Biden Media Coverup, Plus Democrat Candidate's Shocking Secrets

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary Title: Biden Media Coverup, Plus Democrat Candidate's Shocking Secrets
Release Date: May 15, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Ruthless Podcast, hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook delve into pressing political issues with their signature conservative perspective. The episode primarily focuses on alleged media coverups surrounding President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and explores the controversial political ambitions of Hannah Trudeau, a journalist considering a run for Congress.

Biden Media Coverup

The discussion opens with a critical examination of a new book by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper, which claims that the Biden administration intentionally concealed President Joe Biden's cognitive and physical decline during his re-election campaign.

Notable Quote:

• Josh Holmes [06:09]: "But let's just jump right in. Because unless you haven't been paying attention to anything this week..."

Josh Holmes introduces the book's allegations, highlighting disturbing claims such as staffers contemplating providing Biden with a wheelchair due to his deteriorating health. The hosts criticize mainstream media figures like Jake Tapper for profiting from such revelations, accusing them of lacking integrity.

Notable Quote:

• Comfortably Smug [09:40]: "Yeah, he had the brave stance, brave stance of maybe, maybe, maybe Biden was the problem."

The conversation also targets Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer, suggesting they prioritized political optics over genuine concern for the president's well-being.

Notable Quote:

• John Ashbrook [10:52]: "There's just money to be made."

Democrat Candidate's Shocking Secrets: The Hannah Trudeau Case

Transitioning from national politics, the hosts scrutinize Hannah Trudeau, a journalist who publicly expressed interest in running for Congress in New Hampshire. Despite multiple attempts to engage her for an interview, Trudeau remained unresponsive, prompting the hosts to investigate the authenticity of her public persona.

Notable Quote:

• Josh Holmes [31:28]: "A journalist telling everybody what we all know, that they're all Democrats anyway. And she's just saying it's..."

The hosts analyze inconsistencies in Trudeau's social media activity, such as a deleted glamorous photo shoot allegedly unrelated to her working-class image. They question her commitment to representing New Hampshire, given her apparent ties to Manhattan and Miami, and her involvement with luxury items like Ferraris.

Notable Quotes:

• Comfortably Smug [36:17]: "What makes you here is that she was doing something questionable that we can ask her about."
• John Ashbrook [47:24]: "It's a very fair decision, I must say."

The investigation raises concerns about potential misrepresentation and questions the sincerity of her political aspirations.

The Tapper Awards: Highlighting Media Coverups

The podcast introduces the inaugural Tapper Awards, an ironic accolade named after Jake Tapper, intended to recognize media figures who the hosts believe have effectively covered up or downplayed Biden's decline.

Notable Quote:

• Josh Holmes [14:53]: "The name of the show, it's called Ruthless. And it's called Ruthless for a reason."

The awards feature nominees like Joe Scarborough, Brian Stelter, Sunny Hostin, and Nicole Wallace, each criticized for their roles in perpetuating the alleged coverup through selective reporting and manipulation of media narratives.

Notable Quote:

• John Ashbrook [22:46]: "I am so happy we did that. Seeing those clips just makes you so much angrier with this debate going on..."

Listeners are encouraged to vote for the winners, emphasizing audience engagement in challenging mainstream media narratives.

Interview with Congressman Pat Harrigan

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to an interview with Congressman Pat Harrigan, a Green Beret and war hero from North Carolina. Harrigan shares his military experiences, particularly his deployment to Afghanistan, and discusses his motivations for entering politics following the Afghan retreat.

Notable Quote:

• Michael Duncan [67:29]: "I grew up split in time between San Diego and a really small town in western Wyoming."

Harrigan criticizes the Obama administration's handling of military operations, expressing frustration over political interference and inadequate support during critical missions.

Notable Quote:

• Michael Duncan [74:43]: "I had a very special forces mission... It was really a very unique, dynamic environment."

He also addresses broader geopolitical concerns, particularly focusing on China's influence and the need for America to strengthen its defenses and economic strategies to counteract international adversaries.

Notable Quote:

• Michael Duncan [81:12]: "China is the most capable and significant adversary that we have ever had in this nation's history..."

Harrigan emphasizes the importance of military strength, economic resilience, and strategic international policies to safeguard national interests.

King of the Hill: A Conservative Showdown

Adding a lighter element, the hosts engage in a segment called King of the Hill, a game where conservative figures debate and challenge each other's viewpoints. In this episode, John Ashbrook defends traditional conservative positions while Comfortably Smug challenges them, showcasing the dynamic and often humorous interplay among the hosts.

Notable Quote:

• Pat Harrigan [60:47]: "How many Republicans have spoken out against Trump's threat to habeas corpus?"

This segment serves to entertain the audience while reinforcing the podcast's conservative values through spirited debate.

Listener Comments

The hosts highlight and react to listener feedback regarding Democratic messaging and strategies, reflecting on perceived weaknesses and the party's struggle to resonate with voters.

Notable Quote:

• Mary Woodford [27:54]: "What else with Trump co-opting the field on so many interest groups the Dems thought they owned?"

Listener comments underscore the podcast's themes of media skepticism and political critique, reinforcing the hosts' viewpoints and engaging the audience in ongoing political discourse.

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a reiteration of the Tapper Awards voting process and a tease for the next episode featuring Hannah Trudeau. The hosts encourage audience participation and subscription, maintaining the podcast's interactive and community-driven approach.

Notable Quote:

• Josh Holmes [98:11]: "Gentlemen, thank you so much, Congressman Pat Harrigan, and thank you so much to the listeners..."

Final Thoughts

This episode of Ruthless Podcast effectively combines investigative journalism, political critique, and engaging segments to provide a comprehensive look at current conservative concerns. Through in-depth discussions on media integrity, political candidacies, and national security, the hosts offer their audience a platform for informed and spirited debate.

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For those who haven't listened, this summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the episode, complete with notable quotes and timestamps to highlight important moments.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Do you worry that you damaged him at all?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't doubt that you got hugs and handshakes behind closed doors today. The guy was maybe even publicly, some of them because they like you personally. But I've heard a lot of really nasty stuff about you from your Democratic colleagues.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, just like, oh, yes. So this is one of the gentlemen who has written this book who now seeks to uncover this hidden truth has been concealed from all of us. Seems like there was some concealing done of his own.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, just like that, that line of questioning he had with Dean Phillips, who Duncan has pointed out Dean Phillips was right. He was pointing out these facts that were apparent to so many folks.

[Comfortably Smug]

And pointing it out when it cost you something to point it out, it cost Jake Tapper nothing. In fact, the inverse. He gets to make money now pointing it out. And he hit it at the time when it might cost him something.

[Josh Holmes]

That's entrepreneurialism. You know, for a bunch of socialists, these guys figure out how to make a buck every once in a while, don't they? He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress, Chicago Senator Dick Durbin. And now Dick Durbin has a new a government takeover of your credit card. Today, consumers have thousands of choices in credit cards, all with equal strong security. But Durbin's plan is less competition and less security and that means more risk.

[Comfortably Smug]

For your credit and your identity.

[Josh Holmes]

Tell Republicans in Congress, stop Dick Durbin's takeover of your credit card before it's too late.

[Michael Duncan]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[John Ashbrook]

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

[Pat Harrigan]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Welcome back to the ruthless variety program, Good Thursday to you. If you're looking for fun, you have come to the right place. I am Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan. John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial. Fellas, we have a sheet that we've put together here. We've had a lot of fun on this program. That's why you listen. There's a lot of important things to discuss from time to time. We have a very serious show on Tuesday. It's time for some laughs.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, I'm going to call it. This is going to be a top five. I mean, I'm not kidding.

[Josh Holmes]

This is.

[John Ashbrook]

There's a very good chance. This is an all time top 5 episode. Huge congrats to the folks listening because man.

[Josh Holmes]

In for a treat. Yeah, you are in for a treat. You've got the President overseas making deals, doing things that he does, all things that we've discussed here on the Variety program domestically, there's been, shall we say, a little bit of an introspective component to the Democratic Party, the minority party, in large part because of a new book that that's come out and a lot of discussion about the cognitive decline of our former president. What people knew, how they knew it, when they knew it, whether they were contributors to concealing such a thing. We are going to get into the nitty gritty of all of that. And we've got something inspired by one of our listeners that is an award show of such that are just highlighting what is truly excellence in this genre.

[John Ashbrook]

This is gonna be so good.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is gonna be a great episode.

[Josh Holmes]

You will love every bit of that. Then you'll recall a couple of weeks ago there was a journo turned politician who announced her intent.

[Comfortably Smug]

Journo turned politician. But you repeat yourself.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, exactly. It is a little bit of the same thing. No question about it. Hannah Trudeau. And the reason that we took great interest in Hannah Trudeau is because, well, one, it fits in the same sort of construct. So we thought it was an interesting story. But second of all, most importantly, she engaged us, said, well, I'd like to talk to all of you about that. So we reached out, then we reached out again, and then we reached out again, and then we publicly reached out, and then we reached out one more time after that to get her to sort of like frame up what it is that she. We're not trying to be adversarial. It's an interesting story, one that you, the listener and viewer we thought would be pretty interested in.

[Pat Harrigan]

Raises a number of questions.

[Josh Holmes]

Gave her a week and a half, no show. Right. So we're going to cover some of the questions that we had for Ms. Trudeau in a potential run for Congress. She's exploring a run. So these are the kind of things that are come up if she files her candidacy papers. And so I see it as a public service both to you, the listener, and to her as a potential candidate.

[John Ashbrook]

And perfect to go with our opening theme of like, okay, the whole Joe Biden cover up. Were the journos involved? What did they not know? What were they helping the Biden cover up with? You know, like the whole theme of like the blurred line between Democrat politics and journalism, 100%.

[Josh Holmes]

And then we've got, as we always do, some terrific variety for you that you will all appreciate. We're gonna play our game. King of the Hill, our feature presentation here on the Variety program. Cause it's Thursday. And we're gonna get into that. Finally in this just action packed episode, we got a guy named Pat Harrigan, you may not have heard of, of him. He is a congressman from North Carolina, a genuine American war hero. This guy, like many of them that we talked about here and with over the last couple of years, inspired to service. This is somebody who served his country in unimaginable ways, but never really had an inclination to get into politics until Joe Biden and until the disaster that was the Afghan retreat. He's gonna unpack some of that for us.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I think we pride ourselves here on the ruthless variety program of highlighting stories. You don't hear a lot.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

From politicians who we appreciate and admire that maybe you don't see in primetime cable every night. So it's nice to be able to have that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I got a feeling. So I was fortunate to sit on this interview. It was phenomenal. Hands down, one of the best interviews we've ever done. I have a feeling you're gonna hear a lot more about him from him. This guy's a rising star.

[Pat Harrigan]

Really incredible, Real American hero.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Once he's on your radar, he's not gonna fall off anytime soon, let's just put it that way. But let's just jump right in. Because unless you haven't been paying attention to anything this week, which I, you know, we got life going on. But there's been an entire political conversation around this new book by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper that attempts in some ways to sort of uncover, in their way, uncovered. What they see was this plan of deceit to try to keep quiet the decline, cognitively and physically of Joe Biden while he was running for reelection. This much is clear. We let our show probably 300 of them with quotes directly from the. This was not a mystery to you as the audience. You've laughed along with us. Yeah, it was to these people, evidently. And so they are now unpacking all of that in public view for us to discuss. But we don't just allow that.

[John Ashbrook]

Nope.

[Josh Holmes]

The name, you see, the name of the show, it's called Ruthless. And it's called Ruthless for a reason. You can't just get out from underneath all of that without paying a touch of a price.

[Pat Harrigan]

Well, no, and it's very convenient that today is the day they're rolling out a book because, you know, Joe Biden, the Democrat, has nothing left to lose. And they, as Democrats, have nothing left to lose in the process.

[Josh Holmes]

No question about it. So one way to set this up it's from our good friends over at Fox News in clip one.

[John Ashbrook]

This is a bombshell.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a new book that is revealing how the Biden administration lied to the American people. That's the only way you can characterize it. They lied to us for years about his condition. And just how big of a role did the legacy media and the people in his circle play in covering it up? A pretty big one. And Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes book fight, we learned that Biden's aides needed to guide his every move. You all remember the Easter bunny guiding him. That was a staffer dressed up as a bunny. And they went as far as to put fluorescent tape on the stage floor so he knew exactly where to walk. Well, now there's another book, and it claims that staffers even considered getting him a wheelchair. Part of the book says, quote, Biden's physical deterioration had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the President in a wheelchair, but they couldn't do so until after the election. So politics over the health of the president. Wow. And according to the book, Biden's own Dr. Kevin O' Connor was worried about him dying. Quote, long privately expressed concerns Mr. O' Connor did about the toll that the presidency was taking on Biden's health. Oconnors sometimes quipped that Biden staff members were trying to kill him while he was trying to keep him alive. Okay, all right, all right. So big, big thanks to Kaylee for setting all of that up. I think she walked through the highlights. Very, very well done. So as the media, much of the legacy media tries to get out from underneath this, people at Fox News, of course, covered this all along. And so they're kind of getting some kicks out of this as we are. And you, the audience who've been listening to us, but like, how are Democrats processing all this? I mean, you heard like tortured explanations from Boot Petaj, who is out there doing his thing, like trying to get out from underneath it without being too saucy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, he, he had the brave stance, brave stance of maybe, maybe, maybe Biden was the problem.

[Josh Holmes]

That is the kind of hard hitting analysis.

[Comfortably Smug]

Speaking like a McKinsey consultant. It's like, I don't know, we're going to have to check our synergies and circle back on that.

[Josh Holmes]

Go back to the bread price.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's it.

[Josh Holmes]

Go back.

[Pat Harrigan]

Same sort of bravery he showed when he floored every single household in black neighborhoods in South Bend.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is his hobby horse. It's his hobby horse. Every time we talk About Boot.

[Josh Holmes]

You can't bring up Boot without him going there. So the highest ranking Democrat in all of Washington, D.C. a guy named Chuck Schumer, how did he handle it? Clip 2 Did you really not have any idea that he was not fit to serve a second term?

[Michael Duncan]

Casey, we're looking forward.

[Josh Holmes]

We have the largest Medicaid cut in front of us. We have the all of this because you lost a presidential election. And is that not Joe Biden's responsibility for deciding to run again? We're looking forward. That's it. That's it.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. That's all, folks. It's like an old Looney Tunes episode. That's all he's got.

[John Ashbrook]

There was this great Twitter tweet of, I think it's a line from the book where Schumer is telling the authors of the book that while he was having a phone call with Joe Biden, it kind of became clear to him that Joe Biden didn't know what the hell was going on.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, he forgot why he called.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, he was like, you know, I don't even remember why I called you. And Chuck Schumer's realization, he says this himself, this is a direct quote from Chuck Schumer was I became worried not because the president was losing his mind, but because if word got out about.

[Josh Holmes]

This, the optics would be, oh, the political consequences.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's not like, I worry about the country.

[John Ashbrook]

Our president has lost his brain. It's like, boy, I hope the public.

[Josh Holmes]

Doesn'T find out about this perfect little holy vignette into people like Chuck Schumer.

[Michael Duncan]

They worry.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the most telling thing about Chuck Schumer I'd ever heard.

[Josh Holmes]

They worry not a moment about you, the American taxpayer, the American voter. They don't worry about any of that. What they worry about is their handle on power, whether or not they're, boy, this would look bad, huh?

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I love that the COVID up continues. Like that's what we're seeing, right?

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You're seeing the Chuck Schumer looking forward.

[Josh Holmes]

Look at medic Medicaid cuts.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, yeah, cuts. Because of course, it benefits a guy like Chuck Schumer to stop asking questions and continue doing what he's doing. And the Democratic establishment that failed. Everybody doesn't have to make any changes. There doesn't have to be a single autopsy. They can sideline David Hogg, they can sideline Dean Phillips. All the people who ask questions and say we need to change things or turn the page, they get silenced. And the people like Chuck Schumer gets. Keep doing their job.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And it's like, we're looking forward. It would be really difficult if someone was like, sir, why are you a bald faced liar?

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, if somebody in the Democratic Party had, I don't know, just the wherewithal to ask that question. Someone tried an answer.

[John Ashbrook]

They sent Hogg to the slaughterhouse in like record time. Like in three weeks. It's like, oh, actually that election was rigged.

[Josh Holmes]

They went from show me your hog to cut off your hog. Pretty much you'd expect it with a new.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, well, they're transitioning.

[Pat Harrigan]

As their party does.

[Josh Holmes]

So one of the authors of this book, he and himself, it's very hard for me to transition out of that, by the way. Sorry. He himself has a pretty extensive history. Why don't we go to clip three, please.

[Michael Duncan]

How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?

[Josh Holmes]

It's very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable. You are. No, I can't.

[Michael Duncan]

This is so amazing. It's so amazing to me that.

[Josh Holmes]

Try and figure out an answer.

[Michael Duncan]

Cognitive decline. Biden embraces his stutter, talking about it while Trump mocks it, exaggerates it, belittles it. He's sharp physically. I mean, mentally.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I think the question is physically. Right, Right. Or so. Right. Right. And the guy who is his chief opponent is only three or four years younger than a man. I mean, you have questioned President Biden's age, mental fitness, ability to lead. Of those supporting Biden, you said, quote, shame on all of you, pretending everything is okay. You're leading us and him into a disaster.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you worry that you damaged him at all?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't doubt that you got hugs and handshakes behind closed doors today and maybe even publicly, some of them, because they like you personally. But I've heard a lot of really nasty stuff about you from your Democratic colleagues. I mean, just like, what is he thinking? Exercise in narcissism.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dean Phillips, the guy who was right.

[Michael Duncan]

About President Biden's mental fitness and acuity.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yes. So this is one of the gentlemen who has written this book who now seeks to uncover this hidden truth has been concealed from all of us. Seems like there was some concealing done of his own.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, just like that line of questioning he had with Dean Phillips, who Duncan has pointed out, Dean Phillips was right. He was pointing out these facts that were apparent to so many folks and.

[Comfortably Smug]

Pointing it out when it cost you something to point it out. It cost Jake Tapper nothing. In fact, the inverse. He gets to make money now, pointing it out. And he hit it at the time when it might cost him something.

[Josh Holmes]

That's entrepreneurialism. You know, for a bunch of socialists, these guys figure out how to make a buck every once in a while, don't they? I mean, it's like, oh, I can conceal this and then point the finger. Yeah, well, look what you've done. Look what you made me do.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, just, it's like a battered goal of Tapper to be like, I've heard a lot of people say nasty things about you for, for pointing this stuff out about Joe Biden. Don't you feel bad you could cause Dems in an election? Don't you feel bad about, like, dude, you're a journalist. Aren't you supposed to be asking questions instead of trying to help Dems win an election? Like, what is your purpose?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it is a little bit like the nice house. Be ashamed if something happened to it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, deal.

[Josh Holmes]

That line of question. Well, anyway, you get a little flavor for what it was that he was up to during the course of the election, which obviously has changed significantly now that there's not a single vote to be cast that matters one way or another.

[John Ashbrook]

There's just money to be made.

[Josh Holmes]

There's just money to be made. But Tapper, of course, wasn't the only journalist who shamelessly covered for Biden's decline. When we come back, we're going to have something brand new for all of you, a brand new award ceremony. As such. We've sort of colloquially named it the Tapper Award and it's for excellence in covering the Biden decline. Concealing is really the right word, the Biden decline. We're going to get to it right after this. The Biden pill penalty is crippling the development of life saving drugs for cancer, Alzheimer's and other deadly diseases. It's already slashed funding for pill based medicines by 70%. Thankfully, President Trump is leading the fight to end the Biden pill penalty. President Trump's plan will unleash innovation, lower costs and save American lives. Call Congress, tell them to stand with President Trump and include a repeal of the Biden pill penalty in the budget reconciliation bill. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tappers our first nominee, Joe Scarborough. In an unflinching homage to a few good men, Scarborough passionately channels Colonel Nathan Jessup to defend Joe Biden's mental acuity.

[Pat Harrigan]

But comparing that guy's mental state, I've.

[Josh Holmes]

Said it for years now.

[Pat Harrigan]

He's cogent, but I undersold him when.

[Josh Holmes]

I said he was cogent. He's far beyond cogent.

[Pat Harrigan]

In fact, I think he's better than.

[Josh Holmes]

He'S ever been intellectually, analytically. Oh my God.

[Pat Harrigan]

Because he's been around for 50 years and you know, I don't know if people know this or not.

[Josh Holmes]

Biden used to be a hothead.

[Pat Harrigan]

Sometimes that Irishman would get in front of the reasoning. Sometimes he would say things he didn't want to say.

[Josh Holmes]

This is.

[Michael Duncan]

And, and, and I don't really.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what, I don't really care.

[Michael Duncan]

Start your tape right now because I'm about to tell you the truth.

[Josh Holmes]

Here it is an F you if you can't handle the truth.

[Pat Harrigan]

This version of Biden intellectually, analytically is.

[Michael Duncan]

The best Biden ever.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

Not a close second. And I've known him for years.

[Pat Harrigan]

The Brzezinskis have known him for 50 years.

[Josh Holmes]

If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't say it.

[John Ashbrook]

Our next nominee, Brian Stelter. Faced with his most intellectually challenging role yet, Stelter assumes the role of a computer science professor to explain how AI and cheap fakes are lying about Biden's fitness for office.

[Josh Holmes]

The White House prosecutor used the phrase cheap fake fakes. The idea of cheap fakes, let me explain what that is to people.

[Comfortably Smug]

We've been worried for years about a deep fakes that computer generated images are.

[Josh Holmes]

Going to trick people into believing something that's totally false. Cheap fakes are a little bit simpler. They're cheap, they're just distorted out of context. Videos chopped up in certain ways, constructed in certain ways. That's what we're seeing.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's what the Biden administration, the Biden.

[Josh Holmes]

Campaign is so worried about right now. But make no mistake, they are worried about this. This is a real problem.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is not some made up fiction.

[Josh Holmes]

The videos are oftentimes made up. But the problem is real because some of us have watched videos. You made a speech by Biden, we see the full context. Other people only watch a five second.

[Comfortably Smug]

Clip and that's going to be something.

[Josh Holmes]

That'S going to I suspect follow Biden for the rest of this campaign.

[Comfortably Smug]

Our next nominee, Sunny Hostin. In a stunning heel turn against the independence of a special prosecutor, Hostin claims there's a conspiracy of lawfare by Donald Trump and Robert her that is unfair to Joe Biden.

[Josh Holmes]

I actually disagree with the assessment that this special counsel that was appointed by Trump was nonpartisan. There is no way that a prosecutor puts summarizes things in a report that are not contained in the transcripts. That is not how the procedure is done because I have Democrats can try cases against Democrats only. What I'm saying is. No, back in the day when I was a prosecutor, I didn't know which of my colleagues were Republican, which were independents, which were Democrats, but it's public record who appointed them. But this, yes, that's true. I was, I was in the, in the Clinton administration and I was also in the Bush administration. But, and that's frequently the case. But this prosecutor was very partisan and I could, I can tell from the report now.

[Pat Harrigan]

Our final nominee, Nicole Wallace. Sometimes an actor completes a character transformation that would make Daniel Day Lewis jealous. Enter Republican press secretary turned Democrat mouthpiece Nicole Wallace describing Republican disinformation that makes Biden look old.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a growing and insidious trend in right wing media, broadcast, print and social media. It is to take highly misleading and selectively edited videos of President Biden directly from Republican National Committee social media accounts and then use those videos to spread.

[Michael Duncan]

Messages virally to cast doubt on President.

[Josh Holmes]

Biden's fitness for office. Here is this headline from the New York Post quote, she kind of freeze up has to be led off stage by Obama at Megabuck's L A Fundraiser. The full video posted by Biden finance chair on Twitter shows something entirely different. Biden reacting to applause and then walking off stage with former President Obama. It comes less than one week after the New York Post made a cover out of another piece of deceptively edited tape calling him Meander in Chief due to what they claim was Biden walking away during a skydiving demonstration during the.

[Michael Duncan]

G7 summit last week.

[Josh Holmes]

The only problem is that the full video which emerged almost inside, instantly shows Biden was going over to congratulate one of the skydivers who's cropped out of the video entirely. Both the articles are based on cheap fakes, videos of real events that are intentionally manipulated to fool viewers. Released on an RNC opposition research social media account with zero independent fact checking by these so called journalists and spread throughout the right wing ecosystem. Truly magnificent journalism for this year's tapper.

[John Ashbrook]

I am so happy we did that. Seeing those clips just makes you so much angrier with this debate going on of like how was the press like fooled by like they weren't fooled. They were helping the Biden people cover this.

[Pat Harrigan]

I will tell you each of your submissions had something special but I think Nicole Wallace is gonna win this one.

[Josh Holmes]

You're Putting the thumb on the scale. Well, here's the thing, folks. The winner is up to you.

[John Ashbrook]

Bingo.

[Josh Holmes]

It's up to you. If you like, and subscribe and submit your winner in here to the Ruthless variety program on YouTube. And we will have something on X on the main account at Ruthless that allows you to vote. We'll tally all that up, like. And subscribe. Submit your deal. Next Tuesday, we will announce the winner of the 2025 inaugural Tapper Awards.

[John Ashbrook]

If he's gonna put his thumb on the scale, I'm gonna say I think Tapper. I mean, like, the award should go to Brian Stelter for that. He deserves the Tapper. I mean, let's be serious.

[Josh Holmes]

We're all gonna make a case. We're not calling cheating.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm not gonna make a case' cause I respect democracy and I respect the audience.

[John Ashbrook]

I don't respect democracy. I'm done with it. It's time for action.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, don't forget to submit your vote. And when we come back, we're gonna get to your comments when we talked about the civil war that was raging in the Democratic Party and what message Democrats will finally land on in the midterms. Your responses right after this. America is built on hard work and powered by American energy. Chevron has spent $44 billion with local businesses across all 50 states since 2022, fueling infrastructure and communities, all while strengthening local economies. Last year, Chevron increased U.S. production nearly 20%, powering communities and businesses from the heartlands to the coasts. We're helping to fuel America's energy advantage, building a brighter future right here at home. Visit chevron.comamera to discover more.

[Comfortably Smug]

You did all the right things. You worked hard, you worked your way up and you invested your money in a 401k or other retirement plan. Your future is all set, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Wrong.

[Comfortably Smug]

The retirement system as we know it is currently under attack from misguided policymakers in D.C. the Trump tax cuts are set to expire this year. Renewing them will be a big fight in Congress. Right now. The tax code protects 401ks IRAs and other plans that help you save. Some people want to change that. Your representatives in Congress must protect the tax advantages that more than 100 million Americans rely on to save for retirement. You deserve policies that build on the current retirement system to secure your financial future, not jeopardize it. If Americans know one thing, it's resilience. To stay resilient, we need immediate action from our leaders. Head to helpusretire.org to take action and Reach out to your representatives in Congress today. Help Us Retire is sponsored by the Investment Company Institute, representing asset managers serving individual investors.

[Josh Holmes]

Fellas, that was a hell of a inaugural edition of the Tappers. I can't wait to hear what the audience thinks and what they've come up with. This was inspired by the audience in and of themselves.

[John Ashbrook]

I can't wait to get the DM from Jake Tapper. Oh, yeah, Whenever you call him out, he starts crying.

[Josh Holmes]

He doesn't like it. So he doesn't like it.

[John Ashbrook]

I'll hear from you soon, Jake.

[Pat Harrigan]

It's a very prestigious award. There's only one winner and the winner will be nationally renowned for their efforts over the course of 2024. And I think it's something to be celebrated.

[Comfortably Smug]

We've tried everything. We've tried reasoning with these people, we've tried changing their behavior, we've tried educating them. And what I've realized 15 years in politics is that the only politics that matters is the politics of ridicule and mock. Mockery.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the only thing that matters. That's the only way you change behavior is through shame.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. And the shame really doesn't come or be internalized in any real way unless you're being left at.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

Bingo.

[Josh Holmes]

That's fantastic. All right, so we're gonna get your comments of the day from Tuesday's episode where we talked a little bit about Democratic messaging and where you thought that they would land great responses. To do that, we always start with the voice.

[Pat Harrigan]

First comment comes from Mary Woodford. And Mary writes, regarding the question of the day. I have never seen the Democrat party stand for anything besides redirecting taxpayer money and government regulation to causes in industries they judge to be best, regardless of the effectiveness of such efforts. Point the report card is not pretty. Now that DEI and racism are no longer winning issues, they have a real problem. What else with Trump co opting the field on so many interest groups the Dems thought they owned? They may be sol, they may surprise us with their creativity, but so far even sophisticated Dem commentators can only say the party needs a better message. I have yet to hear one.

[Josh Holmes]

Mary.

[Pat Harrigan]

Incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

Just throwing darts. Incredible. Great work, Mary. Thanks for listening. Next comment. Dunks, runks.

[Comfortably Smug]

This comments from Nanku. Nanku writes, what message will Dems settle on for the midterms? This is too easy because they only have one. We're not Trump.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Sadly, that's gonna be it.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, if you're looking for what it's going to be, I think they pretty much Nailed it.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know what's so funny is there are people that are going to cash million dollar checks to give that advice.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh yeah. So they're going to look at polls and be like, well the polling shows there is a majority.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think we need to run against Trump.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And they'll sit there, very sophisticated. Break down like cross tabs and pull in like metrics and they'll try to introduce like these new fangled things. Well, the audience intensity shows.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, we're using AI micro targeting.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, we've done, we've run through the AI machine and we found this thing that you fucking knew was going to happen two years ago. Congratulations, geniuses. Comment three please. Smugglesworth.

[John Ashbrook]

This comes from Patty Glenn and Patty writes the Dems or what is being presented to us as the Demon Rat party.

[Michael Duncan]

Hell yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

We'll be pushing lies about the big beautiful bill. They're counting on Hakeem to start them off with a big people will die fear statement. Then the minions will follow with scripting to chase the fear flags. They're going to bet their midterms on fear of success because their base is typically a crowd of failure to launch confused idiots. Nailed it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Nailed it.

[John Ashbrook]

Nailed it.

[Josh Holmes]

Nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. Great set of comments as always. Remember, like and subscribe. You can vote on the first edition of the Tappers this time around. So everybody's got to get in on that. Do it on X, do it on YouTube, get involved. It's going to be a fun time on Tuesday, I promise you. Listen, when we come back, Hannah Trudeau and if you caught the episode, which I know you did, because we did on a couple of them, is a journo that turned sort of politician or at least exploring whether she's going to make a run for Congress in New Hampshire. We had questions and she indicated she'd like to come. Answer hasn't done that. We're going to get to the questions that we may have that may help out our candidacy in many ways because these are things that you know, when you go through the course of it, they're helpful for somebody who's looking at running to know right after this. Hard working Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done.

[Pat Harrigan]

Now is the time to unleash our.

[Josh Holmes]

Nation'S energy to create jobs, secure our future and make life better, more affordable and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Okay, so there was a journalist. This is a tale of a journalist who worked on Capitol Hill for a publication called the Hill, with a beat that was unclear, but a journalist nevertheless who popped up in our feeds because she had broadcast through, I think it was Playbook, and then a lot of other different publications in town, that she was no longer seeking a career in journalism, that she would seek to become a politician and run for Congress in New Hampshire.

[Pat Harrigan]

Which party did she say that?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, that's what caught our attention. Is it? It's kind of one of the same. She was the Democrat Party, but really one of the prime justifications was that she was tired of Democrats letting their voters down. And she as a journalist knew how to fulfill the expectations.

[Pat Harrigan]

Key motivating factor for most journalists out there is to help Democrats do better.

[Josh Holmes]

And who knows more than someone who writes their work on a day to day basis? They try to mold and shape into the most helpful messages that they can. And sometimes Democrats just don't live up to the expectations that the journalists set for them. And so you have to run yourself. So as we were having this discussion, lo and behold, Hannah Trudeau pops up, which I thought was like a fun, younger generation of politician type thing. And that we know that everyone on Capitol Hill listens to your particular podcast. And if I'm gonna launch, right, I'm gonna come in and address these things that questions that you have and I'll reach a different audience. I was like, you know what?

[Pat Harrigan]

I kind of like.

[Comfortably Smug]

It sounds interesting.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah. Something new, something fresh, dare I say authentic. A journalist telling everybody what we all know, that they're all Democrats anyway. And she's just saying it's.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, so she says and tags us right up front in an X post. Let's talk. My ties to broken policies and promises that fail the working class go well beyond what I've covered as a journalist. I've lived it. Would love to debate and discuss. DMs open. All right, well, that's pretty unambiguous, right? I mean, that's. If you're going to do that publicly to us. I mean, look again. The name's on the sign, the name's on the side. This is not, you know, it's not like come in and have a long conversation podcast. It's the Ruthless Friday program. And so like she knew what she was getting into when she did that. And so we were like, you know what? In good faith, let's just take her up on that. So we posted on our main X account welcome. Like, you let us know what your dates are. We're ready to go. And then we didn't stop at that. We DM'd. She said, DMs are open, fellows. I hate to report the DMs were closed. She would not read or respond to any of our DMs. And then, in a personal capacity, we reached out to see if, again, her offering of an appearance here on the Ruthless Variety Program was something that we could accomplish. And trust me when I say accommodate. Like, we were ready to just sort of roll back the busy schedules of all of us and come in to do this, because it's fairly new for us. I mean, we haven't entertained a lot of Democratic aspirants.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's the thing is. So, I mean, you saw, you know, especially right after Biden or Kamala Harris got smoked, that there was like, you saw Gavin Newsom go on Charlie's podcast. You know, Pete jumped on that comedians podcast. You know, they're trying to act, you know, like, blur the lines of, like, oh, you know, I'm not just gonna stay to, like, left wing stuff, because no one's listening to left wing stuff. So we thought, you know, this is an opportunity. This would be a smart play.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, smart play for everyone. Good for our audience. Good for her. We could cover a lot of ground. So we had some questions that we wanted to ask, but we gave her two weeks. Mm. And she didn't even reply to say, like, well, maybe like, three weeks from now, maybe I'm out of town and I, you know, I'm trying to get this thing running maybe a month from now. We would have worked with her schedule, but she didn't. She didn't even respond. It was just that one thing to the public, saying, Her DMs are open and she's ready to schedule an interview. And then after that, nothing. So I kind of started poking around a little bit, and there was, like, some questions. First of all, everyone was kind of sending us some things, just some observations that we didn't know. You know, I mean, look, we're not, like, working on a campaign here, which we've done and we know how to do, so you know what it looks like when it comes in of people who aren't necessarily associated with a campaign but have information that they're distributing around on certain individuals. And we just wanted to know what the authenticity is of any of that and how it's square.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, and I think we had good reason to doubt a little bit of that authenticity. Because in the episode in which we had covered Hannah Trudeau's announcement of an exploring exploration of this running for Congress, we put up this Instagram post of this photo shoot she did in Manhattan. Yeah, there it is there on the screen for you. Pretty glamorous there.

[Pat Harrigan]

What was the publication that did the shoot?

[Comfortably Smug]

There was no.

[Josh Holmes]

We don't know if there what the publication, but it's in this style of like a Vanity Fair type thing. Like, you don't see journalists typically in ball gowns in front of what is, you know, is that a Victorian type setting? Old man. What would you. How would you characterize that particular backdrop?

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a well appointed sofa.

[Josh Holmes]

Very well appointed, I would say sort of a Victorian look. It's just a little old school school with some buttoned up.

[Comfortably Smug]

But what's weird about it is after we ran that episode and after Hannah had said she was interesting in coming on and debating these things, that post was deleted on Instagram of that photo shoot in Manhattan.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Which is interesting because again, these are the kind of questions that we would pose to Ms. Trudeau is, is it in fact true that these were deleted, and if so, why? I mean, they live on the Internet. Like, we had it.

[Comfortably Smug]

We already had it. What was the point of doing that?

[Josh Holmes]

And we're not working against you. We're just trying to find out why you would want an image like that to go away.

[Pat Harrigan]

Right. And I naturally sort of assumed that it was some sort of magazine or publication or something, but it sounds like maybe that wasn't the case. Another question she could have answered.

[Josh Holmes]

What kind of a photo or shot show?

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah, like, which magazine was asking for that?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, like, is it those. The kind of things that you have a, you know, you hire somebody to come in.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, especially because it's the person who wants to run for Congress in New Hampshire. And not a lot of people in New Hampshire have a place in Manhattan. Well, I mean, like, let's just start there.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, let's start there. And much less saunter around in ball gowns in a Victorian backdrop. But be that as it may, those are all questions that she could have answered. Another one that came up, because if she. When she was rolling out her potential candidacy, she says here in graphic three, as a New Hampshire girl who grew up working class, I'm demanding more from our Democrats. I shared some details with NBC News. So clearly very public. She wants all this very public about why I'm considering running for Congress in my home state. So she's Definitely their messaging here at the beginning was expect more out of Democrats. Second tier is. And this is the kind of thing when you do this for a living, you look at, like, what are the sequence of messaging that you're trying to get, like, imprinted on. So what she's doing as a journalist who's good at this kind of thing is working class. Working class. Working class. Working class. Right. She's trying to earn that working some credibility bio, which, you know, may have been why the Vanity Fair style photo was deleted or not. I don't know. She could have answered it, but, I.

[Pat Harrigan]

Mean, it's another question I would have liked to have asked. You are working class. Is that why you decided to go to a working class publication like NBC News?

[Josh Holmes]

That would have been. That would have been a question worth asking. And then there was other things that showed up where there were folks who sent us Instagram stories that Hannah had shared with the world about her life and times that we don't know whether they're her Instagram. Like, there could be a fake Hannah Trudeau. There could be someone just sort of masquerading as a Hannah Trudeau who has the exact same biography as this particular Hannah Trudeau. But one of the things that caught our eye with the working class component in mind was Graphic four, where she's selling a Ferrari.

[Pat Harrigan]

Oh, interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

Unrelated vacation post. I'm interested in selling my Ferrari currently in Miami, having it shipped From Florida to D.C. later this month, and crowdsourcing best luxury buyers, collectors in the DMV area, if you know about the topic. Again, I don't know. I'm not a personal friend of Hannah Trudeau, so I can't vouch for the authenticity of all this. But it has a. It looks like it's her Instagram. It's been pulled here. It's just sort of a jarring deviation from the working class component. It begs the question, like, what is your definition of.

[Comfortably Smug]

I don't know, a lot of working class people in New Hampshire who are driving a Ferrari to the mill.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, is it worth it?

[John Ashbrook]

Unlike men, these people in journalism cry about their salaries and they're pushing Ferraris. Like, are you for real?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we had questions about.

[Pat Harrigan]

Right. Yet another subject we could have asked about. I'm sure she could have provided some clarification.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that the source of income for a journalist on the Hill? Is there other supplements that we don't know about that clearly voters. I mean, look, we're just a humble variety program.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah, no, the Hill is a very, well, capitalized publication and maybe so well capitalized that what they're doing is paying people enough to buy Ferraris, which may not be the case, but again, something she could have cleared up.

[Josh Holmes]

Something she could have cleared up. And again, if it's not her account, well, let's talk about that then, because someone's doing her dirty. She could have explained how this is all just a, you know, like a kind of a joy. Reid, maybe.

[Comfortably Smug]

Maybe some sort of time traveling hacker.

[Josh Holmes]

A time traveling hacker or, you know, whatnot. But again, we're open to any sort of explanation. We just wanted the people to be informed. So then there was more. And we were worried about, like, the finance piece of this because of the working class and the Ferrari and all of those things. And if they lead together and happen to be true, like, what else do you got going on here?

[Pat Harrigan]

Raises the question.

[Josh Holmes]

And Duncan, my understanding is that there was a website that popped up that had certain profiles associated with, again, with the same picture of Hannah Trudeau that, you know, may or may not be authentically Hannah Trudeau, although it had the same biography.

[Comfortably Smug]

Correct.

[Josh Holmes]

And so again, if this isn't her, she's being done dirty. Something she could have cleared up. What was the name of the website?

[Comfortably Smug]

So the name of this website is called luxy.com.

[Pat Harrigan]

Not familiar with that one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Luxy describes itself as the best elite and selective dating site in the world.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

Luxie pairs.

[Josh Holmes]

That's an interesting term in a dating site.

[Comfortably Smug]

Luxie pairs outstanding and sophisticated singles for our efforts and remarkable dating community. And I would note, you know, they say when you sign up, we tried to do some due diligence on all of this.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's important as a variety program to have the integrity of reporting.

[Comfortably Smug]

May I offer an aside here which is kind of comical?

[Josh Holmes]

Please.

[Comfortably Smug]

We have a cell phone here at the ruthless variety program. A work cell phone. We're all married men.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. You can't go signing up for.

[Comfortably Smug]

We're not going to sign up for Luxie.

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[Comfortably Smug]

The elite selective dating website on our regular cell phone. So we had to use the company phone.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

We made spaghetti do it. We made spaghetti do it.

[Pat Harrigan]

Hey, Michael. One of the bullets I wanted to.

[Comfortably Smug]

Peruse just so I could maybe do a little due diligence to find out more about this.

[Josh Holmes]

Just dig this thing to ground.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, the first thing they send you when you sign up on luxy.com is a message to your profile saying, this is not a website for sugar daddies and sugar babies.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing.

[Comfortably Smug]

Interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

It's interesting.

[Comfortably Smug]

Interesting. They feel they have to say that.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's also. Can I raise this?

[Pat Harrigan]

Can I raise this, guys? Because there's a bullet from the website that did catch my eye, and it's a data point. They say 60% of our members have a verified annual income of more than €200,000. I believe that's the symbol they use. 41% verified income, greater than 1 million euros. So this is not described in terms of American dollars. I don't know how many people in New Hampshire are.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that working class numbers? Just if you go back of the envelope, does that working class.

[John Ashbrook]

I think working class New Hampshire deal in euros?

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

When you go.

[Pat Harrigan]

When you go to Home Depot and you pull out your wallet, you're usually spending euros.

[Josh Holmes]

It's generally in euros. And also, you know, clearly seven figures or above in the euro. Euro contact is roughly a dollar match in many, many places, if not more.

[Pat Harrigan]

Better now, thanks to Trump.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. So, I mean, look, there's another thing that caught my eye when they say that we make sure only sophisticated, successful people of quality join our platform. So that, coupled with the advertising of what the income ratios are, gives you a pretty good indication of what this website is. Now, whether or not Ms. Trudeau added her profile to this or not is something she could clear up.

[Pat Harrigan]

Mm.

[Josh Holmes]

It's something that she could. She could say. But there is a graphic here in graphic 7. It is a very familiar one to some of you in, again, in a ball gown here on the actual website of Luxie, where she notes many things. Some of the things that I wanted to know about this Charm store.

[John Ashbrook]

Score.

[Comfortably Smug]

Score. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. This charm score, I think it's like a.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like or a Pokemon.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's a metric that reflects a user's personality and their interactions with others on the platform. It's designed to identify and promote the most engaging, appealing singles. So it's like a singles website.

[Pat Harrigan]

Okay, okay.

[Josh Holmes]

But this thing, you know, like, 419. I was just kind of browsing around. I was like. I mean, that seems like a. I saw a lot of, like, teens, like, like 15, 16, 17 on the charm score.

[Comfortably Smug]

The profile has a healthy charm score.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a healthy charm score. So if someone is doing hurt dirty, they're doing it with an awful lot of effort. Because it occurred to us in our brief interactions on this reputable site that it would take you a long time in many interactions to get a charm score, such as this one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Spaghetti. You didn't charm anyone on Luxy, did you?

[Josh Holmes]

Did you charm anybody?

[Comfortably Smug]

You didn't give him any charms.

[Josh Holmes]

No charm. I mean, you are quite charming. Do we put his face on it?

[Comfortably Smug]

No, we didn't put his face on it, but we did get an angry text message from his girlfriend.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh. She was upset.

[Comfortably Smug]

She was upset.

[Josh Holmes]

She didn't care for it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, we just had to do our due diligence.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you blame it on the fellas?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes. We're happy to take the blame.

[Josh Holmes]

We can take the heat. It's better you than me, pal. Better you than me. So. But she's got, again, a way of describing herself because, you know, you put your profile up and alleged, like, if this isn't her, this would be a question that we would ask. Like, did you say this? Hi, I'm Hannah. I work as a senior political correspondent, splitting my time between D.C. and the weekdays. New York and Miami for fun.

[Comfortably Smug]

No mention of New Hampshire.

[Josh Holmes]

It's interesting, right? Because if it's not her, that's an interesting place to run for Congress from in a place that you don't live or visit. I mean, we've got three locations in three different areas. One state and one or two states and one district, and none of them the Granite State.

[Pat Harrigan]

Excellent observation.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Have traveled a lot for career and play and crave more Big heart, workhorse over a show pony. Enjoy cooking, reading and history. An avid observer of people. Curious, active mind. So we had questions about all of that, and that was just something that, like, you know, you all, occasionally in your work bio, or, heaven forbid, you run for office, you have to describe who you are.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm sorry, putting workhorse over show pony in your bio is just funny. That's funny.

[Josh Holmes]

I just wanted to know what it means in the context of a dating site. And again, I don't know if this is. But this is a question she could have verified. But in the context of a dating site, what is a workhorse over a show?

[John Ashbrook]

It's an insane.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sorry, what does it mean? Like, I understand. If you're applying for a job, they're like, yeah, I'm not gonna go out and, like, talk a lot about my work. I just put my nose to the grindstone. I get it done. Like, that's what a workhorse means in the context of a dating site. What do we mean? What do we mean?

[Comfortably Smug]

It's just a lot.

[Pat Harrigan]

But perhaps, as you mentioned, it takes.

[Josh Holmes]

Several different connotations depending upon how she allegedly meant. Or if it's someone else.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right.

[Pat Harrigan]

Some. Maybe someone did her dirty Here Maybe.

[Josh Holmes]

Somebody did her dirty. But I. You know, these are the kind of questions that one would ask. And so then she. She changed her profile pic from the. The one that we had previously seen on Luxie. Okay, on Luxie or allegedly. Somebody did.

[Comfortably Smug]

Somebody did.

[Josh Holmes]

Which she could confirm, but she's chosen not to. In graphic nine, she's on a boat. And I'm. I'm noticing from the backdrop of the boat with the palm trees, it doesn't look a lot like New Hampshire.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

To me, guys.

[Pat Harrigan]

I don't remember.

[Comfortably Smug]

I noticed her charm. Score went up.

[Josh Holmes]

One up.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, one up.

[John Ashbrook]

420 on the dot.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, 420 on the dot. An interesting. An interesting thing. We don't know the crown and all of that. What that means.

[Pat Harrigan]

The other thing is, guys, if somebody is doing her dirty, they have access to an awful lot of photos.

[Josh Holmes]

Not only that, but there's. There's a bio internally that accurately describes what she does and things like that. So, I mean, this is really a ruinous villain.

[John Ashbrook]

And the other thing is that terrible person. Yeah, I'd want to know. The website says that they do, like, the background check on everyone who's applying. So was this clearly a verified profile?

[Josh Holmes]

That's one of the things that Luxy advertises, is that in order to be a part of it, like, you've got to verify who you are, what your income level is, and things like that. And so if, again, someone is doing her dirty, an alleged ruinous villain, they would have to have access to many aspects.

[Pat Harrigan]

They would have gone to great lengths.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I want to note something in that, is that you can sign up for Luxy like we forced Spaghetti to in an unverified profile.

[Pat Harrigan]

Point.

[Comfortably Smug]

But what Hannah, or allegedly, whoever this person is who created this account, it wasn't her. They have the black banner there on the profile.

[Pat Harrigan]

What does that mean?

[Comfortably Smug]

I think it's an additional, like, level of, like, verification, Some sort of verification or authenticity or something.

[Josh Holmes]

Sometimes websites, in order to get verified, they need a picture of your driver's license or who knows, something like that. I don't know if that's what Luxie does, but there's an addition.

[Comfortably Smug]

We didn't keep it on Spaghetti's work phone for long, you know, and that's.

[Josh Holmes]

On him, frankly, for not actually getting that level research. No, he needs.

[Comfortably Smug]

He has a girlfriend.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not like he was there to do anything other than trying to expose the truth for our valued listener. You know, we could have explained all that. Well, there's good News.

[John Ashbrook]

One thing I wanted to add. Can we get the graphic up that I just sent over your waywolf? This was also posted to this Luxie profile about my match. What this individual wrote, what they're looking for. Whip smart, self made and compassionate with a roaring sense of humor. Kind cares deeply about others and wants to create a lasting imprint. Appreciates the driven type. A woman, a provider, revels in the absurdity of life. Well read. Loving, devoted partner, chivalrous, wants to adore his girl.

[Josh Holmes]

It's interesting, all of this seems like a very like thoughtful thing. Provider is an interesting connotation.

[Pat Harrigan]

It is.

[Josh Holmes]

And if she were to write that, I'd be interested to know exactly what that means because remember we started this thing trying to verify the, that this is in fact her. And then we saw like what was an alleged Ferrari post.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And knowing what your average journalists make on Capitol Hill.

[Pat Harrigan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And then you add the provider piece to it.

[John Ashbrook]

Like there's questions and that Luxie will send you a message. This is not a sugar daddy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right. How does a working class Granite Stater who works in D.C. have a Ferrari to sell in Miami?

[Pat Harrigan]

Oh, you're saying, you're saying provider. Maybe an invitation of sorts.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know, it could be. But again, these are the kind of questions that you could clear up in a short amount of time here on the ruthless variety program with a very open minded audience. The good news is, fellas, she met the love of her life on this. If we go to graphic 10, we've blurred out because we're courteous what the who the love of her life is. But there's a gentleman there who she has apparently fallen in love with and put this was on her Instagram.

[Pat Harrigan]

Could have met anywhere.

[Josh Holmes]

Could have met anywhere. But there's some suggestion maybe New Hampshire.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, I don't think Home Depot, again with the palm trees. I don't think those palm trees are indigenous to New Hampshire.

[John Ashbrook]

It's the Home Depot garden center where they've got palm trees and everyone just parks their Ferraris and they let you pay in Euros.

[Josh Holmes]

Manchester. Is that right? I think that's, I think that's right. The Home Depot Manchester. She had a little bit more in graphic 11 an ABC kitchen date. Okay, again, listen, maybe ABC Kitchen decided.

[John Ashbrook]

To open a location outside of Manhattan in New Hampshire. It's, you know, working class people might want to just go to ABC Kitchen in New Hampshire.

[Pat Harrigan]

This is like a quick service type place.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, like, like an Applebee's, but where you wear a ball Gown.

[John Ashbrook]

They got Ferrari valet.

[Josh Holmes]

A Ferrari valet. Applebee's with a ball. Because that's, I mean, look, in Manchester.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's very high minded, I would point out. It just has to be said. This man looks a lot older than her. Let's just say that.

[Josh Holmes]

But, but again, if you go back to, you know, I think Lexi DMed.

[John Ashbrook]

Or sent a message saying this is not a show.

[Pat Harrigan]

You never know.

[Josh Holmes]

Michael. They said it's definitively not a sugar daddy website.

[Comfortably Smug]

And look, I'm not here to shame anyone about an age gap in their relationship.

[Josh Holmes]

No, but they said it.

[Comfortably Smug]

But in looking at the sequence of events here of a Granite State working class person who has a job in D.C. but a photo shoot in Manhattan.

[Josh Holmes]

Sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

And also spends her time in Miami and has a Ferrari to sell and is dating a man that it would appear in these photos. We blurred out his face, but appears.

[Michael Duncan]

Much older than that.

[Josh Holmes]

In the interest of integrity to our audience. I'm just saying, tell you before Blur, this was a gentleman who appeared many decades.

[Pat Harrigan]

But let me just stop you before you embarrass yourself. We began this program with a cavalcaded journalist warning us about cheap fakes.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's exactly right.

[Pat Harrigan]

And you never know what you're looking at. And therefore maybe he's younger than he appears and we're just being duped. Could be the case.

[Josh Holmes]

It could, could be AI but going back to our original setup of questions about trying to authenticate this stuff, if there is this ruinous villain as we've described, this person who has taken it upon themselves to create all of these various fake accounts in her name with her bio and all these things, they've also gone to great lengths to try to chronology out a lifestyle. In many ways just a life. Right. So it's like the ups and downs, you can follow along on a daily basis. And one of those things was a trouble in paradise. Graphic 12. Okay, well, she's happy to report on the, on the Instagram. Again, could be the ruinous villain, could be Hannah Trudeau. Questions that we could ask her that she could provide an answer to, that she's happy to report. We've worked everything out indicating that at some point her and the gentleman that she may or may not have met on Loxy.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah. Now could we put that back up? I just want to draw special attention to the emojis because you have a heart, a cat, and then a tree that is native to Manchester, New Hampshire. And what I'm wondering, it's the palm tree state. Yeah. Was this where she. Where somebody tried to allege that she was working out the campaign strategy, you know, for New Hampshire.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe like a, you know, when they have those breakout sessions and such, like.

[Pat Harrigan]

A campaign summit, diving into the crosstabs.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And that's where the palm tree.

[Comfortably Smug]

Look, I don't care if you're a Democrat who pretends to be a journalist or you have a Ferrari to sell or you're gonna date a guy who's decades older than you on some dating website. What I care about is that then you run for Congress and pretend to be some working class. Granite State is putting on a lot of hours in the mill. Like, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe she's been duped. Maybe this is all cheap fakes and fake accounts and all this sort of stuff, but maybe show up here and we could have had that discussion.

[John Ashbrook]

That's it.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, and here's the thing. You don't fuck with the Ruthless Variety Program. You can come at us. We are very, I think, thoughtful individuals who allow you to come to discuss whatever it is that you'd like. Discuss. We have a very open and candid conversation. We're not lacking in confidence about our ability to do our jobs and we suggest that, like, you come do yours. So when you engage us and say, hey, I want to come on this.

[Pat Harrigan]

Show, would love to do it, and.

[Josh Holmes]

Then you try to ghost it. Well, this is the sort of thing that happens. You can ask Caitlyn Jenner about that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Come correct.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. If you're going to try to book yourself on this show and then you ghost and you pretend like none of this was ever going to happen. Well, this is the result. And so I'm sorry that we didn't have the opportunity to actually have a further discussion about this. Maybe some clarification is in order. Again, we are asking questions. This is. We're not diving out an oppo, by the way. We got a lot more. We got a lot more. But what we've done here is just to provide an open invitation is with some questions that I think us and ultimately the good people of New Hampshire, if she chooses to run, will want an answer to. Right. Simple as that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Simple as that.

[Josh Holmes]

Simple as that. A thoughtful presentation from the Ruthless Variety Program. Now let's have some more fun.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

And there's more. And there's more.

[Josh Holmes]

It is time for a game. It is time for a game. Our feature presentation here on the Ruthless Variety program is a game called King of the Hill where we Take people who formerly were associating themselves with the Republican Party, tried to be conservatives and then in the era of Trump, completely turned themselves around. The reason we chose them is that there's no more psychotic person on the face of the planet than somebody who tries to re engineer their ideology based on the inhabitant of the White House.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And you see it on a daily basis.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's the zeal of the convert. It's the zeal of the convert. It's what I love the most about this, this game. And so Ashbrook, I believe is our defending champion.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Pat Harrigan]

Bill Crystal.

[Comfortably Smug]

You have Bill Crystal. And now Smug is the challenger. Smug, who are you bringing to the table?

[John Ashbrook]

Sherry Jacobus.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you brought her back.

[Comfortably Smug]

Sherry. My Sherry is back in the game. I am Judge Holmes's bailiff.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Let's go ringside.

[Pat Harrigan]

Ladies and gentlemen, you're attending, please. It's time for King of the Hill. In the red corner, fighting from her own Twitter account, Jerry My Cherry Jacobas. And now in the blue corner, fighting straight from Pierre Omadia's checkbook and current champion of the world, Bill War now. War forever. Crystal.

[Josh Holmes]

It's good every time.

[Comfortably Smug]

Every time.

[Josh Holmes]

It's good every time. Well, as the bailiff of this court, I'll instruct the two litigants that we always start with a champion. And for that, John Ashbrook, you have the floor.

[Pat Harrigan]

Well, my, my dear friend, I will pull up the exhibits.

[Comfortably Smug]

Bailiff, can I get a counsel?

[Josh Holmes]

Is counsel not prepared?

[Comfortably Smug]

Ill prepared for my court.

[Josh Holmes]

Is he not prepared?

[Pat Harrigan]

It reflects number 11. Please. Spaghetti. Do not.

[Josh Holmes]

We have a tight docket.

[Pat Harrigan]

Disregard. How many Republicans have spoken out against Trump's threat to habeas corpus? How many Republicans have spoken out against Trump's gift from Qatar? How many Republicans and Republican adjacent elites put the Constitution above Trump? The answer vanishingly close to zero. That's Bill Crystal. 8:10pm on mail.

[Josh Holmes]

The whole, the whole like structure, the run up.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Is like just a full like defamation of the actual stories.

[Pat Harrigan]

Once published a conservative weekly magazine.

[Comfortably Smug]

Smug. What do you have?

[John Ashbrook]

My question is, do I want to win this in two rounds? I'm starting out. I think I'm going to do it.

[Josh Holmes]

A bit of a Babe Ruth.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm just going to do it in two rounds. This is for all the listeners. You deserve such a wonderful show.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

Exhibit one, please. Baguettes. This is from Sherry Jacobus. Sherry writes discussing the Biden Journal cover up situation. Can't rule out the possibility that Trump Putin had Biden poisoned. Putin has a long history of this. And Megyn Kelly strongly suspected Trump had her poisoned before she hosted a debate with Trump way. Which is just not true. But.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, Oh, I can't judge this. This isn't a fair fight. This wouldn't be sanctioned. Round one to smug.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that is an illegal bat to the.

[Comfortably Smug]

Poisoned.

[Josh Holmes]

Poisoned.

[Comfortably Smug]

She's been poisoned.

[Josh Holmes]

And then airdropping Putin into it, too. Oh, it's just amazing.

[Comfortably Smug]

She can't help herself.

[John Ashbrook]

So to seal this, I don't know if I want to win this just like on a normal nuke or one that's just like Tailor made to Duncan.

[Josh Holmes]

Why don't you give us.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm Tailor made it. It's 13, please. I want to apologize to everyone for how offensive this is going to be. So on Mother's Day, Sherry Jacobus posted a photo of Ivana Trump's grave.

[Josh Holmes]

No, no.

[John Ashbrook]

Happy Mother's Day from the Trumps. But it gets even worse.

[Josh Holmes]

No, no.

[John Ashbrook]

You have perhaps the worst misuse of the Internet where she puts it up on a computer screen and takes a photo. Photo of it. No, to send out. But it's like, at an angle.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's skewed.

[Josh Holmes]

No, she actually photographed her computer.

[Comfortably Smug]

She took a picture of a meme.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the way that she actually. So she didn't, like, screenshot it. She took. Holy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, so that's on a monitor. And then she took a picture of it on her phone, and that's why it's at an angle.

[Josh Holmes]

Can the bailiff ask for clarification? Now, to me, I'm not familiar with Ivana Trump's gravesite, God rest her soul. I mean, the mother of Donald Trump's children, obviously, a really deal. I'm not totally familiar with what the site looks like that to me. I'm not sure why else you would put it on there.

[Comfortably Smug]

Sure. I mean, that's it. That's all of it.

[John Ashbrook]

And the discussion and the replies to the tweet were all about that. Oh, and she was proud of it.

[Josh Holmes]

I am shocked.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, John.

[Pat Harrigan]

Okay. Exhibit seven, please. Spaghetti. Bill Kristol on immigration, the former conservative magazine publisher writes. And if I may address all the Democratic consultants who will be admonishing me to cool it on immigration, who will be telling me that it's not a, quote, kitchen table issue in that it, quote, plays into Trump's hands and all that crap. What Trump is doing is un American. Fight him on it.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know what I love about this is somehow the conservative commentator Bill Christie, as you pointed out, published a weekly magazine in conservative Thought has somehow gotten to the left of the Democratic Party on immigration. On immigration. He's gotten to the left.

[Josh Holmes]

No, the Democrat. Democrat consultants. These people sold these soulless, bloodless.

[Pat Harrigan]

They're crying. They're crying uncle.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, anarchists are like, please don't bring that shit.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

They don't. They don't have the courage to fight as hard as Bill Kristal.

[Pat Harrigan]

He's like, no, double down. Open the border.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, that's wild. In any normal circumstance, that would be a round winner. But it's not going to win against. Happy Mother's Day from the Trumps at a grave that's never going. Just not.

[Josh Holmes]

There's just nothing that can beat that. That is amongst the highest of nuclear weapons that have ever been deploy.

[Pat Harrigan]

It's a very fair decision, I must say. Smug. It sounded like you had another take. I would just.

[John Ashbrook]

I want to throw it out there.

[Comfortably Smug]

Throw it out there.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, this is just a bonus for you, the listeners.

[John Ashbrook]

A bonus for the listeners because we love you so much. Can I get Exhibit 6 up there? Sherry Jacobus, the new American Pope, was chosen to counter the evil of Trump, argues Cliff Schecheckter, who gives a cogent historical perspective. That makes a lot of sense. This is the reason to what amounts to an American quote. Antichrist.

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[John Ashbrook]

In Trump.

[Josh Holmes]

Antichrist.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. So that's. That's the theory that Sherry had.

[Josh Holmes]

Antichrist. Well, you don't want it with either one of them.

[Michael Duncan]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

But what you played goes in the annals. Annals.

[John Ashbrook]

It was my gift to Judge Duncan. He loves the misuse of the Internet.

[Comfortably Smug]

I love it.

[John Ashbrook]

That's just like, oh, my God.

[Comfortably Smug]

A photo of a computer monitor is right up my alley.

[Josh Holmes]

My goodness. My goodness. All right, we've got a real treatment for you here. We have Congressman Pat Harrigan. Trust me when I say you're going to want to stick around. You're going to want to listen to what this guy has to say. Well, it isn't every day that you have a genuine war hero here at the Ruthless Variety Program. What we do today happens to be a congressman. He's got a lot of great stuff. Real rising star from what I hear.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Pat Harrigan. How are you, sir?

[Michael Duncan]

And you've got it all wrong. Definitely not a war hero. That was my guys. And rising star. Certainly not. But it's great to be here with you guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you have people with differing opinions that we have solicited information about you. And listen, let's start a little bit about your background. Not everybody. You're relatively New to the scene here.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And not everybody knows your background. Green Beret. Tell us a little bit about your sort of life and times that led you to what is now kind of a lifetime of service.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I grew up split in time between San Diego and a really small town in western Wyoming. So spent school and sports. It was all in San Diego. And then all summer month in the winter was up in Wyoming and kind of got the best of both worlds. Growing up, big city, watched Reagan country descend into a liberal cesspool and got like my values and character out of Wyoming. Right. And didn't. You know, my mom was Catholic, dad was Protestant, didn't really grow up with really. They kind of decided on nothing. They're from that generation that those two didn't get along. Right, right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And I found Christ when I was 17, Billy Graham crusade actually watched on television.

[Josh Holmes]

Really?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes. And that's one of those kids, young.

[Josh Holmes]

Age, you're like, wow, he actually has it put together. How does this work?

[Michael Duncan]

And was just up doing a northeast college tour with my folks and felt compelled. We were close to West Point. I was like, let's, let's go check out West Point. And drove through this.

[Josh Holmes]

Was there a family history? Military?

[Michael Duncan]

No, just my Grandpa. World War II.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. So he was D Day. Battle of the Bulge.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You got to grow up listening to those stories. Right. And he had. Later in life, he had Alzheimer's. And you know, I just. It was always really hit home with me when he could never remember what he had for breakfast. But, man, he could remember June 6th, 1944.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Michael Duncan]

Play by play. Absolutely incredible. And so that had such an impact on his life, and I never forgot that. But I just. Driving through the gates of West Point, I felt compelled that that's where I needed to be.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, look, we've had a lot of West Point folks on here. They tell a similar story. Not everybody goes through the process. You did and were involved in everything you wore as Green Beret deployed. I mean, you saw some stuff. I. I imagine that tells you a lot about life, leadership, all the sort of characteristics that you're trying to bring into Washington, your decision making and everything else.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, people hit on West Point because it's a free education. You learn real quick as soon as that first bullet snaps right past your head. It is not free.

[Josh Holmes]

That is not free.

[Michael Duncan]

It comes at a cost and a very significant can cost. And it goes downhill from there, honestly. But yes, I learned at a very Young age. I was 23 years old, got deployed to Afghanistan, took my infantry platoon at the time. Because in the army you can't go directly into Special Forces like you can if you're in the Navy. You can go directly into the Navy Seals. Right. You can't do that in the Army. They require you have 4 years of experience as an officer. So I was in the infantry first, but had a very special forces mission. Had a small air access only combat outpost north of Kandahar in the Arghandab Valley. Wow. So I was 23 years old, had over 300 guys underneath me, had my 40Americans, and then was directly partnered on the base with all the Afghans. And my closest boss was 75 miles away from me. So it was really a very unique, dynamic environment. It was very kinetic because of the area that we were in was not a good area. And boy, it grows you up really quickly.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, it's a big leap five years before you're in high school.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right. No, that's exactly right. And now you're responsible for everybody lives and you know, broader picture, the strategic mission set that you've been given, you're playing into, you're playing a small part of. But as we all know, with where media is and how things move on the battlefield, even the smallest, youngest, most junior level person can have strategic impacts. And so, yeah, it grows you up real quick.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Managed to figure out how to take care of your full team as best you can. I mean, tell us a little bit about the experience because, you know, look, everybody's got a little different version of their experience when they're deployed, but it seems like you've sort of taken pieces of all those various experiences and kind of like internalized them to your life and the way that you've pursued your post service career career.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah. I definitely had no interest in going into politics, mainly just from seeing the confluence of what politics does to military operations on the battlefield.

[Josh Holmes]

You didn't grow up with anybody that was particularly political or anything?

[Michael Duncan]

No, this was just like not at all, honestly. My mom was a Republican, my dad was a Democrat.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So I kind of saw both sides, but both, I would say were like fairly moderate. My mom may be a little bit more extreme.

[Josh Holmes]

Was she the Wyoming sector of that Opposite. Oh, really? Opposite? Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no, my mom, a corn fed Illinois girl. Got it. Yeah. But it's something that ultimately I didn't get interested in until the fall of Afghanistan.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

And I knew that with the fall.

[Josh Holmes]

Of Afghanistan, so Many people, so many of your colleagues tell us the same story.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's not just about that it happened. It's not really about what it meant from a service perspective or a sacrifice perspective. What really, genuinely frustrated me about it is I believe that condemned the world to conflict. And, you know, when. When America fails to lead, the world burns. It is really that simple. And we just loosed the chains of darkness all around the world. And look what's happened in the last four years. It happened. Yeah, 100%. World's absolutely on fire. President Trump's doing everything he possibly can to try to turn the temperature down, but, man, what a lift.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's a huge lift. You see that from a ground level. I imagine you have certain unique appreciation and actual emotions associated with everything you'd been through, the people you'd seen lost on behalf of a mission that all of a sudden was sort of given away at the end.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that your experience? Is that kind of. Is that one of the feelings that you had?

[Michael Duncan]

Without a doubt. I mean, I didn't sleep for three days. My wife will tell you, like, I was an absolute wreck. I just could not comprehend. And this is part of it, too, right? Like, looking a leader is responsible for everything the organization does or fails to do. That's a. That's a military truth. That is also a political truth. Right. So when you look at the chief executive of our country and the leadership that we have, you got to understand he came into politics on the back end of Vietnam. Right. He wasn't responsible for Vietnam, but he watched what happened as we descended into the failure in Vietnam in the fall and 50 years later, learned nothing throughout his entire time up here in Washington, D.C. and allowed the exact same thing to happen in Afghanistan. I couldn't believe it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I'm curious. With guys like you who are obviously very accomplished, smart, you've got, you know, all the military background and incredible experiences during that. Is there a moment that you can think of while you're deployed, whether it's in combat or anything else, where you think to yourself, man, if I get out of this, I'm definitely going to dedicate myself to figuring out how to make sure that we improve xyz, that we take a different look at xyz, because everybody's kind of got a different story that leads them to a public service political career with no political background whatsoever. And a lot of your colleagues who've had not the same, but similar experiences in combat and everything else, there was kind of a moment or something that they thought, well, all right, I'm gonna have to really dig deep because if I get out of this one, I'm gonna give back something and it's gonna change this.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it's actually when I decided to effectively end my career and I've not, I've not talked about this publicly. It's not something that I ran on in any way, shape or form. But now that I'm here, it's kind of like, okay, well, let's learn from all this. Right. Back in 2015, my special forces team, we were stationed at Bagram and we lost Kunduz province, Afghanistan. It was actually the first time that we had lost a province in Afghanistan since we took it over in 2001. And we got sent up there to put out the fire, to take it back. Right. This was a huge embarrassment for the Obama administration. The agency did not understand that this was happening or about to happen. Caught everybody totally flat footed. And they sent 24 special operators to go clear a 300,000 person city. And we did it and we did it and it ended.

[Josh Holmes]

That had to have been a harrowing. Just as you're going in, you're really.

[Michael Duncan]

It was four days of my life that I relive every single day.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my gosh.

[Michael Duncan]

And I'll tell you, couldn't be more proud of my guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

My team, what they did, against all odds.

[Josh Holmes]

And you gotta trust beyond trust at that point, if you're dealing with 24 guys.

[Michael Duncan]

100%.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And it was, you know, something that ultimately ended with the strike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital compound in Kunduz, Afghanistan. And that's what everybody remembers from that. They don't talk about the four straight days of fighting that happened before. They don't run. They don't talk about running out of ammo twice. They don't talk about, you know, the, the work that had to be done in order to accomplish the mission. And you know, they tried to really. And they investigated my commander for war crimes.

[Josh Holmes]

Geez.

[Michael Duncan]

And so I saw the influence of politics, right. These politicians came in and said, guys, we need you to fix this. This is a national emergency. And they didn't give any input throughout the entire operation. And I asked for it every single day. I said, this is so hot. We're going to run headlong into national strategy here.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I need an answer on what our rules of engagement are because the existing ones don't work.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you're the teeth of the enemy. They're not going to ask for your paperwork.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And they were quiet for four straight days. And so what, they did let you take the liability intentionally didn't make a decision so they could come pin a bunch of medals on our chests, or, you know, as I said in some sworn statements that ended up getting published, they could sidestep the bailiff as the gavel dropped on the judge's bench. And that sucks. That absolutely sucked. There was no support in the background in the back end. I hated the Obama administration for it. It's the reason that I left the military. And I actually said, I'm not doing politics ever.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I want nothing to do with it. I mean, I had a business stand on the side.

[Josh Holmes]

That would be your initial reaction to all of it. Give me as far away from this shit as possible.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes. And so to come back to your original question, you know, was there that one moment that said, I need to go change this for the rest of my life? I will say that moment took me the opposite direction and made me go leave the military and, like, find a hole and just work on my business, work on my family, and, you know, basically just push the government off as far as I possibly could away from my life.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And because it probably reminded you of the worst four days you ever had.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Government in and of itself.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes. And that all stopped the day Afghanistan fell. And I came completely right back into it the other way because I just realized, realize, like, I got two little girls at this point. Their names are Reagan and McKinley. Really solid Republican, really thoughtful names. Everybody out there, too. Our dog is named Truman. So we name our dogs after Democrats, kids after Republicans. It's kind of a fun thing. My wife and I have fantastic little conservative bonafides there. Right. Innately. And this will happen. Look at the dogs. Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. That's great.

[Michael Duncan]

But, you know, we just realized, like, look, my wife and I stared at each other. We're like, our kids are not gonna have the same opportunities in their lives that we had in ours if we actually don't go do something about this and get these failed leaders who have led us down the road to failed outcomes in this country and across the world out of Washington, D.C. gotta get them gone, man.

[Pat Harrigan]

I'm really glad you decided to do it, because the perspective that you have is something that is not, like, shared by the establishment in Washington, D.C. and until people like you step in and show leadership and actually change the shape of Washington D.C. nothing's ever going to change. And so, like, very grateful that you decided to do it. You talked about the global reaction to the fall of Afghanistan. I mean, obviously your personal reaction, but you know that our international adversaries are trying to take advantage of us, sometimes in very apparent ways, sometimes in behind the scenes ways that nobody really notices until somebody like you raises the flag. And one of the things that I understand you're working on is this issue where a Chinese umbrella company is actually taking a big stake in gnc where, you know, it's a place that everybody is getting their supplements and getting.

[Josh Holmes]

This was all news until you sort of brought it up.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

To us, like we didn't. We all grew up with GNC and every.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. It was an American company.

[Josh Holmes]

America. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

It was an American company.

[Pat Harrigan]

Yeah. And nobody, nobody knew that all these GNC locations on military bases were controlled by the Chinese and they are also accessing the data and collecting it for their own use.

[Michael Duncan]

Well. Or have the ability to. Right. And that's the concern that we have and that's what we wanted to investigate because at the end of the day, you got to understand GNC was a wholly owned American company until 2018. They sold a 40% stake to a firm called Harbin Pharmaceutical, are wholly owned by the Chinese Communist Party. And then GNC actually went bankrupt in 2020 and Harbin bought the remaining 60% out of the bankruptcy process, so took total control, 100% ownership of GNC. And that's how you know GNC operates all over the country. Right. But it operates 83 locations on our military installations across the country. But that's how you had a wholly owned American company become a company wholly owned by the Chinese Communist Party operate 83 different retail.

[Josh Holmes]

Inside the bases.

[Michael Duncan]

Inside the bases. Right. So everybody up here in D.C. i think we all know, has been very concerned with trying to figure out how do we curtail the influence of China and other adversarial nations from buying land around our military bases while simultaneously everybody is focused on that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's so funny.

[Michael Duncan]

We're missing. They're on the base, they're actually on the base. And we got to stop that first, obviously.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean it's wild. It's kind of next iteration of taking care of your guys. I mean, you come into contact with this, you understand that this has happened. Like, tell us where this is leading. Like I know you're investigating all this.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Look, I think you got to look at the bigger picture strategically. Right. We've been, we've never been as weak as we are right now for such a long period of time, since long before World War II, and so the world is changing. Our adversaries know that they can fight us because we've been so weak for so long. I like to say, look, if you want to fight, be weak. We've been weak for a long, long time.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And basically broadcasting that we're weak 1, 100%. And we've got to understand that our adversaries are taking advantage of this, particularly China. China is the most capable and significant adversary that we have ever had in this nation's history and far surpasses any of the capabilities that we've saw in World War I, World War II. With our adversaries and their ability, their desire to have a pernicious impact on every single piece of our societal fabric cannot be understated. And when you look at how many trillions of dollars worth of intellectual property they have stolen from this country, and whether it's from our universities, our research universities, there's a difference there whether it's from our national laboratories, whether it's just, you know, commercial theft, industry theft. Right. Or it's direct military theft. Right. From hacking or other types of theft. I mean, we've got to understand this is trillions upon trillions upon trillions of dollars. And they are then using it to copy our technologies and use it against us. That doesn't work. And so we have to isolate our greatest adversary. Meanwhile, understanding that we're in a paradigm of we're trading with them, we're going to continue trading them with them. I mean, we basically did full and open trade with Nazi Germany until 1943, a couple years after the war started. Right. People don't realize that. That we can have a positive relationship while having a very negative relationship with an adversary in real time. And that's where we are with China. I'm just trying to get people to understand that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Because it's complex.

[Michael Duncan]

It's extremely.

[Josh Holmes]

Everybody. Everybody acts like a parallel economy is just sort of the goal. It can't be. No, it's not realistic.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

What is realistic is understanding what it is they're trying to do in the broad scheme of things.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

And then taking action domestically to ensure that you're protecting yourself.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. And in combination with that. Right. Like, we don't want to fight wars. We don't need to be fighting. So the best way to win this future conflict is to actually not fight it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

It's to properly deter it. And the way you do that is through strength. And we have to understand, like, I'm trying to set and educate my colleagues here in Congress that we need to set the conditions for us to properly deter that conflict. That doesn't happen unless we start winning. The economics of conflict. If you look back all the way to World War II, right. We're super proud of our military, everything that we stand for. We have great pride in all of these incredible technologically advanced assets that we have. We also have to step back and realize we have not won a conflict since World War II, except for desert Storm. And we have to ask the question why that conflict fit into this tiny little box that the enemy situation perfectly fit the type of military that we have decided to build and the industrial base that we've decided to invest in. But outside of that perfect little box, we have to realize we've become incredibly good at producing the high cost problems to our enemy's low cost solutions. And we're losing the economics of the war. So if it goes beyond a two week period of time, we're fundamentally going to lose because we're going to be underwater on the economics and our adversaries can endure us.

[John Ashbrook]

That's, to me, that's one of the most critical things. Like the story you told earlier of your context of provides so much context of initially had such disdain for politics, given your experience, but now we're so fortunate that we're having, you know, young folks like yourself who served in these conflicts who've seen what it's like now being able to offer input in this process. Because I mean, recently in the news we have like Boeing is billions over budget, way late on delivering Air Force One. But that is like a problem you've tried, you're tackling when it comes to spending in the military like you just described, like spending thousands of dollars to shoot down a $10 drone from China. Just bankruptcy.

[Michael Duncan]

The U.S. that's right.

[John Ashbrook]

In two weeks, if we got into a hot war with China, we'd be out of missiles before they're out of weaponry.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, we got stuff that does a lot of cool things, but when it's unnecessary for the problem that we face. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's my point in Ukraine, right. Like this town in our media likes to cast a narrative that people either want to be totally isolationist, they want to come up with a new version of the Monroe Doctrine and completely pull back from world affairs, or you have a moral obligation to support Ukraine and their defense against Russian aggression and we should continue to write them a blank check. Right. Those are kind of your two options that people put you in.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And my point is both of those are completely irrelevant if we're shooting million dollar missiles at $50,000 drones. Because the incredible financial takedown that Ronald Reagan orchestrated against the Soviet Union is actively being orchestrated against us by a combination of Putin and Xi. And we don't have even realize we're the frog that's getting boiled.

[John Ashbrook]

That is so true.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I ask you just because first of all, what you just said made total sense. People like you have one of two reactions when they get here and they start having these conversations. They realize that one, there's an under education problem amongst their colleagues and either frustrates them beyond belief and gets into a point where they're like, well, I mean, what am I, I doing here? Like this is, I'm just yelling at the moon basically. Or it sort of excites them about the opportunity to actually be able to have real change. It seems like you fit into that latter category where you're just not going to stop talking about these things until you get everybody understanding basically what your experience and your view of this is and how it can be more practically executed.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I'm not going to stop until we win.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. Like I'm taking this time away from my family and I've got a picture on my phone, it's got my wife and my two girls.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And I look at it every day and I say, is what I'm doing worth being away from those three girls?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And to the extent that the answer is still yes, I'll continue to be here moving towards what we need to actually accomplish to set the conditions for the next generation of Americans to be successful and for the free world to be able to exist. And, and we are very far from that right now. But I'm so hopeful because we have all the right ingredients to be successful if we actually just do a little bit of critical thinking.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. That was kind of my last question. Is your level of optimism? Because I do. I mean, look, we all believe still the greatest nation on earth and it's not even close, still have the capability of outperforming the rest of the world in every cylinder that we're talking about economically, militarily and everything else. It's just a matter of sort of reorganizing and getting to a point where we're fighting today's battle.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Rather than 60, 70 years ago.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

You still have optimism. We can get there in our lifetimes.

[Michael Duncan]

I have incredible optimism. And, and look, I think what's at stake is how much pain we're going to go through on the arc of getting to where we're destined to be.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, a lot of. A lot of battles on that.

[Michael Duncan]

There's a lot of battles there. And. And we can either have a little bit of pain because we get smart and we start making the decisions which President Trump is trying to do around the world, or we can really make it painful on ourselves by continue to doing. By continuing to do the things that we've always done, the way that we've always done them.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I ask. This is a current. I mean, just happened yesterday in regards to Syria, and I know you've had some experience there. President Trump in Saudi Arabia talking about taking sanctions off Syria, hoping that they will become part of this larger effort for good, where you've got common purpose in a region against players like Iran funding Hezbollah and Hamas. Do you think that's possible? Do you think that's the right move here? Clearly, it was well regarded in the Arab community and a sign, a gesture of goodwill, if you will, sort of repairing the damage the Biden administration did, picking up where we left off with the Abraham Accords and moving to this, you know, hopefully, larger picture with peace and prosperity and sort of a shared purpose. Like, is that the right path from your perspective?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes, I think President Trump made the right decision. And I think, like Ronald Reagan said, we gotta trust but verify.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And we can't be the world's police.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

We cannot be everywhere losing our treasure to things and trying to accomplish objectives that are fundamentally not a choice achievable.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

If we actually sit back and think about them.

[Josh Holmes]

Because I kind of imagine, I mean, for a guy like you actually have boots in the ground in this situation, I mean, you gotta. There's a whole bunch of.

[Michael Duncan]

So I've never been to Syria, but my guys have. Yeah. Yeah. And. And certainly everybody that, you know, was involved in my former employer. Yes. Those guys been rooting around there for a long time. I stay in contact with them. But, yeah, we have a fresh opportunity.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And. And I think that we have to allow another leash for good things to potentially happen, for the. The flowers to bloom a little bit. But we've got to keep an eye on it.

[Pat Harrigan]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

Because. And look, this is across the Middle east, like, our biggest concern, our biggest strategic objective there is to make sure that whoever's in power, whatever people are running around there, they are not training and exporting terrorism that will ultimately affect us on our shores.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That's our focus. And as long as we can set the conditions for that to happen, our strategic Objectives are met.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Makes so much sense.

[Josh Holmes]

It really does. Incidentally, how much do your guys give you? You're like a congressman. No, I can only imagine. I can only imagine what the. What the text chain looks like.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like I know what my buddies in. In high school would be like. Do I look at Mr. Big Time Ties and suits?

[Michael Duncan]

More. More than I'd like to admit. And I have not yet given them a fantastic opportunity to make a mistake where they can really highlight it and make fun of it, where I've made a significant, like falling asleep in committee or something like that. Like, I haven't done that yet. I'm gonna try to keep my nose clean. I'm working hard to do that.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's almost why you're doing it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Now, if I didn't have as good of a team as I have, I think I probably would have already made those mistakes.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it's true. It's like you always think we've talked about this, being involved in politics and whatnot, the high profile mistakes and things. You're like, I don't. My buddies can't see that. I can't have them bust my balls up.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right. That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

That's great. Well, listen, you are a terrific member of Congress. I'm so happy that you've decided to do this. Can I do three quick personal questions for you?

[Michael Duncan]

Go for it.

[Josh Holmes]

These are just like, off the cuff.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Last meal on earth. If you could plan it, what would it be?

[Michael Duncan]

Quesadilla.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it? Yeah, Just straight up quesadilla.

[Michael Duncan]

Straight answer, super simple. Just cheese it off. Tortilla.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. This guy's Green Beret through and through. It's unbelievable. He's like, I don't know, maybe a piece of gum afterwards. Who knows?

[Pat Harrigan]

Let's get weird.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so with the benefit of retrospect, now that you've, you know, you've lived this incredible life of service and you're now a congressman and all this. If you go. Go back in time with the benefit of all of that and choose a different path, like, what. What would you. What would you choose? I mean, if there was like, Ted Cruz, for example.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

He tells us he wants to be an NBA power forward. That is not an achievable goal, nor was it ever an achievable goal for Ted Cruz. But that was his answer. So it doesn't have to be practical. Like, if you could be one thing, what would it be?

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly what I did.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

No, Kidding. Like when I, when I, when I found my faith, you stop living for you and you start living for a much higher purpose. And anything after that, like I, that, that one mission that we talked about. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I've had several of those across my time in service and I shouldn't be here. And every day that I've gotten since then is a total bonus. I mean, my kids, my companies, the people that I've gotten to meet and work with, the folks that I work with today, honestly, I mean, everybody knows staffers are super young. Like I call them young kids, even though I'm pretty young too. I'm 37. But just the ability to have an impact on them and watch them grow and watch them start making really great decisions in their lives, let alone functional ones that, that, you know, help the office. It's all just gravy. It's totally gravy.

[Josh Holmes]

That's really well said. All right, so our last question, it's a little esoteric, so you got to bear with me for a minute. Our view is that every successful person on the planet is driven by one of two things. And this is not a political answer. You just kind of got to like, there is no right. It's a 50, 50 split.

[Michael Duncan]

Sure.

[Josh Holmes]

It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of victory defeat. And it doesn't mean that the agony defeat people are all focused on the negative side of thing and the, the thrill of.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, like the Michael Jordan.

[Josh Holmes]

Michael Jordan is the prototypical agony of defeat. Yeah, right. I mean, he like, maybe the most successful professional sports athlete of all time, but every day he found a reason to find somebody who slighted and doubted that he could actually do it. And that's what got, that's what made him work a little bit harder on the other side. Like, if you're taking with the sports thing, like, Phil Mickelson is a perfect thrill of victory guy where he's like, I've hit a two iron 280 over water before. I think I'd probably do that again. He's like, yeah, I can do it. And you're like, that's a really dumb play. But he's like, well, I've done it before, I could probably do it again. You know what I mean? So it's a mentality that you take as you approach your life and the challenges before you. Like, where do you think you find yourself on that spectrum?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't think I've ever been driven by fear, so I'd have to say it's the Thrill of victory.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a 50, 50 split. I swear to God. And some of the people, you know, without meeting Pat, you came in here, I would have been like, he's gonna be an agony guy. And then you listen to him Talk for, like, 15 minutes, and you're like, no, he's a. He's definitely a thrill guy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah. You know, Douglas MacArthur said, there is no substitute for victory. Victory.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And I think that there's a lot of truth in life to that.

[Josh Holmes]

It's true. Although I think Douglas McCarthy, I think he was a agony guy.

[Michael Duncan]

You're probably right. You're actually probably right.

[Josh Holmes]

Anyway, thank you so much for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure. Keep us updated on what you're working on. It's really important stuff.

[Michael Duncan]

Definitely. Thank you, guys. Yeah. Thank you so much. Totally.

[Pat Harrigan]

Man, he is so great. And the thing that everybody didn't get to hear was the back and forth between him and our own American hero, Lee Wolf.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat Harrigan]

Who was in Afghanistan. And they were shaking hands and talking about what happened over there. And Lee was. Lee said, semper fi, buddy. Because, you know, Lee is a Marine Corps man. And Harrigan was like, oh, I didn't know. I'll bring crayons next time.

[Josh Holmes]

So it's just like, ball buster. It's just.

[Pat Harrigan]

It was a great moment that. That I figured everybody needed.

[Josh Holmes]

No, you do need to know that, because look, this guy, you look at him, he sits here, he emotionally recounts his stuff. And, like, you know, if you're cynical people like, we are, I imagine many of you are. You're like, this seems a little perfect. Here's this big, handsome guy with an incredible record of service, like an absolute hero, unquestionably, who's in Congress and doing all these things, like, what else do we got here? But then you find out he's a ball buster to boot. He's a regular dude. Look out.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I know. North Carolina is sending our best. I mean, keep an eye on him. He's gonna be a star.

[Josh Holmes]

You got something to brag about. No question. Remember our question of the day? It was involving the Tapper Awards, our first and most significant awards ceremony here on the Ruthless Variety Program, where you, the listener, get to vote on one of four absolutely qualified nominees, the likes of which I'm not sure we're ever able to replicate. But we're gonna try our very best. You like and subscribe. Put your thing in there. We'll categorize them, get them all back to us. And on Tuesday, we will announce the winner. With all that, fellows, I think we did it.

[John Ashbrook]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Congressman Pat Harrigan, and thank you so much to the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube, hit that subscribe button. It's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Tuesday. Stay ruthless.

[Josh Holmes]

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