Biden Reveals His Biggest Lie Yet

Summary

Ruthless Podcast: "Biden Reveals His Biggest Lie Yet" – Episode Summary

Release Date: May 20, 2025

In this riveting episode of the Ruthless Podcast, hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook delve deep into the latest political controversies surrounding President Joe Biden. From alleged health cover-ups to critical analyses of Democratic policies, the episode offers listeners a comprehensive and unfiltered look at current political dynamics.

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1. Biden’s Health and Allegations of Concealment

The episode kicks off with a heated discussion about President Biden's health, particularly focusing on claims that his prostate cancer diagnosis was concealed from the public.

• Michael Duncan (00:00): "Now we want to throw out another medical diagnosis to try to get out from hiding the President's health... People are pulling up these video clips of Biden saying, two years ago, I've got cancer."

• Josh Holmes (00:36): Highlights skepticism by referencing Senator Dick Durbin as an antagonist in this narrative.

The hosts express skepticism over the timing and nature of Biden's recent health disclosures, suggesting a possible attempt to divert attention from other political issues.

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2. Political Maneuvering: The Tapper Award and Media Critique

Transitioning from Biden's health, the hosts introduce the Tapper Award, an ironic accolade recognizing efforts to conceal the President's health decline.

• Josh Holmes (05:00): "It's pure cinema. But we had an award for what we call the Tappers, which is an award for the Greatest efforts to conceal the condition of Joe Biden from the American people."

The segment satirizes media personalities, culminating in the announcement of Joe Scarborough as the award winner for his role in allegedly downplaying Biden's health issues.

• Josh Holmes (50:22): "Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of this year's Tapper Award for excellence in concealing Biden's decline is Joe Scarborough."

• Michael Duncan (50:39): "It was a landslide."

This portion underscores the hosts' critical stance on mainstream media's handling of presidential health matters.

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3. Tax Policy and Legislative Challenges

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting the ongoing debates over tax policies in Congress, particularly focusing on Republican efforts to preserve existing tax rates amidst rising demands.

• Josh Holmes (28:31): Explains the complexities surrounding the preservation of current tax levels and the impact of SALT (State and Local Tax) deductions.

• John Ashbrook (31:42): "They want to do part-time work requirements for Medicaid... It's just insane that we've allowed them..."

The discussion highlights internal Republican conflicts, especially between members like Chip Roy and the SALT Caucus, emphasizing the challenges in maintaining a unified stance on tax reforms.

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4. Hypocrisy in Democratic Politics: The Hannah Trudeau Exposé

The hosts turn their attention to Democratic politician Hannah Trudeau, accusing her of hypocrisy by showcasing her extravagant lifestyle while advocating for policies aimed at the working class.

• Comfortably Smug (12:00): "There's nothing to be cynical about... This is a guy who has been lying his entire life..."

• Josh Holmes (33:05): Criticizes the disconnect between Trudeau's policy positions and her personal wealth, using her Ferrari and luxury handbags as examples.

• Michael Duncan (57:06): Highlights Trudeau's extravagant purchases, mocking her as a "working class champion" despite her opulent lifestyle.

This segment underscores the hosts' critique of perceived inconsistencies within Democratic leadership.

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5. Light-Hearted Segment: South Carolina Nudist 5K

Injecting some levity, the podcast features a humorous take on a nudist 5K race in South Carolina.

• Josh Holmes (63:40): "But like, we're all familiar with the human body. There are some serious, shall we say, restrictions..."

• Michael Duncan (64:59): Labels the participants as "sick people," adding a comedic twist to the discussion.

This segment provides a brief respite from the intense political discourse, showcasing the hosts' ability to blend humor with commentary.

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6. In-Depth Interview: Harmeet Dhillon on Civil Rights Division

A standout moment in the episode is the interview with Harmeet Dhillon, the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. Dhillon provides insights into her role and the DOJ's stance on various civil rights issues under the Biden administration.

• Josh Holmes (69:32): "Harmeet Dhillon, you have been a huge part of the larger conservative movement over the years..."

• Harmeet Dhillon (72:10): Discusses the challenges of enforcing civil rights laws amidst political resistance, emphasizing efforts to combat DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives.

• Josh Holmes (85:44): Explores the evolution of civil rights law, questioning the motives behind current DEI policies.

Dhillon sheds light on the DOJ's initiatives to uphold traditional civil rights values, addressing issues like religious freedoms, anti-Semitism, and resisting progressive overreach in higher education.

• Harmeet Dhillon (94:08): "We're putting an end to it in this government... faith is important to providing so many resources..."

The interview underscores ongoing battles over the definition and enforcement of civil rights in contemporary politics.

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7. Conclusion and Listener Engagement

Wrapping up the episode, the hosts encourage listeners to engage by submitting questions and subscribing to their YouTube channel.

• Josh Holmes (95:53): Reminds listeners to participate in the "Question of the Day" regarding congressional investigations into Biden's health cover-up.

• Final Remarks (96:17): The hosts sign off with their signature slogans, reinforcing their commitment to "keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs."

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Notable Quotes:

• Michael Duncan (00:00): "Now we want to throw out another medical diagnosis to try to get out from hiding the President's health."
• Josh Holmes (50:22): "Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of this year's Tapper Award for excellence in concealing Biden's decline is Joe Scarborough."
• Harmeet Dhillon (94:08): "We don't prefer one religion over the other. As a matter of law in the United States, that's what the First Amendment..."
• John Ashbrook (31:42): "They are expecting people to do the bare amount of civic engagement into our country."
• Comfortably Smug (12:00): "There's nothing to be cynical about... This is a guy who has been lying his entire life."
• Josh Holmes (85:44): "Racism is just racism."

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This episode of the Ruthless Podcast offers a critical examination of President Biden's health revelations, partisan tax policies, and the evolving landscape of civil rights under a conservative lens. With a blend of humor, satire, and in-depth interviews, the hosts provide listeners with a comprehensive look at the pressing political issues of 2025.

Transcript

[Michael Duncan]

Became apparent to people there was a conspiracy that we were a part of to hide the President's health. Now we want to throw out another medical diagnosis to try to get out from hiding the President's health, which is like, now you have doctors being like, there's no weight. It's just popped up. All of a sudden, you've made the situation far worse. You've made everyone far more questioning of your motives, what you knew, what you didn't know. People are pulling up these video clips of Biden saying, two years ago, I've got cancer.

[Josh Holmes]

Mm.

[Michael Duncan]

Right? And then that was at the time being told, oh, no, that's a stutter. Like, what is happening here?

[Josh Holmes]

He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress, Chicago Senator Dick Durbin. And now Dick Durbin has a new.

[John Ashbrook]

Scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Today, consumers have thousands of choices in.

[Josh Holmes]

Credit cards, all with equal strong security.

[Comfortably Smug]

But Durbin's plan is less competition and.

[Josh Holmes]

Less security, and that means more risk.

[John Ashbrook]

For your credit and your identity. Tell Republicans in Congress, Congress, stop Dick.

[Josh Holmes]

Durbin's takeover of your credit card before it's too late.

[Comfortably Smug]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Michael Duncan]

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

[Comfortably Smug]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday to you, and welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. A lot of fun to be had here this week. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left to right, across your radio dial. As always, fellas, a real humdinger of an episode. You keep thinking you're going to run out of content, and then every week, it turns out we're going to do a little bit better than we did the episode before. It's like climbing a mountain.

[Michael Duncan]

In many ways, it's really something. I mean, and it seems like every news cycle bleeds and transforms into the next one. Like, first it's like, okay, well, how long did people know that Joe Biden's health was. Was extremely poor? And then you get another announcement. It's like, what is happening here?

[Josh Holmes]

It is truly amazing. We're going to talk about that. We've got, obviously, the diagnostics that were done on Joe Biden that rolled out over the weekend. We've got some thoughts on that. Turns out Hannah Trudeau that we covered here for the last couple of weeks, somebody that. Well, I think many of you got a kick out of last week. It hasn't gone away. She decided to re engage at the end of last week.

[Comfortably Smug]

She did.

[Josh Holmes]

And we have a few more Questions for her, which I think are pertinent to this larger discussion, the fact that she wants to keep talking about it. Well, fellas do, too.

[John Ashbrook]

We love talking.

[Josh Holmes]

We love to talk.

[John Ashbrook]

We do it for a living.

[Josh Holmes]

We love to talk. We got a reconciliation update. What that means to you is like, what are you paying in taxes? Where is all of that? That is the one fight in Washington, D.C. that everybody's got their eyes on. And probably set aside almost all of the other debates in terms of a federal government discussion. Like, this is the preeminent discussion probably will be for the next couple months. We're just going to recap sort of where we're at. We're not going to dive into the nitty gritty today, but I think that the recap will set the table in a way that you'll find very appealing as an American taxpayer. We got some variety, including a nudist.

[Comfortably Smug]

Resort boy, crazy smoker.

[Josh Holmes]

How do you feel about that?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you know, you gotta give the people what they want.

[Josh Holmes]

And then we got a great guest, Harmeet Dhillon. She's the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. You can only imagine the task of having to go into that operation and actually perform real civil rights law after what it has become under a Biden administration, Obama administration, and really sort of like going generations back. And what the left is trying to do, she is like, provides great clarity into what it is that they're working on.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. What I love about what she's doing is everybody thinks about, like, this deep state in government in D.C. and they think of maybe the intelligence apparatus. Right. Or maybe like, you know, unsavory people at the Pentagon who are stopping. But, like, if you actually really think about what the deep state is, there is a permanent bureaucratic class in all of government that works to our disadvantage as people who want. Want to believe in limited government.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, and so we're at a disadvantage, like. Like from the beginning. Right. That there's this permanent bureaucratic class that exists in government that never wants to leave. And nowhere is it worse than where Harmeet is now.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, it's like it's their beachhead.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Really the cornerstone of the left. Anyway, she gives us all of that and then we're going to tell you. Remember the Tappers? We rolled this out last week. If you didn't watch the episode on Thursday, do it.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, first of all, pure cinema.

[Josh Holmes]

It's pure cinema. But we had an award for what we call the Tappers, which is an award for the Greatest efforts to conceal the condition of Joe Biden from the American people. And we had a number of nominees. We're gonna give you the winner. You all voted. Thousands. Thousands voted. We tallied it up. We're gonna give you the winner in this very episode. With all of that. Fellas, let's jump right in. So look, we said on Thursday, with the President Trump being overseas and doing deals in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and everything else, that the domestic news media needed to focus on something. They started focusing on the Tapper Award, but they started focusing on that new book that he and Alex Thompson wrote, which is basically that everybody was well aware of the decline of Joe Biden, but nobody was willing to say it. And they took efforts to try to conceal it and what his inner office. They basically cast blame upon those around Joe Biden, exonerating themselves in many ways from the active efforts of the national news media to just go hook, line and sinker into whatever it was that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Jean Pierre Karine and their cover up of Joe Biden did not start after he was sworn in. Remember, this is a guy who campaigned from his basement in 2020 because he was incapable of running a traditional presidential race. And they were like, oh, you know what? He's in his basement because of COVID He's not giving speeches because of COVID He can't get out there and talk to the people because of COVID It had nothing to do with the guy's inability to operate.

[Josh Holmes]

So this was the only topic of conversation that was happening in Washington, D.C. last week. And there was a whole bunch of efforts to try to get out from underneath it. And you saw Joe Biden go on the view with Dr. Jill, which we talked about a little bit in an effort of the Biden former Bidens to get out from underneath their precarious situation, which made the announcement that I will tell you about so much more wild in terms of its timing in that according to foxnews.com and almost every other outlet in the English speaking world, Biden is battling, quote, the most aggressive type unquote of prostate cancer with bone metastasis. Medical expert says okay, so look, I hate to be cynical about this, but there are many pieces of what Joe Biden was trying to convince the American people of going back to his initial 2020 run that forced his supporters and people who were sympathetic to him to be in a situation where they were trying to explain to the American people that their own life experiences on things didn't exist and that they were just witnessing something that they alone were experts on would tell you exactly what it was that was happening in the context of the first four years. It was all about like you don't know what mental decline looks like, right? Like nobody who's listening to this has ever had a 75 year old relative who's become 80 and noticed a decline or noticed a health problem or noticed sort of what end of life looks like despite the fact that it is not an American issue, it's a universe. Since God graced this great planet with human life, something we've experienced and they're telling us like you're not, don't believe your lying eyes. Like we don't see any of that. And now what they're trying to tell us is, well, in the last, what is it? 120, 140 days, six months. Yes, six months since this guy has been out of office that Joe Biden has contracted prostate cancer. That is the most diagnosable and preventable form of cancer on planet Earth. That every man at some point as a septuagenarian will either contract or has.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I saw. University of North Carolina had a study that said 80% of men who reach the age of 80 will have prostate cancer. You get it.

[Josh Holmes]

So like you learn at some point in watching parents and grandparents that it's just a thing. It just comes along with being a man and growing old. And prostate cancer is just one of those things. It's why they give you when you start doing physicals in your 40s, PSA.

[John Ashbrook]

Tests, I got mine early because it runs in my family.

[Josh Holmes]

They give you a test, a blood test that monitors a level psa. They call it that if there's any changes, it shows that you have an increased chance of developing prostate cancer if that number moves around. Like you really get start to investigate that. Now the people who develop the aggressive form of this, more likely than not are people who just don't go to the doctor. Right. And they've developed another symptom or something that they're being treated for, that ultimately they find out that this has been going on for quite some time. The President, United States and Joe Biden presumably has the highest level of medical care of anybody on this planet. Like I've talked to people who've worked in the White House who at a senior level who have had to get similar care, not the same as the president, but similar care because of the same thing. Like you're trying to insulate, make sure that people can pass stress tests and things like that because they're operating sensitively in the highest levels of the American government. And they've said that they're paying higher life insurance policies because they're subjected to tests that you never would be subjected to.

[Comfortably Smug]

Interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

Under just an ordinary care, like even if you're being super responsible.

[John Ashbrook]

But they want to be careful.

[Josh Holmes]

They want to be careful. So these are like impossible to ignore fact patterns that this president is, former president, is claiming all of us to believe that somehow they missed all of this during four years of presidency.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, he was president for four years and then six months later he has prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone. Bone, which. Look, I'm not a doctor, but, you know, prostate cancer typically is pretty slow growing and you notice it over years and it's. It's maintained or you try to reduce it in size. It doesn't typically metastasize to the bone in six months.

[Comfortably Smug]

And it wasn't discovered until a week after he made a fool of himself on the View. In the context of this book from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the timing is predominant.

[John Ashbrook]

The timing is predominant. I hate to be cynical about the whole thing, but let's be honest.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's nothing to be cynical about. Because let's also be honest. This guy has lied to us over and over and over throughout his administration. And I have. You know, I thought it would be interesting to look back at some of the big lies that Joe Biden has told us through the years. Just to go down memory lane. Remember when he said he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania? He never taught a class. He had a figurehead job. Remember when he said the border was secure? Remember when he said that he never met Hunter Biden's foreign clients? Remember when he said that the Hunter Biden laptop wasn't real? Remember he said inflation was transitory? Remember when he said he wouldn't pardon Hunter Biden? Remember that? Remember when he said he funded 700,000 construction projects all across the country? Broadband and everything else? Yeah, right, Joe. Remember when he said his old uncle Ambrose Finnegan was eaten by cannibals after being shot down over New guinea in World War II?

[John Ashbrook]

He said that, yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. He said he confronted some guy named Corn Pop at a swimming pool. Remember that one? Remember when he said his house burned down and nearly killed his wife from a kitchen fire? He told people Mitt Romney would re enslave them.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is a guy who has been lying his entire life, and I don't know why we need to start believing him today.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I just look I would point out, Ashbrook says that as a man who has had cancer himself, I have.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And here's the deal. Like it goes back to the lying eyes preface that I My dad's had prostate cancer for a decade. Right. He had surgery. It treated it as it often the case with prostate cancer, the aggressive kind that they're talking about here reconstitutes itself. But with PSA tests like you understand when it's doing that and when it does that, you have to deal with it in a different way. But there's a run up, you know, in the case of my own family, like you've known for a lot of years how it works its way through and you're treated along the way. It doesn't just show up.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right. The idea that this had just happened right now is complete fiction. I don't believe it for a crack.

[Josh Holmes]

It's great. So. But like you don't have to take it from the ruthless variety program. Look at clip one. Let's play that you believe it is likely if this prostate cancer has spread.

[John Ashbrook]

To the bone, that he could have.

[Comfortably Smug]

Had it for up to a decade, but certainly is likely. Would it be fair to say it's likely to have had this for at least several years? Oh, more than several years. You don't get prostate cancer. Again, I just, I just want to stop here. So this is, this is not speculation. If you have prostate cancer that is spread to the bone, then he most certainly, you are saying, had it when.

[Josh Holmes]

He was president of the United States.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, yeah. He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president.

[John Ashbrook]

He probably had it at the start.

[Comfortably Smug]

Of his presidency in 2021. Yes, that. I don't think there's any disagreement about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. So that's Dr. Zeke Emanuel. The name might sound sort of familiar. Is that Rahm's brother?

[Comfortably Smug]

Rahm Emanuel's brother?

[Michael Duncan]

Is that really.

[Comfortably Smug]

He was the chief salesman for Obamacare back in 2009. So this is.

[Michael Duncan]

I remember his other brother, the one who's in the entertainment industry.

[John Ashbrook]

Ari.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Making a fortune.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes. Yes. So this is a, this is. He's. He's a hardened partisan Democrat. There is no reason for.

[John Ashbrook]

He's on Morning Joe.

[Comfortably Smug]

Exactly.

[John Ashbrook]

He's on msnbc stating the obvious.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, like, really do not believe us. Believe that, Doctor. If they're willing to say that on msnbc, we're. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

But like, look, this is the President United States we're talking about. It's not some senator it's not some congressman, it's not some private citizen. It's not anything else who's got HIPAA laws and a right to privacy and all these things. The reason you do annual physicals for a President United States is in part to make sure that he is okay. The other part is to communicate to the American people and honestly the world that somebody doesn't have a health problem. To abuse that, to ensure that you're not telling the full story and then to everybody, to watch this diminished. I mean, honestly, think about if you just had full open kimono and like, look, I hate to speculate about this shit because it is what it is. It's like he's now in a precarious situation. It's a human life. And I hate to be sort of like cynical and shitty about it, but they put themselves in this situation, not us. And the idea that you just sort of decide to not disclose cancer of an American president. I'll tell you why it matters. It's not that, like, it affects his day job. Even if it did. Like, the biggest issue is what we're seeing in the precipitous decline could have been related to the treatment that this guy was on or wasn't on. It could have been. You know, for those of us who experienced this firsthand, I can tell you when they start doing radiation treatment and hormone therapy and all the things that they do to deal with advanced age, advanced prostate cancer, it changes you.

[John Ashbrook]

Brain fog.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it just.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, just changes.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, any number of things.

[Comfortably Smug]

At a minimum, it wears you out. 20 years ago, I had radiation treatment for cancer and it wears you out. It builds up over the course of about a month. And like at the end of that month, you're just like dead tired. It's like you'd run a marathon every single day. It wears you out. And like, there is no reason to believe what they are saying now. I'm telling you, what Zeke Emanuel is saying has got to be exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, he's not the only one. I mean, if you look at grass graphic one doctor Drew, to be fair, beginning with the finding of a nodule and then discovering advanced disease does not pass the SNF test. Someone not receiving adequate or routine health care, which is basically what we just said, this would make some sense, but it does not fit the level of medical supervision given to a President of the United States. Yeah, of course. I mean, look, you tune into the ruthless variety program in large part because we're just going to tell you what it is, right? And this is just what it is like. A whole bunch of people on media will be like, well, I mean, look very sympathetic to this extraordinary situation. Skeptical about the surroundings. Yes, we are all that. But we might as well just tell you what it is that we think rather than the whole preamble.

[Michael Duncan]

Every year, America's freight railroads invest 23 billion of their own capital, not taxpayer money, to maintain the world's most productive freight network. That massive scale is key. It enables railroads to move goods with unmatched efficiency, driving down costs for American businesses and consumers. From energy and agriculture to retail and automotive, freight rail serves every corner of the real economy, and it's essential to America's re industrialization. Put simply, manufacturing depends on rail. Freight rail is America's engine, built on private investment, driving the nation forward. Learn [e-mail] was it axelrod who was like, I think this is a moment where everyone should stop discussing this horrible book and just focus on.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like, whoa, whoa, yeah, relax.

[Michael Duncan]

All of a sudden you're just like telling everyone, yo, shut up about that thing they were trying to get out from permission slip.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, quite obviously. And look again, if you want us to cut through this shit, I will tell you. My cynical view is they had a horrible. The worst week since the loss of the election in terms of the Bidens last week, and everybody blaming each other for concealing his demise and then him coming out and providing zero comfort for those of you that did. And then they're like, okay, we got to get out from underneath this. Throw the diagnostic out there. Let's make sure that we, you know, now hopefully we garner some sympathy because this is a serious case that, you know, you could be looking at an end of life situation. Obviously, nobody is, like, looking forward to him being in this situation. That goes without saying. Like, of course, you don't want a President of the United States suffering with cancer and all that stuff. But the point of this only reaffirms the conversation that everybody was having last week that they just weren't being truthful and honest with the American people. And now you have. Actually, it's not conjecture. It's no longer, like, you didn't notice he couldn't finish his sentences. Now it's like, well, he didn't tell us he had cancer. I mean, talk about making a bad situation worse.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep. I mean, the thing is, they're like. So it just, you know, became apparent to people there was a conspiracy that we were a part of to hide the President's health. Now we Want to throw out another medical diagnosis to try to get out from hiding the President's health, which is like, now you have doctors being like, there's no way. This just popped up. All of a sudden you've made the situation far worse. You've made everyone far more questioning of your motives, what you knew, what you didn't know. People are pulling up these video clips of Biden saying two years ago, I've got cancer, right? And then that was at the time being told, oh no, that's a stutter, like what is happening, right? And then you hear this tangentially about coming out of this book of like they were hiding information from Biden himself, his handlers, his doctor was like, you people are going to kill this guy. Like now you've got a real mess. Now you've got, okay, what all was being held hidden not just from the public, but from Joe himself. Which makes things so much scarier because then it's like, so who is running the auto pen, right? Who is actually making these decisions?

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, this is, this is the most important thing about the Biden situation is that it's like the COVID up is continuing. They do not want Congress to investigate everything that they did to cover up his inability to do his job and what all of the Elizabeth Warren staffers were doing behind the scenes without the light of day to take advantage of the situation. They don't want Congress investigating that.

[Josh Holmes]

It's also an indictment of already poorly regarded media, which considers itself the great check and balance, right? That's the fourth estate as they refer to themselves. And it's always about bringing truth to power. And they will tell you the story that you don't necessarily want to hear, but is happening behind the scenes because it's in the interest of the American public. Well, no more is that less the case than this particular episode. Can you imagine if we find out that not only were they covering up the diminished capacity and there's hundreds of people who are contributing internally to try to shield the American people from all this, but then he also had cancer and nobody asked the question.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean that's, to me that's one of the biggest things is like perfect example, Ash Brooks best man, J Mart. What article is he writing? He's writing. He wrote an article in the New York Was it Times about how, you know, the Pope's brother is on Facebook posting some pro Donald Trump stuff. We confronted him about it. It's like, are you for real? This is what you guys are covering? You're not covering that. The President pretty much is hiding that he had a cancer diagnosis. Unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, I mean, look, I'm going to do this before we go to the break the axle rod thing that you talked about. Smug.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Can we just play clip to his medical condition now? His announced medical condition now, do you believe that silences or delays a lot of conversations about his, you know, last year and a half of his presidency? For now.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think those conversations are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now as he's struggling through this.

[John Ashbrook]

No, no, no. It's grotesquely cynical to suggest we have to stop asking questions about how you covered up this old man's poor health. Yeah, like, Like I'm sorry. I'm sorry that he has cancer. But using that as an excuse for us to have to stop asking questions is so grotesque.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't even know when they've weaponized our empathy against us for so long. I'm sick of it. You don't get that pass anymore. Like you, you're putting masks on kids, making them cry, and you were having a ball doing it. You're calling us idiots. Also like to stop.

[John Ashbrook]

Not for nothing, but like we've learned through some of the reporting of this Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson book that Joe Biden couldn't remember the name of Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, it seems important.

[John Ashbrook]

Seems important. Like maybe if you get in the Situation Room. Yeah, like Joe Biden, who didn't know the difference between, you know, he's also.

[Josh Holmes]

Worked for them for 25 years.

[John Ashbrook]

The President of Egypt, he called the president of Mexico. Like we end up bombing the wrong country because Joe Biden doesn't know.

[Josh Holmes]

That ain't a stutter, folks.

[John Ashbrook]

That ain't a stutter.

[Josh Holmes]

It ain't a stutter. With all this in mind, it seems to me that this might be a good question of the day for the ruthless listener. You gotta like and subscribe on the YouTube channel. And when you do and you submit your question, well, we'll read them all. We tally up your responses to our question of the day. But this question in particular, should Congress investigate this cover up? It doesn't seem light. You know, it's one thing when you're just sort of concealing a truth.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

It's quite another when you're concealing a truth that might have had material impact on the lives of Americans. Is this something that Congress should deal with? Be interested in your responses?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. White House doctor saying he's fit to serve in all of those physicals.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

No reference to any elevated PSA levels or anything.

[Josh Holmes]

How can that.

[John Ashbrook]

How is that possible? I don't know how that's possible given everything that not only we've said, but the doctors that we showed in the earlier segment said it's just impossible.

[Josh Holmes]

It seems like it.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, there's a million cynical questions. I saw people online who were asking, did they even hide this from Joe? And was the plan that, well, if Joe gets reelected, then we get our first one present?

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, we already know from that Tapper Thompson book that there was discussions of putting him in a wheelchair for the second term.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, they're concerned that he would survive. Why would you be concerned that he would survive if you didn't have reason to be?

[Comfortably Smug]

And like, if he can't remember Jake Sullivan's name, how are we supposed to believe that he understands the pardons that are being put in front of him?

[Michael Duncan]

Bingo.

[Comfortably Smug]

All of the presidential orders, everything that's being put in front of him on a daily basis. I do not believe he understood those things. Congress needs to investigate.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I don't think talking about a guy who has prostate cancer is nearly as cynical as exploiting it for four years. So you can get your agenda done under.

[Josh Holmes]

Good point, good point. Well said. That's our question of the day. When we come back, the latest from Capitol Hill as Republicans attempt to pass the great big beautiful bill that President Trump has in mind. Dealing with your finances right after this.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Qualcomm is designing and developing the next generation of AI connectivity and low power, high performance computing right here in the US we support President Trump's call for America's industrial race revival, an agenda focused on restoring strength, scaling innovation, and securing our competitive edge. Our partnerships with Aramco Digital and Humane reflect that mission. Putting US Technology to work, transforming global industries and proving that American leadership still sets the standard. Qualcomm Engineering.

[Josh Holmes]

Human progress. Hardworking Americans know when it's time to.

[Comfortably Smug]

Roll up our sleeves and get the job done. Now is the time to unleash our.

[Josh Holmes]

Nation'S energy, to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable.

[Comfortably Smug]

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.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so we talked a lot about taxes lately, but this has kind of taken over the world and we're going to probably end up talking about this for a couple of months. Our apologies. We'll do our best to make it entertaining, which I think we can do because it's taken many forms and facets. But there's a bill dealing with your tax levels, attempting to preserve them at the rate that they're at. Recall that if they do nothing that they will go up substantially on every income bracket in the United States, including a whole bunch of subsidiary credits and things like that. Your taxes are going to go up. You go big up, big time. Ways and Means Jason Smith, we had him on here as they were marking all that stuff up earlier. They did their job. They got things out of the Ways and Means Committee in the House. The House is kind of the biggest issue here because the narrow majority and you've got huge ideological differences between like Chip Roy and then the SALT Caucus. The SALT Caucus, they're concerned about state and local tax deductions. They are from states that tax the shit out of their people, which I'm entirely unsympathetic towards. However, those are the people that ultimately make up what is now a majority. Without them, you have no majority in the US House of Representatives. And if you look at the map, it's not going to happen anytime soon without those folks. So you got to take their concern seriously.

[Michael Duncan]

Can I give a quick footnote?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Folks, this is why you need to pay attention to things like redistricting and when Eric Holder gets parachuted into districts across this country to sue and sue and sue on on behalf of the left wing dark money group that pays him to get lines drawn favorably for Democrats. They smoked us in the last round and that's why we're stuck in this situation.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So it's now heading to the Rules Committee. I mean, you gotta understand, this is a complicated parliament. I'm not interested in educating you on every facet of how a bill becomes a law. But it's going to another committee, which is difficult. And ultimately what happens out of that is that there's going to be some kind of what they call a manager's package that is dealing with all the concerns that have been expressed since this thing has made the light of day. And you've got holdouts on one side that are demanding cuts. It's largely in Medicaid reforms. And I want to clarify that for a minute. I think there has been a really bad job of characterizing what it is that Republicans are attempting to do on Medicaid because you've got folks who don't have the political skin in the game largely messaging it. Right. They don't have populations on Medicaid. They're not in a blue district or a purple district, red district. And they're like, yeah, this is all we talk about, Medicaid cuts. The reality is they're not talking about Medicaid cuts at all. They're talking about reforms, things like work eligibility. Like, is it too much to ask that a 28 year old dude who's sitting on his couch, rather than going out and getting a job, attempts to try to go out and get said job in order to qualify for full medical on behalf of the American taxpayer?

[John Ashbrook]

We're talking about part time work requirements, talking about 20 hours.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean it's just the lowest hanging fruit.

[John Ashbrook]

And I, I would mention it, like you could be in School for 20 hours a week or you could be volunteering.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

For 20 hours a week and still qualify for Medicaid through these work requirements for Medicaid. The idea that you could somehow characterize this as a cut because what we, we're supposed to accept in the United States of America that people who are able bodied, who are able to 18 to 65 can just sit on their couch and never do anything. This is the United States of America. Like go live in fucking Europe. Right, Go live in Europe if that's the way that you think about the world. But we don't here in this country. Like, I'm sorry, but like, that is not a cut to Medicaid. That is expecting people to do the bare amount of civic engagement into our country.

[Michael Duncan]

It's reform. We have to say that a million times.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Don't let the Dems get. Because the Dems want to call it cuts. Because they want to scare you. They want to be like, my God, people who need this are getting, this is a reform to the system. Because as we see, the system is not working well. It's heading towards bankrupting our country.

[John Ashbrook]

And not only that, it's politically incredibly popular. I don't know if you remember that Supreme Court race we had in Wisconsin, not the most recent one, but the one previously. Also on that ballot was work requirements for Medicaid.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[John Ashbrook]

And it passed.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

As, as Republicans lost that Supreme Court race by yeah, 20 points or whatever. It passed. It is incredibly popular among the American people that there be a base level civic engagement in this entire country. You can't just sit on your couch and collect from Medicaid if you're able bodied, with no dependents, you're not disabled, none of these things. It's just insane that we've allowed them to sort of, you know, Change all of this rhetorically into some sort of cut. It's not. It's just accountability. We're cutting the waste, the fraud and abuse out the system.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I will tell you, you brought up Jason Smith and what he has done. And after some of the tweets that we've talked about here on the ruthless variety program with these House members who were like, yeah, maybe we should raise taxes on X, Y and Z, you got to tip the cap to Jason Smith because he has resisted all of that up until this point. He has prevented the tax hikes that people have asked for without any understanding. I don't understand why they're asking for.

[John Ashbrook]

I don't know how a Republican enters a deb debate about taxes in this country and offers up the idea that we might raise taxes before we even get to a debate on the floor with Democrats. You're just gonna go ahead and offer that up? I mean, have you read the Art of the Deal? You're just gonna give up all of your leverage and decide that maybe on the table is raising taxes. How are like, are you a fucking Republican?

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[John Ashbrook]

Hey, hey, I saw this multiple billion dollars the doge found that our country wastes in our federal government. And my first thought is, I guess we got it. We got to pay for that.

[Josh Holmes]

Somebody ought to pay, you know?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, exactly. And it's like you have these Republicans who are adopting Elizabeth Warren policies and pretending like this is the right thing to do. So Jason Smith, he didn't raise taxes on carried interest. He didn't raise taxes on small business owners. He didn't raise taxes on job creators out there. And I think you got to tip the cat well.

[Josh Holmes]

So, I mean, I think our poster child this week and listen, you know, ruthless Friday program, we do this without regard to what team you're on. But this is a Republican congressman from New York, Nick LaLota. LaLota. Shit. From what I can tell. But this is what he has to say. The one big beautiful bill has stalled and it needs wind in its sails. Allowing the top tax rate to expire, returning from 37 to 39.6 for individuals earning over $609,000. Married couples over 731 breathes $300 billion of new life into the effort. It's fiscally responsible move that reflects the priorities of a new Republican Party to protect working families, address the deficit fix unfair salt cap. Hold on, let's asterisk that for a second. And safeguard programs like Medicaid and SNAP without raising taxes on the middle Class. Okay. All right, listen, dude, I have had it. I've absolutely had it. You heard about the work requirements that we're talking about with Medicaid. If you know anything at all about the way that the Democrats work in this system is you create entitlement programs for pretty sympathetic populations. Then you expand the eligibility over time. What you do is you find the oldest and the poorest amongst you and you create something called Social Security. Then you say, well, they need health care, too, and you start Medicare. And then you expand the eligibility for that over time until they become entitlements for anybody who is even close to retirement age. And then you keep trying to expand that, then you create one where you save for the poor. We call it Medicaid. Because at this point, what we'd like to do is just send it as a slush fund to the states to make them manage it, but we'll just not really watch the. The bottom line on that. And we'll start one for kids. We call it S. CHIP Poor Kids. Right? Then we expand the eligibility for that. Pretty soon, when you expand the eligibility of all these things which you saw under Obamacare, and let me make that clear, what Obamacare was, was basically doing absolutely nothing with your care or with your coverage. It just expanded Medicaid. It expanded the number of people that qualify for this Medicaid situation. It also threw you into a situation where you had to figure out how your health insurance works. And by the way, it's gone up at a higher rate than it did before. This is their plan. This is what they do.

[Michael Duncan]

It gets even worse is then they sprinkle in some politics into it where they're like, okay, why don't we expand it to non citizens? Why don't we expand it to. To anyone that we can let in the border? Because we think they're going to vote.

[Josh Holmes]

Democrat, as is the case with what's the Cal. Cal one called medical. They basically said in their state they would let any illegal alien qualify for Medicaid. And so the federal government taxpayer, whether you live in Kentucky or Georgia or whatever, is on the hook for funding millions of people who are not citizens in California as a result of these decisions, Made worse by the fact that during COVID we expanded the pot to make sure that all of this money would never run out under enhanced medical problems. A time of great uncertainty. We got to make sure the states have all this. And what states have done because they have to balance their budgets every year is take that money, use it basically as a slush fund to enable them to do a whole bunch of other budget ingenuity to not actually balance their books because the federal government's picking up the back end in these block grants in the Medicaid program. So obviously they don't want. You're sending money to us. Don't change that. Don't change that. The constituents see winnows, right? Even Republican governors. You're in states, you're like, man, that's a lot of money. Like, don't change that. Keep that here. Problem is the between Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, there is 75% of your federal budget that Congress never votes on at all. And the reason they never vote on it all is it's on autopilot. And unless you make changes to that, it will go away entirely. You are now $36 trillion in debt. Your ability to finance all of that shit comes to an end when somebody calls their cards to the table. What the House Republicans are trying to do, and I'm with the Chip Roys of the world on this, is actually make reforms that would continue to serve the targeted population for Medicaid, but make, put like work requirements in it. And then you get guys like Nick Lalota who are like, I got an idea. Let's raise taxes on 50 states of small businesses in this country in order to ensure that I don't have to wither Democratic attacks about a clearly fraud ridden system of Medicaid.

[Michael Duncan]

And like, here's the thing, man, like that just on the baseline, we just went through a couple months of getting headlines of like, Elon Musk found out that USAID was spending $50 billion on educating trans people in Venezuela. It's like we've gotten story after story about how the government has been lighting the money, we send them on fire, right? And his takeaway is we got to send the government more money.

[John Ashbrook]

And I'm not under any illusion, and none of you are under the illusion that somehow if we made all of those doge cuts statute, that we would somehow eliminate the national debt. I don't think that. None of us think that.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it's part of the false right.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the whole false thing. We're not voting on 75% of the budget. Right? Like it is.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't pretend like we are.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. Don't pretend that we are. But in that tweet, what he's saying is this is going to breathe new life with $300 billion into, into this discussion. None of that is a discussion of actually tackling that debt. No it's about paying for a salt deduction for his rich people in his district. Bingo. And so every small business around the country and every other state has to pay for a higher deduction for his constituents. And I understand the politics.

[Josh Holmes]

Who happened to, by the way, elect a government that thinks it's perfectly appropriate to take 50 some odd percent of your constituents money?

[John Ashbrook]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

Like that's, that's what they, that's where they live and that's what they do.

[John Ashbrook]

And God bless them. I understand the politics of it. These people elected you. I get it. And to your point earlier, we have a very small majority that is built on people in these high tax states that make up part of this Republican majority of. I get it. From a policy standpoint, it doesn't make any sense and it's definitely unfair. And it's especially, it's especially insulting to wrap it in the language of this other stuff you're talking about, about protecting a new Republican working class majority when that is not what salt deduction is. Let's be honest, you can look at the tables of how this benefit actually goes out on a percentile basis to taxpayers. News flash, it's not to working class Americans.

[Josh Holmes]

Well also imagine telling the vast majority of the 70 some odd million that voted for President Trump last year when he talked about tax deductions and preserving tax cuts and all of those things that the new Republican Party stands for codifying and expanding entitlements in this country on the backs of small businesses and that the only thing that we really care about is the revenue flow in which to do so. Do you think that that Republican majority would look the same? Like, of course not. That's not a Republican Party any of us signed up for. Like the crazy thing is either you believe that this is taxpayer money that the government is fortunate enough to deal with and you ought to ensure spend it wisely or you don't. And the you don't part of it is where Democrats are that they just think that this is their money one way or another. You're fortunate enough to live in the United States of America. We do as you see fit. And we'll tell you what the rules of the road are later. Those are the two differences between this party. When you muddy that water, you are creating an inability to ever win elections at any point ever again. Because like I understand that people, there's social conservatives, there's fiscal conservatives, all kinds of things that have brought you into this tent. And I agree, the working class component, very important to what President Trump has brought. But let's not mistake that for a buy in to a Democrat light agenda. That is everything to do with expanding entitlement state living in a socialist country. Because that's what it is, by the way. That's what this is socialism. Expand entitlements, tax unsympathetic characters in order to pay for it, run up massive debts and then turn around and be like, ah, you know, we did what we could. We did what we could. That's what socialism is. That's how the decline of every socialist nation that we've ever seen in this country. Like, that's not what the Republican party stands for. There has to be an adult in a room at some point to be like, yeah, I'm going over this ledger here. It's 75% of the shit that we're, that we are dealing with, we're not voting on. Maybe we should take a look at that. You know, maybe, maybe, maybe it is that the American taxpayer deserves a little bit more out of the already 36% that small businesses are paying or what have you. Not to mention the fact that we've got the biggest chasm in the most progressive tax code in the history of the world in that you've got the top 10% paying 65, 70% of the taxes.

[John Ashbrook]

The top 50% pays 98% of our federal income taxes.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, just look at the stat, right? So, okay, what we're doing here is trying to figure out how people who don't pay taxes pay fewer. Like, are we just paying people?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, we're dividing zero by zero.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what we're doing. We're just paying. So now we're just figuring out how to pay people to not pay taxes.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. And there's 7 million American males that are working age, that are not disabled, that are out of the labor participation force in this country.

[Josh Holmes]

Have some fucking pride in your country. Pick up a fucking oar and row. Like, this is not the shit that I ever thought of with the Republican Party where you're like, well, let me think of the most sympathetic audiences to get to and let me, let's throw them attacks. I understand they're paying zero into our collective good, but let me make sure that we codify our political support by making sure that they pay negative $2,500 a year. Like pick up a fucking. Or in Roe. Either we're in this together or we're not. That's the only winning message the Republicans have ever had. And believe it or not, as is evidenced by the Wisconsin election that you pointed out from years ago. People appreciate that because vast majority of you out there are watching the deduction on your taxes. You're wondering where the hell it went, and you're putting in a hard goddamn day's work to earn it, and it just evaporates. So you get guys like this who are like, dad, it's okay. They don't have to work. I don't want to take the political heat.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just pathetic.

[John Ashbrook]

It's tough.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't. I don't blame. First of all, I don't blame, like, the speaker and Jason Smith and those folks who are trying to get this past the finish line. They have to entertain all this insanity.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Because they don't have anything to lose. I think they've done a really good job to get it to this point. I hope they can move it forward. But like that. I mean, the reason we're so animated about this is not because of this bill. Like, I think they're gonna get this bill done. I think it's gonna look good. It's that you can't have a foothold in a Republican Party, a conservative party that thinks that it is the government's money.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

You can't have it because then you'll have two parties that have it. And I can tell you, for your kids, if you look at them, they're 10 and under, they're not going to enjoy the country that we've enjoyed. They're going to be stuck with all the mistakes that we made. They're going to try to bail their asses out. Like all the socialist countries that have been failed states before us, like, that's the end of the story anyway, when we come back, we're going to lighten it up.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, we do. There's one thing I want to raise before we go to break, and that is this guy who's been nominated to run NASA.

[Josh Holmes]

Another Capitol Hill item.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. Have you heard about this guy, Jared Isaacman, by the way?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

This guy is an absolute badass. He comes from the business world. He's got all these jets. He's been to space a couple of times, and President Trump has nominated him to run NASA in the way that President Trump is running the government. So you have a business guy who is bringing a business mindset to a gigantic government program in hopes of to improve it. And I know you guys have heard about him. He's been nominated. Hopefully the Senate will take him up and vote on him this week.

[Josh Holmes]

This is pretty.

[Michael Duncan]

A lot of tech folks like him. Like Elon likes him a lot, too. Right. I think that was what.

[Josh Holmes]

I think that's right. Talk about an operation and need a little bit of reform. Right. I mean, when you've gotten to a point where you have to outsource everything.

[Michael Duncan]

Elon's like, I need help, man overrun.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right, right. I mean, it's the picture of that. I mean, you get this giant bureaucracy that's getting outpaced by private industry over and over and over again. And yet they have the ability to do great things. We saw what they did in the 60s with the moon program and everything else. They can do great things also, but.

[Josh Holmes]

They need the right leadership, partnerships and things like that. Like thinking outside the box. You're not a bureaucrat that sort of pushes paper around.

[John Ashbrook]

I would just like them to not strand astronauts in space. Wouldn't that be nice for a very long time?

[Josh Holmes]

Be awfully nice.

[John Ashbrook]

That'd be great. That'd be something. If we can fix that, that'd be great.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. What's his name again?

[Comfortably Smug]

Jared Isaacman.

[Josh Holmes]

Coming up this week, hopefully.

[Comfortably Smug]

We need. We need the majority leader to put them on the floor this week.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. All right. Well, that's a good flag. When we come back, we're going to get to the winner of the Tapper Award after this.

[John Ashbrook]

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? Wrong. 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 helpus retire.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]

Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of this year's Tapper Award for excellence in concealing Biden's decline is Joe Scarborough.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well deserved.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, what a victory. I mean, I was looking at the votes as they were coming in. It was. I mean, it was a landslide.

[Josh Holmes]

It was a real blowout. We tallied it up. The crack team here, led by Spaghettz and Wolf, tallied everything you had to say on YouTube. 90.5% had Scarborough winning that joint drubbing.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. It turns out when you have your whole segment be. Hey, cut this tape. This is the best Joe Biden we've ever seen. You know, the theatricality of the entire exposition that Scarborough had in the clip. He sold it and he sold it, and clearly he over oversold it.

[Josh Holmes]

He definitely did. We've taken the liberty of thinking about how we would present such an award. We're open to suggestions on that. We understand that Jake Tapper is trying to sell a book. He's reached out with some interest in coming on the variety program. We've contacted his bookers to see if that's a likelihood. Perhaps we could present him with an award that he could bestow upon the Morning Joe.

[Comfortably Smug]

Great idea.

[Josh Holmes]

Wouldn't that be nice?

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, fantastic.

[Josh Holmes]

It would be nice. I just think it's a nice gesture for all their hard work that they've done. Okay, guys, Hannah Trudeau. Hannah Trudeau. For those of you who weren't with us, we highlighted a story about a journalist turned Democratic politician. She had a whole lot to say about how she understood the Democratic Party and they were all letting their constituents down. She could do it better. She described herself as working class. We questioned some of that, and at which point she engaged us and said, well, I'd be happy to come on the show and discuss specific. So we gave her two weeks, and we reached out and reached out. We reached out and she was nothing. So we decided last Thursday to do a show that highlighted some of the questions that we had in her absence.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Knowing that, you know, if again, she has a change of heart, she can come on and just discuss all of that. She didn't. And so we did the show, which was, by the way, very good.

[Michael Duncan]

Excellent.

[Josh Holmes]

Very good. If you didn't catch that last Thursday, you should. You should tune in. But she responded not to our inquiries about her coming on the show, but to the show again itself. And I thought that was interesting. Yeah, it's an approach Graphic four, if you don't mind. She first starts by to young, especially single, in parentheses, women who are thinking about running for office. We know how this goes. I reached out to the ruthless podcast about policies impacted that impacted my family growing up here in New Hampshire. They chose personal attacks on my look, style and dating. Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

So that didn't happen. Everything she describes was an absolute lie. And to instantly catch herself as the victim being like to young, especially single.

[Josh Holmes]

Women, like, this is a misogyny play. Right. So it actually made me think she'd maybe qualify for a Democratic primary.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I. I would point out that. That what she's describing as attacks on. On her. None of those were levied until she ghosted us for. For two weeks. And we were merely working with the material that we had, the questions that we were.

[Josh Holmes]

That seemed to contradict her message.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, she makes it sound like she sent us a white paper of all of her policy positions that we. Which, of course, is not true. She had no contact with the Ruthless Variety Program in the intervening two weeks.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, she offered to come on the show and then discuss her policies. We reached out multiple times, gave a lot of time, kept asking she ghosts. And then we were like, okay, let's go through some facts.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it's like.

[Michael Duncan]

And she's like, I am being attacked for being a single young woman.

[John Ashbrook]

No, you're not being attacked for being a single young woman. You're being attacked because you're saying you're running for Congress in New Hampshire. You live in D.C. you have a Ferrari to sell in Miami.

[Michael Duncan]

And a place in Manhattan.

[John Ashbrook]

And a place in Manhattan. I mean, those are legitimate questions that anybody in the media should ask you.

[Josh Holmes]

Personal attack on my looks. I don't remember saying anything about her looks.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that was a lie. I mean, we didn't say a single thing. But she can go off.

[Josh Holmes]

Go off, Lady. To paraphrase President Trump, there's plenty of material to work with on that. But we didn't. We didn't do that. We didn't do that. Her style. Well, if your style is having a Ferrari, if that's style, I guess.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, what I hear is that she didn't deny that the Ferrari was hers.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, well, she.

[Michael Duncan]

That was, to me, the funniest part.

[Comfortably Smug]

She seems to acknowledge that the Ferrari is hers.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like we. We were being extra careful because we're, you know, extremely highly trained journalists. And how we just provided what we have seen. We didn't know if the. What was the name of this website?

[John Ashbrook]

Luxy.

[Michael Duncan]

Luxie was her profile. Luxie claims that they do research and they check identification and everything before they let profiles be posted. She essentially just acknowledged it's all real. Okay, so all of our reporting was completely true.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So, you know, she ingests all that and tries to reframe it, which, you know, like, that's.

[John Ashbrook]

She's a politician.

[Comfortably Smug]

And just to keep with the truth, Luxie says that it is not a sugar daddy website.

[Josh Holmes]

They have just definitively said that. They say that they told everyone.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

It is not.

[Comfortably Smug]

So it's important to add that disclaimer.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's important that we know and you know as a listener, it is not a sugar daddy website. But so then she. She wasn't done with that. She came back with yet another. Because we invited her on again. Basically said, not only are you welcome, like, we renew our efforts and we'll valet your Ferrari.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, we offered valet the Ferraris.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it's thoughtful of us.

[Josh Holmes]

And so she came back with that on graphic five, saying, sorry, gentlemen, I like fashion and Medicare for all.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

$15 minimum wage. You can try to shame me into not running. No, no, no. We're not trying to do that, ma' am. Let me be very clear. I want you to run. I am. I have no interest in shaming you out of running for New Hampshire one because you hate progressives, but not for being a fabulous woman. Live free or die. Hashtag NH Politics. So she's like, you're trolling on that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I want to add something real quick. Go ahead, Josh.

[Comfortably Smug]

I was just going to say, it is a shame she decided not to come because I know Spaghetti would have loved to valet that Ferrari. I mean, he would have given anything to just drive a car that was.

[Josh Holmes]

Made by his countrymen, man, that made of his homeland. Really sort of the pinnacle of Italian power in a lot of ways.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I just. So this is another little tired thing of. We all showed you guys these images, and for her to be like, sorry, gentlemen, I like fashion and Medicare for All. $15 minimum wage, Medicare for all. She's running as, like, the people's champion fighting for the working class. Like, she's. She says that over and over and over and over again. Where would she get the idea with this? Like, Medicare for all that. Like, someone should pay for all her stuff. Where would you get this idea? Can we get graphic six?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, boy.

[Michael Duncan]

The caption says, thank you for buying me 20 Birkins and Kelly's less than one year because you said, I quote, had to have them. Not playing the Hermes game. And for paying twice the retail to get the colors I want. I wish you could see this. You would smile and laugh. The exotics were your favorite. You named every piece. This is our working class champion.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, so for people.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, like, why can't everyone just, you know, Pay for my stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

We can, we can see it. And we are smiling and laughing.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I, I just want for people to under to understand this. If maybe you aren't familiar with the handbag game. Josh, can you describe, you know, what it is to get a Birkin bag?

[Josh Holmes]

Look, purses in the highest end of quality have a limited availability and no more so than Birkins and Kelly's. They live in the Hermes family, as one knows, but they're not available in an Hermes store. In fact, you need to be what they would consider a high end customer. Somebody who's purchased tens of thousands of dollars of retail in order for them to even discuss whether they have them in the store at all. Like, they don't. You can walk in to a Birkin store or to a Hermes store and say, let me, let me see the Birkins. They could have a hundred of them in the back. They'll say no, like they have to know you. And then they'll like offer you the chance to observe. And so what happens is these things, I think they retail from like 15,000 to 18,000 for a purse. But what happens is in the aftermarket, which is what she's talking about, I think here, is that they're like double that because you don't have access to exactly what it is you want. So people who actually obtain them put them for sale.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. So, but to put a finer point on it for our audience here, you're looking at a closet of 20,000 or 20 Birkin and Kelly's. So you're looking at a retail value conservatively of like a quarter million dollars.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, we had, we had an expert evaluate and they anticipated it's well over $300 in handbags for working class champion who doesn't understand why everyone can't just buy you stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

These are. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Why can't someone else just pay for your stuff? It makes sense.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, how, how else is she gonna transport her hammer to the mill? You know what I mean? Like, she needs something to hold it in. She needs something to hold her tools. You can't, you can't just walk from your Ferrari to the mill and carry all your tools. You gotta have a bag.

[John Ashbrook]

Is it.

[Josh Holmes]

She, she became, she started as just like a human interest story and then she engaged us, and so we're like, all right, we got stuff to say. And now she's like the perfect depiction of your modern day Democrats.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, the limousine liberal, where she's like.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes, I want you to pay for health care for absolutely everybody. But I Am going to enjoy $400,000 worth of handbags of Ferrari. And as you can see from our next post, there's more in Graphic seven, a palatial townhouse in which she says she's thanking a significant other of hers. My understanding is not the significant other that we framed up in the first episode that we did on this last Thursday, but a different one. Thank you for giving me my dream home.

[John Ashbrook]

She got a house.

[Michael Duncan]

Got a house.

[John Ashbrook]

She got a house.

[Josh Holmes]

Got a house.

[John Ashbrook]

You're telling me she has $300,000 worth of handbags and a free house?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, and a Ferrari. Okay, hold up. So maybe you do want the kind of person who can finesse houses. Imagine the deal making.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I mean, it goes honestly, finessing. You want to talk about somebody, you can get a deal. This is somebody. She's limited. She's limited in her utility journal salary, bro. But what she's got to work with, boy, is she made. Paid off. I mean, this is amazing.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, my God.

[Michael Duncan]

This is. This is, again, like, millions. The perfect encapsulation of what the left is now. It's people with, like, mansions in Manhattan and Ferraris and half a million in clothes and purses being like, I'm the champion of the middle class and the working class. This is amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, so, you know. But here's the thing, Hannah. If you're listening, and I know you are, because you've responded to each thing, come on in. We can discuss all of this. I think you can tell we have a sense of humor about it. I think everybody would enjoy it if you don't. You just want to kind of chirp off the sidelines and do kind of what you've been doing already. We got more. We can keep doing this as long as you want. We've not hit the bottom of the barrel of the stuff that we're working on. Let me just tell you, it gets more. Even more interesting than we've already done. So, like, you want to keep playing this game? Deal. Let's do it. Let's do it. Or you can come in and, you.

[Michael Duncan]

Know, it's a lot easier.

[Josh Holmes]

Be, like, a leader about it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so that's our Hannah Trudeau. You guys want a little bit of variety?

[Comfortably Smug]

Absolutely.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

So there's some folks in Carolina. So this is a Carolina thing.

[Michael Duncan]

This is. So when someone says Carolinas, it's probably from South Carolina who tries to, like, this is outrageous. Launder their horrific reputation.

[John Ashbrook]

It is smuggler by throwing themselves. You were right.

[Michael Duncan]

I called smug.

[John Ashbrook]

Called is South Carolina, every time. Spartanburg, to be exact.

[Josh Holmes]

Spartanburg. This is from the Post and Courier where they report that a nudist resort sits in a rural corner of South Carolina. Its Naked 5000 offers you gives you a glimpse inside.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a 5K? Yeah?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah, it's a 5K. Okay. So you can go anywhere and do a 5K, but you can't go anywhere and run a 5K naked. You can do literally a 5K run completely naked. My first question is, why would anyone want to do that?

[John Ashbrook]

Well, it's a nudist colony. I think it comes with the territory.

[Josh Holmes]

But like, we're all familiar with the human body.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

There are some serious, shall we say, restrictions to comfortably running 5Ks without clothes on and, you know, both male and female.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Like it's not. It's not.

[John Ashbrook]

You need some support.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, apparently they've figured out how to do this. Tracksuits are out, birthday suits are in. At least that's the prevailing vibe at Carolina foothills resorts. Buck Creek streak 5k on June 14th. So you may not be too late to sign up for this thing. It's a couple of short weeks away. The clothing optional race at the nudist resort in northern Spartanburg county has recorded 161 people that are signed up so far. My guess is this is not your typical marathon runner.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

If you go to the turkey trot and drop your drawers, you're probably gonna get arrested. Not so at the Buck Creek Streak. They've got a nice little like New York Post style, which takes place entirely within the confines of a private community and away from the public eyes. Folks can sign up until the day before the race, but race day signup is limited to folks who have been there before and have already had their background check.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, you know, if they have very important. If they have to have a background check that tells you the whole thing should not be happening.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Be prepared. The clothing optional nature of the resort doesn't extend to the pools in the hot tub. So there's no optional part of the pools and the.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh my goodness, hot tub.

[Josh Holmes]

You have to be completely naked for those activities. Nudatory nudity is mandatory.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. Well, I hope, I hope there's a shower after the 5k before the hot tub.

[Michael Duncan]

Also, like, in general, never use a public pool or a public hot. Like, in general, you just want to sit. Never use a public human soup with other people who.

[Josh Holmes]

You don't use a public pool.

[Michael Duncan]

Never use a public pool. Why would you do that?

[John Ashbrook]

There's chlorine man.

[Comfortably Smug]

Use a public pool.

[Michael Duncan]

Sit in human soup with people you don't know. Disgusting. Dude, that's horrible. Think about that. Think about that. And this is, of course, I called it right off the bat. It's South Carolina. They found the one thing more disgusting than their barbecue mustard based sauce.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, you're taking some territorial shots here. But I just want to, like, functionally understand with it. Imagine just as a, you know, a man, unless you're really not a blessed individual, running 5k without any source of support.

[Michael Duncan]

You're gonna hurt yourself.

[Josh Holmes]

It strikes me as a really bad idea.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, you're gonna hurt yourself, everyone's gonna hurt themselves.

[Josh Holmes]

Big pain involved in that.

[Michael Duncan]

But I mean, that's the thing, is this is clearly just sick people. This is sick people.

[Josh Holmes]

If you have any familiarity with this particular run or any nudist run, we'd be interested in how people take care of this sort of thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, is there bring back shame? And so many, so many parts, so many parts of life now bring back shame. So many problems.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, you're just going to be bruising your danglers hard. Bruising your danglers.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just gonna be all, let's put.

[John Ashbrook]

A fine point on it.

[Josh Holmes]

And dangerous for a man. Imagine that mess. You know, they have those volunteers that stand out and they have to give you water along the raceway. Can you imagine all that mess coming at you like, think about what you got.

[Michael Duncan]

No one's winning this race.

[Comfortably Smug]

What is it?

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Everyone's a loser.

[Comfortably Smug]

5K is 3. A little over 3 miles, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. 3.1.

[Comfortably Smug]

So 3 miles plus with a helicopter. Something's going to get turned around in there. You're going to. You're going to have a problem.

[John Ashbrook]

You're going to. Someone, somebody is leaving this race with testicular torsion.

[Josh Holmes]

Just like beanbags everywhere, you know, I mean, how do you even.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, what makes it worse is, I gotta say, like 99% of the time these newest colonies are just old people too. So it's just like now you're really.

[John Ashbrook]

A lot of jiggling.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just the worst situation.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a lot more elasticity. Is the older you get in that particular region just a nightmare? Yeah. Yeah. Now, women are not immune to this either. They've got their own set of issues.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Involved, you know, she swiz. Well, that's a great hard transition. I'm not even sure how one does this because I'm attempting to introduce an interview that is somebody of great moral clarity and upstanding and very significant figure within the United States government. Somebody who's doing us a great good. Hard to do after that story, but I'm going to give it my best shot. Listen, you've heard her here before. She's absolutely terrific. Somebody who has fought the good fight for a long time and is now doing it on the inside for the first time here. Harmeet Dhillon, I want to welcome to the program somebody you've heard here before. But she's now got a pretty impressive title here, fellas, something that is core to what Americans were talking about in terms of turning directions on a Biden administration to a Trump administration. She is the United States assistant attorney General for Civil Rights Division. Harmeet Dhillon. How are you?

[Harmeet Dhillon]

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, a big undertaking. And for those of you who don't know when the libs are in control of Department of Justice, they basically insulate themselves and try to use it as an arm of their social agenda. There's probably no division where that is more present than the one that you're currently heading up.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Yeah, I would agree with that. People have written in former Republican administrations how tough a nut to crack the Civil Rights Division has been because, you know, it is a part of the executive branch. So you would think when administrations change, the policies change and the career people will go along with that. And nowhere is that less so in the entire federal government than the Civil Rights Division, where you find people who've spent their entire careers there doing their social justice agenda and they're not very happy to be told that the policies have changed. And so it's been quite an interesting several weeks since I got sworn in.

[Josh Holmes]

You've had an incredibly long and distinguished career in the legal community. You've also been a huge part of the larger conservative movement over the years. Confluence of those two things and your work and civil rights and all of these pertinent issues that you're working on now gave you the qualifications to be a part of this. First of all, we're all glad that you're there because we've seen this come and go with administrations in the past where you're right, the Civil Rights Division in particular is used as basically an enforcement arm of the liberal left to try to get people to cow to things like DEI policies. I imagine day one, you step into this joint pretty daunting to try to figure out how to navigate all that in a system that's literally built in large part to try to resist what it is that you're up To.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Well, so there's a few interesting themes going on here. One is that the right lawyers, and I gave a speech about this at the Federalist Society last week. Conservative lawyers, you know, they got good credentials. They go out and they have their loans and they decide the best way to make a living, for the most part successful ones, is to join a big law firm where you're basically doing defense work. You're not doing plaintiff civil rights work. So there is a dearth of lawyers in our side that is willing to go for the jugular and file lawsuits that advance the agenda of the conservative movement. Sort of originalism, restrained, you know, adhering to statutes and sort of protecting law enforcement for all people.

[Josh Holmes]

And not just career as a. As a. Basically an activist rather than a career as a, you know, monetary value.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Correct, Right. So that's the thing. Now, I have happened to do that, as you say, for my 32 years of my law practice. Since day one, I've gone to court to protect religious liberties and girls in sports religion at the United States Supreme Court, winning three cases there during COVID and suing governors. So that's sort of a mindset of using the law as a tool on our side. And luckily, what I've been able to do is find a number of lawyers who've also come into the government who have the same viewpoint as I do and these skills to back it up. And what we found when we came onto our job was, as you can imagine, a number of. You know, you've seen those pictures when the Obama doj, not the doj, but the White House turned over. You saw all these officials standing there like that. It was like that. It was like that in the doj. A lot of crossed arms, a lot of furred brows, a lot of resistance. Resistance Theater.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

And so I made it. You know, I had to do a bunch of HR training and ethics and.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, very important, use the government.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Credit card and all of that for the first time week. So, you know, sort of eight days in, I'm like, okay, let's get to work. And I wrote a memo for each of the 11 sections of the Civil Rights division saying, okay, a little bit of this guidance here. I want to make sure everyone's on the same page of what your job is now. And it started with what the statutes are that we enforce. So let's say the housing statute we enforce, the, you know, Fair Housing act, or if it's employment title seven or sports, you know, title nine. And then I said, these are the president's executive orders that pertain to these subject matters. Get rid of DEI and you know, get rid of whatever it is. You all know what the President has ordered out there. And this caused shock waves to go through.

[Josh Holmes]

How dare we enforce the law at the Department of Justice?

[Harmeet Dhillon]

The Department of Justice. And you know, we also had some backlogs in some areas that some people didn't want to really maybe wasn't being done efficiently, FOIA and some other things. So what we did is, you know, the areas where we were sort of shifting resources to others, we kind of shifted some of the managers to those areas like call it customer service, responding to FOIA requests, which is citizens asking what's going on in my government. I think that's important. It was a six month backlog in that section.

[Josh Holmes]

Transparency.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

There's also a complaint adjudication bureau. So we transferred some people to that. And all in over 220 lawyers, which is about half the department quit the Civil Rights Division.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, mission accomplished, moving on.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

So look, I am assuming the best with others and we are working hard. As you can see on social media I hear about something happening. I mean as we're speaking this afternoon, we've opened up an investigation into the Mayor of Chicago's statements over the weekend that look like racial preferences and hiring there of a particular background which is illegal. And so we're opening up an investigation to see if that's indeed happening. And so things are happening in real time. You have a head of the Civil Rights Division who's in touch with social media. A lot of information comes to me that way. And then we open investigations. We work with the EEOC in cases like this one I just mentioned, we work with Department of Health and Human Services, the GSA and Department of Education in cases of higher education, discrimination, antisemitism and dei. These are joint investigations that we're doing because those agencies give grants. And so the grant making is at risk when they fail to follow the law. This is how it should be. Yet again, this is sending shockwaves through higher education that the money that they get from the federal government is associated with a promise to not break the law. So that second part is problematic for some of these.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm curious on two parts of this. Like number one, how do you deal with that issue in higher ed, in particular with DEI where you've got some of these universities who are now doing DEI by a different name and sort of like relabeling these officers who would have been a DEI officer as like, like now I'm an enrichment officer or whatever, you know what I mean? And then how do you deal with the issue? I'm curious at doj because we've seen this across the Trump administration as he sort of tackles this bureaucratic morass of, like, this idea of malicious compliance. When it comes to some of these issues where you see these bureaucrats who are trying to actually screw up the agenda of the President by pretending they're actually complying with it, are those issues.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

You'Re dealing with 100% all day long. So on the first one, we are relying on whistleblowers in these institutions as well as great journalists. One of the beauties of Elon Musk owning X has been to really galvanize citizen journalism, and so we don't have to get stuff filtered through the nightly news. And now we can actually get direct information. Chris Rufo has done some great journalism, and I'm in touch with him whenever I see a journalist out there that is interested in sharing information. We use that as a starting point. We have to do our own investigation. Agencies like EEOC have subpoena power over certain areas. And so we are very focused. And even, as I just mentioned, with less staff, we have, we're highly motivated to get to the bottom of this. So we're working hand in hand with the White House and others on that. On the malicious compliance. I was. This was flagged for me before I even got sworn in. Political appointees at a high level have some training that the White House does. And so among that, there's a public post on LinkedIn of a former government lawyer saying, this is how you mess up and throw sand in the gears of the new administration. If someone gives you a direct order, you send 20 emails asking for clarification. You basically require them to break it down for you like you're really stupid. And then you write a long memo saying why you can't do it. And we've experienced this. Just this morning, I had a staff meeting with some of my colleagues, and one of them recounted an instance of that. So how you deal with that is, you know, once you realize who's doing it, you make it very clear that you view that as, you know, obstructive and insubordination. And they kind of, you know, of course, each of us have to follow our ethical precepts. If you don't like this job, you could certainly quit like people did. That's fair. That's what I would do. If I were given orders at work all day, that I absolutely, for some moral Reason couldn't do. But what they're doing is taking the money and taking the job and keeping it and trying to undermine. That's insubordination. It's not tolerated. So government workers have certain protections. So you have to document what's going on and give them a direct order. And if they refuse to follow it, then job consequences follow. But it's not as fast as in our workplaces, where if this happens, you're like, employment at will. Sorry, you're fired. Here's a box. Get your stuff. Don't let the door hit you. This is not how things work in the government. So luckily, I do have a background in employment law. As staff, it comes in real handy. We are familiar with how to do this. Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, Michael asked about higher ed, and obviously anti Semitism has been rampant on these college campuses over the last couple of years. I know you guys are doing an awful lot to try to crack down on that. I wonder if you could tell everybody what you're doing.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

You know, it's really troubling. My alma mater, University of Virginia, has gotten two letters from my department and one of my deputies about this. And so what you're seeing all over. And it's just really shocking to me, actually. I mean, last week I gave a speech at the DOJ on the 80th anniversary of American troops liberating people from the concentration camps. And, you know, our country has been a leader in these issues, and yet on college campuses and I think turbocharged by foreign influence and foreign money, I know other elements of our government are looking at this, but professors are openly blocking access of people who are visibly Jewish from getting to classrooms. You saw the lawsuit in Colombia of janitors who were held hostage. They aren't even, you know, Jewish. They just happen to be held hostage by these Hamas protesters. We're giving visas to people who hate America, and they're surprised. And all these nonprofits and the ACLU are suddenly surprised when you get deported or on a deportation order for violating the terms of your visa. So we have to enforce our laws. Our laws are actually pretty good. But people have gotten used to a lack of enforcement. And it is illegal in America to discriminate against people on the basis of their religion. It breaks my heart to hear of Jewish students on campuses. Northwestern and some others, their parents have told me at events their child who wears a yarmulke feels unsafe crossing the campus. That is shameful. It is shameful for all of us in the United States. And we're putting an end to it at the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's really, really well done. I mean, look, if you take a step back, part of the reason why this job is so difficult and why previous administrations have been unable to actually get their arms wrapped around it is you've got the whole political connotation that's with the Civil Rights Division and the Democratic Party's insistence through the mainstream media that they sort of a cod lock on what civil rights actually are. And so they therefore then have all of these organizations that sort of dictate what that is. And it's always a leftist agenda. But you have a background in all of this. You fought this your entire career. And so you kind of see it coming. You know what you're there to expect. And when you walk into a place like this and you see all this stuff is just sort of a political mask to try to get this far left progressive agenda through. I got to imagine the weight of your entire career gives you significant amount of viewpoint on how you go about undercutting what it is they're trying to do here.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Well, it's interesting. So at the level of assistant, you know, assistant Attorney General in prior Trump administration, prior Republican administrations, including the first Trump administration, you have people coming in and their goal is really to. It's like, call it 10 out of 10 bad. Okay? We want to slow it down to six or seven out of 10 bad and, you know, not really mess with these career people. It's a hassle and just slow it down. There was no concept of weaponizing it in the other direction or just like enforcing the law evenhandedly. Let's start with that. I'm a little older than some of the ones who've done this job before, and I do have a long career. And so I think an important superpower, when you come to D.C. and too many judges and people who serve in administrations don't have. This is. You have to not crave being liked, okay? You have to not care about.

[Josh Holmes]

You're singing our. You're singing our rap sheet right here.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

I don't care about being invited to cocktail parties. I don't care if people like me or not. I'm a plaintiff's trial lawyer. That's my superpower. I do not care. And that is unnecessary. And so I've surrounded myself with people like that as well. We want to do what is right. We don't need to be liked by the rank and file or by the plaintiff's bar. And so, yes, during my hearing, every single civil rights group in the United States came out against me. She's not qualified. She doesn't know civil rights. I've won tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for, for my clients in civil rights cases using the civil rights laws for them. But from a different perspective.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not a leftist perspective.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

It is not a leftist perspective. United States Supreme Court, those cases where we challenge the shutdowns of people of faith to be able to pray, those are civil rights cases. The cases of parents who are denied the right to control their children's transgender indoctrination behind their parents backs in the schools. Those are civil rights cases and cases of people being fired for their political views under California law and the laws of some other states. James Damore, his case when he sued Google, that's a civil rights case. And so yes, we can use civil rights for the good. And I'm proud to say today, where there was no such job, where you could do it 32 years ago when I got out of UVA Law School, today there are nonprofits that do this work every day. And so where priests, penitent priest privilege is being threatened in Washington state, there are civil rights groups that are pro first amendment that are stepping up to help. And so the world has changed and we need to change with it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think the larger point that I'm sort of wrapping my head around is it's not just about the current policy of the president so much as it is this larger redefinition of civil rights back to its original intent of what civil rights ultimately is. We joke all the time on our show about how this era sort of post George, Floyd and DEI and all of these things will go down as one of the more racist times in American history. Obviously pales in comparison to slavery and some of the civil rights activity in the 1960s, for example. But in modern day context, racism is just racism.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. And being able to just cut through the vernacular, the modern day definition that is entirely formulated by the left to go back to the original intent of what civil rights law ought to do is at least part of the remit here.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

It absolutely is. And you know today that, look, we do have a history of racism in our country. We have a history, shameful time periods where blacks were enslaved and then they were considered to be less than fully human. And then there was segregation even in our lifetimes. And today in 2025, like I said, we've been dismissing some consent decrees, ancient consent decrees that are 50 years old. We did one a few weeks ago. Look, if I see some segregated school district in the United States today that is disadvantaging people of color, that's a problem. But I'm not seeing that. What I'm seeing is the opposite. I'm seeing special, special advantages for certain minorities, not others. And disadvantages. I mean, we've seen this in San Francisco where, gosh, there are too many Asians getting into the elite magnet school. So let's stop that. Let's shut that down and let's impose busing Instead. Busing. In 2024, the United States Supreme Court wrote in Students for Fair Admissions that but Harvard couldn't get away with doing this anymore. That's the law of the United States. And so what you're seeing to your point of they're simply changing the title of the DEI into something else, or here's what they're doing. It's very transparent. Everyone has to now do a personal statement that has them describe how they have overcome difficulties in their lives and if they have, and how they've helped other people overcome difficulties. And I saw this in UC Berkeley's application for chemistry graduate student admissions. What Difficult. Describe what difficulties you've overcome in your life. I mean, organic chemistry, does that count? I mean, that's a difficulty for me. I remember that when I was pre med at Dartmouth. But irrelevant to being a good chemistry PhD and so that's how they're doing it. They're openly defying. Harvard is openly defying this administration. This administration is taking away billions of. Of dollars, and it's all going to shake out at the end of the day that you can have whatever discrimination you want in your admissions. You can't get federal money. And everybody except for Hillsdale is taking federal money in some way or the other in America. So those are the facts of life, guys. It's going to be painful, and they're going to learn that lesson.

[Josh Holmes]

Does it. Look, I try not to be surprised by anything that the left does these days, but you've been involved in this area of the law for an awful long time. You've seen the evolution of it. Do you ever. Is it ever just jarring to get to a point where you've seen, you know, sort of a feminist movement that worked hand in hand with, you know, people right, left and center to get things like Title nine across the finish line, that now a feminist movement is working to ensure that women have to compete against men? I mean, just. Did you ever imagine at the beginning of your career when you're dealing with civil Rights law, you're now sitting in this position that you are in. And the same people that were arguing for equal rights for fair representation that have also now gotten to a point where they're like, no, no. Men and women, sports.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Well, so what's interesting is that's actually one of the areas where I'm seeing a very interesting pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. So Canary in the Coal Mine was an interesting case where I represented my first radical feminist client. Many years ago, I sued Twitter before Elon owned Twitter and it was called Twitter. And this radical feminist, she calls herself a radical feminist from Canada, was objecting to a dude going into, in a dress going into the women's locker rooms. And in this case, it was a man going by the name of Jessica Yaniv. Jessica would bring shakedown cases in British Columbia, forcing largely immigrant women doing waxing in their homes to present as a woman. And he would, you know, surprise, take off the dress and please wax my male genitalia.

[Josh Holmes]

Horrific.

[John Ashbrook]

And these women were like, baked. The cake was bad.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

I mean, these women were like, yeah, we're doing waxing in our homes because we don't want to touch your junk. And so this feminist was standing up for these women and their right to determine their own businesses and what they were willing to do in their homes. And she referred to Jessica as a he on X and was bounced. And X's rules did not allow you to be balanced for misgendering at the time. It wasn't even the thing. And they just changed their rules, they breached their contract with their users and they did. I sued X and I lost Twitter at the time. And I lost. And the judge said, you know, under Communications Decency act, which I'm sure you guys have talked about in some other episodes. So we lost. But that was a. I said, oh, there are feminists out there who are willing to stand up for real old fashioned women as God defined them. And now you have journalists, you have sports figures, Martina Navratilova, J.K. rowling has championed this movement in the UK to great personal and to great personal expense and harassment, even of these thankless actors and actresses whose careers they made. And the UK The Supreme Court granted a case of these Scottish women who wanted women defined as biological women. And they're ahead of the United States on that. And so it is actually a space where women, traditional older women are taking back the space. And my nonprofit, before I started this job, we represented a lady in her 80s who objected to a guy in the girls locker room at the YMCA in Washington state saying she asked, you know, do you have a penis? You know, it's awkward thing to have to say in the girls. Sure looks like one, you know, public. This person was helping a child, was adjusting a child's bathing suit and the woman's instinct was to be protective. And so that's an ongoing lawsuit in our country. But I think the pendulum is swinging on that issue. And I think that with what you're seeing redefined in our military today, I think ultimately we're going to look back on this trans trend and we haven't even gotten into the grooming and mutilation of children in our country. I think we're going to look back on that as being an era like we do of lobotomies and other disgraced medical pract practices in our country. It's not going to be viewed as a thing that is admirable in 10 or 20 years.

[Josh Holmes]

100%.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

So I wanted to ask you about anti Christian bias as you've seen it at the Department of Justice. I look back to something like Obama suing, you know, the little sisters of the poor and fighting them in court on the, you know, abortion mandate and Obamacare as like a seminal moment in this fight as it relates to, you know, Christians having objections to our federal government. I'm curious, you know, fast forward now all these years later, what is it that you're seeing in that area?

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Yeah, so the president signed an executive order on the weaponization of the government against Christians. So we have a Christian task force, Anti Christian Elimination of Bias task force. And we had a meeting at the doj, I think, in my second week. And many cabinet heads came there and told stories of how in their own agency, for example, in the military, Christian priests were told not to, you know, be so overt about their Christianity. You know, there was widespread, thousands of people lost their jobs, including throughout the federal government, for refusing to take the COVID shot on the basis of their faith. And so many other examples where faith, and particularly the Christian faith, has been marginalized and we're ending that in this government. You know, we as a federal government, we don't have jurisdiction over everything, but we certainly have jurisdiction over the hundreds of thousands of government employees. And ending that bias is important and faith is important to our country. It's literally the basis on which our country was founded. And so we are making that front and center in doj. Civil rights and other agencies are doing that as well.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, man. Well, I can't thank you enough for doing it also pretty wild to think you invite a priest in with the collar and be like, hey, can you.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Tone it down a little?

[John Ashbrook]

You know?

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's sort of what I do.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

It's kind of the job description that God gave me and my church gave me. So, no, we want people to be. We don't prefer one religion over the other. As a matter of law in the United States, that's what the First Amendment. It doesn't mean we ban and expel faith. And, you know, faith is so important to providing so many resources in our country. The left would like us to believe that the government is our mother and our father. The government provides you all the resources. It's a form of communism.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

And in fact, it is faith institutions of all faiths that are the first on the ground in instances of the flooding in North Carolina and in providing resources to people who are homeless and hungry. Adoption services for unwanted children. And so that faith is important to actually living a better and safer life in the United States. And countries that have eliminated, that have seen a degradation of their quality of life. You see that in Europe as faith has become marginalized. And so it's great to see that resurgence here in the United States.

[Josh Holmes]

Really, really well said. In pursuit of actual civil rights for the first time in a long time within the Department of Justice. Hermey Dillon, thank you so much for joining us.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Thanks for having me today.

[Comfortably Smug]

Man, she is so smart and we're lucky to have her in that job. She's obviously working very hard and she has a ton of issues in front of her and it seems like she's knocking them down one by one.

[John Ashbrook]

And anybody from the doj, if you happen to listen to our Nudist Colony segment, please do not arrest the ruthless variety program.

[Michael Duncan]

Arrest them.

[Josh Holmes]

We didn't do anything.

[John Ashbrook]

We did nothing.

[Josh Holmes]

All we did is report. Even we report you to something.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I love it. Remember to like and subscribe here on the YouTube channel. Give us your comments for the question of the day, which is should Congress investigate the ultimate cover up that the Biden administration did? Maybe even some journals. I know that that's a little touchy, but hey, it's worth talking about. Put your thoughts in the comments. We'll read them here on Thursday with that. Fellas, I think we did it.

[Michael Duncan]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Harmony, Dylan, thank you so much to our dear listeners. Remember, if you have not yet subscribe to the YouTube, it's more fun and video so until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold line and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay Ruthless.

[Josh Holmes]

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

Let me point something out.

[Josh Holmes]

You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it.

[Harmeet Dhillon]

You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion.

[Josh Holmes]

And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention?

[Harmeet Dhillon]

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[Josh Holmes]

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