Bad to Worse for Democrats: Platner Scandal Explodes + Sen. Ben Sasse Joins the Progrum

Summary

Ruthless Podcast: "Bad to Worse for Democrats: Platner Scandal Explodes + Sen. Ben Sasse Joins the Progrum"

Episode Date: June 2, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Special Guest: Sen. Ben Sasse

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast delivers a raucous blend of political scandal analysis and an insightful, moving conversation with Senator Ben Sasse. The hosts first deep-dive into the unraveling candidacy of Maine Democrat Graham Platner, whose campaign is mired in scandal after scandal, providing a field day for Republicans and a migraine for Democrats. In the episode’s heart, former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse discusses mortality, parenting, faith, and society from the unique vantage of fighting terminal cancer—a conversation hailed by the hosts as one of their best ever.

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1. Graham Platner: “The Endless Content Machine” (00:00–44:14)

a. Platner’s Ongoing Scandals (00:00–20:40)

• Opening Salvo (00:00–04:10):

  • The hosts immediately launch into the Graham Platner saga, describing him as "the endless content machine for Republicans and the endless source of headache for Democrats" (Josh Holmes, 00:00).
  • With blunt humor, they recap the shocking revelations: a Nazi tattoo, false “working class” credentials, and the bizarre oyster farmer narrative.

• Worst Senate Candidate Ever? (04:10–07:08):

  • The hosts debate if Platner may be "the worst Senate candidate in the history" (Michael Duncan, 04:10).
  • His privileged background (Hotchkiss School, oyster farming for his mother’s restaurant) undercuts his blue-collar persona.
  • Democratic hopes for rival Janet Mills resurface due to Maine’s ranked choice voting (John Ashbrook, 06:13).

• Scandal Escalates: Nazi Tattoo, Sexts, and More (07:09–16:35):

  • Platner’s scandals spiral:
    • Nazi tattoo origin
    • Objectionable Reddit posts
    • Revelations in the Wall Street Journal about his wife flagging explicit messages with numerous women (Josh Holmes, 09:47).
    • Usage of Kik, a messaging app infamously described as "a predator's paradise" (Michael Duncan quoting Brent Scher, 14:15).
  • Speculation abounds about even worse material being held in reserve until after the primary (Josh Holmes, 15:25).

"There is never once has there been a situation where you're like, great guy, a Nazi, but great otherwise."
— Michael Duncan, 08:00

• Democrats’ Dilemma—What’s Next? (16:35–24:44):
  • Anticipation builds for more damaging shoes to drop: "Every morning they wake up and they're like, what's the next shoe to drop?" (Josh Holmes, 16:06).
  • The team cracks up over Democrat attempts to handle the fallout and the risks of blackmail due to Platner’s digital trail.

b. Platner’s Response & Democratic Fallout (20:40–44:14)

• Platner Tries Damage Control (21:20–24:44):

  • Platner’s wife attempts to shield him publicly:

    "It's shameful behavior to spend time, time and energy and resources on negative ads and negative stories on Graham..."
    — Platner’s wife (played in clip, 21:20)

  • The hosts roast Platner for hiding behind his wife and his privileged background:

    "For him to cowardly send her out to clean up his mess...he's not used to dealing with things on his own." (Josh Holmes, 22:56)

• Democratic Establishment’s Handwringing (30:16–38:33):

  • Media report Platner dodging multiple friendly interviews—a dire sign. Meanwhile, top Democrats like Cory Booker publicly express concerns:

    "Yeah, I have concerns. That guy has questions to answer and that's what campaigns are for."
    — Cory Booker (played in clip, 31:21)

  • They mock the left’s reliance on “Bernie Bro” activism and out-of-touch operatives, sharing a bizarre anecdote of Platner’s comms guy trying to include a photo of his own genitals in a children's book (Josh Holmes, 27:39).

• Maine’s Existential Democratic Crisis (38:33–44:14):

  • The possibility of yanking Platner for Janet Mills is dissected—but most believe scandal coverage is now too heavy.
  • The episode plays a biting Platner denial from January:

    "No, but I haven't lived a very complicated life. I've never been close to money. I've never been close to power..."
    — Graham Platner (clip, 39:04)

• Hosts’ Takeaway:
  Graham Platner is not only scandal-plagued but fundamentally unserious and utterly unqualified:

  "If you just sat and listened to this guy for one day, you would conclude he's the dumbest person to run for statewide office anywhere in America."
  — Michael Duncan, 41:07

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2. Interview with Sen. Ben Sasse: On Life, Death, and Meaning (44:14–89:44)

a. Sasse’s Perspective from Terminal Illness (46:09–58:01)

• Choosing to Share (47:02):

  • Sasse reflects on why he’s doing media:

    "When I'm asked, how scared are you of death? And I'm like, death sucks, but I'm not really scared. People are surprised by the answer."
    — Ben Sasse, 47:02

• Wisdom on Parenting and Service (50:26–52:30):

  • Sasse discusses his daughter’s essay about his parenting:

    "Parents' goal shouldn't be for your kids to like you every minute. It should be for them to know unconditional love..."
    — Ben Sasse, 50:56

  • He encourages parents to be outward-looking, serve others, and resist raising “narcissistically obsessed” children.

• Finding Joy in the Mundane (53:00–55:48):

  • Sasse shares anecdotes on simple pleasures, humor about “it’s time to die with dignity” pillow, and gratitude for tasting sports and farm life even amidst illness.
  • “Work first before you play” and valuing Sabbath and outward contribution.

b. Reflections on Life Choices (58:01–66:14)

• Meaningful Living and Family (58:24–61:58):

  • Sasse: Strongly regrets being away too often from his family for work, suggesting stronger kin networks—family compounds, cousins, roots.
  • Critiques modern helicopter/snowplow parenting and the factory-model school.

• On Work, Community, and the Digital Revolution (65:20):

  • Advocates teaching kids to be “little workers, little servants—because it gives them purpose and meaning.”
  • Calls for moderation and intentionally building community and virtue over relying solely on statist solutions.

"They should know that the world doesn't revolve around their consumption needs."
— Ben Sasse, 65:48

c. Facing Death (66:25–75:38)

• Not Afraid of Death (66:33):

  • Sasse gives a Christian answer, attributing peace to his faith:

    "I bring the sin and Jesus brings the forgiveness. And we did a trade like that. That's why I'm not afraid."
    — Ben Sasse, 66:33

• Enduring Mortality with Humor and Grit:

  • Honest about the physical toll of cancer and palliative care, Sasse blends humor (“Not Dead Yet” podcast) with sincerity about using the time left for meaning, family, and service.

d. Audience Q&A—The Signature Ruthless “Three Questions” (75:38–89:44)

• Last Meal on Earth (76:26–78:42):

  • Sasse’s ideal: Nebraska steak, eaten with his hands in a deer stand with his son—“very committed to that.”

• Regret & Path Not Taken (79:15–80:33):

  • Wishes he’d played quarterback (not just wrestled) in high school for the love of it and to develop leadership skills.
  • Would have liked to coach football like his father.

• Thrill of Victory or Agony of Defeat? (81:57–86:22):

  • Sasse challenges the premise, exploring how motivation also includes “living gratitude as a way to go and serve somebody else.”
  • Living for the serving process, not just the outcome.

e. Final Reflections (86:46–89:44)

• Cherishing the Moment and Family:
  • Sasse describes how he tries not to overwhelm his children in these days, keeping life meaningful and filled with purpose, even when confronting mortality.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Platner:
  "Nazis. We get over there, might play the. There's some Michigan problems that we have to the party's base..."
  — Michael Duncan, 18:53

• On Parenting:
  "Your parent parental goal should be for them to know unconditional love and then in response to live a life of gratitude where there are some expectations around them."
  — Ben Sasse, 50:56

• On Facing Death:
  "I bring the sin and Jesus brings the forgiveness. And we did a trade like that. That’s why I’m not afraid."
  — Ben Sasse, 66:33

• On Life’s Small Joys:
  "I definitely notice birds now in a way that I definitely didn’t six months ago."
  — Ben Sasse, 70:36

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–20:40: The Platner Scandal, Nazi tattoo, sexual texts, and Maine Democratic chaos
• 20:40–44:14: Platner’s response, wife’s involvement, Democratic handwringing
• 44:14–46:09: Introduction to Ben Sasse interview
• 46:09–75:38: Sasse’s reflections on terminal illness, family, faith, work, and meaning
• 75:38–89:44: Ruthless Three Questions: Last meal, regrets, motivation, and closing thoughts

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Episode Tone

The episode veers between the hosts’ signature biting, irreverent humor—especially regarding the Platner saga—and sincere, earnest reflection in the latter half with Sasse. The contrast reinforces the show’s ability to pivot between political lampooning and genuine, heartfelt conversation.

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Takeaway

For listeners, this episode delivers both scathing political analysis and lasting wisdom about life’s true priorities. The Platner coverage exemplifies the ruthlessness and candor of the show, while the Sasse interview offers rare substance—honest talk on mortality, virtue, and how to live with meaning, regardless of time left.

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Summary by segment for quick reference:

• (00:00–44:14): Platner Disaster—Democrats in Turmoil
• (44:14–89:44): Ben Sasse on Facing Death and Finding Meaning

Essential listening for those interested in both the absurdities of modern politics and in timeless, grounded guidance on life.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Thank God we've got Graham Platner, who's just like the endless content machine for Republicans and the endless source of headache for Democrats. A dick pics.

[Michael Duncan]

Not great in October. It's not great.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a sword of Damocles, if you will.

[John Ashbrook]

Your typical left wing consultant in this country is so disconnected from reality, they think that, oh, we have to find some guy like him to speak to real voters.

[Michael Duncan]

This is the worst candidate I've ever seen.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

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 health care 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 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]

[Ben Sasse]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Josh Holmes]

This program has become one of the

[Ben Sasse]

most influential podcasts in America. I love the personality. You guys are killing it. I just saw your number one. So congratulations.

[Michael Duncan]

It's an honor and a pleasure to welcome the great Sean Hannity. Guys, congratulations on all your success. This is why you listen to the

[Ben Sasse]

Ruthless Podcast, because nobody else would ask that question.

[Josh Holmes]

The only political podcast worth listening to

[Ben Sasse]

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

[Michael Duncan]

Good Tuesday to all of 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 radio dial, we're gonna make you laugh because there's some funny stuff out there. We might make you cry here later in the episode. It may be even the meaning of life at some level. And what I mean by all of that is Democrats are doing what Democrats do. And Graham Platner, who I think is now our favorite reoccurring character here on the program, is going to go front and center here first. We also have Ben Sasse on the program, somebody we have known and love For a long time here on the Variety program and haven't had an opportunity to speak with him. Comes in and spends a good amount of time with a ton of perspective. You all undoubtedly know the situation that Senator Sass and his family and everybody have been going through and the perspective that he has brought in that process. I really proud of the interview. I thought it was great. And you're gonna get to hear all of that in this very episode. But first, we do need to make fun of some things. Yes, it's an abrupt transition. We get it, we understand.

[Josh Holmes]

But I think it's perfect. It's honestly perfect.

[John Ashbrook]

Quite the contrast.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, the Sass interview is phenomenal. And he has a tremendous sense of humor for someone facing such a deep, difficult circumstance. And at the same time, I think he would. He'll enjoy seeing this episode because of how we're making fun of the mess that Democrats find themselves in. I mean, if there's someone who needs a good joke, it's all of us right now. And thank God we've got Graham Platner, who's just like the endless content machine for Republicans and the endless source of headache for Democrats.

[Michael Duncan]

This guy, and I don't have a fear of overstating that he might be the worst Senate candidate in the history.

[Josh Holmes]

We were debating this over lunch of like, he actually may be the worst candidate of all time.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, Todd Aiken is looking over at Graham Platner and he's being like, dude,

[Josh Holmes]

yeah, you need to know when to call it, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

This is absolutely horrible. So, I mean, I think we. I don't know, we. We basically started covering him about five months ago, and when he was ramming in the Schumer candidates left and right. And he was. Obviously had a ton of momentum as an oyster farmer, except for the fact that he's not really. Or if he is. Didn't you say that he.

[Josh Holmes]

So that's the thing. The information came out. So the thing about Graham Platner, folks, above everything else they hear about on a daily basis, tomorrow will be another thing that breaks. And the day after another, he's like, I'm just the working class man trying to fight for you. Except for he went to Hotchkiss, a 70,000 a year boarding school. And he's like, well, you see, I'm an oyster farmer. He's an oyster farmer for one client, his mother's restaurant. He's like, all right, well, you're pretty much worthless. I spent 70k a year to send you to boarding school, and you still didn't learn shit. Why don't you just go fish and I'll sell whatever you catch in my restaurant? Like giving a job to this guy. And now. And now Democrats are trying to do it again of like, let's just give a job to the. This useless guy and it's still not working out.

[Michael Duncan]

Useless. He's gonna make it as difficult as possible. And remember, he's running in the State of Maine seat held by Senator Susan Collins, who's running for reelection. And he made quick work of. What's her name?

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Janet Mills.

[Josh Holmes]

Janet Mills, yeah.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

That old bag in the Democratic primary.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, maybe made quick work because before

[Michael Duncan]

we get into why this has all been revisited, I think Smash had made some calls before the show.

[Josh Holmes]

This is very important. This is something no one else asked.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, there's some rumors going around that Democrats have taken a renewed interest in Janet Mills. As we all know, the main primary is based off of a ranked choice system.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, so it's a little different than the state where you vote.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You pick your number one, you pick your number two, your number three. And there is renewed hope among the left wing journals that maybe Janet Mills isn't entirely out of this yet, because she tweeted from her campaign for the first time in quite some time today about Gay Month. And everybody's like, oh, does this mean that Janet Mills is back into it? Is she not out of it? Is there a chance that the libs can be saved from Graham Platner?

[Ben Sasse]

We don't know.

[John Ashbrook]

The actual voting day is on June 9th. Of course, early voting began in Maine a couple weeks ago, but there is a lot of speculation that maybe they're going to be able to get out from under Grand Platner. I'm not convinced.

[Josh Holmes]

This is wild.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, so the reason is because each and every day that we have done a show, there is a new piece of research on poor Mr. Platner. And it started with the Nazi tattoo, and then it went through all of his online posts, which were about as objectionable as it could get.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I just say, like, man, when. When the problems start with he had an SS Nazi tattoo and the Dems are like, I think he can still keep going. It's like, dude, it's not like upstanding citizens go get Nazi tattoos.

[Ben Sasse]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, there's definitely a lot of problems along the road to getting a Nazi tattoo.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a good point. There's like a threshold issue when it comes to Nazi propaganda on your body.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not like. No, really, the guy, he just ran an orphanage and did charity work and then somehow got a Nazi tattoo. Everything else is fine. You're.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, there's that one thing. There's that one thing about him. He is not loves Nazis, but other than that, he's great. Like, he's a big philanthropist, fishes the hell out of an oyster. Let me just tell you. You know what I mean? Like, there is never once has there been a situation where you're like, great guy, a Nazi, but great otherwise. I mean, it's, you got to look past the whole Holocaust

[Josh Holmes]

insane start to it. But they kept going and this is

[Michael Duncan]

what happens and this is what happens. So it's a perfect example. So you go through all this Reddit stuff, all this other stuff, we covered it ad nauseam, you're all familiar with it, and then over the weekend, this is so good because it's a Pandora's box of problems. But it also encapsulates all the problems up to this point, which is the Wall Street Journal has now weighed in on this. And when the Wall Street Journal does something, it's not just some sort of post. It's researched and it has sources. And they wrote an article. Graham Platner's wife flagged sexually explicit texts to his campaign. It's an interesting bit of goodies, right? Because a no campaign would be like, hey, we did. The guy's wife's concerned about his sexual proclivities and maybe we should do. They had a ton of staff turnover, recall, like when the Nazi tattoo presented itself. And then you found out that he had like horrifying things to say about American soldiers and everything. There was a raft of Democratic staff that had joined his campaign initially because they were like, Bernie, bro, true believers that decided to leave, including a campaign manager who many Democrats, if you check online, place the blames directly upon for leaking this kind of thing. But every candidate that's ever run for a United States Senate seat does somewhat of a self vet and typically it's fairly professional in that and antiseptic and that you go out and you try to find all the liabilities that you would potentially confront in a well funded campaign. That may mean the difference between majority and minority status. So it's under a microscope and they evidently they did some of that. But then at the last minute, the wife was like, oh, hey, by the way. So let me get into the details. Days after Graham Platner announced his Maine Senate bid, this is according to the Wall Street Journal, his wife informed the campaign about a potential political problem that she had previously discovered on the oyster farmer's phone. The old oyster farmer, right?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Generous, sexually explicit texts with several women, according to people familiar with the matter. Amy Gertner, who married Platner in 2023, told the campaign about messages that she had found early in their marriage in the spring of 2025, in late August, as they were still just hanging out

[John Ashbrook]

in the phone, by the way, I

[Michael Duncan]

mean, the guy got married. Like, even if your excuse is this happened long before I was married, it's just like, you didn't delete it.

[Ben Sasse]

But you know what?

[John Ashbrook]

It was the campaign manager's fault.

[Michael Duncan]

The campaign manager, look what they've done. In late August, as some aides were conducting opposition research on their own candidate. That's what we're talking about. Gertner disclosed the text to a campaign aide to make sure that they didn't pose a risk to her husband's nascent campaign. Those people said the campaign had been preparing for a major rally over Labor Day weekend last year with Bernie Sanders. And they. You don't want to drag old Bernie down in the mud.

[Josh Holmes]

Taking it, taking a step back. This is insane. The wife's like, listen, I know we got a. We got a rally coming up with Bernie. I hope it's not a problem that this guy's cheating on me. What your concern is, you don't want to cause problems because Bernie's coming through.

[Ben Sasse]

That's so true. That's how important the movement is to her.

[Michael Duncan]

Seriously, what if I don't get my social socialism? By God, yeah, I don't know what to do with myself. All right. Platner has received. He's been in all these disclosures of controversial posts from his Reddit account, which we mentioned. They've included comments from his account playing down sexual assault and crude posts about sex workers and masturbation. Platner has already admitted to covering up a Nazi linked tattoo. And this is where this. There's also branches the tree. The tree branches into three different sprouts. And Platner also has an Active Kick account, a popular private messaging app. And Platner's profile shows a mirror selfie of himself shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. So for our YouTube viewers, there it is right there. The interesting thing to note here that some folks pointed out online when this came out. Note how he is consciously covering his Nazi tattoo, because, like, you know, you don't. You must. He knows what it is. He knew. Like, he's lied because he's running for office that. Oh, you know, who could have thought? It's an SS tattoo. He knows. And that's why he's hiding. Yeah.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

He's like, these women might be into my infidelity, but not Nazism.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a far smaller audience than she said.

[Michael Duncan]

You got to keep that tent wide, Michael. You got to keep it real wide. There could be potentially people who are

[Josh Holmes]

against folks who don't like Nazi tactics.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, they could be out there. And so it prompted an online discussion. Graphic one. If you want, pull that up. This is about the Kik account. That's it. And then if you go into graphic two, Brent Scher, a friend, Brent Schur over at the Daily Wire puts up it's real. Here's Graham Platner's active profile on Kik. I a predator's paradise, quote unquote, app known as a hotbed for child pornography, kidnapping, and sexual abuse.

[Ben Sasse]

Jeez.

[Michael Duncan]

Ouch. Now, I don't know because I'm not. I'm not a KICK aficionado myself, but there was people who've responded to Brent's tweet about that and looked into it a little bit, and it turns out there is a lot of smoke and fire regarding this particular app and why somebody would be on it.

[John Ashbrook]

Why is he on kick? You know, he says he's an oyster farmer. Why isn't he on farmersonly.com?

[Ben Sasse]

yeah. Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what I mean? I thought that's where he should be. They overlooked that. Good point.

[Ben Sasse]

The dnc, Agrarian singles.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. So I want to. I'm going to say something. And, like, there's been a lot of discussion happening online among Republicans, Republican operatives of like, do you really want to. So apparently there's some stuff. This is what I've heard is that there's stuff out there about Platner that is worse than what has already come out, and that the idea is it's being held back until he can. I think June 9th is the cutoff date of, like, he could get removed from the ball somehow. It's being held back until he is for sure the Democrat candidate.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Well, that's the primary stuff. I think there's a window shortly thereafter where they could make a switcheroo.

[Michael Duncan]

But, I mean, Democrats just make up the rules, particularly in a state where they have power, which Maine is one of them. And so I would not hold out a lot of hope for Dems being boxed into something that they are uncomfortable with. They will change the rules.

[John Ashbrook]

That pesky election.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Ben Sasse]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

As we know, as we've noted, democracy,

[Josh Holmes]

we have handed all election rules to whatever will help us win.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, as we've noted, from 2016 to 2020 to 2024 to the current day, anytime democracy gets in the way, well, you can have your way with it 100%.

[Josh Holmes]

And so the thing is, is, like, they're like, okay, we can overlook the Nazi tattoo. And they're like, it's real. Graham Platner's profile on Kick a Predator's paradise app known as a hotbed for child pornography, kidnapping, and sexual abuse. They're like, this has turned into a thing among Democrats where every morning they wake up and they're like, what's the next shoe to drop? And the fact that the discussion among folks in the know is there is something so much worse that's being held back. What the hell could it be at this point?

[Michael Duncan]

Open the aperture here a little bit. Right? Because if you're talking about several women, as allegedly Graham Platner's wife revealed to the campaign and text in basis, you open yourself up to several conversations about when they were, as it relates to their marriage, but also what they were and whether they still exist. And if you are a Senate candidate running to literally determine the majority one way or another. A dick pic's not great. In October. It's not great.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a sword of Damocles, if you will. The rumors I've heard is. These are just rumors. These are unsubstantiated that I've heard is. It's worse than that.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

And that there are multiple reporters at, I believe it's the Journal and the New York Times who have located an individual who could offer some insight on this. And then it's just like a race to get the story out. I hear it's really bad. Dude. I hear it's bad.

[Michael Duncan]

Worse than just a dick pic.

[Ben Sasse]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, dude, I've heard it, too.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not going to have, you know, the DSCC trying to file a lawsuit against me. You're stuck with this. That's your problem. You know, don't be mad at me. You picked him. I mean, I. Yeah, it's going to be.

[Ben Sasse]

It's.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, the content's going to be incredible.

[Michael Duncan]

It's going to be incredible. But this guy is not. There is no shortage of material when it comes to this guy. So I have no doubt that if he's their guy all the way through, we're going to get this each and every day.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

This is not. This is not Something that stops again, you don't start with a Nazi tattoo and be like, well, that's all there is. All she, all she wrote, folks. It's not. And you found out now you've got some, you know, some sexual proclivities of which he's narrated online prior to now preparing us as the electorate. We are now prepared for seeing all of Graham Platner.

[Ben Sasse]

I'm not. I'm not prepared.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm not prepared.

[Ben Sasse]

I don't want to see the sword of Damocles.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm going to mute his name on Twitter.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, he's going to give us some oyster farming, I'll tell you that much. Anyway, the harder he tries to clean up this mess, the worse it gets. Their Democrat reaction, which is what makes this new. In addition to the new material that we got over the weekend, Democrats, for the first time, they were like Nazis. We get over there, might play the. There's some Michigan problems that we have to the party's base and maybe it can show them that we're being responsive to the Hamas caucus. So they got over that quickly. But now the rest of this is starting to get uncomfortable and they're starting to talk about it on cable television. We're gonna get to that and a whole lot more 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] I've worked at Coca Cola for 21 years.

[Ben Sasse]

We're delivering Dr. Pepper from our brand

[John Ashbrook]

new facility in Dallas, Texas.

[Ben Sasse]

We're really proud to still make Pepsi products in America.

[Michael Duncan]

You don't need a college degree to work here, but I put four kids through college by working here.

[Ben Sasse]

This is a great place to work with great people and great American brands. Grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, they all depend on us.

[Josh Holmes]

We deliver great paying jobs.

[Ben Sasse]

We deliver beverages people love. We deliver for our community.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, so first, how is Platner, who we covered in the first segment, responding to all this? You have choices as a candidate. Like, generally speaking, there is the go silent, hope it goes away, which he's done. I don't know, six days a week for the last eight weeks, essentially about every scandal that he's dealt with. It's like, just be quiet about it. You could go out and try to answer all the questions. He did a variation of that. And the variation, which, when it comes to things like this, is super uncomfortable because it usually involves their spouse. That's where we find ourselves here in the great state of Maine. Clip one, please.

[Ben Sasse]

It's really important for me to tell all of you out there, especially people who are voting in Maine, that I think it's shameful behavior to spend time,

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

time and energy and resources on negative

[Ben Sasse]

ads and negative stories on Graham when all he's trying to do is improve the lives of people who work for a living. We deserve better. I think Mainers deserve better.

[Michael Duncan]

And by working for a living, he meant the recipients of the dick pics

[Josh Holmes]

on here's the thing. What she's trying to do is this, like, old switcheroo of telling voters, no, no, no, no. What matters here. It's not the character of the camp. What matters here is he will improve the lives of voters. If he's doing this to the person who he's committed to loving more than anyone, what the hell do you think he's gonna do to you? Do you think he gives a shit about you if he doesn't give a shit about his wife? Like, think about that bullshit that they're trying to feed you. And for him to cowardly send her out to clean up his mess. This is such a. Like, this is a mommy's boy boarding school kid. He went to 70k Hotchkiss. He fishes for mommy's restaurant. He's not used to dealing with things on his own. All his problems were supposed to go away with family money. He's not an individual who knows how to take responsibility for things and come through for people and be accountable for himself. This is a guy who's like, someone else take care of this for me his whole life. And you're seeing it again. That's what that is.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

If I was running for United States Senate in my campaign suggested that my wife, like, be the heat shield, what

[Michael Duncan]

do you think her reaction would be?

[John Ashbrook]

She'd be like, I would just quit.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

I would just quit. I wouldn't even.

[Josh Holmes]

That's because you're respectable and have some dignity.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Make the suggestion. I mean, it's absurd.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, my wife would provide them a dick pic. It would be mine separated from my body on the sidewalk.

[Ben Sasse]

Yeah, you know, I mean, I just.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't. And the idea that you don't have any issue with, like, a Predominant. Obvious case of potential blackmail out there. From a public official standpoint, like, all kinds of repercussions. This is why you vet candidates. This is why you do the homework, is because, you know, at the end of the day, say you're successful and you get a United States Senate Graham from. Graham Platner from Maine, and he sits on some Armed Services Committee, and someone's like, okay, well, what do you think about giving us what it is that we want? Or else I'm gonna show you that pick.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

What do you think? That. That, obviously that's a problem. That's why this matters. Like the morality component. A lot of people vote on it, but I think we're in a day and age where most people are kind of beyond, like, you know, social media or whatever. You screwed up this way. Not beyond the Nazi tattoo, which is where Democrats got beyond very quickly. But the idea that this doesn't have an impact on what the job is that they're intending to do is insane to me. Of course it is. Of course there's a problem. So anyway, now he's. He's out at clip tips. So are you confirming that the messages did not exist?

[Ben Sasse]

What's that?

[Josh Holmes]

The messages.

[Michael Duncan]

They did not.

[Ben Sasse]

I'm confirming that what Genevieve McDonald said in the New York Times is not true.

[John Ashbrook]

So you never met with her about

[Ben Sasse]

uncomfortable, for lack of a better word, sexting messages? As the campaign was going, we talked about things in Amy and I's marriage that we've gone through over the years. We talked about that because that's our marriage.

[Josh Holmes]

And about.

[Ben Sasse]

We talked, discussed it with the campaign. What Genevieve McDonald claims isn't true. So thank you, folks.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

I noticed he didn't really answer the question.

[John Ashbrook]

And my favorite part was at the beginning when he pretended like he could. How's that?

[Ben Sasse]

Huh?

[Michael Duncan]

What's up?

[John Ashbrook]

I'm doing a press conference specifically on this topic, responding to the Wall Street Journal.

[Ben Sasse]

This is out of nowhere. Yeah, I was just going to talk about oysters.

[Michael Duncan]

Did you send dick pic? What's up?

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

The way she characterized the dick pic. That's what's wrong. That's what's wrong in all of this. And you know what? Frankly, it's beneath the dignity of Mainers.

[John Ashbrook]

What a phony. Dude, that's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

He is such a fake. He is such a fake and, like, for so long. So the Democrats have an actual problem where all their energy is with this, like, Bernie Bro grassroots movement of socialist maniacs who are extremely, extremely bad at picking candidates who can win but have Completely convinced themselves that, like, the reason we keep losing is we don't run straight up, you know, trans communists who want to burn this country down. And this is what you get when those idiots are picking the candidate.

[John Ashbrook]

But this is what they think the average voter is.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the problem.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what I mean? Like, your typical left wing consultant in this country is so disconnected from reality. They think that, oh, we have to find some guy like him to speak to real voters. Like, it's. It should have. It should offend every single person in this country because they think they're going to trick you into something because they see you in a certain way. That's just not true, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

You're so right. There's real quick as aside, his, like, comms guy who's Q being. This whole situation, Graham Platner's comms guy had a glowing profile in the New York Times like a month ago. About, like, this young man could be like, the key to Democrats winning. Right? Then I think it was a journal who had this quote where that dude, the comms guy, published a children's book, right? And in it, he was trying to tell children about, oh, you know, there's lots of genders and stuff. And they're like, some genders can look like this. And he. He told the publisher and included a picture of his own penis to be like, I want this in the book. No, I swear this is true. I swear this is true.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait, are you serious?

[Josh Holmes]

I'm dead serious. And so the publisher was like, that's a bad idea. I think that's inappropriate. And that didn't get included because of that.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Wait, thank God.

[Ben Sasse]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Is this for real?

[Josh Holmes]

I'm being dead serious, dude. You can't make this up. This is how twisted and crazy these people are. And so when Ashbrook's like, the problem is they've got operatives who are out of their minds. Yes, they actually are completely out of their minds.

[Michael Duncan]

I just can't.

[Josh Holmes]

So if you're wondering, like, why is the strategy completely insane? Well, the staff running it is completely insane.

[Ben Sasse]

Politics is personnel.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm still stuck. So what about the sex? Hmm?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, how's that?

[Michael Duncan]

What? What were you talking about again? I didn't hear you. And meanwhile, his wife's standing next to her like, jesus, this has gotta be the worst.

[Josh Holmes]

That's so brutal. How many times are Democrats gonna have to do that? The number of Democrat candidates who have been like, I've done something shameful. Now here's my wife being forced to stand next to me. It's become a trope.

[Michael Duncan]

It's unbelievable. All right, so the wheel coming off or not? Because you would think that the Nazi thing would have done it. And what is this worse than the Nazi? Like I would argue not even close to as bad as the Nazi thing. But there is a compounding amount of research here that has been dropped over the last eight to 10 weeks where this bucket of water is getting pretty heavy for the Democratic Party to cover to the point where all their people are having to be asked about it. They're now like, they have to deal with it. You know, this isn't just like some island election that none of them can have to pay attention to. And they hope, like a bunch of psychos just elect this person, they have to deal with it. Graphic 3 if you don't mind, we can put this bad boy up Reece Gorman Posts Graham Platner has canceled not one, but two interviews with Igor Bobic over the past week. Igor flew to Maine to interview Platner. And this is a cat. Huffington Post this has got to be like one of the most friendly interviews that a candidate like him can possibly do is Kat gets on a flight to Maine in order to do the interview. Canceled after he got the commitment from him. And then following two stories about him texting with women who aren't his wife, Platner's people canceled a phone interview that they had scheduled on Sunday. It's been hard to pin down Platner over the last few days. Igor was supposed to interview him Thursday in Maine, but Platner's team said they didn't have time. Platner's staff then offered Igor some time to speak with him by phone on Sunday. But after that story broke on Saturday, the interview was canceled yet again.

[Ben Sasse]

And yesterday I know you're here in

[John Ashbrook]

Maine, but he can call you. I know, actually, just kidding. He can't even call you. It's amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

And then when he did that physical avail, apparently the reporter showed up in. Plantner's staff physically shielded him from reporters as he swiftly left the event. That is not a strong sign here in the month of June for a midterm election, but that is what they're dealing with. He's also canceled an interview with Eugene Daniels, another real tough, like gritty, difficult interview on Ms. Now decided he wasn't going to make that happen. So now how does this affect the rest of the conference? And there's an awful lot of Democrats who are trying to use success in 26 to sort of springboard their own situation. Not only from, you know, hopefully from their standpoint, getting gavels in the United States Senate and the House, but also maybe presidential runs, people like Spartacus himself, Cory Booker, who went on ABC and Clip four. But let me ask you, do you

[Ben Sasse]

have concerns with the weight of all these controversies that it may jeopardize Democratic hopes to get that Senate seat in Maine? Yeah, I have concerns.

[John Ashbrook]

That guy has questions to answer and that's what campaigns are for.

[Ben Sasse]

But when I go all over New

[John Ashbrook]

Jersey and see hundreds and hundreds of

[Ben Sasse]

thousands of New Jerseyans losing their health care and millions more, seeing their health care costs go up, as I have

[John Ashbrook]

families who say I can't afford gas for my car and childcare for my

[Ben Sasse]

children, I know that so much is

[John Ashbrook]

riding on Democrats taking control of the

[Ben Sasse]

Senate that this election, if we do not get the votes necessary to take the House and the Senate, we will

[John Ashbrook]

continue to have an out of control president. And I'm gonna tell you right now,

[Ben Sasse]

as he is a lame duck president, he's becoming more and more dangerous.

[John Ashbrook]

Man, oh, man. You know, it makes you think or wonder whether Senate Democrats behind the scenes are calling their campaign people saying, is there another chance to get Janet Mills on the ballot for us in Maine?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, because I gotta tell you, just from a leadership perspective, it was, it was obvious when you started taking on more water from a particular candidate that you wanted to win, obviously, but they were jeopardizing other places that you really needed to win in a material way. And Democrats have had a lot of good breaks. You know, I mean, Georgia is one of them. They look like they have a good break in their recruit situation in North Carolina. We'll see how that plays out. But they're starting to stack bricks in terms of having a real midterm chance of taking over the United States Senate. One cornerstone of that was Maine. But all of a sudden, all the rest of these pieces are relying on answering questions about some complete maniac in Maine. And I remember in the United States Senate when we were dealing with this from a Republican standpoint, it became extremely problematic. You had to start convincing people like Cory Bookers of the world, like, dude, just chill out on this for a while. I'm going to try to handle it. Except they tried to handle it and the old bag got shifted to the side. Janet Mills. In order to have this oyster farmer.

[John Ashbrook]

Not just an oyster farmer, not just an oyster farmer, fellas. He also claimed he was a harbor master. Did you guys hear this? The Washington Free Beacon reported this morning, Peter Hassan and Lana Goodman, he said he was the harbor master for a town called Sullivan in Maine. And Sullivan's town manager said, according to the Washington Free Beacon, quote, we don't really have anybody working the waterfront. It's not like he's a regular employee. Get out of here. He says he's the harbor master.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

He was a hino. He was a harbor master in name only.

[Michael Duncan]

Harbor master. So there's another congressman out there, John Garamendi, who's also got some. I think this is a little bit more indic. Where they want to try to land on their critique if they're allowed to. In clip 5, how concerned are you

[Josh Holmes]

about his electability and his suitability? CNN is asking.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah,

[Josh Holmes]

well, he certainly has many good attributes. He has a great background. He comes to this issue with strength, both of personality and determination, as well as his, as well as his history. But like most everybody, there are stumbles along the way and there are some things that he regrets having done and

[Michael Duncan]

I'm sure the public will hear about them. Well, what is. She comes to this issue. What is that? Is that, is that the dick picked? Are we talking about that? What are we talking about with the issue that he comes.

[Ben Sasse]

That's the thing well prepared for.

[John Ashbrook]

You can pick.

[Josh Holmes]

There's, it's like choose your adventures. There's like 50 options of. What's the problem with this guy?

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Yeah, well, I think the options for Democrats are pretty simple. Like option one is just pedal to the metal.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

You know, kind of the beginning of what Cory Booker was saying. Like, the stakes are too high. We can't let Donald Trump keep his Senate majority. Therefore, I reluctantly support, you know, the Nazi right. Like, that's one, two. I actually, I don't see the Janet Mills thing actually happen. I just think whatever reporter puts out the nail in the coffin story.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

They'll just blame that person for not winning the Senate. Those are the two options.

[Michael Duncan]

I think that's probably right.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Like, they're not.

[Michael Duncan]

Bernie's gonna wear this one like a hat if it doesn't go down. I mean, because the establishment of the Democratic Party has been against him since day one. It's the only reason he didn't get the nomination in 2016. They handed it to Hillary. And then I think, you know, 2020, you have a good look at shelving him. But taking his agenda was basically the devil's compromise that made in 2020. And now in 24, he and AOC are out recruiting these fucking goofballs. And when one of them comes up short they're going to go guns blazing because Chuck Schumer's not taking the blame for this. He recruited the old bag, and the old bag didn't make it. Got beat by this.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, we saw, you know, Cory Booker. We just saw Rep. John Garamendi. I want to see reporters talking to Schumer about him. Yeah, why are you not talking to Chuck Schumer every day? Hunting and running after Chuck Schumer in those hallways and being like, so about Platner. Have you seen the latest on Graham Platner? Do you think Graham Platner should keep running? Do you agree with Graham Plattner when he gets an SS tattoo launch, ask him every single day.

[John Ashbrook]

Why are you not, you know, smug? Today is the day for that. Because today is Tuesday. And today at 2:00pm Chuck Schumer will stand before all the cameras and all the reporters. And if nobody asks him, you know, I think that tells you I think

[Michael Duncan]

he's going to get asked. I think it's too heavy at this point.

[John Ashbrook]

I do, too. And here's why I think he's going to get asked. One thing that we know is axiomatic about the mainstream media. They do not attack a Democrat unless another Democrat stands to benefit. And cnn, abc, all this mainstream media is not attacking Graham Platner without Dem sources calling them, saying, we need to attack this guy. So there's infighting on their side happening right now, whether they express it or not.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

All for our enjoyment.

[Michael Duncan]

And if there is any substance to the rumor that you were talking about with Janet Mills, keeping her campaign open, throwing out a Gay Pride Month tweet just to let them know that they're there and her name's on the ballot and they hold out hope for throwing this guy overboard. What Chuck Schumer's office has done is prime the pump with the most likely actors to ask that question. And they will give it their best shot today to try to throw him overboard. And they're gonna see where this whole thing falls. Now, if I'm in Platner camp and Bernie Sanders camp, fuck you. We're leading. We've already beaten your candidate. And there's nothing that shows up to this point that I can't be a Nazi philandering psychopath on a child predator app and not be your best candidate.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like Mad Libs are the worst possible traits.

[Michael Duncan]

And I'm still your best candidate.

[Josh Holmes]

Amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, so. I don't know. We'll have to see. But this is my favorite part. So all before, only The Nazi tattoo had been out. None of the Reddit posts, none of the social sexting situation, none of that had come to fruition. And he was asked back in January if there were any other skeletons. Clip 3 I'm wondering, are there other skeletons from your past that still may emerge in this race?

[Ben Sasse]

No, but I haven't lived a very complicated life. I've never been close to money. I've never been close to power

[Josh Holmes]

people over.

[Ben Sasse]

My life is not very complicated. And there, no, there is not anything else coming. Seems pretty complicated and just a straight up life.

[Josh Holmes]

Never been close to money. Except for when my mom paid 70,000 a year for my board.

[Michael Duncan]

70k a year.

[Josh Holmes]

70k a year. Never been close to money. And what the fuck are you talking about? Just lies. Straight up lies. Your face.

[Ben Sasse]

Oh no, I did send a lot of dick pics, but I don't see that as a liability.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Also, what a weird pivot.

[Ben Sasse]

Like, only rich people have skeletons in their closet.

[Michael Duncan]

I know. Like, you're not.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

How is that your get out of jail free card? Well, I'm working class, so it doesn't make any sense.

[Josh Holmes]

That's. I, I think it's because that's like the tick for Democrats.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

They're fetish.

[Josh Holmes]

They're like fighting oligarchy.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, what they're trying to do is thread this weird needle where you can find somebody who's a man, which they've all diagnosed they can't compete with men. Somebody who's masculine enough to assume that this isn't like some effeminate, you know, Talarico problem, that they've got some guy's guy that can appeal also to the middle class that they've totally lost because he's got to have a regular job. He can't be like in finance or tech or something like that. And then you've got to have somebody who with all that background is also virulently anti Israel. Very important key to the puzzle. And they think they found that and it doesn't matter what else comes in underneath it. Like, is he a certifiable psychopath? Yes, he is. This is the worst candidate I've ever seen. And let's just put all this shit aside. Like, set aside the Nazi tattoo and the sexting and all the anti American troops, the calling for the death of people who are war heroes and things like that. Like, throw all that aside. If you just sat and listened to this guy for one day, you would conclude he's the dumbest person to run for statewide office anywhere in America. This is not somebody who has any business running for the United States Senate. And I think that's lost, honestly. I think we're all so. Everybody's so focused on these scandals and rightly so, but he is just wholly unqualified to be a United States Senator in any form or fashion. It's unbelievable how bad he is. He's got an oyster farm with one client and his one client is his fucking mom.

[Ben Sasse]

Dude.

[Michael Duncan]

Tell me again about business and how that works. Graham Platner. Yep. Tell me again about your education plan. Does it revolve around 70k a year to go to some boarding school? I don't think a lot of families have that. I mean it's every single thing that he does. There's not one thing that's redeemable about him.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Well, there's one. It is he provides content.

[Michael Duncan]

Everybody right here on the Variety program. Yeah. Which makes for a hard transition because when we come back, we're going to get to something that will uplift you from this negativity. The Secret to Life and everything else right after this. The Trump administration has made fighting waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system a top priority. Few industries have more of it than tax exempt hospitals. That game the system. Washington used to look the other way, but House Republicans have had enough with health care dollars funding everything but health care.

[Josh Holmes]

Real estate investments, stadium naming rights, green energy initiatives and political activism.

[Michael Duncan]

Ways in means Republicans are doing their part. I would say that non for profit

[John Ashbrook]

hospitals, Andrew, look like hedge funds with hospital beds.

[Ben Sasse]

340B programs. Why are those used today? We have to tear this Entire system down.

[Michael Duncan]

163,000 spent on board meetings in Europe, Canada and Mexico. You said give us tax exempt status, give us rule of designation and what did you do? We got less charity care and you raised your prices. Thank you to Ways and Means Republicans for protecting patients and taxpayers by fighting for transparency and accountability in the runaway tax exempt hospital system.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

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[Michael Duncan]

Okay, so Ben Sasse has been a friend for a long time. I've known him, I think, since like, 2013 or so. Sort of an auspicious start in that he was running for office and was convinced that I didn't want him to run for office, or really my boss at the time didn't want him to run for office. And there was a lot of miscommunication about it, which we laughed about a couple of years later because there was all kinds of articles in conservative media. You remember that, Smash. It's like Holmes is trying to edge out Sass and, like, all this stuff, and it was never really true. But when you get into the thick of, like, recruiting and primaries and stuff, when you actually have a job that's responsible for an awful lot of that, there's a ton of misconception, some of it which works for a campaign, which they did a good job of trying to exacerbate that. But when it was all said and done, I got to know them. And he's one of the most genuine human beings that I have known long before all of this. He says exactly what's on his mind. He's rooted in faith, and he's a thoughtful individual, loves his family. And what I think you've seen here over the last six months now is somebody who's been provided an incredibly difficult sentence in life. And how you deal with that is a choice. And his choice is, I think, to give the rest of us who are listening and interested in higher meaning and how we can make the lives of not only us, our families and our communities and our country better, but just be a better person. And he's got a great message. Ben Sasse. Well, I want to welcome to the program somebody that we have been looking forward to talking to here for a long time. I've been a little NER nervous about this interview in a lot of ways. Your friend Ben Sass. How are you, sir?

[Ben Sasse]

I'm doing all right. Doing all right. I got enough hydration to sort of manage puke for the session. I had a good time with you.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that's a serious side effect you've been working through. I want to start with the big picture, which is most people who are in your situation sort of look at a defined period of time. Obviously, you've chosen to fight as hard as you possibly can, to extend as long as you can. But there are choices, definitive choices about what you want to do. With that time that you've got, some people are like, I want to go to Spain, I want to see Italy, or I want to travel the world, or I want to do. You have made a concerted effort to come on to shows like this, have your own show and talk with some perspective about the world at large. Tell me why.

[Ben Sasse]

You know, I only do about 2/3 of a public day, about every two weeks. It's just some of it seems to have gone a little viral. So it looks like I'm out of the hospital bed more than I am. I think something weird is happening in that we live such generationally segregated lives that death is one of the most fundamental facts of life. But we got lots and lots of people with the so median middle class Americans are the richest people any time and place in human history. But if you're 15 or you're 25 or you're 30, you might live almost all your life with 15 year olds and 25 year olds and 30 year olds. And so people are really, really insulated from a life cycle. And so I have not really been doing much. We're turning down 97 plus percent of all interview requests. But when I'm asked, how scared are you of death? And I'm like, death sucks, but I'm not really scared. People are surprised by the answer. And I'm like, well, I guess I'll talk for a little while. You must have had a cancellation. You needed somebody to fill time for you. So I said, okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I asked because I talked to a number of your old colleagues in the Senate over the last couple of months who are just deeply appreciative of the time you've taken to share wisdom in this particular part in life. Not many people choose to do that. And I think there is a real deficit of this kind of conversation as a result of that.

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, thanks, but I want to do the sincere self deprecation. I don't know that there's a lot of wisdom, right? Like you're 54, you don't have a terminal diagnosis. Nobody thinks you're wise. You're 54, you get a terminal diagnosis and be like, holy crap, you really wise.

[Michael Duncan]

But you're give a back to falls away, right?

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, I've never had that much of one. I mean, highest vote getter and most censured person in the history of Nebraska politics, right? Like those two kind of went together for me and that. Like I'm a dad and a Christian and a neighbor and a football addict before I was ever A politician. So I've always had not a lot of concern with image management around that kind of stuff. But you know, I'm hospitalized. Fortunately I get out way more than I'm in. But officially I'm supposed to be in the hospital a day and a half or two days every week or so at MD Anderson, Houston. And it's an unbelievable cancer hospital. Like what it does to save lives is amazing. And still I think the, the number I heard the other day is 36 people a day die in that institution. Right. And so when you're going through there and you see a lot of people who are alone, like, I'm never alone. I take my wife or one of my kids almost every time I'm hospitalized. I'm blessed that I have community and family and friends. And I look at people who are lonely and some of the stuff we're talking about is just straight up common sense versions of the book of Ecclesiastes. And then I get a whole bunch of people in the hospital coming up to me and wanting to hug because they feel like I'm talking for them. And I think I'm just saying basic stuff that used to be communitarian knowledge and wisdom.

[Josh Holmes]

So you said that because you feel like because of your diagnosis at 54 people ascribe a level of wisdom to you. I'd point to a recent example. Your daughter Alex wrote this beautiful essay in the Free Press describing the caliber of parent you and your wife were. And it left a real impression on me. I recently just had a son.

[Ben Sasse]

Congrats.

[Josh Holmes]

How did you manage to raise such a, well, self actualized individual? What did you feel was critical when you have children? She said the line that opened with where instead of asking them like how was your day? You asked them who did you serve? Which makes an individual more outward looking and trying to be a contributor to their community and their friends than being a consumer. Could you, could you tell? What advice would you have for me?

[Ben Sasse]

Well, first of all, congrats on your kid. Second, thanks for the generous comments. Third, let's go ahead and lead with Alex slapping us around. In the piece, she multiple times there are multiple graphs where she says, when I was six and this happened like my dad very much and when I was nine and he made me do this, I didn't like my dad very much. When I was 14, I didn't like my dad very much. She's a heck of a good writer. She has a great mama. She was clearly building a structure to say parents goal shouldn't be for your kids to like you every minute. They should. It should. Your parent parental goal should be for them to know unconditional love and then in response to live a life of gratitude where there are some expectations around them. And so she says in her piece that, that she knows she has unconditional love from us and that we expect her to grit and grind through it and go and serve other people, not be narcissistically obsessed with herself. And one nice thing that she also put in the piece is that her parents made clear to her that our relationship was foundational and that the kids, we love them, but we were never going to sort of prioritize the kid over a spousal obligation to an Aristotelian self and another an expansive sense of what a friendship looks like. And that gave her lots of security in knowing that we weren't running after her. Panicked after everything. It turns out when you're a 14 year old girl or a 17 year old girl or a 14 year old boy, your peer group may tell you, you guys are the center of the world. It ain't true. It's kind of nice to come home and have people who tell you the truth.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

So you've talked a lot and I've seen most of the interviews you've done. You've talked a lot about a lot of big, big things and the way a diagnosis like this can sort of reorder your life to what's important. But I'm curious of like the unimportant stuff that you still enjoy, that you still do the small things. Maybe you get more latitude at home to watch sports, you know, like a small silver lining dining you might be enjoying more.

[Ben Sasse]

I realize this is a waste of time, but I love it. I was just gonna say like, I feel like I'm forcing you guys to go to too serious a topic for the banter you usually have. So I feel a little guilty. So I want to stay. I'll take your question seriously. But in root, a joke. Way back to when we were first running For Senate in 2013, 14, some people started sending us random stuff. Like I would say some random thing or I was maybe teasing the President a little bit in 2017 where he randomly said something about sass is real into judicial appointments. Nebraska's a real judicial thinking kind of place. I have no idea what that phrase means, but it was funny enough that I decided to say it like 20 times the next week on talk radio in Nebraska. So all of a sudden I started getting T shirts in the mail that Is the shape of the state of Nebraska. With Nebraska a real judicial thinking kind of place. So we got a pillow in the mail the other day that has crocheted on the front of it. It's time to die with dignity again. And I don't know exactly what it means, but I know what it means to my wife. It means I'm not allowed to watch more sports on morphine. Like in December, I was given a three to four month life expectancy. That's five and a half months ago. And she's like, dude, if you're not gonna kick off soon, it's time for you to pull your weight again. Get your ass out of bed. And so sometimes she makes me like, get out of bed, help her make the bed, and then she puts that pillow on there. It's time to die with. I know like for 90 days I gotta watch extra sports. And right now I can't get the MLB anywhere subscription. She's like, it's not in the budget.

[Josh Holmes]

So anyway, where was it was a pillow from Canada? Was it like a Canadian government pillow? Like the patient comes in, you just cover their face.

[Ben Sasse]

I had never thought of it. There may be a FARA violation, but I hadn't thought of it as a lobbying thing. I thought it was just sass, get your ass out of bed. But I do think there's a wisdom in thinking about the day, the week, the month, the season, a lifetime in chunks. And my dad was a football and wrestler. Sorry, I got a little bit of pukes. My dad was a football and wrestling coach. But everybody else in my family was on the farm. So we didn't live on the farm, we lived in town. But I had to go out and work grandparents and aunts and uncle's farms in the summer. So I grew up working on the farm, even though I wasn't raised there physically. And my grandpa used to have this line that every hour of sleep before midnight was worth two hours of sleep after midnight. Which is just probably ridiculous.

[John Ashbrook]

I've heard that one.

[Ben Sasse]

But at some level, if your seven hours are nine to four, it's probably better than if they're 1am to 8am I don't know exactly how the circadian rhythms work about you're still in bed at sun up. But we just definitely grew up with an ethic that you're supposed to work first before you play. That doesn't mean there's no time for play. Right. And you're supposed to work your tail off. That doesn't mean there shouldn't Be a Sabbath. And so, you know, in. In my Christian theology, the Sabbath being the first day of the week is pretty foundational because it means I'm not working six days to earn a rest. It's that we're given the gift of rest or salvation. And then you live six days of work out of gratitude. And so if you work first, then there's still lots of time to play. So I'm not meaning to say that the trivial is unimportant. What's definitely changed for me is the small slights. Like, I just don't care about them anymore. I never read comments. I was in public life for, I guess, running for a year and a half and then in the Senate 8 and change. So a decade. I never was a comment reader. Like, I look at some of my colleagues and you'd be sitting in Republican Senate lunch, and dudes are scrolling through social media, reading comments on Twitter on their press releases. I'm like, you know those are mostly Russian bots, right? Like, they're mostly not even real. And you know, Cynthia Cherry, 893-9491. Like, if you've got eight digits that come at the end of your name, that's not Cynthia from Norfork, Nebraska. But now I just couldn't care less about the tribal stupid that people might yell about. I mean, I worry about it for civic health, but like, somebody being mad at me about something, all that goes away. And I'll be honest, since I get out of the hospital far more than I'm in, walking has become just a much bigger joy in life. And now it's interesting, like Huberman Lab kind of stuff at Stanford. There's a ton of data that when you have a riddle in knowledge work, sitting still is a much less likely way to solve it than going for a walk. Like, if you know what the I mean, you might need to be at your desktop and your two screens and all your note cards or whatever to frame up the problem. But once you kind of know the problem you're trying to solve, actually being mobile is a much more likely way to get to a good solution and faster. And it's sort of interesting to see some of this edge of neurobiology data around me finding much more joy in walking than ever before.

[Josh Holmes]

Along the same lines, what are things that took up your time and your mental space and you were concerned with that are now completely meaningless to you at this point? What are things that you would spend your day thinking about or dealing with that you now, in hindsight, realize? I didn't need to think about or worry about that or do any of that at all.

[Michael Duncan]

Faculty meetings.

[Ben Sasse]

Oh, to higher ed reform. We got to go from Celsius and Gatorade to full on bourbon. I mean, I do think that we're living through a very weird tribal moment, right? Which is. I think it's not mostly about politics. I think it's mostly about a digital revolution, which is creating the ability for our consciousness to leave the place where we are. And the thickest relationships are your family and your friends and your neighborhood. There's a lot of data that if you know the people who live two doors down from you, you're likely happy. And if you don't know the people two doors down from you, you're likely not happy. And there are two kinds of socioeconomics where you don't know the people two doors down from you. Poor and dangerous and so rich you have no need. And both of them are pretty hollow. And so I, I think one of the things that's clear to me, if I had, again, I'm only 54, but if I had 32 years of adult life to live over again, I would have done a little less travel for work. So I did, you know, BCG and McKinsey and private equity stuff. And so I was a road warrior for a bunch of years. And some buddies of mine and I had the seven day a week or seven nights a week threshold that if you were gone less than seven nights a week, it's, you know, less than one and a half. I'm sorry, less than seven nights a month. Morphine seven over 31 gets you to under 1.5 per seven. You can make, you can make life work if you're gone eight or nine nights. If you're gone consistently two or more nights a week, your family doesn't have a cadence around the dinner table. I would have done less of that, but I would definitely work harder to have had density around extended kin networks. Like when you. It's your first son, your first kid, you know, all the natalism debates about how many people have to have three or four kids to make up for 10% having zero and 10% having one, and the normative experience being two, you don't get to 2.1 babies. You don't get to replacement rate unless you have lots of threes and fours. You're not going to have a lot of fours and fives in the modern world. But kids are a lot better off not having the totally groomed snowplow helicopter parenthood experience. Of being treated like they're a princess, like it's. Or a prince. You, you want your kid to have to work their tail off and serve other people and be less obsessed with themselves. So more cousins would be better. I'd work harder to build a family compound. I think from 2000. I'll go sociology nerd for just a second. From the 2008 financial crisis to 2019 heading into Covid 2020 in that 11 year period, massive, massive job creation in America. But if you take away the job growth in the suburbs and Excerpts of the 30 largest cities there was job loss in America. So all of the job growth is 30 metros and it's outer rings. Right. Most of those 30 have pretty good airports. And so the overwhelming majority of Americans live in the suburbs of those 30 places. And it's going to be more and more consolidation around tax zero states south of I40 over time. Like wherever you're from. I don't want to leave it like we have funeral plots in Arlington, Nebraska, 14 miles east of our house along the river in Dodge County, Nebraska. Like I don't want my family to ever give that up. There's a really decent chance there won't be a lot of jobs there in the future. And so thinking about how you have a family compound, how you have extended kin networks, how you travel less, but you think intentionally about what the digital hybrid opportunities are around knowledge work in the future.

[Michael Duncan]

I wonder about that. I've heard you talk a lot about the family compound and spending more time with extended family, cousins and whatnot. Not hard to disagree with any of that. But I also know that you've lived a pretty interesting life in terms of meeting people you wouldn't ordinarily come in contact with. Being a senator for one, traveling as much as you did for being a part of a major university and meeting interesting sort of. Obviously you think that still plays an important role. Seeing perspective of others that you don't clearly have in your own family. Gotta be sort of an important part of society going forward too, right?

[Ben Sasse]

Sure. I mean I guess I'm sure if my kids are listening, not my 15 year old, but my, my 20 something daughters that I'm sure there's a drinking game when dad starts talking about the huge. The history of economies. But there really are only four kinds of economies ever. There's nomads, agrarianism, not Nebraska, which is a technological revolution now, but agrarianism from 10,000 years ago until the industrial revolution. Number three is the market and industrial revolution of the last 150 to 200 years and then whatever this knowledge economy is and going to become. Right. So you got nomadism, agrarianism, industrialization and post industrialization knowledge economy 1, 2 and 4 are going to be a lot more alike over time. And industrialization, where you leave home to go to an antiseptic workplace for almost all the waking hours, that's going to ultimately be seen as the outlier thing. And I think the way we raise our kids right now is a subset of that. The factory model school is an effect of the factory. It was a sort of institutionalized babysitting where you just assumed kids aren't going to be able to do important work. Right now we need child labor laws. And obviously there were crazy overreaches in the 1880s, 90s, whatever. But the idea that we would insulate kids from work until they're 22 or 23 years old is absolutely asinine. I think it's super unhealthy for them both to think of themselves as consumers instead of producers or servants. But also it's weird to think you're going to be adaptable as a 25, 30, 35 and a 40 year old when you never had to adapt when you were 10 and 15. And so Josh, I agree with what you're saying, but I also think that when I say family compound, I don't mean this as super high end socioeconomics. I mean you ought to think about work around the home place and finding ways to get our kids connected to it. At 4 and 8 and 12 years old, I got it. And so my kids, people would call us homeschoolers. We never really thought about it that way. My wife used to be a high school principal, so my dad was a football coach and I taught math for a couple years in my 20s. So we have lots of respect for schools as they exist. But I think in the future you're not going to replace the factory model school with some 40 hour a week. 40 hour a week replacement, but it's going to absolutely be replaced cafeteria style. And one of the things we ought to bring back is a lot more work for kids as they're coming of age. It just gives them an opportunity to serve, which is healthier and some purpose. Purpose, Amen. That's what I mean.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I mean it's, it's just so important. You just don't, you don't hear enough people talking the way you're talking about raising kids. And I feel like there's so many families out there who want to do that. And they just, they don't see, again, social media, they don't see it right. You know, anywhere other than like outside of their extended family.

[Ben Sasse]

The completely normal thing is to buy the lawn service. Well, what you should be doing is buying a freaking $75 use mower. Like even if you're not going to be able to let your 5 year old do all the lawn right now, like get them started of it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Sasse]

Like it's, it's easier to buy services than to help train your kids into the work. And the healthier thing is to learn how to create little workers, little servants, because it gives them purpose and meaning.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Ben Sasse]

They should know that the world doesn't revolve around their consumption needs. And I think this is why the, the right answer to most debates in the digital revolution is going to be a moderate answer, not a all statist answer or a laissez faire everything. It's mostly going to be about community, habits and virtue, not about government. But it's not like we should just let it run on autopilot toward a world where your consciousness just drifts really far away from the place where you should be serving grandma.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, well, go ahead. I, I am, I told Josh and I were talking about this before. He said he was nervous to talk to you. I am too. I mean like this is, this is something we dead man walking.

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, part of it.

[John Ashbrook]

But you know, you said something when you sat down that you're not afraid of death. And I wonder if you could tell us why.

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, I know you got a big diverse audience, but my answer is just a straight up Christian answer, right? Which is I, I bring the sin and Jesus brings the forgiveness. And we did a trade like that. That's why I'm not afraid. I mean, I, I don't want to be a pussy like at the moment of dying. Like I'm, I'm definitely anxious about pieces of. When you're so. Pancreatic cancer is the most fatal kind. It's 87% death rate overall, but it' 97% death rate within 12 months if you're stage four. And I was diagnosed at far along stage four, which is why I was given three to four months to live. And you know your docs, they want to insulate you. Like they either want you to not feel bad in this meeting or they want them to not have to feel bad in this meeting. And so you kind of got to push them to, to tell you what's going to happen. And so I was advised to Get a hospice doc right at the beginning. So I became symptomatic in October.

[Josh Holmes]

October.

[Ben Sasse]

Was diagnosed in mid December and said, you know, you probably got 90 to 120 days. And the definition of hospice is if you have a diagnosis that assumes you die within six months, you're eligible for end of life care. And so I went ahead and got this hospice doc, and she's a rock star. Like, she has been incredibly wise at helping me navigate stuff, but she said early on, like, when you're dying of an abdominal disease, it's nasty, and this thing can happen, or this thing can happen, and this thing can happen in the out for all that is just enough drugs that you don't know what's going on. And I'm on quite a lot of morphine, but as I'm on this drug, this miracle drug called Durax and Racib, and it's the first good News headline in 40 years of pancreatic cancer. And so my tumors have shrunk 70 over 76% over the last five months. And so I have so much less tumor pressure on my spine that I decided to ramp my morphine way down. So I'm. I deal with quite a lot of pain, but I'm happy to have the choice because I get to be awake a lot now, where my first couple of weeks on the morphine, I was sleeping 16 hours. So obviously you can just medicate yourself into oblivion and not know what's happening. I don't want to do that. I want to be as good a dad and husband as I can be during whatever the months ahead have. But that's all the process of dying. The bigger picture existentially is, you know, don't mean to break it to you, but y' all are on the clock too. When you get a terminal diagnosis, it's all of us, right? That's.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, looking at four guys that were dead men walking, just. Just don't know when exactly. You know, it's. It's really, really interesting. And, you know, I think it's so great to be able to talk to you. You know, you don't. You just don't get a chance to. To talk to guys like you on a. On a routine basis. You know, I feel like this is one of our best interviews we've. We've ever done here on the show.

[Michael Duncan]

Does the. Does the anxiety of dying go away?

[Ben Sasse]

I want to mock you and be like, crap, the bar is low. Well, thank you for the generous words. Not dead yet. Was fun to just Go straight Monty Python Gallows humor. That's the name of my podcast. I was like, my wife had Dead Man Talking was her proposal. I like that. Chris Stirewalt, who's my partner in crime on that podcast, he had the idea, because he'd been pursuing me to do a podcast for a long time. He had the idea of Morphine saps the memory. It was quippy. Let's give Starwalk credit for quippy. But it was something like, I'd rather die than do a podcast with you. Anyway, back to you, Josh. That's pretty good.

[Michael Duncan]

That feels right. That feels right. I mean, look, you've always had a great sense of humor, and it's fascinating to see in this area of life that you've kept that sense of humor. And I wonder, I mean, Duncan was talking about the trivial things that you, you, you know, can't really do or don't have appreciation for. I wonder if you're just like, on your walks, you're walking around looking at stuff, you know, stuff that we walk by and pass every day, and you're just like, what? That's so stupid. Like, why do we like the, the trivial nature of the things that we surround ourselves with in life has to be so illuminating.

[Ben Sasse]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

For you.

[Ben Sasse]

I, I mean, I, I don't mean to be too poetic about it, but I definitely notice birds now in a way that I definitely didn't six months ago. Like, there are sounds that I hear that are more, wow, nature's right there. We're in the city. But they're still. Yeah, but you know, some of that is probably dialing the morphine down and getting a few extra months of life expectancy out of this drug. But you want to redeem the time to serve your kids again. My girls are 22 and almost turning 25, but my boy just turned 15 a couple weeks ago. And, and like, I don't. I mean, I trust God's providence and all this, but he doesn't look to me like he's ready to not have a dad figure in his life. And so you want to be intentional about that. And it does helpfully crowd out the self indulgent nonsense. Where I believed in the past, I was building a storehouse that was big enough like, I can't even. I've regrown. Because of Super Dermatology Oncology team at MD Anderson, I've been able to regrow all the skin on my face, but I have the same rash that I used to have on my face I have in my scalp So I have to change my pillowcase three times a night because it gets saturated with blood coming out the top of my head and I'm like, shit, I can't even grow skin. How am I possibly naive enough to think I can fix big problem X, Y or Z, or you know, sanctify myself through this obsessive stupid, right? Like there's. There's so many things wrong in my soul that you get pretty good at believing. I don't think Ecclesiastes is despairing when he says it's all a vanity, it's all a chasing after wind. He means it's all a vanity, it's all chasing after the wind. To think you're self sufficient, but acknowledging your finitude creates an opportunity to be a recipient of gifts that then you see life and the material world in proper perspective as a creative creaturely gift from a creator. But it's relationship that vivifies these things as meaningful, not the fact that I'm going to secure enough of it.

[Josh Holmes]

Where do you find the fortitude? Because I've had, you know, where it's either like a family loss or a personal setback where it's so easy to slip into a spiral. Like why me? This is unjust, I'm not deserving of this. And you know, I've used things like I'll bury myself into work to get my head off of it and I feel like I get forward momentum that way. But where do you find the fortitude?

[Ben Sasse]

So let me say a small positive thing about the stoic grit point and then maybe a larger philosophical, theological point. I also have used work lots of times as salve and therapy and I think part of that is fine and good. Like Churchill's stonework, right? Like Winston Churchill went and laid bricks whenever he was exhausted from knowledge work because it was tactile, it was real. You at the end of the day could see the work you did to mow that lawn or build that fence and be able to stand back and say now sunset's coming. I can't naively just keep working, which we can do on our screens. We need to stop for the day. But we can appreciate the fact that we got to contribute that way and serve somebody. So there's, there's a version of stoic work that's great. There's also a workaholism which I think I've been guilty of a lot in my life. I don't talk about this much, but you know, my was born in 72. My parents were kids and they Got divorced the next year. And then by the time I was about four my parents were adults and they had remarried. Married and were Divorce is terrible. But I got at least the blessings of my four parents. All were friendly by the time I was four or five years old because they were now actually adults. I think a lot of my child of divorce moving back and forth between households as a kid. I think I became a workaholic by age 7, 8, 9, 10 as a form of therapy. And parts of that are fine. Parts of that are just ridiculously, philosophically, theologically stupid to think that we are self sufficient. And so I guess manic at some level.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

And.

[Ben Sasse]

And it just be. It's false in that it doesn't grapple with when you say this is unjust. I'm like I don't know dude. I think I deserve a lot worse than I've gotten. Like I look into my soul or I think about Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. You say thou shalt not murder. But I ask have you ever hated. You shall not commit adultery. But have you ever looked lustfully? You shall not steal. But if you. I I'm guilty.

[Josh Holmes]

One of my favorite sayings is that some wish for what they deserve while others fear the same. Fear the same. And that makes me think often on that.

[Ben Sasse]

It's helpful. Yeah. I mean I. I think the law is big and when there's a gap between the law's straight line and my crookedness, I don't want to try to rewrite the law. I kind of know the crooked problem isn't me. And so I having a chance to be forgiven is. Is pretty amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

Amazing. So we ask everybody that comes on here three questions.

[Ben Sasse]

I don't think I've ever been more interested. Dang. Morphine feels like a real liability right now because I've listened to your show a number of times, but I don't remember the three questions. Also, I'm coming in cold.

[Michael Duncan]

You imagine being hopped up on morphine and having this kind of intellectual capacity. I mean you should have been taking this a long time ago.

[Ben Sasse]

My, my college roommates got those. I don't know if it's staples or office max or whatever, but those red button things, you know, you can record, but they re recorded them with all of their voices and they go now that was morphine. So they just, they came to see me and they put them all over my house. So when I get in trouble with my wife or kids, I can just go now that was morphine.

[Michael Duncan]

It's the button all right, so this one you may have actually thought about. If you can plan your last meal on earth, what would it be?

[Ben Sasse]

Oh, man. I mean, I am.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Think about.

[Michael Duncan]

You're not sick, right? Don't think about, in terms of like,

[Ben Sasse]

where you're at, what I'm going to say. Thanks again for the bucket.

[Michael Duncan]

Appreciate the fourth, but like, you know, in your life, your favorite meal.

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, Nebraska is the largest cattle state, so I'm going to stay as a homer. Right. But what's really great is, I mean, I, I want to say. I don't know if my wife will listen. I want my last meal with my wife, but I really don't want to use utensils, and she won't allow that. Right. Like at the end of the day, when I got my kid in the deer stand, my boy. And we, Nebraska has, we have. Have a muzzleloader season that's basically Labor Day to New Year's Day, but rifle season, depending on the population, any given year is usually only about nine days. You get a weekend, week, weekend, and it's usually over the week before Thanksgiving. And so if I got leftover steak and I just take that cold to the deer stand and we're out there at sunup, and then you're really hungry by like 7, 7:30 in the morning, and you're just eating steak with your hands, with your boy in the. There's a. I mean, I am poor Nebraska farm kid by background. Maybe a filet instead of a T bone. We'll take it up. We'll take it up one notch. Do we do like a potato, little bit of bacon.

[Michael Duncan]

Do we do a potato on the side?

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, that's, that's messy to eat with no utensils on the deer stand. Yeah, I mean, I don't do that. You're like, no utensils. Very committed to that.

[Michael Duncan]

It wasn't just that he likes the steak. He's like, no, really, I don't want you to.

[Ben Sasse]

Yes, I want, I want a. I want a monster and I want a steak. And then, you know, I want to, I want to get a, you know, an 11, 12 point buck right afterwards. Nice.

[Michael Duncan]

The afterglow, a gallon of wine. Or are you going bourbon on that?

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, we're at 7:30 in the morning.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, but you got to slide in sideways. This is it.

[Ben Sasse]

What is the last meal? I got a firearm in my story. I don't think so. Fair enough.

[John Ashbrook]

Fair enough.

[Michael Duncan]

That's a good narrative. All right. So interested in this one. I think you Know everyone who's been as accomplished as you have and had the number of life experiences, education, public service, looks back at life at something that they were really good at or really interested at in, in and never really had the opportunity to pursue it. And if they had life to do all over again, they were like, that one thing that I never got a chance to do, I would really like to have focused on that.

[Ben Sasse]

I mean, before you started recording, we were talking about youth sports. And I think I was at the. I, I was born in 72, graduated high school in 90. I think it was right at the front edge of real specialization in sports. And I have super regret at pursuing what I was best at as opposed to what I loved most. I was good wrestler, and I'm 511 before, you know, tumors started eating the out of my spine. I was five' eleven. I think I'm like five' nine and a half now. But I was never gonna play quarterback at the next level, but I loved playing quarterback. And what I see now when I advise my son is one of the best parts of being quarterback is you're also in training to be a coach. And so sophomore year in high school, I stopped playing football because I was being recruited to wrestle a lot of places in college. And I started wrestling year round. And I have real reg that like, I, you know, won a lot more tournaments because I wrestled year round. Football is, you know, the most important sport ever. And I, I love, I wish I had still played quarterback even if I was fourth string, because I would have been more likely to continue. My dad was a great football coach, and I wish I'd done some football coaching. And had I played quarterback through high school, even if I saw only, you know, cleanup time in the last two minutes, it still would have been a better choice than wrestling year round.

[Michael Duncan]

Because you coached.

[Ben Sasse]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Huh.

[Michael Duncan]

Fascinating. All right, so our view, you're going to disagree with this because you're intellectual, but nobody usually challenges the premise. Nobody usually challenges the premise on this. And I. But I'm interested to hear how this lands. Our view is that most successful people are motivated primarily by one of two things. To take the next step to perfect the craft, to become better at whatever it is that they, they're doing. It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it's not that anybody doesn't like to win or that anybody wants to lose. It's what burns within them to get better at what they're doing. And like the prototypical agony of defeat persons, Michael Jordan, right? I mean this guy like invented slights. He had to, he had to. He had to invent things to make him bring his game to the next level. And our thrill of victory person, just to stay with the sports metaphor, has always kind of been a Phil Mickelson where he's got like 260 over water. All he needs to do is par to win the tournament. And he's like, yeah, but I hit that shot before I can hit that shot. And so he pulls the three iron and goes over water whether it works or not. That's the thrill of victory. Guy just wants to go do it because he has done it. Where do you think, think you fall?

[Ben Sasse]

Oh man. I mean you, you set me up by saying I would be annoying and challenge the premise. Do we have another hour? I. I told you, I think, I think I have like five ways. I want to object to the framing. I. So let me not be that annoying. So I want to, I want to talk about four or five things, but I'm seeing a whiteboard in my head and it's like that shed and A Beautiful Mind. I got Sharpies going everywhere. And it turns out all this is delusional morphine induced sweat.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

Lace, he was crazy, right?

[Ben Sasse]

That was morphine. Hate to tell you that one turned out it's a movie you can't watch twice, you know, because you know where it goes. So let me try to answer as you framed it first and then I think it might be fun to tease it out.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's do it.

[Ben Sasse]

I think to the degree that that's your continue. I have regret about sometimes having been agony of defeat motivated. I can think about big wrestling tournaments where, you know, I'd beaten that guy three or four times over the last six months. And now in the finals, all I'm thinking about is, well, I've already won this tournament before. I've got the medal. The only bad thing, the only thing that can come out of this that's meaningful is if I get upset then I lost to a guy I've beat, beaten, and a tournament that I've won before. So sometimes I was motivated that way. But mostly I want to challenge the premise which is I think the, the Stanford Marshmallow Study 40 years ago about deferred gratification where you can see sort of early on kids ability to say, can I handle the pain now? You know, I. If I grab the marshmallow, you only get one. And if you just sit there and show self restraint for five minutes, they're going to give you three right. There's a continuum in the group and parents can help shape. It isn't just nature. There's a nurture on nature piece about being willing to do the. So I don't think Jordan. I get that he's more agony defeat than sheesh, I can drive 260 over water. That's true. But I think the bigger thing is he was always willing to internalize the pain now for being able to play at a higher level later. Maybe minus some trips to Vegas in 96, 97 in the middle of a couple of tournaments. But I think the arrival fallacy. I think Arthur Brooks does a good job of explaining this in psychology is something that almost all wise people figure out pretty soon, which is there's something you're competing for right now. And it may feel great for a few minutes or a few weeks when you first get it, but you already know today that that feeling won't last. You're never going to reset your baseline. You know, you get a faster laptop and it's, you know, GPU moves faster and your old one was fine, but now the new one becomes your baseline. Then you visit your sister's house and use her computer and it's the speed of your old one. You're like, what the hell, Louis C.K. it has to go to space first.

[Michael Duncan]

Chill.

[Ben Sasse]

But I think you know that Sabin gets way too much credit for Nick's an amazing coach. But the process stuff, almost all coaches have had good coaches have had some version of that for a long time. You're not panicked about the outcome. You're trying to go through the right steps and figure, I'm not a golfer, but you missed a shot. You can't be thinking about that shot when you're lining up for the next shot. And sort of living in the process is some Aristotelian Eudaimonian thing where you're trying to say the thing that defines my nounness is the verb of wanting to do the process right. And so the, the thrill of victory can't be big enough because it's going to be fleeting really fast. And so to me, the, the act of becoming somebody who's a more interesting worker has to be driven by who you're serving. And so to, to me, the right category is. Is living gratitude as a way to go and serve somebody else. And Jordan probably didn't think about it in those terms, but lots of us took a lot of joy from his ability in a Game 6 to elevate at 17, 18ft. Hang in the air release at the some Utah Jazz extra falls away, and Jordan releases as time expires and hits the shot and wins the game. There's something tribally therapeutic that we all got out of that, and I don't think he really knew he was serving, but that's a healthier motive.

[Michael Duncan]

Byron Russell's gonna be super irritating. Just call them an extra

[Ben Sasse]

now. That was morphine. I love it.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I told you.

[Ben Sasse]

He's gonna dork it up a little bit.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ben Sasse]

And then there's the geek, dork, nerd, triumvirate, and there's like, who's two of three? I don't even know.

[Michael Duncan]

So I imagine at this stage that you are taking every moment to try to appreciate as much as you can. Yeah. You have talked a lot about your family and making sure that you spend as much time as you can. How do you resist the temptation to just sort of inundate them, particularly your son?

[Ben Sasse]

That's a great question. I. I mean, you know the Kevin Nealon joke about the buddy who won't die? You know, like, he's got a. He's got a friend who gets 90 days to live, and they do like a big party for him. They spend a bunch of money, and then he doesn't die. And he keeps showing up at the parties. He's getting the organic stuff, right? Like, he's the most expensive stuff on the page. Like, dude, we kind of already paid for you, and you've overstayed a little bit. My family is awesome, but I want them to be serving other people. And I feel lots of people who just come up to us and want to empathize with us and have in multiple geographies, like, my hospital's in Houston, and my. My work is still partly in Florida, but I want to get home to Nebraska. Right? And so last week, for only the second time since my diagnosis, we were able to go home for a while in Nebraska. And it was awes to be back home. But when you're back in our little town, everybody who hasn't seen us for a while, they only want to talk about cancer. And I don't want my kids time to be consumed talking about cancer. So I want to figure out how to put him to work. And we're big believers that work and sports and reading are all more important than school. Right? Like, sports are more important than school. Work is more important than school. Reading is more important than school. School is a tool to get to the place where you're interested in the things you need to learn, but they're not the be all and end. And so I'm blessed that my wife and I have a shared worldview on this. And all three of our kids know that we've been building them to be workers to serve other people. And so for my son, it means I can work alongside him a lot.

[Josh Holmes]

Got it.

[Ben Sasse]

And obviously college sports, I used to be on the board of the SEC and college sports are going through a massive period of change. And so I've been helping my son think about ways that he can go and volunteer at a lot of different kinds of sporting events. And even though he's only 15, he adds a teeny little bit of value here and there. I mean, maybe he doesn't feel like a 25 year old worker, but maybe he feels like a 20 year old worker. And so if there's a big track meet and he can be working for the umpires and referees who are having to get the hurdles reset up and getting food resupplied to them between races, we just put him to work. So there's a way that it's not mansplaining dad talk, Charlie Brown's mom voice coming at him, it's me coming alongside him saying, what work you going to get done this week? How you planning for it?

[Michael Duncan]

Fascinating. Fascinating. Well, listen, bud, I can't thank you enough for stopping.

[Ben Sasse]

Thanks for having me on.

[Michael Duncan]

This has been a, a blast. And until next time, dude.

[Ben Sasse]

And we went 45 minutes without a puke.

[Michael Duncan]

How about that?

[Ben Sasse]

Thanks for that. You guys are magic. Thanks so much.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you.

[Ben Sasse]

Good to be with you.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, what a special conversation right here on the Ruthless Variety program. I mean this guy is unique and very, very fortunate to have an opportunity to talk, talk to him here this month.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, I think that is one of the most unique and best parts of this show is being able to do things like that, have our huge audience be able to hear the tremendous message that he had. Wonderful conversation. I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to do that.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

It's also, I think, humbling for all of of us that you have somebody in who knows their expiration date and they chose to spend some time with you.

[Ben Sasse]

That's huge.

[Michael Duncan]

Totally.

[Unidentified Political Commentator]

It really is a humbling experience.

[Michael Duncan]

It is, it is. And it should be for all of you listening because he's talking to you and he knows the audience of the Ruthless Variety program and chose to come in and have a discussion to hopefully give you some perspect active on what it is we do every single day in our lives and everything else. Thank him a lot. Wish he and his family all the best, obviously, and continued success and in spreading the message that he's got. And I hope it lasts forever, I really do, because I think it's super important. All that being said, fellas, an action packed episode here. I think we did it.

[Josh Holmes]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Ben Sass, God bless you. And thank you to the Minions. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, Minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the lips. We'll see you on Thursday. Stay ruthless,

[John Ashbrook]

Sa.