Can Trump Stop Inner City Crime In Left-Wing Cities?

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary: "Can Trump Stop Inner City Crime In Left-Wing Cities?"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Ruthless Podcast
• Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
• Description: A variety program where Smug, Holmes, Duncan, and Ashbrook elevate next-generation conservative talk with a sharp analysis of daily news, unfiltered and unapologetic.
• Episode: Can Trump Stop Inner City Crime In Left-Wing Cities?
• Release Date: August 12, 2025

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1. Introduction to Federalizing Washington D.C. ([00:00 - 07:11])

The episode opens with the hosts advocating for the federalization of Washington D.C. as envisioned by the Constitution. Josh Holmes underscores the absence of two U.S. Senators from D.C., a point of contention often raised by Democrats.

Notable Quote:

• Josh Holmes [00:00]: "Long been advocates on this program of federalizing D.C. the way the Constitution envisioned, by the way, that it should be a federal."

Michael Duncan challenges the notion, questioning the original constitutional intent regarding D.C.'s representation.

2. President Trump's Initiative to Combat Inner-City Crime ([07:11 - 17:48])

Josh Holmes introduces the main topic: President Donald Trump's initiative to tackle inner-city crime in Washington D.C., positioning it as a model for other left-wing cities grappling with rising crime rates. The discussion highlights the federal government's jurisdiction over D.C. and contrasts it with local governance that, according to the hosts, perpetuates lawlessness.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [07:11]: "Now is the time to unleash our nation's energy, to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable, and full of opportunity for all Americans."
• John Ashbrook [03:34]: "If Donald Trump is able to save Washington D.C. to break the back of crime in this town, it shows that decline is a choice."

The hosts critique Democratic policies, attributing high crime rates to policies like the decriminalization of certain offenses and critiquing the lack of effective law enforcement prioritization.

3. Media and Democratic Opposition to Federal Crackdown ([17:48 - 26:40])

The hosts discuss the backlash from Democrats and mainstream media against Trump's federal crackdown in D.C., despite reports of falling crime rates. They argue that certain media outlets downplay the severity of crime to align with Democratic narratives.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [22:25]: "It's about time the federal government get involved in making sure that the nation's capital is a safe, clean place to visit."
• Michael Duncan [12:05]: "They think that stopping crime is racist. I think that there's nothing more racist than that attitude."

The segment includes references to local news reports suggesting that crime statistics may be falsified, reinforcing the hosts' stance on ineffective local governance.

4. Case Studies: Chicago and Other Cities ([26:40 - 36:12])

The conversation expands to other cities like Chicago, drawing parallels to Washington D.C.'s crime issues. The hosts lament the loss of safe urban environments due to persistent Democratic leadership and policies they deem ineffective.

Notable Quotes:

• John Ashbrook [16:31]: "They dole out the money to the NGOs, they dole out the money to all the community groups… and the crime gets worse."
• Josh Holmes [17:09]: "This is an experiment that may change everybody's point of view in the same way that Rudy Giuliani… changed New York for a generation."

5. Listener Comments and Host Reactions ([36:12 - 54:17])

Engaging with their audience, the hosts read and respond to listener comments expressing skepticism about Democratic accountability and effectiveness. They mock Democratic strategies like tactical gerrymandering and criticize party leaders' inability to address core issues.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [38:21]: "Not a chance on arrest. I would love to see it, but it's just not happening."
• Michael Duncan [43:54]: "He's a nice guy. He's under indexing a little bit with the black voters."

The dialogue reveals frustration with perceived Democratic hypocrisy and failure to implement meaningful change in urban centers.

6. Variety Segment: The Italian Wedding Story ([64:00 - 70:22])

Breaking from political discourse, the hosts share a humorous and surreal anecdote about an Italian wedding where the bride's mother unexpectedly presents a Ziploc bag containing the groom's foreskin as part of a bizarre family tradition.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [65:00]: "Here I have the foreskin of my son that I'd like to pass along to you to keep in your good stead."
• Michael Duncan [69:38]: "Sick, dude. I can't believe."

This segment serves as comic relief, showcasing the hosts' ability to pivot from intense political debate to lighthearted and absurd storytelling.

7. Final Political Commentary and Closing Remarks ([70:22 - 77:45])

The episode concludes with a critique of the Chinese Navy's aggressive maneuvers, likening it to flawed strategic displays. The hosts also touch upon sports topics, mocking the Minnesota Vikings' performance and cheerleading choices.

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [71:01]: "You love to see it."
• Michael Duncan [73:19]: "It's straight up, like, they're gonna identify as a guy, too?"

The hosts reinforce their overarching theme of advocating for strong leadership and law enforcement, while dismissing Democratic narratives and policies as inadequate or counterproductive.

Closing Remarks: Josh Holmes wraps up the episode by urging listeners to subscribe and engage with their content, emphasizing the importance of maintaining law and order through federal intervention.

Final Quote:

• Josh Holmes [77:45]: "Keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless."

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Conclusion: This episode of the Ruthless Podcast delves deeply into the critique of Democratic policies in urban centers, highlighting President Trump's federal initiatives as a solution to rising inner-city crime. Through passionate discussions, listener interactions, and a mix of humor, the hosts present a staunch conservative perspective on law enforcement, governance, and political accountability.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Long been advocates on this program of federalizing D.C. the way the Constitution envisioned, by the way, that it should be a federal.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait, you're telling me they didn't envision two United States senators from D.C. no.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it's funny that they, they didn't see that they could have sworn.

[Michael Duncan]

Because the Democrats keep talking about that. Yeah, that our government needs two senators.

[Josh Holmes]

They do keep talking about. You mean to say that the falling crime might not actually be the case?

[John Ashbrook]

It's amazing. When you legalize crime, crime goes down. And for the journalists. The nerve of these people. It makes me so angry to see this because I sent this tweet out and I was so proud of it is. It breaks my heart when innocent people in D.C. are the victims of crime instead of these journalists who are enablers and who try to like, say, oh, there's no real crime. You see, it didn't happen to me when I was having brunch in Georgetown. I wish it had. I really wish it had.

[Josh Holmes]

Hardworking Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done. Now is the time to unleash our nation's energy, to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable, and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[John Ashbrook]

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

[Josh Holmes]

It's time for our main event. Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety program. It's Al the Week here in Washington, D.C. and across the nation. I am Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, left or right across your radio dial. As always, big news out of the nation's capital. It turns out that our President of the United States, Donald Trump, is finally going to do something about inner city crime. He's decided to focus on the one place that a president of the United States has jurisdiction, which is Washington, D.C. you recall a couple of weeks ago we did an episode where we talked about, we first floated the idea that you could invoke a home rule, but Recall constitutionally, Washington D.C. is under the jurisdiction of the federal government. This has gotten perverted over the world over the years where you've got a city council that basically wants to decriminalize crime and a mayor, several mayors who have had, shall we say, less than enthusiastic response to what is violent crime in the nation's capital. Now, what does it mean to you? You don't live in Washington, D.C. in all likelihood. Even if you do, this is a fairly provincial conversation. It is a demonstration project, from my perspective, of what can be done and should be done with city, inner city crime across this country. No doubt, you live in a state where there is a city that has a heavily populated urban area that in the last four or five years has become unrecognizable. Like, you can't go take your kids to games, you can't go to a theater, you can't go to a concert. You can't do all these things because it's. The risk outweighs the reward.

[John Ashbrook]

It's become a national. Like, look at Denver, Colorado.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Like across the country, cities have completely gone to hell. They've gone to hell. And this is why this is so critical, is because if Donald Trump is able to save Washington D.C. to break the back of crime in this town, it shows that decline is a choice.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, and it's also. It'll break the back of the Soros funded left wing prosecutors in this country that have used America's inner cities as a laboratory for lawlessness.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what they've done.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

Cause just ideologically, they just think, you know, people who commit crime should be left in our communities. And if you look at D.C. especially, you look at the recidivism rates, it's absurd, you know, no cash bail. Absurd what they've done to this city, our city, your city. As Ashbrook always says, you pay for.

[Comfortably Smug]

This as a taxpayer, nearly a billion dollars a year right out of your pocket into this city. It's time somebody takes control.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. No question. So it's about D.C. but it's really about every metropolitan area across this city do. Or across this country do. We get to a point where you've got like the ju style broken window approach, where if you walk into any city across this country, you see broken windows, broken down stuff, homeless people sleeping on the streets and all kinds of things. Does it. Is it conducive to follow the law or is it conducive to promote? You can get away with anything. And Donald Trump has a view on these point. On this point of view and what he's laid out here, I think is gonna be instructive to the rest of the country. He started, if you remember, after big bulls.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Was attacked, big bowls, of course, the infamous Doge employee, young kid, very, very smart. Saved a woman from a carjacking last week or the week before, brutally beaten.

[John Ashbrook]

You saw those images.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Put his own neck on the line.

[Josh Holmes]

And Trump came out afterwards to say, like, look, we're gonna do something about all this. We did a program shortly thereafter. Do it. Yep. Do it, do it, do it. We've long been advocates on this program of federalizing D.C. the way the Constitution envisioned, by the way, that it should be a federal.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait, you're telling me they didn't envision two United states senators from D.C. no.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it's funny that they. They didn't see that.

[Michael Duncan]

Could have sworn. Because the Democrats keep talking about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That our government needs two senators.

[Josh Holmes]

They do keep talking. In fact, there's somebody in our show who keeps talking about this. Get to here in a bit, but. So Trump and Graphic One on Sunday released a statement saying, we're having a news conference tomorrow in the White House. I'm going to make our Capitol safer, more beautiful than it ever was before. The homeless will have to move out immediately. We will give you places to stay, but far away from the Capitol, the criminals. You don't have to move out. I moved.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

We're gonna put you in jail where you belong.

[Michael Duncan]

We have a place for you right here.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's all gonna happen very fast. Just like the border we went from. Millions pouring into zero over the last few months. This will be easier. Be prepared. There will be no Mr. Nice Guy. We want our capital back. Thank you for your attention in this matter. All right, so his point of view, very clearly laid out, is it's about time the federal government get involved in making sure that the nation's capital is a safe, clean place to visit.

[John Ashbrook]

But can you say when we. When that first dropped online, President Trump's message, We instantly started messaging each other.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

How thrilled and excited we were. Because the fact of the matter is, for folks who, if you have not visited Washington, D.C. lately, I don't blame you because it's a horrible situation. It's tragic situation. So many people I know have been victims of crime. Friends of theirs have been victims of crime. I told the story of a friend who had their buddy bringing his wife home from the hospital with their new baby. After she delivered. They got carjacked. Yeah, they got carjacked. On the way back, my trainer riding the train stopped a woman from getting raped. In the morning. We're talking about at 8 in the morning.

[Josh Holmes]

It's insane.

[John Ashbrook]

This is the nation's capital, this is America, and this happens.

[Josh Holmes]

And now for the first time, we have a president who's willing to do something about it. He did a long press Conference on Monday, which is full of golden gold stuff.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's play clip one just to set the table for you.

[Donald Trump]

I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we're going to take our capital back. We're taking it back. Under the authorities vested in me as the President of the United States, I'm officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. You know what that is. And placing the D.C. metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control. And you'll be meeting the people that will be directly involved with that. Very good people, but they're tough and they know what's happening, and they've done it before. In addition, I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order, and public safety in Washington, D.C. and they're going to be allowed to do their job properly.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so look, that's the official order of what goes down. And you might say, okay, you've got a crime problem. It's been a persistent crime problem in the nation's capital. You'd like the world to be able to visit America's capital city and not worry about being carjacked or, you know, thieved or beaten on the street or something like that. Of course, like, who's. Who's opposed to that? It turns out the constituency is opposed to that. It's just like, you're straight Democratic Party. Every single Democrat finds a problem involved in this. The truth is, honestly, is that for the same reason that Hamas is a component of the Democratic constituency. So is thievery, thuggery, and murder.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

And there is a constituency within the Democratic Party that doesn't want to change any of that.

[John Ashbrook]

And it's important because we've seen for the better part of a decade, almost 20 years now, there is this kind of far left, ideological pipeline, grift, money train on the left, where the universities are full of professors who get their grants by being like, I'm gonna write a paper and says, you know what? Actually, all criminals should be let out of jail and all prosecutors should release all prisoners, and that the reason crimes happen is because of poverty. And so the criminals are actually the victims. Well, it's.

[Josh Holmes]

We don't understand what makes a criminal a criminal. Right. Yep. It's like the consequences for crime notwithstanding, it's the psychology of what makes somebody a criminal.

[Michael Duncan]

So the left really is fascinating when it comes to the topic of Crime. If you ever get a chance, go to the Reddit, the subreddit, the Washington.

[John Ashbrook]

D.C. i was hearing about this this.

[Michael Duncan]

Weekend, which is just a fascinating psychological analysis of the modern left. And, and that is, you know, a lot of these subreddits in these cities are overtaken by left wing activists and they moderate these things and, and what have you. But it's instructive, I think, in that, you know, crime is out of control in Washington D.C. like it is in so many large urban areas across this country. But when somebody reports, you know, getting punched in the face or robbed on the metro or carjacked in D.C. and they post it in that subreddit, they almost have to apologize for reporting it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Because they don't want a moderator to take it down. Because if you post something crime related in the Washington D.C. subreddit, then you're just stoking, you know, anxiety, anxieties.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, racial animus, something like that.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And they'll take it down.

[Comfortably Smug]

But the thing that the left misses on this is they think that, they think that stopping crime is racist. I think that that attitude, there's nothing more racist than that attitude. As if your typical family growing up and trying to make their way in an urban area doesn't want safety. Of course they, they're like, oh, well, we want this crime. Nobody wants crime.

[Michael Duncan]

But it is instructive that, like it is the far left that polices the discourse when it comes to democratic politics on crime.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, so like a normie in the Democratic Party who's like, hey, you know, I just hate seeing the window of my car that I park on the street punched out, you know, like, I don't. And then it's like you're gonna get a discourse back from some left wing academic talking about how you bringing that up is actually racist.

[John Ashbrook]

But that's the thing is the obfuscation of crime and race, of being told that, like, wow, again, Americans have been being brainwashed for over a decade that police officers are racists. Like, think about the whole BLM movement was predicated on making people think that every police officer in this country is racist and that if you report a crime, you're a racist because you're trying to harm a marginalized community. I'm the one who got my car broken into. You know what I mean? Like, just trying to flip in people's minds.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, the victim's the victim, the criminal is the victim. And we saw this go on to steroids after the George Floyd incident. In all of COVID And I'll be honest, like, D.C. itself is somebody who's lived in and around this place for 20 years. In 2017, 18, it got to a place where people were pretty comfortable. Like, there was crime was pretty low. It was one of the better cities to go move around in.

[John Ashbrook]

I remember after President Trump won the first time in, like, 20, when we won 2016, in 2017, he comes to the White House, and the Navy Yard area was basically became like the conservative area. All the folks who are moving into work in the administration, which was, historically.

[Josh Holmes]

Speaking, a pretty dangerous neighborhood before the National Stadium went up. And then a bunch of youth in that era.

[John Ashbrook]

And so all these, like, young conservatives move in. And Navy Yard suddenly became like, the place to hang out. You could go there, you could watch the game, you could grab some beers, you could hang out with some buddies. It was safe. Then Covid hit.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Then BLM arrived and it became basically like the carjack capital of the planet.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Where. Where you're four, I saw a statistic. You're four times more likely to get carjacked in Navy Yard than in Chicago, in the south side of Chicago.

[Josh Holmes]

So I think, look, to sum this. This segment up, and we're going to get to the second half of where the opposition is and what Democrats are saying to this after the break. But to sum it up like, this isn't isolated to D.C. it's the one place, as I said at the top, where the President of the United States actually has jurisdiction to do something about it. We see city after city. Chicago comes to mind, where you've got these incredible criminal statistics and people of young ages dying needlessly all across in some of the poorest neighborhoods. And yet a political leadership that keeps electing the same people, that perpetuate the same violent crime and unwillingness to deal with the root problems of all of this, in large part because it's a constituency. Right. They want to perpetuate the same constituency in order to get elected. And you wonder why. You sit back and you look at this stuff. The Chicago one really stands out because a few years ago they had, like. I mean, it was worse than, like, Mogadishu in terms of murders and everything else. And they had a mayoral election, and there was one guy who was like this stooge for the teachers union who basically did all the same liberal stuff that just let crime rampant and what have you. Another person who's also a Democrat but was like, no, we need law and order in this city. People need to feel safe we need tourism, we need all these things. And guy got blown out by the stooge.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the thing again, because it's the left wing money grift. They dole out the money to the NGOs, they dole out the money to all the community groups who are like, oh, the best way to tackle crime is we should have a trans awareness day. You know what I mean? And then they get the money doled out, the taxpayer money doled out to them by the mayor, who's in on the grift, who's elected by the teachers unions. The grift continues, the money gets passed around and the crime gets worse.

[Josh Holmes]

So you sit back as somebody who appreciates law and order, and you wonder like, this is never going to change. Like, you can't. If you can be confronted by literally world record statistics and murder and turn around and be like, no, I'm for the guy who's going to be soft on crime. Like, you're like, all right, well, we're just not going to go to the city anymore. This is an experiment that may change everybody's point of view in the same way that Rudy Giuliani in the early 90s changed New York for a generation, Bloomberg continued it, and you had a vibrant, wonderful city that is about to go down.

[Michael Duncan]

And we also saw it there in Donald Trump's statement where he was like, look what I did on the border. Everybody said that was impossible. It's just migrant flow. There's nothing we can do, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

And then he becomes President of the United States and suddenly, zero donut.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

Nobody is illegally crossing the southern border. And so in D.C. he has the opportunity to prove to the rest of the it can be done. It can be done.

[Josh Holmes]

It can be done. All right, so when Trump's taking decisive action, Democrats claim that, well, this is all misplaced. Crime isn't actually a problem. It's going down. Lot more to the story after this.

[Comfortably Smug]

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[Josh Holmes]

So a big part of federalizing DC, as Donald Trump has talked about, is taking over the D.C. metro Police Department. Now, you know, you might think that there is a little bit of a tug and pull in terms of how people locally would react to that kind of thing. I would be. I would wager to bet that the vast majority of D.C. police are pretty excited about this because they can actually do their job for the first time. These are people who are, you know, get calls to response to crime, and they're like, nah, you need to prioritize anybody who's actually been shot and bleeding out over, like, a petty theft. And that's the reason why, not only in dc, but across this country, in every city, you've got like, a Walgreens or a CVS that has everything behind closed doors and, like, gated off. And you can't actually. I mean, if you go into a city anywhere in this country, you can't get a stick of deodorant without calling the cashier over because they steal everything.

[John Ashbrook]

Why does 99% of the population have to live with the CVS being a Fort Knox instead of the 1% causing it being in jail?

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. That is exactly right. So, but with this partnership, we're gonna have to. Because it is a partnership. Like, he needs the DC Police that is now federalized to actually work on that. How does Trump handle this? Clip two, please.

[Donald Trump]

All of these people are really. Could I shake your hand, Gary? Please. You're gonna be so important here.

[Josh Holmes]

You're gon.

[Donald Trump]

You're going to be that guy. I hope I don't have to fire him in two weeks because he's too soft. I don't think he's too soft. If I do, I will, though. Is it okay if you. If you're soft, weak and pathetic like so many people, I will fire you so fast. You're not going to have to worry about that. No, I think you're going to do a fantastic job.

[John Ashbrook]

DC's got the dream team up there.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

He's got Burgum up there. He's got Sec Def up there, Secretary of the Army. It's like, we are serious about this.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, that's the thing, is that you. He has made his entire cabinet a part of this discussion. And that is a classic deal. Like, I hope I'm not gonna have to fire you.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. It's like he's still on the Apprentice and he has Burgum up there because he's interior. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

So.

[Michael Duncan]

So, I mean, you know, if you don't live in D.C. you don't know this, but one of the big problems that we have in the city is on a random Sunday, families will be out trying to visit the World War II memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and they'll be these, you know, hoodlums on ATVs rolling around on the National Mall, weaving inside of out of traffic, people trying to have picnics, things like that. And it's just been something we've sort of accepted in this city.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. Right.

[John Ashbrook]

Which is crazy between like Lincoln and Washington. If you walk in that area, it's like it could be an open air drug market when you're trying to have a family picnic. It's unbelievable that this has been allowed to occur.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. So how does the left, how does the mainstream media react to this? Predictably. Let's put up graphic two, please. Okay. Trump mulls sending National Guard to Washington after assault of Doge staffer. Despite the falling crime rates.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Trump's federal crackdown in D.C. ramps up despite falling crime.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm sensing a theme.

[Josh Holmes]

D.C. mayor defense capital's crime rates after Trump threatens to take over. Please. Okay, all right. So you get the gist, right? They're like, there's no problem. There's no problem. It starts with an acceptability of a crime rate, though.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is the printed headline version of a genre that DC Journals play out over and over and over again. They take a picture from their, like, bucolic, wealthy D.C. suburb and the picture shows nothing. And they're like, see, there's no crime in this park. In my multimillion dollar neighborhood, my mimosa brunch was safe.

[John Ashbrook]

More importantly, I want to cite this. This is reported by NBC News in Washington. Is that D.C. police commander suspended accused of changing crime statistics. Police union says directive to change offense classifications comes from command staff. So that's the problem right there is that the crime stats are fake. It's easy for the crimes to go down when you just stop reporting it. When you have prosecutors who are like, nope, we're going to let them off when the police are told, nope, don't arrest criminals.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we actually have. So we have a full segment on that. If you want to put up graphic for. If you wouldn't mind. So this is what you're. The article you're talking about. It's an NBC Washington, a local news organization that is anything but a right wing organization.

[Michael Duncan]

That's a local NBC affiliate.

[Josh Holmes]

And I think you flagged this this morning. Duncan, it seems to me as though what Smug was just talking about is not just echoed by the conservatives out there or people who are, you know, anywhere near sort of a right of center idea of what cities ought to be like. It's everyone, including the police themselves.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, and not just this one, Commander. It seems to be a systemic problem in D.C. and I presume other major metropolitan areas. Here from this local report from NBC's Channel 4 affiliate, the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Michael Pulliam was placed on paid administrative leave in mid May. That happened just a week after Pulliam filed an equal employment employment opportunity complaint against an assistant chief in the police union, accused the department of deliberately falsifying crime data.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, falsifying crime data, you mean, you mean to say that the falling crime might not actually be the case?

[John Ashbrook]

It's amazing. When you legalize crime, crime goes down. And for the journalists. The nerve of these people. It makes me so angry to see this because I sent this tweet out and I was so proud of it is. It breaks my heart when innocent people in D.C. are the victims of crime instead of these journalists who are enablers and who try to like, say, oh, there's no real crime. You see, it didn't happen to me when I was having brunch in Georgetown. I wish it had. I really wish it had. I wish all these journalists who do their best to marginalize and be like, no, let's minimize this crime. It's not a big deal. Listen, just because my car got broken into nine times doesn't mean that we should do anything about crime. They deserve the worst. Like, you know, for the criminals who are listening, please target journalists instead of these innocent people who don't care. Well, you can't.

[Josh Holmes]

They're allies in the cause. But the police union, it seems like, is ready to talk. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So here's a quote directly from the police union. When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense, where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on the scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense. So instead of taking report for a shooting or a stabbing or a carjacking, they will order that officer to take a report for a theft or an injured person to the hospital. Think about that.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, this is the police union.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that's a crime not just against the victim. That's a crime against all of us in the city. That is a crime.

[Comfortably Smug]

But therein lies the problem. Why it's so important for the president to step in and federalize this police force. Because the police force, as it was, is responding to political pressure from on high in the D.C. city Council, saying, you need to change those numbers. They cannot look that bad. And Trump is like, wait a minute. They are that bad. We have to actually fix the problem. We can't just pretend like it's fixed.

[Michael Duncan]

And Holmes, your buddy experienced something?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, there was a car crash. This person slammed into him, who was a drunk driver here in the District of Columbia, and immediately got out of the car, started exchanging insurance information, called the police, and the person sat around for about two minutes and was like, all right, I'm out of here. Got in their car and left, clearly like a drunk driver. And the cops called back and they were like, yeah, is anybody injured? And, like, we don't really know. I mean, it was kind of a hard collision. The car is totaled here in the middle of Washington, D.C. is there anything that we can do about it? And they're like, yeah, unless somebody's, like, gravely injured, we're not coming.

[Michael Duncan]

But we're not coming.

[Josh Holmes]

We're not coming.

[Michael Duncan]

This is the capital of the United States of America.

[Comfortably Smug]

3,500 police officers. As President Trump said in his press conference, 3,500 police officers in this city, and not one could do that.

[John Ashbrook]

Can I tell the story of front of the program? Elliot, who lived in Navy Yard at the time, where it got a lot of traction because of how insane it was. A puppy got shot in the head in Navy Yard. And I was like, did you hear about this? And he's like, yeah, I heard it. You hear a gunshot and you heard a puppy cry out, oh. Oh, that's how messed up it's gotten. Oh, you know. Were you in the neighborhood when the puppy got shot in the head? Yeah, I heard it.

[Josh Holmes]

I heard it. Yeah. I mean, that's what's going on. But when you're left with political leadership that will not do its level best to try to reassure the citizenry that they're there to try to prevent violent crime or any crime whatsoever, you have to be left to your own devices at some level. Now, D.C. a place that, like, prohibits firearms and everything else, you're left to.

[John Ashbrook]

Like, how is this gun free zone?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you're Left to, shall we say, substandard ways of doing that. Can we put up graphic three, please, please. So this is a note in the car window of a car parked on Capitol Hill that says, there is nothing of value in this car, only restaurant supplies and broken dreams. Please don't break the window. For the fifth time. That's basically what Washington, D.C. has been left to. If you park your car on the street in a residential neighborhood on Capitol Hill, you have to leave a note for the criminals to say, like, hey, this is not worth your time to break into this car.

[John Ashbrook]

I've taken everything.

[Josh Holmes]

You've already done it five times.

[John Ashbrook]

Pre Giuliani in New York, people would put those signs in their windows. No radio and car. Please don't break in. Like, that's how you know things have gotten very bad when you're pleading with the criminals because you're at their mercy. There's no more law and order.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And look, all of you have. For those of you who follow on social media, like the crime, there's a bunch of good accounts out there in every city that follow crime in metropolitan areas and try to keep you up to date. And you see this stuff, and it's terrifying. There's one of them just this Week in D.C. clip three, if you don't mind. This is in Southwest in Navy Yard, the place you're talking about that used to be this enclave of safety and fun. There's just clips raining out, people running around like crazy. People are just shooting. There's cops, there's federal agents, There was whatever. I guess my point is, in a country of 340 million people, you're gonna have some stuff, no question about it. How do you mitigate that stuff and how do you encourage that stuff? What's happened in Washington, D.C. is a full encouragement that you're not either gonna be prosecuted or that you can't just engage in this on a relatively normal basis without being deterred from doing so. And it happens over and over and over and over again to the point where you've got law enforcement scrambling around in a place where it houses the vast majority of Capitol Hill staff, and they're just whipping like nine millis all over the place. Clips raining out in federal law enforcement having to now deal with what the city of D.C. has not. It's crazy.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I do think that there is something, you know, the cops want to do their job. They're trained to do their job. And I do think there is something to now having the federal backstop and political muscle behind Them helping them to be able to do their job that local D.C. city Council was not willing to do. And I think it's really going to make a difference.

[Josh Holmes]

Unless you believe that this is just simply confined areas. A lot of cities are right. You know, you're not going to go in the South Chicago situation. Like, if you're roaming around the old Comiskey. It's tough, right? There are places in Milwaukee you don't want to go to, Cincinnati over the Rhine you don't want to go check that out.

[John Ashbrook]

The entire state of Minnesota, that's absolutely horrible mess.

[Josh Holmes]

That's an outrageous slander. But north Minneapolis is certainly one of.

[John Ashbrook]

Those only airstrikes can solve.

[Josh Holmes]

Minneapolis. No, but tires. How dare you.

[Michael Duncan]

Whole state's like Black Hawk Down. It is, dude. It is.

[John Ashbrook]

Even military presence and drone strikes on.

[Comfortably Smug]

Minnesota, even in Brainerd.

[Josh Holmes]

I could tell you at Maynard's, there's no such problem. They handle their business. That may. But look. Henry Cuellar, Congressman from Texas. Carjacked, October 23rd, murder of former Trump official Mike Gill, January of 24, murder of two Israeli employees, May of 2025, murder of congressional intern in June 30th. That was just, like, two months ago. And it was work for Ron Estes of Kansas.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, it was what, maybe six months ago. Someone got shot in the head in front of Capital One Arena.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, dude. Like, this is happening. This is not a ice. My point is this isn't isolated into these neighborhoods you shouldn't go into.

[John Ashbrook]

It's everywhere. We're talking about, like, it was, like, two blocks from the shopping area where there was, like, a Louis Vuitton and an Hermes. Someone got shot in the head right in front of the ring.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right. An assault on what we said. Big balls. I mean, all these things are happening all over the place, and it is so easy to figure out how you deter all of this.

[John Ashbrook]

Even in Georgetown last winter, there was, like, a rash of robberies. If you're wearing the Canada Goose jackets, you're getting robbed in Georgetown.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I know.

[John Ashbrook]

In Georgetown in the afternoon.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. There was like.

[John Ashbrook]

They were like, you can't wear this coat in D.C. because you'll get robbed. Think about that.

[Josh Holmes]

It's totally right. So. So we don't think that this is an isolated thing to D.C. we think this is going to be a demonstration project, and Trump will figure this out.

[John Ashbrook]

He will.

[Josh Holmes]

In the same way that he did the border. It's gonna be ugly in the same old constituencies. We're gonna cry wolf about all of this. They're gonna be like, well, you know, we can manage our own wards in our own districts. And how dare the President of the United States. Except they have to. And their own wards don't feel an inclination to stay in their own ward and criminalize each other. They go throughout the entire City of D.C. this is the same thing that's happened in city after city after city. And while New York is going one way with Mamdani and like mark my words, if that guy's elected, you're gonna find, you're gonna fuck around and find out like it is going to go one way. This guy wants to defund the police. He wants the community organize and make sure everybody feels like they've got their criminal history.

[Michael Duncan]

Just get a couple mental health, mental health counselors around and then we'll solve all the crimes.

[Josh Holmes]

It's going to go the other way in D.C. one of them is going to look like a tourist destination in three years and the other one is going to look like something close to Mogadishu. And the rest of the country can figure it out. You can either go one way or you can go the other. One of you guys raised the Gavin Newsom thing, cleaning up San Francisco when.

[John Ashbrook]

He was, you know, when she came to visit. Newsom was able to clean that town up, get all the homeless out of the way, make the streets clean for like 48 hours while she is there. Which is so pathetic because that tells you they don't care about Americans. They don't care about what but you as an American citizen, how you have to live your life. Oh, she's coming to visit. I make sure the master has a nice place.

[Josh Holmes]

And it is the hallmark of Democratic run urban epicenters. Make no mistake. This is not like, I don't know why we don't have this conversation like more broadly than it is, if there is a Democrat run city, you will find higher crime rates. Yep. It's just a period and exclamation point. That is the rule. That is the way it's gone. And when it becomes multi generational, it compounds upon itself and it becomes more dangerous and more dangerous and more dangerous and harder and more irredeemable. And that, that's just the way that it's worked out. And so our question of the day to you all is what's the worst Democratic controlled city in the country?

[John Ashbrook]

Great question.

[Josh Holmes]

What is it? Because there are a lot of them and it's almost every one of these urban epicenters. If they take, if people, if voters can Take a look at D.C. and what I am confident President Trump is going to accomplish in Washington, D.C. will they do something about it? So what's the worst Democratic controlled city and which is the one that needs to take the lesson from President Trump and everybody else? Because it's about the change in the nation's capital.

[John Ashbrook]

My votes. Minneapolis is disgusting.

[Josh Holmes]

Poor Holmes is unbelievable.

[Donald Trump]

Poor home.

[Michael Duncan]

Shitting on your home.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm just taking so much heat.

[Michael Duncan]

I agree with him.

[Josh Holmes]

You got off Cincinnati. I mean, we had to ask the Vice President about the crime in Cincinnati.

[Michael Duncan]

I think that was an isolated incident. Oh, my God.

[Josh Holmes]

I just don't.

[John Ashbrook]

I think Cincinnati is number two.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

One and two. Worst places. Horrible places.

[Josh Holmes]

You guys are awful. All right, so our question from last Friday, and thank you for all of you who joined in to listen to the Governor of Texas explain everything. Do you think any of those Texas Dems that we're talking about who abandoned ship over the redistricting are going to end up in jail? A lot of talk about it and we open it up to all of you when you like and subscribe. We read every single one of your comments. I think you've now figured out there are several of you that were skeptical and we've since replied.

[Michael Duncan]

We've disabused you of that notion.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that, that, that. In fact, we do.

[Michael Duncan]

We're always there lurking, plotting, and there's.

[Josh Holmes]

Like four sets of eyes on this stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

You learn so much listening, listening to the audience. You learn more listening to our audience than you do listening to us.

[Michael Duncan]

The comments section is the Panopticon of the ruthless variety.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, they're Panopticon. That's good. Well, you only get that out of the old man.

[Michael Duncan]

The old man sat word for you.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, old Merriam Webster himself.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, to read our comments, we always start with a voice.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

First one comes from GW Builder. And GW writes, not a chance on arrest. I would love to see it, but it's just not happening.

[Josh Holmes]

Understood. Because that has been the case over the period of years and usually it's the case because Democrats find their way back to Texas sooner or later. But I understand the cynicism. Comment 2.

[Michael Duncan]

Comment 2 is from Miriam. Miriam's also skeptical. Marion writes, nothing will happen to them. They keep doing this. The kind of constituents who elect these clowns are up applauding their antics.

[Josh Holmes]

That might be part of the problem. Maybe it's time for redistricting. Very well said, Marianne. Comment three, Smuggles.

[John Ashbrook]

This comment comes from Ben and Ben writes, the Texas Democrats will get arrested unless they get smart and flee to Cincinnati. Texas Rangers would simply be too distracted by the supposed crime of calling Skyline quote chili.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes. I've radicalized the listeners and viewers of the Ruthless Variety program. I've prayed for a day like this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Where I could turn all of our fans against Cincinnati.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a horrible place. That is the truth, though. Horrible place.

[Josh Holmes]

You meant. Chili's not chili.

[John Ashbrook]

It's. The food's disgusting. The crime is unbearable.

[Josh Holmes]

You know that Johnny told me last week he sincerely would make it his last meal on earth.

[Comfortably Smug]

I would. It's delicious.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just. He's lying to me.

[John Ashbrook]

That's why it's irredeemable. The people there. It's too far gone.

[Josh Holmes]

It's cinnamon in meat sauce.

[Comfortably Smug]

I apologize for nothing. It's delicious.

[John Ashbrook]

Airstrikes on Cincinnati, too. Just lying can't be redeemed.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God. All right, so are you guys ready to mock some opposition here? Always. So it turns out the Democrats.

[John Ashbrook]

I love this story so much.

[Josh Holmes]

Again, it's not going well and for a variety of reasons, but can we put up graphic five, please? Buttigieg faces a soft spot with black voters as White House speculation grows. So he's obviously running for president. He's trying to.

[John Ashbrook]

It's all he's ever wanted.

[Josh Holmes]

And it turns out that Pete has zero percent support amongst black voters, which, you know, you don't have to be a scholar of politics and what constitutes a Democratic coalition in a Democratic primary. Zero ain't gonna cut it, is it, fellas?

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, let me remind everybody, and longtime listeners of the Ruthless Variety program will remember this, but let me remind everybody of. Of what happened when Mayor Pete had his hands on the wheel of power. As mayor of South Bend, I'm going to read to you some lines from a 2019 story in Buzzfeed written by Henry Gomez entitled what happened when Pete Buttigieg Tore down Houses in Black and Latino South Bend. Okay. This woman, Regina Williams Preston, got into politics so that the city wouldn't do to anyone else what the mayor's big redevelopment plan did to her. Is programmed to knock down hundreds of homes in black and Latino neighborhoods like hers, smacked of gentrification, and ultimately cost her family several investment properties they hoped to repair. Let me tell you what Mayor Pete's plan was. To tear down 1,000 homes in a thousand days. He basically just came up with something and he made sure that he followed through with it, no matter the cost. And of course, the Mayor did not respond directly to questions from.

[Michael Duncan]

Classic McKinsey pitch deck.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Thousand homes, Thousand days, Thousand homes sound great.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's go. Bumper sticker.

[Comfortably Smug]

So anytime a Democrat tells you they know what's best for urban centers, just remember what Mayor Pete did in South Bend.

[John Ashbrook]

Folks might remember. It became a meme when he was interviewed by the New York Times of whether he'd get their endorsement.

[Josh Holmes]

The bread.

[John Ashbrook]

They're like, yeah, they're like, Mayor Pete, while you worked at McKinsey, you guys fixed bread prices to, like, punish higher bread prices.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, my. My. My fondest memory of that Democratic primary in 2020 was when, ahead of the South Carolina primary, when. When Mayor Pete was rolling out a bunch of endorsements from African American leaders in South Carolina. And then after he published it, all these people reached out and they're like, I never endorsed you. Why is my name on your press?

[Josh Holmes]

Most of them were like, I've never talked to anybody on the Peak campaign.

[Michael Duncan]

The funniest part, though, honestly, was that they sent out an email being like, we're going to publish your name on an endorsement for Pete, and if you did not respond, you had to opt out of it. That's awesome.

[Josh Holmes]

If you didn't respond. Endorsement.

[Michael Duncan]

If you didn't respond, then you endorsed it.

[Josh Holmes]

Opt out. Endorsement. Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. It's like one of those horrible corporate.

[Michael Duncan]

The worst thing.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like, opt out to get out. All right, so. So Stephen A. Stephen A. Smith, as we know, has been someone on the rise in the political department long sportscaster, ESPN guy, personality. But he's gotten involved in politics as of late, and he goes on all kinds of different shows. He has a take. Clip 4.

[F]

Why do black voters have this?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, he's a nice guy. Yeah. He's under indexing a little bit with the black voters. Yeah, a little. What is that all about? He doesn't move us. I respect the man. I've interviewed him before.

[Michael Duncan]

Very nice man, highly intelligent.

[Josh Holmes]

But you gotta be able to move us, bro. He done move us. You can speculate as to why that is. I'm not going there. He doesn't move us.

[John Ashbrook]

I like how he said, like, I'm not going there.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like, dude, there's statistics on this support of gay marriage by demographic. Do you know who has the least support among any demographic is the black community. Yeah, like, he's like, I'm not going there. Everyone's, like, tiptoeing around it. Dude, the first time he ran for president.

[Josh Holmes]

That's fair.

[John Ashbrook]

Everyone in politics was discussing this of like, how is Mayor Pete gonna keep winning? Because like in the early primary states where you don't have a significant black voter base, Mayor Pete was up. Plus he had like dark money groups that were like rigging the actual primaries. But anyways, besides that, then you get to South Carolina and he got stopped.

[Josh Holmes]

Dropped. Yep. Yeah. And nobody wanted to talk about actually the. The demographic.

[John Ashbrook]

The Democrat consultants were talking about it non stop.

[Josh Holmes]

They were non stop. We were privy to that because we were on the back end of it. The thing that they wouldn't tell the media. Yep. And the thing that Stephen A. Won't say.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, he was like, I'm not going there. It's like, like, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. He doesn't move us. Okay, well, what doesn't he move? Well, you're right. I mean, I think statistically speaking, there is a demographic problem with Mayor Pete in the black community. And the fact that they don't talk about it within the Democratic Party is a perfect example of why it is that they've just kept failing in this room.

[Michael Duncan]

Isn't this kind of Stephen A's weakness though? Like, outside of being a Knicks fan, who I hate about him, but like he's supposed to be this truth teller for like center left politics, but even he can't say the obvious thing that smug just illustrated, like he won't say it. Right. Like, if he's not gonna say it, then what the hell are you doing being a part of politics if you're gonna save the Democratic Party from itself? Like, you gotta say the hard truths. Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

What do Lib Dem politicians do when they have a problem? They overcorrect. And so because of Mayor Pete's problem on he's like, no, Rhodes are racist. And everybody's like, wait, Rhodes? What are you talking about? He just. He overcorrects.

[John Ashbrook]

Totally, dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

He will never ever be able to get them.

[Josh Holmes]

Nope.

[Comfortably Smug]

Doesn't matter what he says.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's fair enough. Onto another story. Pretty predictable situation. Sadly, I think this is. According to the New York Post, former AOC staffer arrested for trying to incite an attack on a Jewish school.

[Michael Duncan]

No way. I'm shocked.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my gosh. So let me just read a couple of of things here. A former youth organizer for New York Democratic Rep. AOC was arrested for urging her 25,000 followers to, quote unquote, attack a high school in New York City because Jewish students attended it. The New York Post reported. If anyone needs a public school in New York City to attack for whatever reason. Lexus driving. Urshah.

[Michael Duncan]

No, no, no. Israel. They're saying it's like a misspelling of Israel. Oh, Israel.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, they just, they, they just.

[Michael Duncan]

That's how they spell on purpose. Yeah. Israel instead of Israel. No, it just is just an answer.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I'm unfamiliar. Oh, you're with the vernacular of anti Semitism. Thank God. No, thank God. I am. I am unfamiliar with the Israel. Hell is what they have said. Loving Zionists all attend the since deleted Post by Ayman Abdul, 27, according to the New York Post. Guys, we've talked about this literally since October 8, 2023, when we were all well versed on what happened with Hamas and their attack upon Israel is that there is a constituency well within the Democratic Party that is not intent on two state solutions here.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, they keep telling us exactly who they are and the left keeps making excuses for them, but we keep.

[Josh Holmes]

Pretending from a national discourse standpoint that like, okay, well, you know, good minds disagree, right?

[Michael Duncan]

This is just. Everyone's just very angry about, you know, aid not getting into Gaza because Israel is so bad.

[Josh Holmes]

Or we just stop the violence.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

We just want to stop them.

[John Ashbrook]

It should be a lot simpler than that. It's like 9, 11. So quickly we're letting people named Iman Abdul be like, I'm calling for an attack in New York City. That's what happened here. They're calling for an attack in New York City.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, beat it, dude. What a good point.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, what a good point. And on a plane, he's out.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, for 10 years, a tweet like that by somebody who was associated with a lawmaker would have been the, A, the end of the career of the lawmaker, but B, it would have been met with like massive federal response. This cat, this guy just deleted a tweet and everybody's like, well, no, no.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I think it's actually a woman.

[John Ashbrook]

Is it?

[Michael Duncan]

Iman Abdul is a woman.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, who gives a fuck? Honestly, at the end of the day, you're talking about somebody in a cause that Democrats have dismissed as a Michigan problem. This is an electoral issue.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like, sorry, I disagree. Handcuffs and plane ride. Like, we gotta, we gotta tighten this up.

[Josh Holmes]

They don't understand that maybe, you know, the youth may see things differently. That's another thing that I love to see him popping up. Youth might see things. The youth has, has come to a conclusion that the old timers here in the United States have just not seen coming. Which is our real ally is Hamas and Hezbollah. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like we act as though this stuff is real. It's not real. Like this is a call to terrorism from somebody who likely sympathize with terrorism and they're doing it on American soil. Why this person? If it was up to me, I'll be frank with you. Rendition to a black site. Like, they should be in Gitmo. And granted, I'm from an era where we experienced 911 and I saw all that stuff, but this is not. You don't fuck around with this stuff.

[John Ashbrook]

We don't know how many of these people on the terror watch list snuck into the country under Biden's watch. We don't have time to deal with this. If you're willing to self select yourself and put it out there that, hey, hey, I'm a terrorist, thank you so much for your time.

[Michael Duncan]

But you just know there's some district court judge in some left wing jurisdiction that would stay whatever decision that is. And this person would be a front runner to be KEYNOTE SPEAKER the 2028 Democratic Convention.

[Josh Holmes]

But again, maybe just each one of these things might help paint a picture. I don't know how hard it is for Jewish Americans who have typically aligned with the Democratic Party to get the bright technicolor flashing lights that there is a party that is now maybe a third of the makeup that they count on nationally to be elected, that wants. No, not just your voice, not heard. This isn't a Democratic argument. This is your elimination from the face of the planet. And it is just that simple.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, so I guess what I would say this episode's a little depressing to me because, you know, the first segment, we all talked about crime. Now we're talking about this. And I think if I had to like simply state it, it's hard to live in a country with people who want America to fail and want our country to be worse.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And when you deal with stuff like this, who are called with calls to terrorism or with like not wanting to put criminals in prison, it's like tough. Like, how are we supposed to run a country with our. With citizens who don't agree on those.

[John Ashbrook]

Things, I've got the optimistic angle. It's like, look at what President Trump is doing.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You can just do things.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

America's back.

[Josh Holmes]

You fed.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you.

[Michael Duncan]

You saved me.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah. America's back. We're locking up the criminals and we're putting Sydney Sweeney on tv.

[Michael Duncan]

I was so close.

[Josh Holmes]

Also, have you seen any of the sorority things that are coming out.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that's, that's good.

[Josh Holmes]

American back.

[Michael Duncan]

Football's almost back.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, people feel good about it. Yeah, I feel like we are back.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you, friends, for saving me from the black bill.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. So James Carville.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no, I saw this.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is basically, I think he might be in his final form. Yeah, look, I have some begrudging respect for this guy.

[Michael Duncan]

How can you not?

[Josh Holmes]

Because I don't know him personally. I know a lot of people who do, who love him, who I find to be reasonable human beings. And they think he's like funny and kind of gets it at a level that most certainly the progressive side. Well.

[Michael Duncan]

And he's got a folksy sort of delivery of the whole thing, which is totally incongruent with so much of the left wing media in the acela corridor that we hate so much. So as a Republican, you see him in his presentation, his whole thing, and you're like, I kind of get that guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So he took a bunch of heat from the left for being like, dude, you guys just don't get it. He's now come back to the left to be like, hey, let me scoop up any kind of credentials that I may have lost. Let's see. Clip 5.

[F]

They are just going to have to unilaterally add Puerto Rican and District of Columbia state.

[Michael Duncan]

Come on.

[F]

They're going to have to. The Congress does give. The Constitution gives Congress power over federal elections. I don't think they can redistrict, but they're things they go do. They're going to have to do it. They're just going to have to do it. And they may have to expand the court to 13 members. Any of those things in isolation I would be skeptical about. I would be cautious about. That's the greatest idea in the world. You're opening Pandora's box. All kinds of things. If you want to save democracy, I think you got to do all of those things.

[John Ashbrook]

And this is why I don't have respect for him. Because I know the like political Acela class that I'm surrounded by is okay. Oh, you know, he's kind of like the fun folks. No, they're not. They're all like that. They're all that. Every damn. You know, scratch a damn, you're gonna get a commie. Every single one of them is like that. Like you can find the one who's like, you know what? I like Carville. He's got that southern accent.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, no, I mean it was Just.

[John Ashbrook]

He wants to pack the court just like the rest of us.

[Michael Duncan]

Here's the thing. Like, six months ago, this was the guy who, you know, was leading the autopsy of why Kamala Harris lost. And all these left wing costs, women's.

[Josh Holmes]

Sports, all that, you gotta get rid of it.

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Comfortably Smug]

But now what he's advocating for is putting Jasmine Crockett more into power, putting AOC more into power, making Mamdani more into power. All of the emerging powers within the Democrat Party, he wants them to have more swat.

[John Ashbrook]

It's so simplistic. Is like, you know, we say that Trump is 80, 20 on all these issues. 8020 is because it's simple. It's not right and left. It's right and wrong. It's become just a line in the sand. Do you want a country anymore? Do you think illegals should be allowed to run amok? Do you think crime should be punished? There's no longer any kind of like. Well, you know what? He's got a nice little accent. Let this guy slide.

[Michael Duncan]

I think ultimately what the problem is is that even though Democrats are taking the 20 side of the 8020 issues, that 20% is 60, 40 for crazy in their primary. And he knows which way the wind's blowing. And he knows all the power is with those radicals, with aoc, with Man Crockett. Right. Like, that's what it is. He ain't done yet.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And that's what that's all about.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's. It's sad, but it's true. Speaking of somebody so Gallego.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, this guy from Arizona, Ruben Gallego.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Hilariously mocked Iowa. Like he. He called for it not to be part of the early primary system for Democrats. He's been elected for a cup of coffee in the United States Senate, and now he's got a lot of opinions about not only how the presidential system should work, but with the future of the Democratic Party and also his place in it. So he's decided he's going to Iowa. Hilariously. Clip six, please.

[John Ashbrook]

We didn't forget about. Your tweet is awesome.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you. Are you channeling in your dad still the pregnant wife that you cheated on? Oh, jeez.

[John Ashbrook]

Everyone is. Everyone's recovering from that. Your pregnant wife that you cheated on?

[Josh Holmes]

No. But then people follow back. He's the new.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's the new Ben Knop.

[John Ashbrook]

Dude. I love when Twitter becomes real life.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Accountability has arrived. The people from Twitter have arrived.

[Josh Holmes]

They have arrived. But also, like, we know we've been to the Iowa State Fair 2 three times. You better come correct at the Iowa State Fair because they're gonna. They're gonna meet you where you are. And if you think you're just gonna go there and flip some burgers, pretend like Iowa sucks, and then reinvent yourself in front of them. No, sir. Yeah. No, sir. You're gonna get asked about your pregnant wife that you left.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, honestly.

[John Ashbrook]

Wife, bro, that was a hit.

[Michael Duncan]

Honestly. I mean, like you said, Reuben Gallego has been the United States Senate for a cup of coffee, he shows up in Iowa to flip over some pork tender.

[Josh Holmes]

Amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, if I'm him, him, I. I chalk it up as a win that people knew whose name was, you know, like, you tell me, like people in Iowa give a shit about Ruben Guy.

[Josh Holmes]

90% of the fair goers are like, get this fucking guy out of here. Yeah, I don't know know who he is. But, like, those who did, they did.

[Michael Duncan]

They had an opinion.

[Josh Holmes]

They did. And they knew. They knew who he was, and they had a rough assembly of his dossier.

[Michael Duncan]

Welcome to the fucking show, pal.

[Josh Holmes]

One thing that caught our attention for an insane mainstream media headline was this Politico piece, Graphic six, if you don't mind. Democrats try to separate their tactical use of redistricting from that of Republicans. So if you listen to the show, last week we did a full rundown of how just how absurd Democrats have been.

[Michael Duncan]

And we had Governor Abbott on. That was awesome.

[Josh Holmes]

We had Governor Abbott on, who talked through what it is they're trying to accomplish vis a vis somebody like Pritzker, fat boy in Illinois who decided, you.

[Michael Duncan]

Know, do it, do it, Ashbrook.

[Josh Holmes]

Do the.

[Comfortably Smug]

The old fat man. Although our great president noted that Pritzker's lost a little bit of weight, and maybe that means he's going to run for president. Although President Trump said he was pushed out of the family business, so maybe there's something to learn there.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I'm just looking at the picture that Politico has, and it's undoubtedly, hopefully for them, a flattering picture of Pritzker. It doesn't look like he. He's lost a lot of weight.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, dude, the guy's eating Connie's pizza three meals a day, okay? He's not missing a meal.

[Josh Holmes]

The old deep dish has gone three meals deep on this cat. But the point remains is that they're trying to separate out what has been clear gerrymandering from the Democratic Party over decades. Places like Illinois or New Jersey or Massachusetts or. Or, you know, California for that matter, where the percentage of Republicans from A national level completely dwarfs their representation in.

[Comfortably Smug]

The United States, without a doubt. I mean, just look at New England, for crying out loud. I'm not saying it's a bastion of Republicans, but they vote for President Trump at 30 and 40% 0 members of the House of Representatives or Republicans from any New England state.

[Michael Duncan]

And Ashbrook and I, we went on Dana and Bill's show on, on, on Fox on Monday and we were talking through all of this and I the point we made was like, I don't know who's running PR for the Texas Dems, but deciding to abscond to Illinois, one of the worst Democratic gerrymanders in all of the United States, where 44% of the state voted for Donald Trump and only 70%, 17% of the districts go for Republicans, is like hilarious in and of itself. But like, like back to the whole headline here of the article. The media is deciding that when Democrats journey, it's just tactical.

[Josh Holmes]

Tactical.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, they're on the battlefield, they see what the enemy's doing and they just got to make some tactical decisions. And that's what you really want from the Democrats is some leadership.

[Josh Holmes]

Just think it was take a step back from a 30,000 foot look that when Democrats gerrymander a state that does not represent the citizenry, it's a tactical decision that's crass. It's hardball politics, no doubt, but it's tact. Whereas when Texas Republicans are trying to do well, that is a grave.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a threat to democracy.

[Josh Holmes]

Threat to democracy. As former President Obama, something I've started.

[John Ashbrook]

Believing in strongly is accountability for journalists who push this kind of garbage out. So that graphic didn't have it. But, but the name of the journalist who wrote this is Greg Svernofsky, Politico.

[Michael Duncan]

Hold him accountable.

[John Ashbrook]

Smile on Xer Twitter, which I prefer the name of his V I R N O V S K I Y if you want to let him know your thoughts on this, just let them know.

[Josh Holmes]

Let them know about the tactical use.

[John Ashbrook]

They get away with this and they think they can keep it up. And then when a bunch of people voice their opinion, journals tend to shut up. I've found that effect. So, you know, if you feel like you want to let this person know, I would highly recommend you do so.

[Josh Holmes]

Perhaps they have a different opinion after some constructive criticism.

[John Ashbrook]

Accountability.

[Michael Duncan]

Just send him some tactical tweets.

[Josh Holmes]

They're all tactical in nature. All tactical in nature. Just keep it on X, keep it on X, but make sure it's tactical. Kathy Hochul so this is again one of the most fantastic New York historically, hilariously gerrymandered. She decided to come in. Weigh in on this on FOX News Sunday. Big mistake.

[G]

Clip 7 here's how National Review summarized it. They said it was only three years ago that New York's Democratic legislature drew up a map so brazenly contemptuous of basic rules that govern a district's contiguousness that the state's Democrat dominated court of appeals threw it out. The New York Times at the time called those maps comically contorted. That's their quote. So your state's highest court at the time, all the judges appointed by Democratic governors, they threw the maps out. So fair to say Democrats have done what they're now accusing Republicans of doing? No, we followed the rules. Every 10 years we base it on the court said you didn't follow the rules. Well, we did did follow the rules. So the court was wrong, but we followed the rules.

[Michael Duncan]

We tried to commit a crime and we got caught. So we followed the rules.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, those are rules. Until they told us it was criminally negligent. And then we decided being a Democrat.

[Michael Duncan]

In a state with one party rule has to be the easiest job in America.

[Josh Holmes]

But also just the idea, you can tell when they're asked questions like this how unaccustomed they are to it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Deer in the headlights.

[Josh Holmes]

They're like, oh my God, what is that, an opposition question?

[John Ashbrook]

They're always so scared to go on FOX because usually it's like every member of the media, Democrats view them as, you're my like unpaid comms director.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

Your job is to just make me look good, push my talkers. And so they show up on FOX and like, what, what, what's going on here?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's incredible. Anyway, so that's, that's the, the political roundup. You guys want some variety?

[Michael Duncan]

Always.

[Josh Holmes]

Boys, I got a story from you from over the weekend that a friend of mine told me he attended a big Italian wedding.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, man.

[John Ashbrook]

Speaking of crime, I should, I should.

[Josh Holmes]

I should warn you that there's somebody who's relatively Italian crime family associated.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, you already said Italian. Yeah, you repeat yourself.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it's not necessarily in this way but like keep, you know, you need to like anyway, this wedding, the mom is very proud of her son who's getting married and she does the typical speech that accustomed to like usually the father of the bride, but she does one about how wonderful her son is. And it's like every, everything you expect of a big Italian mom. It's like, loves, you know, their love story or whatever. And she starts bringing out artifacts that she's now giving to the bride to hand over.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, that's nice.

[Josh Holmes]

So it starts with, like, the bronzed little shoes that she's got, you know, like the first pair of shoes, like the first drawing. All these things, like the. I've kept these things for our family that I'm now passing on to you to just sort of hold safe and dear in our family. And this goes on for like, I mean, 45 minutes.

[John Ashbrook]

The whole.

[Josh Holmes]

The whole crowd is like, okay, we've. We're good. Like, let's. Let's get to the next. And at that point, she reaches down into her bag of goodies that she's pulling out of all this. She's like, I have one last thing. Pulls out a Ziploc bag.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

Uh huh.

[Michael Duncan]

You're kidding me.

[Josh Holmes]

Nope.

[Michael Duncan]

I know where this is going.

[Comfortably Smug]

Really?

[Josh Holmes]

And here I have the foreskin of my son that I'd like to pass along to you to keep in your good stead. Are you kidding me? What?

[John Ashbrook]

Wait, was your friend. Is your friend in the.

[Josh Holmes]

This.

[John Ashbrook]

He just attended. He was an attendee. Was your friend in Italian?

[Josh Holmes]

No, he's. The way he. No, the way he describes it. The way, the way, the way he describes it is it's like everybody's kind of doing, you know, they pushing food around their plate. Like this thing's gone along a little, and all of a sudden it was like, hello. What are you, kid.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wait, first of all, we'll come back to. How did you know? Duncan. That's what it was.

[Michael Duncan]

The second he said Ziploc bag. It's like, what would you prepare in the Ziploc B bag? And I could only think of two things. One, first haircut.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, right.

[Michael Duncan]

Like some locks of hair.

[Josh Holmes]

Which wouldn't be totally crazy, but I mean, it's crazy, but it's not that crazy.

[Michael Duncan]

But you wouldn't save it to be last.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you wouldn't.

[Michael Duncan]

And this mother in law wanted to be the center of attention.

[Josh Holmes]

She drink.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's be honest.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean.

[Michael Duncan]

And so she saved the most crazy thing for last so she could finish with a bang.

[Josh Holmes]

Here's where it gets hilarious. So my buddy attending this thing, this is several years ago, he's engaged at the time, and his wife is sitting next to him. It's a, you know, it's a big. Oh, this happened years ago, big Italian Catholic wedding. And she turns to him and she says, is that what Catholics do? Like, she's Definitely not. She's like, is this because she's now engaged and she's about to enter into a similar ceremony?

[Michael Duncan]

Do you have a Ziploc?

[Josh Holmes]

She's like, is that, is that part of the custom? Like, do you guys. Is your mom, Is your mom going to hand me your foreskin on our wedding night? And he goes, he goes, yes, yes. That is a very perfect answer.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes, that is dead pansa.

[Josh Holmes]

He's like, yes, that, that is, that is part of our custom. And that, that is what we do. It becomes such a thing that, like, over the ensuing months, she's, like, wholly encapsulated by this. She's like, they planned the wedding. Everything's good. But she can't get over, like, the fact that this is going to happen. And she's like, look, Joe, I need to talk to your mom. Like, I, I, I can't do that in front of all my family. Like, I, I just, I can't, like, receive a force here. And he's like, I don't know. You're gonna have to talk to her about it.

[Michael Duncan]

Perfect.

[Josh Holmes]

So this poor girl waits for, like, this next family meeting, and she's like, look, I'm very appreciative of your customs and, like, we're incorporating as much into this wedding as we possibly could. I just, I wonder whether or not, and like, this is a give and take, so you tell me what you think. I'm wondering whether or not it's possible that we can, in private, you deliver the foreskins. At which point his mom is like, what the fuck are you talking about? What a goof. And he comes and he's like, ah, solid goof. Gotcha, buddy.

[Comfortably Smug]

That is a marriage that will last forever.

[Josh Holmes]

It starts under those terms. It's one of the best stories I've heard forever.

[Michael Duncan]

It's good. Good.

[Josh Holmes]

That is so good. That is so, so good. But to go back, I mean, can you imagine for a second somebody just like, no, straight up, I had no.

[Michael Duncan]

Idea people kept foreskins.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I didn't either. And they served it for calamari that.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

Can you believe that?

[Michael Duncan]

Sick.

[Josh Holmes]

They have. They had a game whether it was calamari or foreskin.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it's chewy. Nobody knows.

[Josh Holmes]

Nobody knows. Russian roulette on the plate. Sick, dude. I can't believe. She was like, is this what Catholics do? And he was like, yes, yes, we do.

[Michael Duncan]

My mom will do this.

[Comfortably Smug]

We're gonna pray the rosary and then she's gonna hand over the foreskin.

[Michael Duncan]

Just an apology to Anybody who's eating dinner while watching this.

[Josh Holmes]

Calamari or foreskin.

[Comfortably Smug]

She must have texted all of her friends. She must have the sleepless nights.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, God.

[Josh Holmes]

She was probably dying. And he let it go for months.

[Michael Duncan]

What a.

[Josh Holmes]

This guy is a 1 of 1. Just such a legend. It's fantastic. All right, so last thing that we're gonna do. Chinese Navy. Did you guys see this video?

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so the Chinese Navy got a lot of exercises that is not like, this is something they do a lot. Yep. They're like, oh, tough.

[John Ashbrook]

They try to, like. They're extremely aggressive, whether it comes to their aircraft or if it comes to their naval vessels, of. Of thinking that they basically run the world.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So let's play this clip. Clip nine. They ran into their own boat. Oh.

[John Ashbrook]

So for. Yeah. For folks who are not on YouTube, you saw two Chinese vessels trying to. It was a Philippines vessel that they were trying to, like, ram and intimidate. They ended up running into each other. Absolutely wrecked.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So, like, the whole point is you drive these boats pretty close to one another to try to deter other vessels from coming into those waters.

[Michael Duncan]

I've heard of the stereotype that Asians are bad drivers, but I've never. I've never seen it on. On the sea. I didn't say I subscribed to that.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm saying social relations is that. Well, I don't know. Whatever it is, this has happened. Look at that boat. So the boat is completely wrecked. Two Chinese vessels slamming into one another. Not exactly a show of strength.

[John Ashbrook]

You love to see it.

[Josh Holmes]

You love to see it.

[Comfortably Smug]

One of my favorite insta follows is qualified captain. I don't know if you guys follow qualified captain on Instagram. It's a ton of boat wrecks, people doing stupid things. This is qualified captain.

[Josh Holmes]

But you know what I don't like about qualified captain? Too scoldy for my taste.

[Comfortably Smug]

They can get a little scolding.

[Josh Holmes]

Scolding.

[Comfortably Smug]

They can't get that taste.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's not just like a look at this idiot and laugh about it. It's like, you should never be out on a thing without PFDs. And, you know, and it's like, I got it, dude. I know the rules. I just want to laugh because that's why I'm on Instagram.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, they're reaching for content a little bit.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what I mean? It's a little scoldy for my legs, but I do appreciate the content question. All right, Cold variety. We have no idea.

[John Ashbrook]

Did you do this?

[Michael Duncan]

I did this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Anytime Duncan does a variety segment that he has not socialized with the group, I fear for what we're about to encounter. And this is the last thing we're gonna do here.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, so last week, Ashbrook had to answer for something that is the state of Ohio and the Cincinnati Bengals.

[Josh Holmes]

He's going back at it.

[Michael Duncan]

And because it is football season. Oh, something.

[Josh Holmes]

I know what you're doing.

[Michael Duncan]

There's something you. Josh Holmes. I know what you answer for.

[Josh Holmes]

I know what you're doing.

[Michael Duncan]

And that is. There's a new cheerleader.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Minnesota Vikings. Lee, can you put up that graphic?

[John Ashbrook]

Wow.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a man. Blaze.

[Josh Holmes]

Are we sure?

[John Ashbrook]

It's straight up, like, they're gonna identify as a guy, too?

[Michael Duncan]

It's a. No, it's a man.

[Josh Holmes]

We're sure about that.

[Michael Duncan]

It is a man.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's wearing makeup.

[Michael Duncan]

He's got a mustache.

[John Ashbrook]

You never know at this point.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, dude, I have so little.

[Michael Duncan]

His name's Blaze. It's B, L, A, I, Z, E. There's also another male cheerleader for the Vikings this year, Louie, I believe.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what?

[Michael Duncan]

Like, one wasn't enough for homes.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank God your wife has her kids. As Eagles fans, I thought.

[Michael Duncan]

I thought the most embarrassing thing about the Minnesota Vikings was they never won a Super Bowl. And then I saw this on Instagram over the weekend. What do you say for yourself?

[John Ashbrook]

Thank God the boys are Eagles fans.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, I've got.

[John Ashbrook]

Your wife is a saint for saving them from this humiliation.

[Josh Holmes]

I've got a couple of takes. First off, this is not what we are.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, it is. Whole state's a mess. Look at this.

[Josh Holmes]

For those of you who've been a part of the Viking nation, you know what it is that we've suffered through, and, well, that ain't it. And we can't. There was also pictures. Dude, every time something surfaces on Insta or X, that is, like, truly embarrassing. My only prayer is that you don't see it. Like, he was there with walls.

[John Ashbrook]

I always.

[Josh Holmes]

I always was there. And, like, I try. I try when it shows up, because everything Viking content shows up in my feed, but anytime there's one of those, I try to cycle through it fast enough where I know my algorithm isn't going to affect his.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, like, I'm hoping that he's not going to see it, but.

[Michael Duncan]

Because if we are, we have the same algorithm. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

He always gets it.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, what I helpfully do also is any account that does negative Vikings content, I immediately follow it to improve my algorithm. So I Get it all, pal.

[Josh Holmes]

I will say I saw enough in seven plays of the first Vikings preseason to know that it's going to be a good season for the old Vikes. And I'm not sure I can say the same about the Indianapolis Colts.

[Michael Duncan]

Neither will I. I just hope you get your hopes up high enough that they can be destroyed. And I'll take great pleasure in that.

[Josh Holmes]

That, you know, we always have 20, 23 in the greatest comeback in the history of the NFL. And for that, I'm eternally grateful. You know, for Cousins.

[Michael Duncan]

Can I say one thing about that?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You do take great pride in that, which I understand.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, but at no point were the Indianapolis Colts winning that game when they.

[Josh Holmes]

Were up 33 to nothing.

[Michael Duncan]

No, the Vikings were just losing that game. I don't think they had an offensive touchdown that entire time. They were leading the game. And so I just sort of sat there mesmerized by the whole thing where it was like, please lose so we can get a better draft pick. I mean, we had Matt Ryan in his cement shoes that whole season. It was horrible. And you know what? I think the Colts are going to be worse this year. But you know what? We have one silver lining, and that is the play of Tyler Warren.

[Josh Holmes]

It's going to be good. Will you enjoy Tyler Warren in your, like, 4 and 13 squad?

[Michael Duncan]

And then we'll have Kate Klubnick or Drew Aller, one of these fantastic quarterbacks, and that'll be the resurgence of the Indianapolis Colts.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, well, are you going to come? Will you come to the White House if the. If we host. Hoist the Lombardi.

[Michael Duncan]

The Vikings.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Will you.

[Michael Duncan]

I'll be there with bells on.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Okay. I got it locked in, folks.

[John Ashbrook]

How about the next time the Eagles. Can I come with your wife?

[Michael Duncan]

Can I come when she has.

[John Ashbrook]

I want to meet Safe and his kids celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can I go with your wife?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Cause I mean, she had. She's so fortunate to make their kids Eagles fans. They get to go to the White House and celebrate. They win Super Bowls. You don't. And he wants them to be Vikings fans for that nonsense.

[Michael Duncan]

Honestly, Holmes, it's less traumatic than you having to go again.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, that's all we got here. We gotta go.

[Michael Duncan]

We gotta go.

[Josh Holmes]

Appreciate all of you joining us once again on the ruthless variety pro. Big week ahead of us. Thank you for joining us. I think we did it.

[John Ashbrook]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. To the minions. Remember, go to the YouTube. Hit that subscribe button if you have. Not yet, because it's more fun in video. So until next time, Minions, Keep the fish Faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless.