Are Democrats Trying to Start a Civil War?

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Are Democrats Trying to Start a Civil War?
Date: January 8, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook

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Overview

This episode centers on a heated conservative critique of recent events in Minnesota: a high-profile ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officer-involved shooting and massive alleged fraud schemes tied to public funding, predominantly connected to the state’s Somali community. The hosts discuss how they see Democratic leadership at state and national levels enabling or covering up corruption, using identity politics and civil unrest to obscure their alleged malfeasance. The episode is peppered with dark humor, righteous indignation, and frequent references to criminal enterprise, Mafia analogies, and the breakdown of traditional political norms. Segments include thorough dissection of recent news, notable audio clips from congressional hearings and local officials, and the podcast’s signature “King of the Hill” game lampooning prominent political figures.

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Key Discussion Points

1. ICE Officer-Involved Shooting and Democratic Response

Timestamps: [00:00]-[05:44], [16:10]-[21:38]

• The show opens with news of an ICE shooting in Minneapolis. The hosts criticize the media and local politicians for focusing on the shooting itself, rather than the events leading to federal intervention.
• Holmes explains federal agents were deployed due to large-scale daycare and public program fraud involving hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.
• Hosts accuse Gov. Tim Walz, AG Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other local Democrats of intentionally ignoring or enabling fraud to secure electoral loyalty from the Somali immigrant community.
• Video/audio analysis: Officers repeatedly instructed a woman to exit her vehicle; she accelerated, hitting an agent, and was shot, which the hosts defend as clear self-defense. The reaction from Democratic leaders is denounced as inflammatory and misleading.
• Notable Quote – Josh Holmes ([19:42]):

  "So the governor says a woman is dead for no reason. No reason. Well, other than trying to run over a federal officer, that's for one."

2. The $8 Billion Minnesota Fraud Scandal

Timestamps: [05:44]-[16:10], [27:05]-[47:23]

• The bulk of the discussion is about the scope of the fraud. As framed by Holmes and team, Democrats have weaponized government spending, funneling COVID and welfare relief to connected nonprofits, often run by Somalis, with little to no oversight or documentation of services provided.
• Legislative testimony is highlighted, including claims that whistleblowers faced retaliation, intimidation, threats to their families, and blacklisting from state jobs.
• Auditors found grant documents were created or backdated to cover tracks. Comparisons are made to organized crime:
  • John Ashbrook ([31:02]):

    "This situation is making the Italian mob look like small potatoes..."

• Over 90% of indictments in a major COVID relief program are said to involve Somali American defendants.
• The hosts claim this pattern is not limited to Minnesota but is endemic in Democratic-run cities (Chicago, California, etc.), dubbing it the "welfare industrial complex."
• Allegation: Political leaders such as Keith Ellison and Tim Walz not only encouraged fraud but actively shielded perpetrators for political advantage.

3. Weaponizing Identity and Inciting Unrest

Timestamps: [09:05]-[23:17], [51:19]-[57:18]

• When fraud is uncovered, the hosts argue, Democratic figures pivot to allegations of racism, inflame protests, or incite unrest to change the subject and avoid accountability.
• Minneapolis, they argue, "recreated George Floyd 2.0" tactics to muddy the waters on the fraud scandal.
• John Ashbrook ([09:05]):

  "It’s time to incite the violence...make people think this is the voice of the unheard...they have to stop the exposure."

4. National & Systemic Implications

Timestamps: [47:23]-[59:44]

• The Minnesota case is presented as emblematic of nationwide Democratic governance, where control is maintained through largesse and identity-politics-based patronage.
• The episode discusses similar alleged fraud or “vote-buying” schemes in California, Chicago, and beyond.
• Warns that such systems undermine public trust, create real civil fracture, and threaten the American ideal.
• Josh Holmes ([56:01]):

  "If that's allowed to persist in this country, you don't have a country."

5. Media Critique & Political Satire

Timestamps: Interleaved, especially [57:18]-[62:32]

• The hosts excoriate the media for “both-sides”-ism only when Democrats are caught in scandal, and for providing what they see as cover for Democratic corruption.
• They also mock national Democrats for hypocrisy on issues of law enforcement, border security, and legislative oversight.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Josh Holmes ([09:54]):

  "They're about to be exposed and they don't have any other recourse other than what worked for them last time, which is recreating George Floyd 2.0."

• Michael Duncan ([13:08]):

  "I just don't think Tim Walz or Jacob Fry or any of these Democratic leaders in Minnesota particularly care about the fraud. I think they encourage the fraud."

• John Ashbrook ([31:02]):

  "This situation is making the Italian mob look like small potatoes."

• Minnesota State Rep. Marin Rarick ([28:56]):

  "...It was discovered in some targeted employees or suspected whistleblowers' personnel files were pictures of their homes and their cars...supervisors asked them questions about their families that to them felt like a threat. One example was we need to know where your kids go to school and where their bus stops are."

• Legislative Auditor or Witness ([35:21]):

  "90% of the individuals charged or indicted with the $250 million Feeding Our Future Covid fraud are of Somali descent."

• Josh Holmes ([41:06]):

  "This is where this goes from negligence and stupidity to intent and crime."

• Josh Holmes ([53:58]):

  "Just look at the accounting, lady. Like, just look at the Excel spreadsheet, right?"

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Key Audio Clip Timestamps

• ICE shooting breakdown: [16:10]–[19:41]
• Minnesota State Rep. Marin Rarick whistleblower testimony: [28:56]
• Legislative Auditor discusses Somali COVID fraud: [35:21]
• Attorney General Keith Ellison recorded discussing exchanging votes/donations for protection: [37:48]
• Audit revelation of grant manager self-dealing: [47:47]

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Segment: “King of the Hill”

Timestamps: [63:08]-[73:23]

• A recurring, comedic game in which the hosts pit prominent "Never Trump"-aligned Republicans and other political personalities against each other, reading deranged or hypocritical social media posts.
• This episode: George Conway (now running as a Democrat) faces Steve Schmidt, with posts lampooned for their hyperbole and design. The contest is judged for which is more ridiculous or revealing of double standards.
• Winner: Steve Schmidt retains the title with a post calling Trump “MAGA Führer” and drawing Nazi analogies.

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Closing Thoughts

• The hosts urge listeners not to be distracted by controversies around law enforcement, but to focus on the underlying fraud and corruption.
• Republicans in Minnesota are called out for failing to challenge Democratic control.
• The episode ends with listener mail, further shots at media hypocrisy, and urging continued attention to large-scale government fraud as a systemic Democratic problem.

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Final Reflection

The tone of this episode is combative, darkly humorous, and unapologetically partisan. The hosts marshal legislative testimony, news footage, and inflammatory analogies to portray Minnesota as a microcosm of Democratic corruption, and to warn of wider breakdown in American civil life if such patterns spread.

Notable Quote – Michael Duncan ([56:01]):

"If that's allowed to persist in this country, you don't have a country."

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For Further Reference

• Whistleblower intimidation, [28:56]
• Attorney General’s exchange with convicted fraudster, [37:48]
• Audit tampering, [40:04]
• King of the Hill satirical segment, [63:08]-[73:23]

(Skip ads and promotional segments for content focus as above.)

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

A officer involved shooting by ICE in Minneapolis.

[Michael Duncan]

Like that's how you poison the minds of the woman who's driving that car and thinks she's gonna speed off into a law enforcement officer.

[John Ashbrook]

That's what happens, folks. If you attempt to murder a federal officer, they're gonna act in self defense. I hope any reasonable person can understand this.

[Michael Duncan]

Again, officers who clearly identified themselves and said, get out of the car, the woman hits the gas and gets shot.

[Comfortably Smug]

You've got streets full of people who are not local. This is not people who are on their lunch break. This is people who are coming in from out of state to cause problems.

[Michael Duncan]

For decades, the rising cost of health insurance has been a contentious issue, one that affects every single American. Big health insurance companies, who have been paid trillions in US Taxpayer money are raising health insurance prices historically high on Americans. At the same time, it was reported that major health insurance companies were funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Gavin Newsom's redistricting effort in California designed to undermine President Trump and Congressional Republicans. Just the other day, President Trump announced something historic. He's going to haul in the heads of the largest US Health insurance companies with the goal of saving Americans money by lowering the outrageous price of health insurance. The President has been crystal clear. Big insurance companies have been, quote, ripping off the public for years. Now he's taking the bold step of holding those big insurance companies accountable. It's about time and we should all thank President Trump. Learn [e-mail].

[Comfortably Smug]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[John Ashbrook]

Keep the fate, hold the line and own the lids.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's time for our Remain.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left to right, across your ro dial, fellas. It had been my sincere hope and prayer for several weeks now that the elected leadership of my home state would stop humiliating my home state. In fact, that is not the case. It has gotten worse. And this one is now, I think, sort of at a tipping point, a boiling over in some ways. What of course I'm talking about is a officer involved shooting by ICE in Minneapolis, which is now all over the news. You've undoubtedly seen everything there is to see about it. The only reason the federal agents are there in the first place is because of the world record fraud that is going on. And the Governor of Minnesota, the Attorney General of Minnesota, all of the majorities in the state legislature, Democratic establishment itself in Minnesota has become indicative of a larger issue which We've seen from progressive Democratic leadership across this country, which is use your money like fund coupons to try to buy off constituencies that they think they can control. In this case, it's the Somali population. Of course, the Somali population, rich in their own pride of figuring out how to rip people off, have figured out how to, how to work through daycares and health, home health, food programs, food programs, all kinds of different things. And this was the discussion that we were thinking about having today because it's been an issue, but it's come to a head in that we know the facts of what's happened here. So federal agents responsibly have been deployed to the state of Minnesota because state leaders decided at some level it wasn't their responsibility. In fact, there are new documents that we'll uncover here today in this show that will show you that not only was the blind eye, but there was auditing that was done, that they attempted to subversively sort of hide from auditors. And there were whistleblowers, as we saw in congressional testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, that when they said, hey, these things don't exist, they got fired. All of this is connected, folks. That's the thing that you need to remember what Tim Walls and Jacob Fry, the mayor of Minneapolis wants you to think about, which is the same thing that Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries and all the leadership of the Democratic Party want you to focus on, is what happened now, what kind of whiz bay, what kind of explosion can we make to happen now and get into a partisan argument to muddy the water? Because we certainly can't have of forensic accounting of the criminal enterprise that we have been rolling through this country for decades. Because that's what it is. These people are crooks. I don't care what you say, they are crooks. They all demanded state and local funding, block granted to states and localities. And they knew that because they could turn to their Democratic partners at the state and local business community where they would just pay off constituents, agencies, give them money, sight unseen daycares with no kids, health care providers with no patients, right? I mean, all of these things that they were doing have now come to light. And so of course you've got to create a disturbance, right? You have to have that be the discussion, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Because none of these things are happening in a vacuum. Like you said, Holmes, it's all connected. You've got paid professional agitators that have been out in the streets in places like Minneapolis throwing rocks, getting in the way of ICE doing its job. I mean, these are law and federal law enforcement that have been empowered by the courts and by the President of the United States to go into these places and do the job that Tim Walls won't do, that Jacob Fry won't do. And the reason why they don't want to do it now more than ever, like you said, is to cover up the criminal enterprise that the government of Minnesota is running.

[Josh Holmes]

It's 100% true.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the most important thing is the story here is this is part of the process of holding accountable the people who stole at least $8 billion from the American taxpayer. And the Dems want to make it as difficult as possible because their entire system is built upon this system of essentially stealing from taxpayers and paying for voters. That's how the Democrat Party exists.

[Josh Holmes]

I think it's even more sophisticated than that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I was just gonna say they're entirely owned and operated by the Somali fraudster sect. And if you don't believe all of the documents and all the reporting you've seen over the last two weeks, we got some clips further than the state flag. The state flag in Minnesota used to look very different. And the libs in that state in power were like, you know what? We need to change it. And they didn't change it to look like a modified version of the American flag. They changed it to look like a modified version of the Somali flag. Look no further than that. I mean, who in the right mind ever thinks about the state flag except the type of people who are looking to make a statement and take advantage of the place where they live?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, you're entirely right. And it's so outrageous. And the fact that this has happened at all. It is a testament to the lack of competitiveness that Republicans have had in that state. It is a testament to the absolute abject decline in local media, particularly in Minnesota, where it's always been somewhat of a back rub for the Democratic Party there. But as they have gotten more power, their only job is to try to excuse it. And there are precious few. There are things like the Powerline blog, things that go back all the way to the G.W. bush administration about uncovering. I think they were actually responsible in some ways for the Rather gate thing with 60 Minutes, but they're located in Minnesota. They've been covering this stuff, the American experience, the folks that hosted us when we were out there. They've been covering this for years. And nobody would talk about it like we've tried to, but nobody would discuss it. But this has been happening for so long that they've now gotten to the point where the criminal enterprise is about to be exposed and they don't have any other recourse other than what worked for them last time, which is recreating George Floyd 2.0. Let's see if we can just create some kind of a partisan, racially divisive argument across this country that has nothing to do with our total criminal negligence for what it is that we say we do here.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, you saw right off the bat, as soon as the Somali corruption started getting exposed by Nick Shirley, the response even from the Somalis who were involved is like, oh, this is racism. This is racism targeted at our community who's just honest people who are getting millions of dollars from a daycare with no kids. It's just racism. That's the problem here. But now the Dems are on their crutch. The last step that they always try to use. It's time to incite the violence. It's time to start the riots. It's time to gin up violence and make people think that, my God, this is the voice of the unheard. This is just what happens because they have to stop the exposure of this system that their entire criminal enterprise is built upon.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I mean, Jacob Fry and Tim Walls created the Tinderbox and then threw a match in.

[John Ashbrook]

Bingo.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is what we saw today with this officer involved.

[Josh Holmes]

And we're gonna provide you some clips on that. We're gonna have some fun in this show too. We're gonna play King of the Hill. We're gonna give you some variety. But this stuff you gotta pay attention to. Cuz over the next 48, 72 hours, it not only shows you what is a current debate that you're gonna be exposed to, but it's giving you a playbook for what it is that Democrats do and what it is that they hope to accomplish in the 2026 election and beyond. It is the modern ideological standard of what Democrats are. I mean, it's no longer a difference of opinion on how you help people obtain healthcare or get a better education. It used to just be like different methods for the same goals. It really did.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just a different ideological point of view on people trying to obtain the same goals. It's not any longer. This is fraud and it's intentional. And when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they have to set the city on fire in order for you to pay attention to that rather than what it is that they're up to you mentioned the Somali flag. Now it's the Minnesota. Some facsimile of that is now the Minnesota state flag. You know, there's 108,000 Somalis in Minnesota. 108. It's a 6 million person state. Why is it that that over indexes on something like that?

[Comfortably Smug]

Could be the money.

[Josh Holmes]

You have $8 billion in fraud and we don't know the percentages, but we do know the evidence as to where at least the early returns on where the fraud went in Minnesota. Why is it billions? I mean, I just looked it up earlier. I was trying to do the math on it. You know, you could spend a million dollars a day for 22 years and not spend 8 million bucks million dollars a day. It's so much more for 22 years. Think about that.

[Comfortably Smug]

You can't even fathom that much.

[Josh Holmes]

First of all, why is that proportionate to any population? Right. Six million people, Right. The poverty rate. They always brag about how there is no unemployment is record lows in Minnesota, people out of poverty, record lows, all these things in Minnesota. How is it that you could spend $8 billion on low income anything?

[John Ashbrook]

Well, you see, daycares have had a very high employment rate in the state of Minnesota. They're a bright spot among employment numbers.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean there's a wealth gathering. If only they deposited it in like a bank there instead of Mogadisha. It would really work if the money.

[John Ashbrook]

Had actually stayed in the local economy. It would look like Dubai in Minneapolis. But it's all getting sent out. It's all getting sent to Somalia, which is like, why hasn't Somalia built a Dubai at this point yet?

[Josh Holmes]

No, seriously, can you imagine if any other population anywhere was given $8 billion to try to do whatever they wanted.

[John Ashbrook]

To do with it, like Al Shabaab.

[Josh Holmes]

What the city would look like? Can you imagine if you just dropped $8 billion on a city anywhere in this country? $8 billion redevelopment plan, $8 billion. You can. Do you know what that would look. It'd be paved in fucking gold is what it would be done.

[John Ashbrook]

Al Shabaab needs a lot of investment advice. They're really not doing the best with the capital that they're being given by these Somalians.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I just don't think Tim Walls or Jacob Fry or any of these Democratic leaders in Minnesota particularly care about the fraud. I think they encourage the fraud. I think they like the fraud because it gives them a constituency of voting base and I think it's their way of doing USAID through other means.

[John Ashbrook]

So I agree.

[Josh Holmes]

I think you meant the same thing that I'm coming at this with. But I don't think they don't care about it. I think they care deeply about it. And I think it's intentional.

[Michael Duncan]

They think it's good.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think.

[John Ashbrook]

What do you think too more of it.

[Josh Holmes]

I think what they have done. And it's not just fry and walls. It's Amy Klobuchar, it's Elon Omar, it's. What's the other?

[Michael Duncan]

Tina Smith.

[Josh Holmes]

Tina Smith, Jesus. I mean, she looks like shit. Ran over 0 completed and she shows up in the United States Senate. We all have to believe that somehow she was duly elected. Are you kidding me? I don't know anybody who would cast a ballot for pile of garbage anyway. All of those people are in league for one basic reason. Minnesota in and of itself used to be a very Democratic state for decades, in large part because you had leaders like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale. They had a merger between the Democrat Farmer and labor. Farmer and Laborers were a party that merged with the Democrat. They represented blue collar.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Real working class, working class folks, which they carried on for generations, which was that Hubert Humphrey coalition that was put together. They lost all of that. The Iron Range in northern Minnesota used to be used to say, like you find out how many Republican votes you have in the urban epicenters in the suburban area, and then you have to just figure out how many votes you need in the Iron Range to win the state. And that's what Democrats would do. Well, they lost all of that. So all the rural folks in Minnesota, all the union workers and the iron miners and the farmers, they all left. They're all Trump Republicans. And they're counting on a very condensed base of operations in Hennepin county, in Minneapolis, of which 102,000 people are Somali. But they got to deliver all of them because you remember, these elections are getting closer and closer. Trump's not far away from taking Minnesota. It's not some like Washington state or Oregon. It's more like Wisconsin or Iowa. It's just a matter of how they balance those votes. And so what they made the decision to do is full corruption, full corruption, pay to play. Let's make sure we send millions of dollars to these people day in and day out. We ask no questions. We're going to get into this. And in return, all you ask is they keep voting D. And they didn't block, they keep doing it. That's why we're in this situation. So now the federal government gets involved. This Is the issue at question with the ICE episode yesterday. Clip 1A.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, so here's the slowed down version of it. And you can see that officer at the hood of the car get clipped by the car and fire into the windshield.

[Josh Holmes]

So if you're on social media and if you're just listening to this, what you have seen is a lot of different clips and it's a roar shock test in large part to what your ideology is and who you want to blame. Whatever angle you've chosen to amplify to the. Your following is basically who you support in all of this. What you saw on the first one was that there was at least one cop that was visible that was directly in front of the hood of a car that decided to speed off directly in the direction of the officer, at which point somebody opened fire. Unclear if it was the person that was in the front of the car or somebody else, but somebody opened fire, struck the person who was driving the car, and it crashed into the thing. That's what you just saw. Here's another angle at it. 2A.

[John Ashbrook]

No, no.

[Josh Holmes]

Shame, shame.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh my fucking God.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, what the fuck? So the second angle is the reverse of all of this, which is the thing you didn't see in the first, which was the other two officers, not the one that was about to be run over, but the other two that were approaching the car, one of whom said, get out of the car and reached for the handle and started trying to open the door. We don't know what precipitated this event or why that car in question was a part of this discussion at all. Of course, Tim Walls and Jacob Fry don't care about that. They just care about this fragmented component. But the federal officer clearly identifying himself said, get out of the car and pull with lights and sirens. By the way, it's not like you thought you were being, you know, and this person decided to instead of comply with a federal officer to hit the gas and try to run over what you saw in the first clip, which was a third cop that you couldn't see in that clip standing directly in front of the car that they tried to run down. Well, I gotta tell you, when you try to run over a federal officer, you're going to get shot.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's the thing is. So the images have been posted subsequently. You see a bullet hole in the front windshield of the car, which is from the officer who is getting run over. Yeah, that seems pretty clear of what has happened here, is you had a psychopath who tried to run over A federal officer. And that's what happens, folks. If you attempt to murder a federal officer, they're going to act in self defense. I hope any reasonable person can understand this.

[Michael Duncan]

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of reasonable people on the Internet right now. They're studying this like the Zapruder film, you know, frame by frame about how this officer who was on the hood of the car was supposed to not fire into a person trying to hit them with their car. They know better than this officer. Again, officers who clearly identified themselves and said, get out of the car. The woman hits the gas and gets shot.

[Josh Holmes]

And the question is, why is it that they wanted her to? I mean, the car was weird akimbo in the middle of the street to begin with.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

The circumstances that led up to all of this are certainly not irrelevant. We don't know it, but that's only thing that the governor and the mayor and all these people are reacting to. So the governor says a woman is dead for no reason.

[John Ashbrook]

Unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

No reason. Well, other than trying to run over a federal officer, that's for one. The governor then goes on to say, we've never been at war with the federal government before in Minnesota. Yeah, well, that's the inverse of saying we are at war with the federal government. Of course. That's sedition.

[John Ashbrook]

Bingo.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And talking about calling up the guard.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. You know, and like, what kind of a fucking maniac anywhere in this country. I don't care. I mean, you can go back to the 1960s and the race riots and all this stuff where Alabama and whatever that was solved more peacefully than these people are attempting to solve this. And you had Horrible circumstances in 1960, horrible racial divisions and things that the federal government needed to fight through in order to maintain law, in order to ensure people had equal rights and equal protections. What these people are doing is basically the same fucking thing. What they're saying is there is no law here. We create the law. And in fact, Jacob Fry says, get the fuck out. Quote, get the fuck out.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, you got Democrats calling ICE Gestapo, calling them terrorists. Like that's how you poison the minds of the woman who's driving that car and thinks she's going to speed off into a law enforcement officer.

[Comfortably Smug]

And you've got streets full of people who are not local. This is not people who are on their lunch break. This is people who are coming in from out of state to cause problems.

[Michael Duncan]

And people who obviously benefit from the system of corruption that the Democrats have propagated in places like Minnesota and around the Country. It's why when Elon Musk did Doge, you saw the reaction you did. People went to Tesla dealerships and started lighting the Teslas on fire. Why? Because they're not just people who are concerned citizens out there with handmade signs. Right. These are professional, paid agitators who are controlled by the democratic machine that is engaged in corruption. It's a criminal enterprise and deployed. Yes, Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

And often funded by foreign sources of money. I mean, there was a great Fox News story that was written over the weekend, last weekend, and we'll get into that in a later episode where she walked through, in great detail, detail, how these signs happen to be magically deployed in four different cities around our country just hours after the majority of the.

[John Ashbrook]

It was an insane story.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's insane hours. It's not like people just woke up and they're like, you know what? I saw a sign on Twitter and I'm going to print the exact same thing. And therefore, I'm going to get 37,000 of my friends. These are paid people, paid by foreign sources who want to agitate and create problems in our country because they know after watching the strength of Donald Trump that the only way that you can defeat America is by tricking them to defeat themselves from within.

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

Bingo.

[Josh Holmes]

And, like, here's the thing. We've been around politics for a long time. We understand heated rhetoric. Right. You understand amplifying emotions of an electorate to try to make a point. Minnesota doesn't have any capability. They have. No. After George Floyd, you don't get to do that anymore. You don't get to do that. You don't get to say, we're at war with Donald Trump.

[Comfortably Smug]

Insane.

[Josh Holmes]

You don't get to say that anymore. Because the last time that you did that, you burned down your fucking city. You created four years of chaos. You had irreparable damage to the livelihoods of the people who live there. And you did it for a partisan means.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Right? So now you come back and this one's even more seditious. This is even worse, because in large part, what they're doing is trying to amplify the mere presence of the federal government, of which they would never have been there in the first place if not for an $8 billion fraud.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, think about that. But you did waltz, had to stop running for governor because it became obvious how involved he was in this fraud. And look how quick he jumps on this to try to cover the tracks.

[Josh Holmes]

It's incredible, right?

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, I think I'm just going to say Something here, I think. And we all know that Walz is an idiot, but I think there is more to Tim Walls than meets the eye.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I think that obviously the guy knows a whole lot more about the fraud that's going on in his state. And I also wonder when you consider all of the options that you Democrats had to choose for vice president at the last minute. There are thousands of Democrats who could have stood up and they're like, no, we picked him because he's the white guy and we're trying to attract the white voters. What if there was a gigantic bag of money behind him that nobody ever knew about, but somehow made him a whole lot more attractive as the number two on that ticket?

[John Ashbrook]

That's something to investigate. Ooh, that's something to investigate.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, what other explanation is there? The guy's like, oh, I'm bumbling. Oh, I don't know anything. I don't know anything. Cameras go off and all of a sudden he's.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, there's nothing impressive about him.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

He's never done anything that's all that impressive.

[Comfortably Smug]

Might be part of his bit.

[Josh Holmes]

But what he has done is managed to convert an entire population of immigrants into a voting and donor base.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And he's done that by sending them millions of dollars and not checking whether or not they're doing the work. And then all of a sudden shows back up in Democratic offers. If you do that nationwide, he might be the head of the snake on that deal. I don't know. It's worth. Look, don't get distracted by this. Don't get distracted by ISIS in the streets. Whether or not the shooting is just. I would argue that I grew up in a Minnesota where if a law enforcement officer, federal or otherwise, asks you to stop, you just simply hand them your license and registration. You ask what you can do. That's the Minnesota that I grew up. I never grew up in a place where you decided to slam on the gas and try to drive over them. But apparently that is the one that Tim Walls, Jacob Fry, and others feel like is appropriate. It's the same one where you can have a guy like George Floyd, who's like a chronic criminal, drug addict and everything else, become the hero of the city of Minneapolis. That's the. The reality that they've created for Minnesota. So it's not surprising that we see all of this. But don't be distracted by what they're trying to do with all of that, because ultimately what they're doing is reaching in your back pocket. At the same time, they're stealing all your fucking money and they're giving it to their preferred constituents who then turn around and give them the money and their votes to keep them in power in the first place. And if you think for one second that Minnesota is unique, you're crazy. This is happening nationwide. Nationwide. We're just on this now. The Trump administration is on this. It's gonna get to everywhere. So, like, look, if you're running the Somali daycare, button up, folks. Buckle the chinstrap. It's gonna get pretty rocky over the next few months. When we come back, Wallace isn't the only one. Keith Ellison's a big problem. They had a House hearing that was incredible. And some stuff that came out of that you won't believe about the fraud in Minnesota. Keith Ellison, of course, the ag. We've known this guy's been terrible forever. A lot more right after this.

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[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so while Governor Tim Walz is declaring war on the federal government of which ostensibly his state is a part of, the Union still just kills me. Dude, I can't believe this. The House, responsibly, as they do, is taking a look at the finances of all of this. It can only be litigated so far by Nick Shirley and by agencies. And you know, you never learn anything immediately from prosecutions because they gather all the evidence. And like three years from now, we'll hear about everybody going down just because. I mean, look, that's the nature of prosecution.

[Michael Duncan]

But the House can do subpoenas.

[Josh Holmes]

But the House can give you answers right away. And so they've showed up. Clip 3.

[Minnesota State Rep. Marin Rarick]

In our face to face meetings with a group of whistleblowers, they revealed that retaliation now includes threats of being fired with cause, which means you do not get unemployment Insurance in the state of Minnesota being blacklisted from all state agencies, and I would note, most likely our largest counties as well, which are Democrat run. And then there was a veiled threat of the use of military intelligence against them. They later informed me that it was discovered that in some targeted employees or suspected whistleblowers personnel files were pictures of their homes and their cars. They also described that supervisors asked them questions about their families that to them felt like a threat. One example was we need to know where your kids go to school and where their bus stops are.

[John Ashbrook]

That's insane.

[Josh Holmes]

I need you to stop and think about that. So that is Minnesota State Rep. Marin Rarick. I don't know her personally. I'd like to now after that testimony because it takes a lot of guts if that's what is the purported set of facts that she's reporting. But what she's saying is that people who attempted to stop fraud, who blew whistles on money that was going out of state coffers into, you know, daycares or whatever else, when they blew the whistle, these people were fired, they were reassigned. They were at what she says is intimidated to the point where they were taking pictures of their homes and their kids in their cars. Boys, this is when you're talking about 8B, and I mean this sincerely, you know, we laugh and have fun with like, the Cosa Nostra thing. That's tiddlywinks compared to what we're talking about.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the thing. It's like this situation is making the Italian mob look like small potatoes, which is small potatoes. Like, they got all these movies like Godfather and everything. But it's like, it turns out the real Keyser Soze in this situation is this Somali fraud situation. But that they have people that were like, we need photos of your kid's bus stop, the car you drive, where they go to school. Because that's the thing, is this is such a huge amount of money on the line that they are stealing $8.

[Josh Holmes]

Billion, a million dollars a day for 22 years. And you would not get to the amount of fraud that has been perpetuated by these people.

[Michael Duncan]

I gotta say, I'm not surprised at all by the testimony, because when the stakes get high, the knives get long.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you're right.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing. I mean, I think what we're witnessing here is the largest failure of liberal governance since the failure of the Great Society.

[Josh Holmes]

They're just so much more brazen about it. And, you know, the thing is, is that like, you know, California has been in the same situation where the fraud is rampant or whatever. But they always act like, oh no, this is our ideology. This is just what we. They never try to enforce their ideology. The problem with the Minneapolis, Minnesota situation is that it would be Wisconsin or Iowa in terms of an ideological setting. So it is like, could be a competitive state at some level, but they have to enforce the fact that it's not. And when you have 25 years of governance, and before that there was another 50 before it, where you know that state power is really the only thing that you're hanging onto because then you can buy constituencies, then the power of the incumbency is such that you can pull all the levers of state largesse to try to favor people who support you and disfavor people who don't. Like, they become so focused on it. But then you enter into it a post Covid $8 billion situation. There is no government in America, including like New York City, largest government, municipal government in this country. Who can handle just $8 billion thrown on top of it? They can't. These guys just welcomed it with open arms and then they decided what we're going to do with it is just sort of like sight on scene, give it to the constituencies that benefit us. And if you audit it, you're fucked. And so they have to kind of enforce it because there are people, fair people, like they're trying to do their job, like, hey, this is supposed to go to childcare, there's no children here. And they're like, what'd you fucking say? I mean, it really is nice house. Shame something happened to it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

And that is why this is a perfect case study for the larger situation that brings us to California and municipalities across. We've known this is going on in Chicago forever. Why in the world would Chicago vote for higher crime rates year after year after year? Well, I don't know if the only way that you could put bread in your mouth was talk. Voting for the Democrat near you, you don't have much of a choice.

[Michael Duncan]

It's the welfare industrial complex. It is, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

That's it.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what it is. I mean, like, look at the homelessness situation in California. The billions of dollars they've thrown at that to NGOs and nonprofits that have fanciful sounding names and promise. All these beds for people who are suffering and they haven't solved it. Yeah, they've just thrown money at the problem because it's. The point of solving the problem isn't real. The point is to Keep the spigot of money flowing.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, but the reason that Minnesota's a perfect case study to then get into that conversation is because they had to enforce it because there was political. I mean, Republicans have had majorities in the legislature there in the last four years. I mean, they actually have to enforce it. California, they're like that. Nobody's gonna look over the shoulder anyway, like, yeah, yeah, mistakes were made, you know, and they move on. Kamala Harris. But, like, in Minnesota, you actually. They had to do the thing. They had to do the full sleep with the fishes situation. So now you're seeing the other side of this that comes out in House testimony. We're not done. Clip for.

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

90% of the individuals charged or indicted with the $250 million Feeding Our Future Covid fraud are of Somali descent.

[Michael Duncan]

I believe that to be correct.

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

Are you aware that in a 2021 video, Mr. Ellison promised that he would obstruct his own agencies in their investigation of Somali fraud?

[Michael Duncan]

I am very much aware of that.

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

It's no wonder that criminals in the Somali community felt they were free to steal taxpayer dollars. I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Marion. Do you have any doubt that Tim Walls knew about this fraud as it was occurring?

[Michael Duncan]

None whatsoever.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow.

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

Walls and Ellison were protecting fraudsters instead of investigating them. And it was purposeful. And it's no coincidence that this is occurring largely in the Somali community. Walls made a sanctuary state, Minnesota. Sanctuary state. He gave free health care, free college, and free licenses to illegals. And Walls looked the other way when Somali immigrants were stealing.

[John Ashbrook]

So that, to me, drives me up the wall the most about this whole situation is seeing that in Minnesota, you have American citizens who are. The message to them is like, oh, by your own devices, Whatever happens to you, happens to you. You got to find out a way to pay for groceries. If they've got more expensive, you have to find a way to pay for childcare. Meanwhile, for the Somalis, oh, boy, The Democrats were happy to just open up the wallet. Why should you have to pay for daycare? Even better, we'll let you have that as a business. We'll send money your way. Food, housing, everything. We'll cover it. College, we'll cover it. But for American citizens, nothing. It's insane. It's unconscionable. It's traitorous. These people should be put in prison. There needs to be serious accountability beyond just, you know, the first inclination is, yes, we should deport every Somali involved in this. But we gotta hold Accountable people like Ellison and Waltz who allowed for this system because they're traitors to this country.

[Josh Holmes]

So I want to get to the Ellison thing because that's an important development. That's also. He's the Attorney General. He was a left wing member of the House of Representatives. A progressive, stalwart pro.

[John Ashbrook]

He was like head of the dnc, wasn't he?

[Josh Holmes]

Essentially, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this guy, the worst of the worst.

[Comfortably Smug]

Ilhan Omar and AOC before they showed up on the scene.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's get to that audio in clip one, please.

[John Ashbrook]

The only way we can protect what.

[Josh Holmes]

We have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena, putting our votes where.

[Comfortably Smug]

It needs to be, but most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place and supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right. You can only protect our interests when.

[Comfortably Smug]

We have your back and you don't.

[Josh Holmes]

Have to worry about who's behind you. Okay, so that was a conversation, and that was published on Fox News. It was a conversation between the Attorney General, Keith Ellison and some activists.

[John Ashbrook]

One of the convicted fraudsters from that.

[Josh Holmes]

Who was convicted, it's incredible, of fraud within the Somali community. And he's basically saying, hey, we can vote for you.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, we can pay the protection money.

[Josh Holmes]

And we can pay.

[John Ashbrook]

Dude, that was like the most Godfather shit. I was like, is this real? This sounds like a script of like, so we can protect your back, you know, you just gotta watch out. It's like, oh, my God, dude. And it's on tape.

[Josh Holmes]

It's on tape.

[John Ashbrook]

Where are the handcuffs, bro?

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

No, for real.

[Josh Holmes]

Where are the hand? I mean, he's already in prison, but where's Alison?

[John Ashbrook]

That's what I'm saying. He needs the cuffs, so.

[Josh Holmes]

And it's a veiled. There's much, much more on this. And I encourage you to go find this online about Ellison, sort of quid pro quo. And looking the other way, I mean, none of these prosecutors, these are federal prosecutions that are being done. Like, his office didn't look into any of this shit. They weren't interested in prosecuting Somali fraud. Could that conversation have been instructive? Appears incredible, dude. He won by a nut hair. He didn't win by a lot.

[Comfortably Smug]

Which is wild to me considering everything Democrats do in the.

[Josh Holmes]

So clip 2.

[John Ashbrook]

The performance audit shows the Behavioral Health.

[Josh Holmes]

Administration sent millions of dollars out the door in grants without making proper checks into who was receiving them. And that is not even the most jaw dropping finding. Lou Ragoose has tonight's top story.

[Comfortably Smug]

Lou.

[Josh Holmes]

Julie, according to the nonpartisan legislative auditor.

[Michael Duncan]

This is another case of mismanagement of taxpayer money. But perhaps the most explosive revelation is.

[Josh Holmes]

That managers within dhs, the Department of.

[Michael Duncan]

Human Services, tried to cover their tracks.

[Josh Holmes]

By backdating and creating new documents. Auditor Judy Randall says she was most shocked that during the audit, multiple DHS managers backdated or created new documents to try to cover their tracks. Frankly, in the 27 plus years I've been with Ola, I have never seen this before. I will say we have had suspicions periodically, but we have never been able to prove it, to document it, and we did in this case. And it's very troubling.

[John Ashbrook]

That is insane.

[Josh Holmes]

So what they're saying is not only were the people who are whistleblowing about fraud intimidated and reassigned or outright fired from reporting it, but then when an audit came down, that they actually changed the documentation and backdated components of it to try to avoid culpability altogether. So this is where this goes from negligence and stupidity.

[John Ashbrook]

Correct.

[Josh Holmes]

To intent and crime.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep. This is no longer just like, oh, you know, it's just some bumbling dumps. This is a criminal enterprise.

[Josh Holmes]

And I'm not satisfied at all with Tim Walls or Keith Ellison, like sending some line lawyer or some policy staffer who is communicating with the Office of Legal Counsel, you know, up to face charges. No, it's them. They're on the hook. That's why you run for the office. Your job is to safeguard this. Your literal job, if you have one of them.

[John Ashbrook]

You had one job, bro.

[Josh Holmes]

Is to pretend as though you care about the taxpayer dollars that come in and that you are ensuring that they go to what you said they were going to do. That's it. That's it. There is no other real job.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, you have to.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the core of every job in government.

[John Ashbrook]

You have to think of this from Keith Allison's perspective, though. He's like, I know the job is to fight the crime, but to get the job, I have to do the crime.

[Josh Holmes]

I gotta do the crime. I gotta do. We're all doing the crime. I do it better than you do, frankly. How am I getting these grant? You can't even write the word learning. I gotta put this request in myself, for Christ's sakes. What's wrong with you people? Which, by the way, we've talked about this before the show. There's something to be said there. You mean to tell me that this bunch of like, fuck these Somalis that we saw, they can't spell the word learning, are responsible for $8 billion.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I gotta say, if you listen again to that Ellison audio, the he looked. The other person did not sound like a Somali immigrant with a thick accent.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude sounded like somebody who may understand what he's doing.

[Comfortably Smug]

There are people behind this whose names we do not yet know.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, and those are the people out protesting ice and throwing rocks at police.

[Josh Holmes]

Fucking Watergate Commission on this. Yes, because my suspicion, and this is unfounded, but we're here on a show and I got a microphone, so I'm gonna say it. My suspicion is that the crux of the entirety of the Democratic Party is at some level involved in pieces of this across this country. I totally agree that we've talked forever on this show about the Arabella advisors, the network of C4s, the four foreign funding of all of these things that just splashed across this country, nonprofits and for profits, and a web of intended to confuse of people who are all about trying to garner as many resources as they can to direct them to the constituencies of their preference. If you had any doubt about that, you raised on the last show The Stacey Abrams 20 billion situation to go buy stoves in Atlanta from basically the hotmail account of a banking situ. My first bank account. You know, like if your 10 year old opens up a bank account, that's the equivalent of what they did. Next thing you know they've got nine figures in there. Like that's what they do. My sense is that this criminal enterprise we're focused on Walz, who was a capa in a larger enterprise. I don't know who runs it. Is it the Soros situation? Is it the. I don't know who it is. Somebody does. Because not everybody can write grants that get $8 billion out of one state in this union.

[Michael Duncan]

It's certainly hard to do if you can't spell the word learning, you would think, you know.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, or that guy who's a member of the Somali parliament, who was a manager, misspelled the word manager. And then also he was the DEI head of some local school district. And then yeah, also he's running some healthcare company in Minnesota. There is so much fraud. But you know that the guy who's misspelling manager to your point, the person who can't spell learning, they're not the brains behind the operation. I cannot wait to find out. And you know that this is a generational thing from Somalia. We all know this has gone on for over 30 years. SNL famously spoofed the Somalia situation when Bill Clinton was president of the United States with one of the greatest sketches they ever did.

[Michael Duncan]

The McDonald's.

[Comfortably Smug]

He was in McDonald's and he was trying to explain to people how warlords in Somalia were. Steve, you're mcdl. Yeah. AID from Great Britain intercepted by warlords. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

He's taking bites along the way.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, it's a brand. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But here's the thing. Like, the guy from the Somali parliament who runs national security for Somalia somehow ends up as a school board member in St. Cloud, Minnesota, rural place in the center of the state.

[Comfortably Smug]

How.

[Josh Holmes]

And then owns a healthcare company that is getting millions of dollars of American taxpayer dollars. And like, I don't know all the details beyond that, but how does that happen? He didn't just show up. He didn't wake up in the suburbs of Mogadisha.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Saying, like, hey, I got an idea. Why don't you guys get on board with this? Somebody did.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And I'm just saying, like, there are a lot of things going on. I don't know of a more significant political cudgel the Democrats could inflict on themselves than where this story ultimately leads. They did this, right. The crime is committed.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

It's already done. The milk is spilt. The horse is out of the barn. Find it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

If you are Jamie Comer, if you are the Department of Justice, if you're the Department of Homeland Security, this is super important. It is super important. You're $36 trillion in debt as a country. If half a billion, half a trillion, as was that report that we did on Tuesday is going to fraud and this amount in one state, and it's all kind of coordinated to a point where it just happens to benefit the Democratic power players in the state. My sense is we're dealing with a real thing here, right?

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, 100%. Every normal person in this country sweats whether they've crossed every T and dotted every I for their 10:40 return, they're sweating whether they got their insurance premium payment in on time for their car insurance. This is a completely different thing. This is not normal.

[John Ashbrook]

This is an insult to American.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is not America. It is.

[John Ashbrook]

It is an insult to Americans.

[Josh Holmes]

Couple more clips here. Clip 5.

[H]

The COVID letter of this report states, quote, however, during the course of our audit, we identified a number of documents that the Behavioral Health Administration either backdated or created after our audit happened. End quote. It sounds like Governor Tim Waltz's Department of Human Services may have been fabricating evidence by creating documentation after the fact to mislead voters, to mislead auditors. This new Report noted that one grantee who received nearly $680,000 from this agency for one month's work, but could not provide any documentation or proof that any work was actually completed. What's more, and this is the kicker, the report notes that the grant manager who approved this money left the agency within days of approving the grant to take a job with the very same grantee that they approved money for.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing. Oh, might as well get paid by both sides. They were making nearly $1,000 an hour, 24 hours a day, 680 grand in a month, no documentation to show any work that they did. And then they get a job for the person they cut the grant to. Amazing. This is like. This is way more brazen than anything any La Cosa Nostra pulled off. This is incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that's why we're going into detail on this, you know, like, this shit's not boring. This is like if you go into detail on something, this is straight Cosa Nostra stuff. That's unbelievable. 600. There is somebody who approves a grant sight unseen, never met the guy, never talked to about what they did, never with a site visit to see if they were doing the thing, never had any experience doing the thing, sent the money, and then as soon as that went out the door, they got the job with the guy who was doing the thing. It's insane. Are you kidding me?

[Comfortably Smug]

And it's not that the paperwork doesn't exist. I mean, at least at the beginning of the this week it probably existed. But I would bet if there are fires in Minnesota this week that somehow magically the paper trail gets burned, so.

[John Ashbrook]

Many daycares are going to be like, oh, no. In the riot, all my documentation was destroyed.

[Josh Holmes]

You destroyed the healthcare and all of the children with it? Yeah, I mean, it's what they're trying to do. That's why these two things are inextricably tied. They're trying to get you to pay attention to the ICE deal. The fact of the matter is, the ICE thing, the only reason they're there in the first place is to investigate this situation. They're going door to door and they're trying to figure out how to do the job of federal law enforcement where the state of Minnesota did not and refused to do and explicitly in this hearing, were intimidated out of doing good. People in law enforcement wanted to do their job and we're intimidated out of. You'll lose your job. We got a picture of your house, we got a picture of your car. Here's a Picture of your kid's school.

[John Ashbrook]

It's insane.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that. Dude, this is like. I mean, Towney Hall.

[Comfortably Smug]

And if you think that these people who you're talking about, Josh, are Republicans, you're deluding yourself.

[Josh Holmes]

You're insane.

[Comfortably Smug]

These are government employed. Probably Democrats.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, probably. I mean, this is like. It's exclusively Democrats that work in this government, but some of them are trying to do the job that they said they signed up for.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And they're the ones that are being crushed by this whole thing. We got one more clip. This is clip state. Emily Randall of Washington state has got some things to say. Democrats have a counter.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, okay. I can't wait to hear this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, they've expressed themselves.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm sure this will clear it all up.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, she's got a lot to say because she knows a lot from the Pacific Northwest about what's going on. Clip 6.

[John Ashbrook]

We can trot out all of the data that we want to create the sense that there is a bad guy, there is a bad group of people. There are folks who are not among us. There are folks who are other. And I think we should spend a lot more time looking at ourselves, looking at American citizens, looking at white men.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay. Yeah, that's right.

[John Ashbrook]

Dude, that's. Oh, that's. That's become such a tired playbook of the Dems. Is like. Well, you see, it's actually racism. What I had just said is how insulting this whole situation is to American citizens. Not only are you paying these taxes, trying to get by, you don't get any help on your childcare that you have to pay for. You're not getting any help on your groceries, you're not getting any help on your bills. Not only do you get robbed of the tax money, you do send the government, now you get insulted.

[Josh Holmes]

Mm.

[John Ashbrook]

This is an unbelievable situation.

[Comfortably Smug]

Crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

It's hard to like. I mean, first of all, she's like a fat Elena Kagan.

[John Ashbrook]

I could've guessed.

[Josh Holmes]

She looks like.

[John Ashbrook]

That's exactly how this person would look before they.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we put her back up?

[John Ashbrook]

We knew. Everybody knew.

[Comfortably Smug]

And the tone of the voice. You knew that tone was coming.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you just look at her? If you show up at, you know, something your wife drags you to and that lady stand in the middle of the cocktail party, you're gonna do everything you can do to work around that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Everything you don't want. You don't want the lecture.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, she's got a lot to say. And she's. I mean, she's involved in the school board trying to teach her kids how to cut their pricks off and push.

[Comfortably Smug]

Them inside out because she knows better than anybody else.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, it's just. I'm so mad. I'm so mad because this is. Dude, it's my home state. Like, you guys, we've done things on all of your home states. And you get to a point where they try to create a partisanship prism by which we look through that is. You heard Tim Wall say it's like, well, it's Donald Trump that's trying to do this to me now. You lost $8 billion, dude. You have Keith Ellison being, you know, sort of like, oh, well, this is, you know, it's an attack on Minnesota and Jacob Fry and all that shit. And then you get national representatives from Washington state. She's probably never met a Republican in her entire life. Never met anybody who believes in Jesus, for that matter. And she is the one who's going to tell, it's not that. It's white men that's the issue. No, just look at the accounting lady. Like, just look at the Excel spreadsheet, right?

[Michael Duncan]

She called it data. Hilarious, by the way.

[Josh Holmes]

Data.

[Michael Duncan]

You do billions of dollars of fraud and she hand waves past it. Look, we could look at numbers all day, but I want to talk about my feelings. And white men.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, she doesn't know her ass from a fucking hole in the ground. And then she's showing up on a dais to tell people what it is that you should be focused on. And it's not the fact that you've been stolen from. I mean, it's no different. The worst part about government fraud is that it's laundered so many times that it doesn't feel like they're actually coming into your house and breaking your safe open and stealing out of your wallet.

[John Ashbrook]

Can I say something? The reason she.

[Josh Holmes]

But that's what it is.

[John Ashbrook]

The reason she says that is because it works is because that's been the Democrat playbook for 20 years. While they're running their corrupt system of buying votes, of stealing from Americans, they've tried to divide Americans by saying, oh no, it's racism. It's white supremacy. You see, the real problem here is white supremacy. Well, we rob you blind while we give your hard earned dollars to illegals, while we treat them like royalty and make your lives worse. We're gonna blame you. We're gonna try to divide this country. And you see that all across this.

[Comfortably Smug]

Country and all over the world. You were mentioning something out of Germany, you saw.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, yeah, a left wing group in Berlin knocks out the power to a quarter of the city. And you have Germans, you have elderly Germans who are left freezing in their homes because it's winter in Germany. It's cold right now and they're left freezing in their apartments. But the government in Berlin took all the migrants and put them in luxury hotels. That's happening in America. It's insulting to the citizens of the preferred population.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep. If you think that can't happen here, I direct you back to the previous administration when they passed a stimulus bill where they awarded only agriculture subsidies to a particular race based on subsidy.

[Michael Duncan]

Or when you had that horrific flooding.

[Josh Holmes]

Like a farmer's not a farmer.

[Michael Duncan]

The horrific flooding that was in western North Carolina and they stole all that FEMA money for the illegal immigrants.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Not the people in rural North Carolina, you know, who couldn't get down the side of the mountain.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what's happening here. It's like we like to have a lot of fun on the ruthless Friday. We laugh, we joke, we make fun of these things every once in a while. It's like, dude, take a step back. If that's allowed to persist in this country. You don't have a country.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

You just don't have one. And any America that you ever grew up in or knew of or thought of that gave you even the slightest hope for improving the lives of your family, your neighbors and the people around you, it's gone. It's mob tactic. It is the straight old school Huey Long pay to play. Like just complete corruption that these people have been participating in. And because you have a compliant media, we don't have to discuss these things. We discuss them as though there's a difference of opinion. There's a difference of opinion about whether a third world dictator in a failed state on our doorstep who's shipping oil and minerals to all of America's enemies should be removed and we should take control of it. We have a debate about that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, that's.

[Josh Holmes]

We have a debate about that. There's a debate about that in this country. As if they're operating in good faith on any of it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, it's exactly right. I mean, the only time that the legacy media covers both sides and writes he said, she said is when Democrats are caught red handed.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the only time they ever do it.

[Josh Holmes]

I am so pissed. I mean, it's hard to sleep. It's unbelievable that they've allowed this to come. Republicans in Minnesota, if you get Your fucking act together. Like, I'm gonna come there and shake your ass straight, cuz. This is insane that we have gotten to a point where these people are so brazen that they feel not only can they steal a billion dollars, but then they can tell the people who are like, maybe not like the whole 8 billion. And they're like, no, I'm gonna fucking. I'm gonna go to your kid's school. And they're like, okay, that's.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, Minnesotans need to be held accountable.

[Josh Holmes]

They do, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

They like being Minnesota Nice. Look what's been done to your state. Look what's been done to your cities. What are you people doing about it? I will say Minnesota nice.

[Josh Holmes]

Much like Ohio and Indiana for that matter. There is a nicety to it, but like, you never want to meet a bigger prick in your entire life than somebody from Minnesota who feels like they took advantage of it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, that's ex. When people feel like, what about the Somalis?

[John Ashbrook]

They're doing it in their faces. I wanna see it. What's the reaction? What's the crackback look like?

[Josh Holmes]

I'm waiting for it, dude. I'm waiting for it. If you need help, let me know, because you're gonna need it. There is no, absolutely no answer for a Democratic win anywhere. I don't care if it's the most blue county in Minnesota. Like, there's no answer for why you can't win it with all this shit going on. Leads us to our question of the day, when it's all settled, how big will the fraud be nationwide? You heard the Trump administration talk about California. That's the creme de la creme. We're talking about known entities like Medi Cal who have been the king fraud. I would say, like, if you, you know, what's the fraud capital world? Is it like Minneapolis now?

[Legislative Auditor or Witness]

It is.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what I guess that was. My point is that, like, this is the biggest thing. It's. We've known it forever. They're gonna have so much think about San Francisco, Louisiana. Up and down that coast.

[John Ashbrook]

You had, what was it, one mile of light rail built in California over, like 10 years. That cost what, like $5 billion? Like.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's insane. Yeah. They build, what, one in New York City?

[John Ashbrook]

It took like 20 years to get two miles of the Second Avenue subway built. Like, the corruption nationwide is insane. This is a terrific question.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So you total that stuff up when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. We read all your comments. We'll get back to you. On Funtime Friday with a lot of commentary about all of it. And when we come back, we're gonna come up with your question from last episode when we asked following the capture of Maduro, which Democrat embarrassed themselves the most? A lot to choose from. And you guys had some great stuff right after this. Okay. When you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Friday program, we read all of your comments when you question of the day and boy, it's been good. Really enjoyed your commentary lately because I feel like we've learned a lot of the holidays and everything else. Remember we did the question and answer thing. You guys had some great questions. I wish we could have got all of them, but honestly, you'd have been bored listening to us talk about all of that for five or six episodes that it would take to get all of them. But this one is a good question, which is which Democrat embarrassed themselves the most reversing themselves in the whole Venezuela Maduro thing? To start, we always start with the voice.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, first one comes from the salty chief. And salty writes embarrassing as Alyssa Slotkin. She has the balls to go on and say, quote, many Americans have lost confidence that we know what we're doing abroad. Close quote. After she was part of Obama's Arab Spring that replaced Gaddafi with isis. Somehow the left thinks their entire past, a broken policy, is off limits. Like they get a clean slate. That is such an excellent point.

[Josh Holmes]

Such a good point. So good.

[Comfortably Smug]

They never want to talk context. The left never wants to talk context because when you look at history, they are ruined time and time again.

[Josh Holmes]

Comment to Dunks Rungs.

[Michael Duncan]

This is from Michael McCready. Michael writes Kamala Harris by a mile. The US put a literal price tag on Maduro's head. Then she reacted to his capture like someone calling the manager because the coupon actually worked.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

When your own policy achieves its dated goal and you're still mad about it, that's not nuance. That's self owned performance art by the former vice president.

[John Ashbrook]

Nailed it.

[Michael Duncan]

I like that one. That's good.

[Josh Holmes]

Comment 3.

[John Ashbrook]

Smug comment 3 is from Cole Garrett. And Cole writes, Chris Murphy definitely embarrassed himself. The most absolute clown. The drugs are going to Europe, huh? I don't know what's worse, the fact that he said that or the fact that there are Americans out there who will still believe it. That's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. It is really discouraging when you see just the like reflexive, you know, I mean, it's the reason why Walls is doing this thing with the Ice steel. Is that like you're. If you wear the blue jersey that you're like.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, that's.

[Michael Duncan]

You can say and do whatever you want. You're never held accountable.

[Josh Holmes]

Never held accountable.

[John Ashbrook]

And it's the same thing like in the aftermath of the ICE Officer defending himself from that lunatic. You saw all these agitators out in the street. It's time to lock them up. It's time to lock them up.

[Josh Holmes]

It is. It is. I say lock Walls up.

[John Ashbrook]

Damn right.

[Josh Holmes]

Hell, yes. At a minimum, get his ass out of, I don't know what, the whole state constitution.

[John Ashbrook]

We need helicopters with Delta go down on walls house. Wrap up him and his wife.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's get him out of there. He should be in the southern district of New York.

[John Ashbrook]

Put him in there.

[Josh Holmes]

Put him in there, guys. Terrible. Okay, so when we come back, we're gonna get to our. It's game day.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

King of the Hill, our feature presentation here on the Ruthless Variety Program right after this. Okay. It's Thursday. And when it's Thursday, we play our signature game on the Ruthless Variety program, which is King of the Hill.

[Michael Duncan]

King of the Hill. And I believe you're the defending champion, right, Holmes?

[Josh Holmes]

I am. I'm the fool.

[John Ashbrook]

Fat man.

[Michael Duncan]

Steve Schmidt.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

And Ashbrook, your challenger, George Conway. George Conway, who's had some hot heat recently. I think this is gonna be a good match. Your judge.

[Josh Holmes]

We didn't cover this, so if you didn't know it, George Conway, the CNN commentator, former husband of Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager of the. The 2016 Donald Trump election campaign. They, you know, split, went on their way. He had a delusional breakdown, went on cnn, became a contributor, and now he's running for Congress.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. As a Democrat. Really?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I watched his intro video. It's fucking hilarious.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, this guy you want to talk about, like there is.

[John Ashbrook]

There's such a. This guy's just like a fall from grace. A fall from grace.

[Josh Holmes]

Just brain dead.

[John Ashbrook]

Ruined his life and we.

[Michael Duncan]

And we get to enjoy it.

[Josh Holmes]

Right? Here we are.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's go ringside.

[Comfortably Smug]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for King of the Hill. In the red corner, fighting from a campaign office, clean shaven and running for Congress, George Conway.

[John Ashbrook]

That's good.

[Comfortably Smug]

And now in the blue corner, fighting from a patio somewhere in Utah, and current champion of the world, the old fat man, Steve Schmidt.

[Michael Duncan]

This is so good.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like such an extra emphasis.

[John Ashbrook]

He holds him accountable on that dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's. That's my favorite. Okay, so I have to ask from a ruling from the judge to begin with because it'll dictate how I play what I do. Steve has gotten into a new format where he just like throws three words on the twits but then does a graphic. Mm, no more than 140 words. Because I am, I am cognizant of the rules of the game that he uses to post his opinion.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, I'll allow it. So it can give more context to our audio only listeners who should subscribe to the YouTube.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, all right, that's good. So I will, I will provided that we never exceed 140 characters on the graphic and the explanation provided.

[John Ashbrook]

That's fair.

[Josh Holmes]

I will.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't wait to see these graphics. They better be good, dog shit.

[John Ashbrook]

They better be good.

[Josh Holmes]

You're going to love it. Yes. Exhibit three, please. Donald loves doing deals.

[John Ashbrook]

God, it's a horrible graphic.

[Josh Holmes]

The graphic is Donald Trump on one side, Maduro on the other. Venezuela will be like crypto for the Trumps, just bloody and costlier for you, while bringing you about the same return for the average American, which is zero.

[John Ashbrook]

It is an absolutely horrible dog sheet graphic like Microsoft Paint and like, I can't read that shit.

[Michael Duncan]

I think the problem is Steve has not upgraded his Canva account to a premium account and he still doesn't know how to use it. Just a free tip to you, Steve. So when you have that invisible bar around the white section there that you're trying to create a gradient, you got to drag that all the way to the bottom of the red and then you got to use the minus to reduce the opacity so that this is a pro tip.

[John Ashbrook]

So.

[Michael Duncan]

So that the white gradient does not cover the white text you're putting on the graphic, you idiot.

[Josh Holmes]

I would like to submit the testimony of the bailiff to the record as a misuse of the Internet.

[John Ashbrook]

As an expert, I'm going to be an expert.

[Comfortably Smug]

Thank you.

[John Ashbrook]

All right, Ashbrook.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, sticking with genre. Exhibit number nine, please. As you guys know, there is an old rusty tanker that some people said had ties to Russia and that the US Was monitoring its travel across the Atlantic and towards Russia. And George Conway, candidate for Congress, former Republican and purveyor of Russia conspiracy against Trump, said that any American monitoring of this ship is quote, this is piracy under the law of nations and under section 1651 of title 18 of the United States code, piracy under the law of nations is punishable by life imprisonment. How dare you investigate this ship you believe is headed toward Russia, America.

[John Ashbrook]

That's great. That's good context, because, like, Conway was one of the Russiagate guys out there on the forefront, and he's like, how dare you harm this ship? Which started flying Russian colors. This is piracy. Great example of how these people. Because the whole crux of King of the Hill is exposing how much these people are hypocrites. And in the vein of that, I have to give round one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow.

[John Ashbrook]

Conway.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow.

[Michael Duncan]

I didn't see it going that way. Okay, Challenger has to go first in round two.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay. Exhibit 12, please. And if it please the court, you'll find that not only is George Conway running for Congress, but I'm also launching a substack.

[John Ashbrook]

Why?

[Comfortably Smug]

Because Trump is completely unfit for office.

[John Ashbrook]

Whoa.

[Josh Holmes]

No way.

[Comfortably Smug]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

You're telling me for the first time. Oh, my God.

[Comfortably Smug]

His enablers are cowards. And the truth needs to be said plainly by someone who knows how these guys work.

[Josh Holmes]

Plus, I need a couple of bucks in my pocket.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly.

[Michael Duncan]

That's truly remarkable that you could be in the year of our Lord 2026, launch a substack and act like you're doing something seriously. Like, I've just. You know what? I've decided Donald Trump's unfit for office. Of course. I've been saying that every single day on this platform since 2016, but I just wanted to break some new ground here.

[John Ashbrook]

Incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

It is incredible. Unfortunately, I'm not going to allow you to win round two after. So this is exhibit six, where he says Trump's family and associates have engaged in millions of dollars worth of graft and fraud and corruption. He does the same thing with the graphic. The graphic again.

[John Ashbrook]

He did it.

[Josh Holmes]

Trump's sons, Uday and Kousse.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, my God.

[Josh Holmes]

And the daughter he has repeatedly sexualized.

[John Ashbrook]

No way.

[Josh Holmes]

Have made hundreds of millions of dollars illegitimately, illegally, over 20. 20, 25.

[John Ashbrook]

All right, that's too deranged. That's too deranged. That's round two, Schmidt.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, wow.

[John Ashbrook]

UD and kus. This guy's lost his mind. He's just deranged. I mean, what is wrong with him?

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, round three for all the marbles here. Cap things off on a nice, like, vigorous King of the Hill game with a little Nazi talk.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, man. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So I'm going to go with me. Exhibit two, please. How many military strikes does the Maga Fuhrer plan for 2026? There has been no debate in Congress, let alone across the nation, about the war in Venezuela. There's no congressional authorization and very dubious legal authority for these strikes.

[John Ashbrook]

Bro, that's the whole point. There is no war in Venezuela.

[Josh Holmes]

There is no.

[John Ashbrook]

The Delta Force ruled their president. Now he's in jail.

[Josh Holmes]

He had an indictment and they sniped him.

[Michael Duncan]

I do love. There's an artistry to Steve in which he starts with Maga Fuhrer and then he proceeds to make a very legalistic argument for something and he goes Nazi.

[Josh Holmes]

And then like. Well, something to think about.

[John Ashbrook]

Something to think about. That's good. All right. It's all coming down to you on this one, Ashbrook.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay. Conway's doing his best here, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure he's going to be able to compete with that.

[John Ashbrook]

Have a little confidence, old man. Come on, come on. Gotta entertain the people.

[Comfortably Smug]

Exhibit number seven, please. And this is an announcement tweet from George Conway, the former Republican, former husband of a Republican extraordinaire. He writes, I'm running for Congress in New York 12. My home is what he claims there. Although I thought he lived in. In the D.C. area. Conway continues in a tweet that accompanies his demented video, which we're not allowed to play. I'll just read what he writes. We have a demented criminal president running our country like a mob operation. Government by the boss. For the boss. We need Democratic fighters who will defend the rule of law and deliver government by the people. Join us. And so what I would like to point out about that final phrase, we need Democratic fighters. Okay. This guy is a lifelong Republican, Second of all, who will deliver the rule of law or government by the people? He's one of the wealthiest attorneys in our entire country.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the saddest thing, is a partner. That's why it's tragic.

[Comfortably Smug]

Firm who's made more money than George Conway.

[John Ashbrook]

He was a wlrk, which is like the dream of every attorney in the country to work there because you get bank. He threw that whole life away to be demented. Broken brain.

[Comfortably Smug]

He acts like he's packed in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every morning.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's New York 12. That's on the west side. It was Humpty Dumpty's, right? What's his name? The old, old fat man.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, the congressman.

[Comfortably Smug]

Jerry Nadler.

[John Ashbrook]

Nadler. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, Nadler.

[John Ashbrook]

That is gonna be such a mess of a primer of just derangement. I mean, so like. I mean, I give him credit, but like, it's not close, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Like MAGA Furrer. More.

[Comfortably Smug]

What is it like, you can't beat.

[John Ashbrook]

That incredible championship continues to stay with Steve Schmidt.

[Josh Holmes]

Steve reigns supreme.

[John Ashbrook]

Incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

This is awesome. Thank you guys for joining us. I hope you got a little insight and we've provided you a little bit of context into what you're seeing in Minnesota. Do not be fooled. They want to make this a partisan food fight. It's not. Look at the spreadsheet. Did they do it? Didn't they do it? They did it. Hint, they did it. Remember our question of the day when it's all settled? How big will the fraud be? Nationwide? When you like and subscribe. We read all of them. We'll get back to the very next episode on Funtime Friday with that, fellows.

[John Ashbrook]

I think we did it. I think so.

[Michael Duncan]

Absolutely.

[John Ashbrook]

Banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much to the minions for tuning in. And remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube hit that subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, Minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the lids. We'll see on Friday. Stay ruthless.