate to sort of.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

To try to figure out how to wrap their mind around getting something done this fall.

[August Pfluger]

Yeah. I mean, our constituents, we have a group of, you know, 75 to 80 million people that came out in support of Donald Trump. We got to get those people back out. We got to give them something to be excited about. We have to tell them, we heard you in Minnesota, we hear you in California. We know there's fraud in many states and we're going after it. It and we're taking it seriously. We're not going to be able to uncover every bit of it, but we're going to do as much as we can. We need some more time. We need two more years.

[John Ashbrook]

So give me some examples on either fraud or affordability or some of these things that are probably going to be themes of the election season this fall and how the RSC and the Republican Conference writ large is going to sort of deliver on that from a messaging standpoint and a policy standpoint.

[August Pfluger]

A couple of things on. On fraud. You've heard Dr. Oz recently talking. It's sad that we have people who are starting hospice businesses in Los Angeles and literally stealing identities from people there. I mean, they're using real people saying that they're about to die. Hospice is a serious program, and we created it to take the place of. When you, when you join hospice, it's because you don't have more than a couple weeks left.

[Josh Holmes]

It's basically dignity of death.

[August Pfluger]

It's the dignified way of passing away. So there's over 400 businesses that popped up in LA county alone, and 99% of those were not valid companies. They're stealing hundreds of billions of dollars, and that's just scratching the surface. That has got to stop. The daycare stuff in Minnesota has got to stop, and there's so much more of that. So we need to give our, our country and our constituents. This is not a partisan issue. It's just there's only one party who will do It, Yeah. On the affordability side, you know, look, I, I went to town halls for my first four or five years and what are you Republicans doing about health care? Well, we have some answers. We have some really good legislation that would actually lower premiums. 10, 11. Right now. Let's do it. Let's go for it. You know, let's give our vulnerable members something to go home and talk about. And even my folks back home on energy or on housing, they want to know what we're doing. This is a crazy idea. What if we put a moratorium on capital gains taxes for the sale of a home, a primary home or a secondary home for those who are between 65 and 75 years old for a couple years? Well, we said no capital gains taxes. And you have the grandparents now who want to get out of their four or five bedroom home and they want to go to, you know, they want to downsize, but they can't afford to pay the tax bill. What if we did something like that to help the supply of housing in our country?

[Josh Holmes]

Interesting.

[August Pfluger]

You know, I'm not saying that that's something that's going to pass tomorrow, but that's the way we're creatively.

[Josh Holmes]

But you're thinking about it.

[August Pfluger]

We're thinking about it. We want to address the concerns and we want to make the American dream affordable again. And I think that the foundation of that affordability, fraud and some defense things, I think it's going to come together. It's not everything. It's limited scope. It's a two minute drill.

[Josh Holmes]

How frustrating is it? Listen, you've always been a substantive member and engaged in these policy discussions and trying to solve real world problems. How frustrating is it when you get into primary season of an election year and then ultimately a general election where you get like the craziest amongst you that are basically, basically speaking for all of you and you're like, whoa, dude, I got like 50,000 pages of stuff that I want to do and yet we're out talking about all of the counterproductive stuff on a day to day basis. Gotta have some frustration with that.

[August Pfluger]

It's very frustrating. AI. The thing that the problem set of AI, how much regulation, how little regulation, I mean, you need to get that basically just right. Yeah, permitting, reform, you know, there's so many things that we need to do

[Josh Holmes]

and you got to dig in deep. You got to actually know the issue. You can't do the Michael Lewis book routine, which is what I was used to joke that Congress never really understood an issue until Michael Lewis wrote a book about it, and it was like, you know, when you talk about AI, I mean, you can affect international economies overnight if you make the wrong decisions.

[August Pfluger]

You're right, and we need to dig it, by the way. I need to go back and read that book. But in all seriousness, you know, the. The left has been completely held hostage by their radical side. I mean, you know, they. Basically, the entire left is now characterized as wanting men playing women's sports and a socialist approach to running New York City. And, I mean, that's the way they are.

[Josh Holmes]

How many of your colleagues do you think actually believe this nonsense or feel captive to the political movement on the left, where they can't really say what they think?

[August Pfluger]

You know, unfortunately, I think the social issues have.

[Josh Holmes]

Have. Have pulled them over in full captivation, like they are. They are on board for the.

[August Pfluger]

There's no Blue Dogs left. Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[August Pfluger]

And then on the, you know, there are some really, really good members on the other side that I think in private conversations will tell you that's crazy. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, for example, eliminating capitalism. I mean, it seems like.

[August Pfluger]

Let's just start with that one.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. Seems like threshold issue that we used to. Ten years ago, not a long time ago. Everybody's sort of like, we're committed to that.

[August Pfluger]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And it doesn't seem like. And you look at these elections, there's a substantial amount of the leftist base that just wants to throw all of it out.

[August Pfluger]

They want to start over with this socialist thing that we know doesn't work. We know that has its roots in. In Marxism. And. And, you know, it's government replacing.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Bernie's big idea on AI, by the way, is all the AI companies give the government.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I saw that.

[John Ashbrook]

Half their company.

[Josh Holmes]

I saw that. It's great for innovation, by the way. People have always said if you put it in the government, you just. You can't stop it. It's so great.

[John Ashbrook]

Like, all of human knowledge being half controlled by the government. I can't think of that going wrong.

[Josh Holmes]

Just divvy it out, friends and neighbors, probably.

[August Pfluger]

Oh, my gosh. I came in here with an optimistic attitude, and now, you know, I'm back down to reality.

[Josh Holmes]

We live in the dark humor.

[John Ashbrook]

Are there, though, any Democrats that you can work with on some big ideas on affordability on any of these sort of topics where they can at least offer some solutions that you might be able to work with?

[August Pfluger]

Sure. I'll give you an example. This happened last week. So Rodney Davis, former member from Illinois, now at the Chamber of Commerce, We've been working for a couple months to figure out, like, how can we tackle this, this specific problem. So we started this free enterprise caucus. You're like, what is that? Well, it's pushing away socialism. You know, it's saying no to that price setting mentality. It's bipartisan. Lou Correa, Brad Schneider, David Valada and myself are kind of the chairs. I'll be very interested to see which Democrats join this because this, to me, this is not just some, you know. Yeah. Let's put our names down. Let's actually go tackle some bills.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[August Pfluger]

And some pieces of legislation and, and push out that radical.

[Josh Holmes]

It also strikes me as something that Democrats are loathe. Sign up for between February and June and then in like Labor Day.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, oh, hey, oh, yeah, I gotta put my name on the bad boy.

[August Pfluger]

Join this for reelection purposes. Maybe we'll put a moratorium. No, no joining after Labor Day.

[Josh Holmes]

No, there it is. Right.

[August Pfluger]

Like you have to be substantively involved the whole time. You know, we're not going to do

[Josh Holmes]

it for reelection with us or against us. Yeah, yeah, right. Let's draw a hard line.

[Michael Duncan]

One of the other things I think that Democrats have increasingly become loathe to sign up for is the Congressional baseball game. And I think that's because you guys dominate them. And I think maybe five years running, they haven't even stood a chance. Wonder if you could just handicap this for us. What should we expect this year? Are we going to have a sixth win in a row? I mean, you got a lot of great bats in the lineup.

[August Pfluger]

We, this is so much fun. And speaking of town halls, when I do the town halls are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, great. Good job legislating. That's wonderful.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Tell me about the baseball.

[August Pfluger]

What about the game? How's it going? Yes, we're going to win. But what I'm going to say is we're not, we're not taking anything for granted. They're, they're coming out with a vengeance. Their team hasn't changed. So, you know, we have to focus. We are focused. We have great players. I'll tell you, the best hitter on our team is Eric Schmidt.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that guy's natural.

[August Pfluger]

I mean, he's, he's got an amazing swing. He's, he's dialed in, he's been practicing. And then we've got just several guys have come along. Jake Elsey, not normally a baseball player. And over the past three or four years, he's really, he's gotten into a good place. Morgan Luttrell, it's his last game.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[August Pfluger]

Imagine a Navy SEAL with a baseball bat in their hand in combat. Well, that's basically Morgan.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[August Pfluger]

So if you remember a couple years ago, he. He turned around with such force to chase a ball down. He knocked the ref the ump. The home plate. He knocked him out cold. I'm like, this is amazing. I'm glad this guy's on our team. Look, we have a great team. I feel very confident we're going to win. We're not cocky about it. We've buckled down because we know that they're coming for us. But just like legislating, they're chaotic and they're not really together and they've got one good player over here and they're not really concentrating their efforts. And I think, plus, that's where we're going to win.

[Josh Holmes]

Tight pants and Rex backs, right? I mean, isn't that what the Democrats do?

[John Ashbrook]

Very error prone. Just like they're legislating.

[August Pfluger]

They've got a good pitcher, Deluzio, and he throws some junk. Oh, does he really? You know, he doesn't throw hard, but he throws some junk. It's kind of. He keeps you off balance, you know, so. So our approach this year is not don't hit the first pitch, make him bring it. You know, you guys should have an

[Josh Holmes]

early umpires meeting just to get everybody's head right and that they're likely to encounter some discussions of safeness and fair play and these kind of. When somebody's clearly out, they're going to want to talk about it. With this, as long as the umps are mentally prepared. I like your chances.

[August Pfluger]

I do, too.

[Josh Holmes]

I think you guys are in good shape.

[August Pfluger]

I completely agree. No, we're excited. I mean, this, this game is fun. Remember a couple years ago we had some, you know, left wing protesters that, I mean, environmentalists that hit the field and they thought it'd be a good idea to run up against some members of Congress. I mean, you've never seen Capitol Police so happy. Yeah, they hit the field with a mission and I'm like, you know, these are the kind of people, they're going to glue themselves to a building because they don't believe in fossil fuels or something like, bring it.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, definitely the most exciting programming on C Span you'll see all year.

[Josh Holmes]

No question about it.

[August Pfluger]

And not to. Not to correct it, but, but, but it's also on fs.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[August Pfluger]

FS Sports.

[Josh Holmes]

Nice.

[Michael Duncan]

They know what they're doing over there.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Listen, you're going to have a big audience for this one. Gonna have to deliver. I don't gotta deliver if it, Yeah. I do not want to have this conversation if we didn't come out on top on this one, because I feel like I've looked at the lineups. You got an advantage in a very significant way.

[John Ashbrook]

And you're defending mvp, correct?

[August Pfluger]

I, I, I am, yeah. We had a good play at third base last year. It was awesome.

[Michael Duncan]

Those aren't easy to make.

[August Pfluger]

Yeah, the hot corner is. It could be fun. We always talk about fun plays. I'll remind everyone listening and especially with your Senate background. John Ossoff used to play. He brought the age down in the Senate and he actually brought the age down to the Democrat team. He hit a hard line drive into left, into on the left field line, you know, like a one hopper to the fence. And like any good Democrat, no outs. So don't, don't ever make your first out at third base, Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, he's tried to.

[August Pfluger]

Like any good Democrat. He got greedy. You know, he got greedy and he got thrown out at third. And so you hear the crowd go wild when he hits it. And on the left side and then on the right side side of the the field, the crowd goes wild when he gets tagged out. He never came back.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, that was like.

[August Pfluger]

That was it.

[John Ashbrook]

That was it.

[August Pfluger]

I'm like, dude, you're 30. Something like, come on.

[Josh Holmes]

Thrown out at third, throwing out at third.

[August Pfluger]

That was it.

[Josh Holmes]

A triple. The left also. Just from a baseball guy perspective.

[August Pfluger]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Not wise.

[August Pfluger]

It's, no, it's not wise. Even in the congressional baseball game, who

[Michael Duncan]

do they get Coach in third base that didn't hold him at second. I mean, think about it.

[August Pfluger]

I think he's dead now. Literally. I think he passed away so bad. But no, you don't send somebody around second, you know, when it's right.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You can't do it.

[Michael Duncan]

No. But you know that in Little League you learn that lesson very early in life.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you kind of like looking for hamstring pulls and like where you, They're.

[August Pfluger]

It can happen at any moment.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[August Pfluger]

Especially starting at home plate and running to first.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's right. I feel like, I feel like there's no question you're going to have somebody trying to run a gap or down or something. There's going to be an injury.

[August Pfluger]

Well, we had an injury last year that we were so upset at. Blake Moore because he was our center fielder.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[August Pfluger]

And he played in the Congressional soccer game two weeks prior. And as goalie got injured and couldn't play. Like he literally couldn't. We were so mad at him.

[Josh Holmes]

You might have to talk.

[August Pfluger]

What are you doing?

[Josh Holmes]

You might have to talk contracts with people. Like it's a one sport congressional thing. Baseball's our thing, right? Yeah. Make sure to lock them down.

[August Pfluger]

Let's increase the nil. You're one sport athlete, you know, nil

[Josh Holmes]

congressional, maybe re election campaign.

[Michael Duncan]

It's America's 2.

[August Pfluger]

I'm totally kidding everybody.

[Josh Holmes]

It's worth looking at. Listen, you were the man and I know that you've been working hard every day and we're going to keep up with everything that you're up to. I like the optimism on the three pointer know because I agree with you that we're going to have to lay a new predicate because it's been a long time since the big beauty and it's been a long time since everybody understood how much different things could be if not for you guys up there. So thanks for everything you're doing.

[August Pfluger]

Absolutely. And it is. This is a great country. I mean 250 years, you know, like what other country can you move into, you know, as an immigrant, start a business, raise your kids, you know, buy a home. I mean we've got guys in Congress that are first generation Americans. Yeah, it's wild that they live that American dream in that version. And that's, that's just scratching the surface of, you know, what, what you can do. So I'm proud to be an American and living in this country. We're going to fight hard for it every single day. And that is probably the difference is that I wish the left wouldn't hate this country so much. We love it. We know it's not perfect, but we love it. And that's why we come back to work. And it kind of seems like that's really gone in a different direction.

[Josh Holmes]

Real dividing line, no question about it. Thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

[August Pfluger]

Appreciate it guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just 15amonth. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for

[August Pfluger]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per

[Josh Holmes]

month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail]

[Michael Duncan]

okay. Always interesting to talk to him. I mean Kai could not be taller first of all. And big, really interesting to hear about the Congressional baseball game. Going to be watching that very closely. But the other thing I think everybody is going to be watching this reconciliation 3.0. Is it actually going to happen? Is it not going to happen? You know, you hear a lot of people on Capitol Hill saying like, I just, you know, I can't see how it works. But he seems awfully optimistic.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, and you have a, you know, you got a handful of real sour milk members, Thomas Massie foremost amongst them, but there's three or four there that didn't get a Trump endorsement. And so they don't want to be a part of the team essentially. So there's a lot of question about whether something can pass or not. What I think he's right about is uniting a Republican conference around a forward looking thing that is good for the American people economically here in a post Labor Day push can only be good for your campaign purposes.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, and just to level set as Republicans, I would rather be arguing over what goes in reconciliation 3.0 rather than did the guy really have a Nazi tattoo? You know, I mean like for the Democrats, like their, their arguments right now are insane.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. But we're also just scattershot all over the place for, for so many reasons. The Trump administration needs to button it down a lot too. But when you have that many members of Congress who are a number of them fighting for their own political lives, it's a tendency for everybody to talk about their own stuff. And there's no centralized message. Democrats can't fuck that up. They like, they're in a situation where anything but Trump is their message.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And they've, they've stuck to it. You know what it is, it's anything but Trump. So they can't, no matter what they do, they're already locked in. You need a countervailing bumper sticker here at some point. I think he makes a compelling case that this could help. Yeah, with that. Anyway, we always appreciate him coming by. He's a big man to fit in a fighter plane, I'll tell you that much.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't believe there were shoehorn dude. I can't believe there were guys who were taller than him who were fighter pilots.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I know. I'm looking forward maybe, you know, maybe he goes yard in the game tonight.

[Michael Duncan]

I hope so.

[Josh Holmes]

You never know. Anyway, that's the Congressional baseball game and looking for a big win for the Republicans there as we continue to dominate Democrats in all fields. Our question of the day would who would win in a fight between Platner and Fetterman? You've heard us break this down a little bit. Interested in what you have to say when you like and subscribe. We read all of your responses and get back to the very next episode. Check out some merch while you're there. We got some good new offerings, some summer stuff out there, some good things to take home, and just enjoy the sunshine. It really does feel like summer right now. It's great stuff with that. Fellas, I think we did it.

[John Ashbrook]

I think we did it. No smug today, so we got to kick it to Hollywood hen Another banger

[Josh Holmes]

of an episode, folks. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. Sam.