Democrats’ 2028 Problem

Summary

Ruthless Podcast – “Democrats’ 2028 Problem”

Date: February 24, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Special Guest: Stephen Moore
Theme: A sharp, irreverent breakdown of Democrats' internal crises, their 2028 prospects, and the state of American politics, culture, and economy—with a celebratory detour into Team USA’s Olympic hockey triumph.

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Episode Overview

This episode of Ruthless centers on the Democratic Party’s struggles heading into 2028, with a special focus on disunity, the rise of ideological extremes, awkward attempts at middle America outreach, and internal post-mortems after electoral defeat. The hosts dissect likely 2028 contenders, analyze a secretive Democratic autopsy blaming pro-Gaza activism for Harris’s loss, and lampoon gaffe-prone posturing by the party’s frontrunners (Newsom, Whitmer, Beshear). Alongside, the show spotlights America’s Olympic hockey gold, and features an interview with economic commentator Stephen Moore, who discusses Trump-era economic strengths and Republican messaging.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Democrats: Stuck in the Grip of the Far-Left

[00:00–02:36, 25:21–39:26]

• The hosts kick off by bluntly diagnosing the Democratic Party as captive to far-left activist groups, unable to shift policy or articulate relatable positions.
• Josh Holmes: “This is the second level of deception that Democrats have done about what it is that they're trying to sell the American people.” [00:13]
• They argue Democratic messaging is dictated by ideological silos rather than broad, centrist appeal.

2. Hockey Win: A Moment to Celebrate American Unity

[02:49–05:13; 44:45–54:55]

• The U.S. men's and women’s Olympic hockey teams clinch gold—prompting a burst of national pride and nostalgia for the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.”
• Josh Holmes: “I was wearing the most obnoxious red, white, and blue all day… We were loving every single second of it. You guys caught this game?” [02:49]
• The hosts fondly contrast cheering for Team USA with left-wing media’s ambivalence, poking fun at “Huffington Post” style takes.
• Emotional highlight with iconic images (missing teeth and all), and a jab at Canadian sports heartbreak.
  • John Ashbrook: “I especially love drinking their tears after this victory and all of their whiny complaints up there in Canada.” [46:34]

3. Gavin Newsom’s Cringe Outreach

[06:12–11:19]

• The show lampoons Gavin Newsom’s awkward attempt at bonding with a Black audience by highlighting his “960 SAT score” and claiming “I cannot read a speech.”
  • Josh Holmes: “First of all, it's a black audience and he's trying to pretend that being dumb is relatable. I can't think of a single thing that's more offensive…” [08:05]
• Smug exposes Newsom for inconsistent performances, noting his 2022 “reading banned books” initiative—calling him a chronic panderer with “no authenticity.”

4. Gretchen Whitmer’s Foreign Policy Flub

[15:37–17:18]

• Whitmer, a supposed 2028 hopeful, stumbles badly when asked about victory in Ukraine, passing the question to a Trump-era ambassador on a European panel.
• The team riffs on how Democratic candidates are “empty suits” relying on sloganeering rather than substantive positions.
  • John Ashbrook: “It's so telling, the lack of intellectual heft.” [17:33]
  • Josh Holmes: “It’s not a serious party.” [18:08]

5. Andy Beshear: Faith and Policy Disconnect

[18:59–23:43]

• Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is mocked for invoking religion to rationalize vetoing a bill restricting youth gender-transition surgeries and requiring parental notification.
• The hosts highlight the incongruity between faith rhetoric and progressive policy, accusing Democrats of masking unpopular ideas behind “soft” spokespersons.
  • Josh Holmes: “That is why I believe you should cut the pricks off your kids and you should, you know, not tell the parents… because of my faith.” [23:10]

6. The Democratic “Autopsy”: A Gaza Problem

[29:36–39:26]

• Axios scoop: Democrats’ secret post-2024 report blames Kamala Harris’s loss on the party’s Gaza/Israel stance—specifically loss of progressive and young voters due to support for Israel.
  • Josh Holmes: “We have told you for two years that this is the fundamental issue that the Democrats were grappling with…” [33:04]
• Ashbrook notes the finding is itself biased, crafted by the same coalition of far-left advocacy groups steering the party into this bind.

7. Dems’ 2028 Field: Bleak Prospects

[12:27–15:18; 36:49–39:11]

• Newsom, Whitmer, Beshear, Kamala, and even “Mayor Pete” (who now polls at 1% with Black voters!) are deemed uninspiring and gaffe-prone.
  • Comfortably Smug: “Right now the fight is over who's dumber.” [10:13]
• Hosts opine it’s a “recipe for loss in 2028,” yet worry Dems are structurally stuck.
  • Josh Holmes: “This is their leading candidates. How are they going to get out of that?” [39:15]

8. FCC “Equal Time” Ruling: Texas Primary Drama

[25:21–29:13]

• Holmes breaks news: Texas ABC affiliates offering “equal time” to Jasmine Crockett to counter The View’s extended, lopsided feature on her opponent Talrico. Revelatory, as it’s unreported and could upend the primary coverage.
  • Josh Holmes: “No one has reported this. I heard about this three days ago... I just feel like I need to talk about it here.” [28:00]

9. Classic Trump: Audience Comments on Stand-up Moments

[39:26–44:45]

• Listeners’ favorite Trump zingers recalled, with audio clips:
  • “As I was saying…” return after rally interruption [41:01]
  • “You’d be in jail.” (to Hillary, 2016 debate) [42:04]
  • “The wall just got 10 feet higher.” [43:19]

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• Josh Holmes: "This is the second level of deception that Democrats have done about what it is that they're trying to sell the American people.” [00:13]
• Comfortably Smug: “And if you want to start the show with your life, then go ahead.” [05:07]
• Josh Holmes: “If it's not a slogan... Democrats don't know what they believe.” [04:23] (echoed, 17:33)
• Michael Duncan: “They will do absolutely anything but change their policy.” [11:19]
• Josh Holmes: “If you just put everybody in the basement, never said a word, you would probably come out on top in an election.” [38:25]
• Josh Holmes: “This is like a cautionary tale on how to ruin a country in less than 10 years.” [13:23]
• John Ashbrook: “Kamala Harris lost because the message of the party is entirely dictated by far left activist groups.” [34:56]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 00:13–02:36 — Opening rants: Dems’ ideological capture, intro to the day’s themes
• 02:49–05:13 / 44:45–54:55 — Team USA’s hockey gold: uniting the right & wrongs of US sport
• 06:12–11:19 — Gavin Newsom's failed outreach: reading skills and authenticity crisis
• 15:37–18:03 — Whitmer’s Ukraine panel gaffe
• 18:59–23:43 — Andy Beshear, religion, and gender-affirming care
• 29:36–39:26 — Axios scoop: Dem autopsy, “Gaza cost Harris voters”
• 25:21–29:13 — FCC “equal time” drama in Texas (breaking news)
• 39:26–44:45 — Trump stand-up best-of reel (listener picks)

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Interview: Stephen Moore on the State of the Economy

[56:34–78:48]

Key Points:

• Moore is bullish on the Trump economy: jobs/wages up, tax cuts, strong GDP. Notes housing/grocery costs remain concerns.
• Historical context: Tax reform under Reagan & Trump fueled multi-decade growth.
  • “The Dow [in 1983] was at 1,000. Now, we’re at 50,000. That’s the greatest period of wealth creation in history.” [60:21]
• Democrats once bipartisan on economics, now radically left: “It’s not your grandpa’s Democratic Party any longer. These people are radical leftists.” [66:28]
• Credit card interest cap populism: Moore warns that capping interest rates could shut out lower-income households from credit entirely; urges caution.
• Policy messaging: Republicans should highlight blue-state cost-of-living, persistent inflation under Biden, and “re-center” on patriotism.

Notable Quotes:

• Moore: “If you keep your dollar stable in value, reduce the size of government and get rid of confiscatory taxes—good things are going to happen.” [60:21]
• Moore: “Trump was elected for two reasons: immigration and inflation.” [75:32]
• Moore: “Trump loves America… this is the 250th anniversary of the country, and I just—it bothers me when you listen to Democrats talk. All they do is criticize America.” [76:29]

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Memorable and Lighthearted Moments

• The “Mayor Pete Momentum" Joke: “He's gone from 0% to 1% among Black voters. Let's go!” [37:09]
• “Grocery Store Pig” Story: A massive pig enters a North Carolina house, hosts riff on BBQ (“It's not every day a grocery store walks into your house...” – Michael Duncan [55:05]).
• Throwing Shade at Canada: Hosts pile on after Team USA’s hockey win and recall Canada’s multi-sport drought.

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Listener Participation

• “What is the Democrats’ biggest liability?” is the listener question of the week—answers encouraged via YouTube/online engagement.

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Tone & Style

• High energy, acerbic, biting, and sardonic.
• Heavy on inside-baseball and political sarcasm, mocking both the Democratic field and the media.
• Frequent in-jokes and banter between the hosts, play-acting as both debate opponents and drinking buddies.
• Occasional serious notes—especially in the Stephen Moore interview and discussions of classic American unity.

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In Summary

Ruthless delivers a blistering, laugh-out-loud conservative critique of Democratic woes, using current events, candidate gaffes, media blunders, and anonymous party autopsies as set pieces. With Team USA’s hockey gold as a backdrop, they crown Trump’s economic record, ridicule the 2028 Democratic hopefuls, and encourage listeners to “keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs.”

Transcript

[John Ashbrook]

I think it also speaks to a larger issue in the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris lost because the message of the party is entirely dictated by far left activist groups.

[Michael Duncan]

They will do absolutely anything but change their policy.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the second level of deception that Democrats have done about what it is that they're trying to sell the American people.

[Michael Duncan]

It is a recipe for a loss,

[Comfortably Smuggle]

the lack of intellectual heft. Because if it's not a slogan, if it's not something that you can say in this House, we believe Democrats don't know what they believe.

[Josh Holmes]

How are they going to get out of that? I mean, this is their leading candidates.

[John Ashbrook]

I have been a physician for 35 years, Congressman Greg Murphy, and sadly, I've had a front seat to witness the decay and decline of the health insurance industry. There has been systematic denial and delay of care. There's been abuse with the Medicare Advantage plans, deceiving and extorting taxpayer dollars. You guys own PBMs, you own pharmacies, you own health agencies, physician group. Good God. You own a bank. You have put profits above patients and you put profits above those who care for patients. You are killing people who are trying to get health care. I am glad that we have a president in the office who is willing to confront what I believe is unethical, unscrupulous and unprincipled behavior of the American health insurance industry. President Trump has said he's going to do it. I believe he's going to do it. He and it is long overdue. Paid for by Americans for Open Government.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Well, you saved up your money and bought a new car. You drove it off the lot and parked it at your house, and you probably think you own it. Not so fast, my friend. Because the manufacturers claim they own every piece of data your car generates. They track where you work, where you live and who your friends are, and they sell your data to the brokers you've never met. Thankfully, privacy advocates are taking action. There are two bills in Congress that will protect your the DRIVE act, introduced by Tennessee Congresswoman Diana Harchbarger, and the Auto Data Privacy and Autonomy act, introduced by Utah Senator Mike Lee. If you think owning a vehicle means owning all of it, including the data, call Your representative at 202-224-3121 and tell them to support these bills. After all, you signed the paperwork and you pay the taxes and fees. Don't let them take your freedom when they give you the keys. Brought to you by the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce.

[Josh Holmes]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Keep the faith. Hold the line and own the lids.

[Michael Duncan]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday to all of you, and welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. I am Josh Holmes along with Comfortably Smuggle, Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left it right across your radio dial. I'll be honest with you, fellas, I'm dragging a little bit because I had what I would describe as one of the best weekends of all time, in that there are things that stand above other things in terms of sporting events that just. Well, they just are something worth celebrating. American hockey was. That was the greatest win that. Well in 46 years. But I just. I couldn't. I was floating on clouds. And I still am, honestly. But I had some. I had some beers. I confess. I had some beers. Had to celebrate, put on. I was wearing the most obnoxious red, white, and blue all day, so I put my kids in it, too. We were loving every single second of it. You guys caught this game.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. And a real treat to get it so early in the morning. I think it was puck dropped at like, 8, 10. Oh, total time.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[John Ashbrook]

Which is just so cool for like, a random Sunday.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, well, it's. Look, there's so much crazy going on. We're going to get more into the Olympic thing, but there's so much crazy going on. It's kind of nice to have just like one cohesive country moment, the kind that we used to have where the libs have to just crawl in a corner for a while and take their complaining about our country elsewhere because the rest of the country is just pretty excited about our big win.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, feels good.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I think it was like the exact same time that the Huffington Post dropped their take where they were. Like, their take was, if you feel bad about cheering for the red, white, and blue, you're not alone. Like, they dropped.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, dude, it sounds. It's incredible.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, but you weren't cheering for the red, white, and blue.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Well, I oppose members of the Olympic team who said that they hate America and I think they should be held accountable. That wasn't your take. You supported them. You want to. Supported the Chinese.

[John Ashbrook]

You want to collect what's her name?

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That goo.

[Michael Duncan]

None of them were on the hockey.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That was Duncan's take. So would you like. I actually stand for America.

[John Ashbrook]

You said you wanted.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

And I don't support Olympians who hate America.

[John Ashbrook]

You wanted collective punishment of the entire.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

And if you want. If you want to start the show with your life and go ahead.

[Michael Duncan]

He said that.

[Josh Holmes]

He did say that.

[John Ashbrook]

Do you want to retract that or no.

[Josh Holmes]

And I think the hockey team has resurrected any concern anyone would ever have about members of our Olympic team. If you saw any of those interviews, we're going to get into all of that, but we got to get into some politics first. And I don't know if you guys saw Gavin Newsom. He's not alone in the crazy stuff that has happened here over the last couple of days, but this is one of the wildest things that you will ever see. He's going to a black audience because, you know, if you're a member of the Democratic Party looking for the nomination, clearly Joe Biden showed with his big win in South Carolina in 2020. You can undo every primary state if you've got the support of the African American community within the Democratic Party. And so he's gotta, like, try to work his way. It's not a natural fit. Obviously, the slick back hair, the like waspiest of WASPy looks, it's not a natural fit. So he's got to go in. He's got to, you know, make sure that everyone understands how for the people he actually is. Right. Well, this is his attempt at this bad boy. Clip 1. I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to impress you. I'm just trying to impress upon you. I'm like you. I'm no better than you.

[Stephen Moore]

You know, I'm a 960 SAT guy. And, you know, and I'm not trying to offend anyone.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, trying to act all there if you got 940. But literally a 960sat guy.

[Stephen Moore]

I cannot. You've never seen me read a speech

[Josh Holmes]

because I cannot read a speech. Maybe the wrong business to be in. Dude, dude, dude.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

All right, Can I. Can I quickly interrupt with a secret edition? Wolf, could you pull up my secret.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, he's done.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Graphic 1A.

[Josh Holmes]

He's got secret graphics.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

This is Gavin Newsom reading with a tweet saying that reading some banned books to figure out what these states are so afraid of. That's March 30, 2022, I think. You have to see this. This isn't a gotcha. This is the best way to understand Gavin Newsom is he's always lying. It just depends on what crowd he's trying to trick at the time. So when he's trying to get. Oh, boy, Republicans are banning books. Look at me, I'm going to read them. So can he actually read and he's just lying to the audience today or was he lying to the public then? The thing is he's always lying because he's a psychopath and he just wants to get his wife. I love just the baseline level of it though.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like Gavin Newsom lying about reading.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Like, that's, it's like, come on, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

First of all, it's a black audience and he's trying to pretend that being dumb is relatable. Like, I can't think of a single thing that's more offensive to any audience. I don't care if you're black, white, brown, male, female, whatever. Be like, no, I'm just like you. That's what he said. That's not what I'm saying. He said, I'm just like you. I had a 960 on my SAT. I can't even read. I can't even read the speeches, so therefore I'm just like you.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

And he said it to the black guy on stage who's interviewing him at the time, like, oh, I'm just like you. You know, I can't read. That's an incredible. It's unbelievable, incredible line.

[Josh Holmes]

It's incredible. So this whole thing goes down and he's trying to pretend as though, you know, I'm going to be just as dim witted as I believe you to be. Which is. It's funny and just what you talked about and how hypocritical and ridiculous and whatever audience he's at. But it's also indicative of this larger Democratic Party and how they see their silos of people. They have treated a population that has voted 90 plus percent for them over the years as though they are exactly what Gavin Newsom has just described. His appeal towards them. That is a wild proposition.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, it's also just so comically hilarious that he's doing this whole bit while he's on a book tour. He's hawking his.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Is he really?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't read. You probably can't read either. Buy the book. Buy the book though.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

Wow.

[John Ashbrook]

The guy's just completely vacant.

[Josh Holmes]

Good news. Books on tape.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah, I've read it all the way through.

[Josh Holmes]

Somehow, somehow, somehow somebody's dictated into my ear, evidently, because I can't read. But you'll hear my voice.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah, I mean, that's. It really is shocking that this is like arguably the front runner. It's like either him or Kamala.

[Stephen Moore]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

And that right now the fight is over who's dumber. And saying that you're dumb because you believe the voter base is a bunch of dummies, so you wanna be Relatable.

[Josh Holmes]

But this is the ham handed way in which the Democratic Party has attempted to relate to the general electorate in recent years. Right. They had enough in 2020 or whatever where they were just like anti Trump. And as long as they were anti Trump, they felt good about it. But ever since then, their whole thing is. And they do these big, we'll get into some of their studies of their own issues that they're deal. But they do these big sort of mini autopsies they don't tell anybody about, where they're like, well, populism is on the rise, we need to be about all of that. Or all Middle America doesn't relate to us anymore because we basically abandoned the middle class for the better part of the last century. All of these things. And their answer is always, I know, maybe if I convince the people that I'm as dumb as I think they are, they will respond to it.

[Michael Duncan]

But dude, I think this is exactly right. They will do absolutely anything but change their policy. Exactly. You know, like, they're like, no, the most important thing is that everybody submits to climate religion. And the most important thing is everybody submits to our trans religion. And the most important thing is everybody believes everything that every far left winger in this country stands for. And they just blow right past that. They are unwilling to consider the fact that maybe those ideas aren't quite that popular. Maybe the country hasn't moved as far to the left as the rest of their party has. And so in exchange for that, they just portray the caricature of Trump that they talk about in their tiny circles amongst themselves. And they're like, well, we always say that Trump is dumb, so maybe that means he is dumb. So maybe that means we need to be dumb. And that's how we get our point of view across. And it's, I'm telling it's, it's a move, but I don't think it's the right move. And I think this is a move that makes Stephen A. Smith the nominee of the Democrat party in 2028, because that guy is gonna run.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you circles around Gavin? You've mentioned him on like four straight episodes.

[Michael Duncan]

I just think that he is the only Democrat I've heard who has the most authentic takes on things from a Democrat liberal point of view. And, and there's no shred of authenticity coming from Gavin Newsom. Kamala Harris Ashbrook isn't wrong.

[John Ashbrook]

I think the rest of this segment is going to make you agree with John Ashbrook.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Oh, wow.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a little Foreshadowing?

[Josh Holmes]

No, I think that's right, but I just think that.

[Michael Duncan]

Listen, listen, I know that the Democrat party has been overtaken by the hard left, but I just fundamentally believe that there are Normie Dems out there who are fed up with an establishment that's gone away from their fundamental views and they are ready for something different out of their party. I just, they can't get it. I talked to so many.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Maybe they can.

[Josh Holmes]

So reasons we're gonna get to.

[Michael Duncan]

Maybe they can't.

[Josh Holmes]

But these people. Listen, the vast majority of the Democratic Party is certifiably mentally insane. Vast majority. They just are. I mean, these are people who just objectively look at things like a question about a fundamental moment in time, about energy production and what it means to the economy with AI and everything else. And they're like, I know what we should do is shut it all down in America and outsource it to China. And it is not like a one off thing. It's not like, well, there's a couple of progressives that understand. No, it's a generational movement. For 20 years that they've been trying to do that. They finally caught the bus and then tried to do it. And the American people were like, get the fuck out of here. This is their party. This is like, there is no way to make the case that you're making about a bunch of Normie Dems all of a sudden deciding that they're going to retake their part. This is not 1992. Well, I mean, they have fundamentally sold this party down the river to legitimate psychopaths, college professors, has beens and never will bes that are like a cautionary tale on how to ruin a country in less than 10 years.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, okay, fine, I agree with you on that, but I don't think Ashbrook's wrong because we actually saw this exact same thing play out in 2020. There were a bunch far left politicians who ran in that Democratic primary and they ultimately selected Joe Biden.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you think they could do it again?

[John Ashbrook]

I don't know if they could do it again. I'm just saying it's not. You don't have to look back to 1996 or whatever to see they did

[Comfortably Smuggle]

it again with handing it to Kamala. I think maybe they. So I think you've got a point there because maybe the reason they did the whole Kamala maneuver is because they're like, if we have an open primary,

[Michael Duncan]

well, of course people are gonna vote.

[Josh Holmes]

We are screwed. We cannot find a candidate that can compete for the heart of this country if we allow our party to vote for it.

[Michael Duncan]

The other phenomenon that I think is worth considering is that maybe a lot of the normie Dems voted for Trump time and time again. And if Trump is not on the ballot in 2028, maybe they're for the taking.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, it's interesting.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's an interesting thought.

[Josh Holmes]

That is an interesting thought. Well, okay.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Newsom.

[Josh Holmes]

And all that is not alone. Gretchen Whitmer. We've neglected this poor governor of Michigan because she said a lot of really stupid shit over the last couple of weeks. But she's also just kind of like couple of notches down the echelon of things that you need to talk about because there are the Democrats that think that she's great or whatever, but she's also just not that great. So we've neglected to talk about it. Check out clip two on Ukraine. What does victory look like? Ambassador?

[John Ashbrook]

No, please. I'd love to hear your answer.

[Josh Holmes]

It is the two, the two that I am on the panel with are much more steeped in foreign policy than, than a governor is. But you know, I do think that Ukraine's independence, keeping their, their landmass and having the support of the allies, I think is, is the goal, the land mass and the goal,

[Comfortably Smuggle]

dude, she's kicking

[Josh Holmes]

it to an ambassador in the Trump administration to try to explain the answer to that question. Now, her job, fundamentally, if she wants to be a serious Democrat, which she's told basically everybody that she's running for president, is to be that alternative vision to what the Trump administration has to do. She's asked a very fundamental question, the answer of which should have been apparent anytime over the last three years. And she kicks it to the Trump ambassador because she doesn't have a fricking clue what she's talking about. This is the intellectual heft that the Democratic Party is bringing to questions of our day.

[Michael Duncan]

Right? And she went to Europe for this event. It's not like this was in Dearborn, which is international enough to put it mildly.

[Josh Holmes]

Did she not think this was coming up?

[Michael Duncan]

She went to Europe.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

She went to Munich where she could.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

This is probably the one question you actually could prep for. Right? Because of course that's going to be a topic of discussion. I think, Holmes, you bring up a really good point of like, this is so telling, the lack of intellectual heft. Because if it's not a slogan, if it's not something that you can say in this house, we believe, don't know what they believe. You know, like if there's no, like, left wing stuff slogan that they can. Like the protect trans kids that her, like, lieutenant governor had on a T shirt with knives and shit.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

If they don't have something like that, it's not on a T shirt or a bumper sticker or. In this house, we believe Dems don't have an answer for it.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not a serious party. Like everything on Ruthless, we like to, like, break down the Three Bears type thing. You start with the furthest reaches of the far left with Gavin Newsom in California, and then you get the left with Gretchen Whitmer. And then their new thing, now that they're running out of what they think is a moderate, is a guy that you haven't heard of that they're now foisting onto the scene. He's actually kind of foisting himself. I'm not sure the Democratic Party even thinks that this guy's that great, but he's on the scene nevertheless because he's the moderate. Abigail Spamberger. But basically white and male and from a red state. It's Bashir. Governor Bashir of Kentucky. This dude has got this hilarious. You got. First of all, watch the clip.

[John Ashbrook]

But we rarely talk about the why

[Josh Holmes]

people want to know what drives us,

[John Ashbrook]

especially in a world with social media where everyone's looking for the next authentic thing.

[Josh Holmes]

For me, that's my faith. Most of the decisions I make are

[John Ashbrook]

based on that golden rule that says we love our neighbor as ourself and

[Josh Holmes]

that parable of the Good Samaritan that says everyone is our neighbor. And so when I've taken actions like vetoing the nastiest piece of anti LGBTQ legislation that ever came through my state,

[John Ashbrook]

I described it in those terms.

[Josh Holmes]

I said, my faith teaches me that

[John Ashbrook]

all children are children of God, and I didn't want people picking on those kids.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah, no, no. Big hand at the view. Can I just give you a description of what it is that he's talking about, please? The most anti LGBTQ whatever consonant comes after it bill that he vetoed. It banned transgender surgeries for those under the age of 18. It bars any human. Human sexuality curriculum for students in K through fifth. K through fifth. So we're talking about kindergartners through 11, roughly years old. Provides expected privacy rights for restrooms, meaning you can't have dudes go into kids restrooms, locker rooms and shower rooms that align with biological child's biological sex. Now, we're not talking about, like, you know, I don't think there's an argument for the local Y either, but we're talking about children's bathrooms that had that in there. Prohibits the Kentucky Department of Education, the Kentucky Board of Education from recommending or requiring policies to keep minor students information confidential from their parents. So it's basically a hodgepodge of 9010amongst the American electorate. Can you let children who teachers have counseled to change their sexuality not let their parents know and have life altering surgical deals at the same time that we allow grown men in children's locker rooms?

[John Ashbrook]

And, and I mean, Josh, Josh, you misunderstand. His faith informs that every child is a child of God. Of course God got their gender wrong. And so now if a parent wants to know if a teacher is secretly pressuring their child to trans themselves, they're not allowed to know that sort of thing. That's between the governor and a teacher's union. And a child does.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Because Kentucky have a super majority in their state legislature.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they do. And this is.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Why do they override this? Because this is good, thank God.

[Josh Holmes]

But this is why this guy has been able to survive as governor in that everything that he has tried to do, the Democrat or the Republican legislature is just basically overridden. So nobody actually feels the impact on it. And he's become.

[Michael Duncan]

Except for one thing. I mean not for nothing, but this guy lecturing about faith is the same guy who blocked from going to church during COVID Do you remember this? He personally took action so that nobody was allowed to go to church on a Sunday because he just believed that nobody should go to church during COVID This is a guy lecturing us about faith.

[Josh Holmes]

His faith informs him. But you're going to see a lot more of this, right, because you've got Talrico in Texas is doing something similar of it and he's trying to pretend as though he's just a man of the cloth, you know, like all these guys are. Well, my faith does and I'm just deeply religious and all these. That is why I believe you should cut the pricks off your kids and you should, you know, not tell the parents and you should give them life altering drugs and all this other stuff, which is because of my faith. And I love the point that you just made Duncan, that like yes, I believe so deeply in God that I believe that God made a tremendous mistake in creating the kid in the wrong gender. It doesn't make any sense. But again, this is the second level of deception that Democrats have done about what it is that they're trying to sell the American People, they understand that you can't run a tranny nationwide with like pro Hamas talkers and anti ice and basically anarchists talking points. They understand that. So they gotta get a couple of white guys that look like they mean you no harm. They talk a lot about God, but they have the exact same agenda. And that's what's happening out there.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, great point.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean you look at. Dude, it's between that and Gretchen Whitmer, who's telling you, I don't know, that's.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, it's a recipe for a loss in 2028 for them it is a recipe for a loss. And that's why I think they're gonna look elsewhere.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, when we come back. As Democrats continue to look for Answers in their 2024 loss, a surprise reason has emerged that explains why the Democratic base today and turn out we're going to tell you about it. And this is from them, by the way. You're not going to believe it right after this.

[Michael Duncan]

Energy is all around us. It's how we move, how we build and how we make every day a little easier. We're all around America's oil and natural gas, supporting 11 million good paying American jobs across the country and powering our way of life. But energy demand is growing and fast. That's why we need to overhaul our broken permitting process to unleash America's abundant natural resources, strengthen national security and create a future where American energy leads the world. What America builds today will help secure a more affordable, more reliable future with enough energy to go around for generations to come. Our country, country can't wait. We must pass permitting reform now to help secure American energy dominance. Because when America builds, America wins. America's oil and natural gas paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, we want to get into this democratic autopsy that they've done on themselves, which by the way, it's hilarious that they never released the findings of any of these things, but they just like, well this was the problem, we can't talk about that publicly.

[Michael Duncan]

Also, no reporter presses them to release the findings.

[Josh Holmes]

Right?

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

They're like, oh, okay, sounds good. But in the previous segment we talked, we had the Bashir clip on the View and the View and Colbert are taking turns basically trying to shove out this establishment democratic narrative changer about whether they can relate to the middle class. Cuz they're like, oh well, God tells me, whatever. Well, you'll recall the whole FCC battle that has been with Kimmel, Colbert, the View. They're federally regulated because they're on Broadcast airwaves and this administration. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the fcc, said you have to provide equal time, as has been on our books forever, to candidates that are in competitive elections. If you're going to do this, well. Well, it's caused a big problem. You recall the Talrico thing? Turns out, and I've talked to several different people we're involved in this line of work. We do ad buying and all kinds of different things or people who know what they're talking about. Every station in the state of Texas, every ABC station that had to air the view performance by Talrico has since mea culpa decided you're right, we don't want to be on the hook for this. We just put a guy on for an hour in the middle of the week, uncontested in a contested election that is like upon us, it's next week and we will provide equal time for Jasmine Crock.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's news. That's interesting. Well, it makes sense. Awful lot of ABC stations, naturally, across the state of Texas, flooded with media markets.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

This is a huge deal. So that's the thing, is Talrico and Colbert tried to make it look like this is a Trump administration thing. The fact of the matter is Talrico is running against Jasmine Crockett. I was shocked to learn how many folks weighing in on this weren't aware of the fact that it's Jasmine Crockett running against Tal Rico and it's essentially her that got screwed by the situation and now it's aoc.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the primary election.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah. And that's a primary between those two. And that's the whole thing is she's the one who got ripped off.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally. So look, no one has reported this. I heard about this.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

Three days ago, huh? And I just feel like I need to talk about it here because for the last three days this has been out there. I don't know if the stations actually have a requirement. I doubt it. A requirement to contact a competing campaign to say we'll honor your equal time request or if you just have to know what it is that you're looking for. Everything tells me that Jasmine Crockett's campaign doesn't know what they're looking for on this.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, I'm shocked. You're telling me. For the first time, they don't seem very with it.

[Josh Holmes]

If you're coming up with Jeff Epstein, the dentist.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, you're probably not all over the FCC filings.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. They might want to Log a couple calls to abc.

[Josh Holmes]

They might want to, but they tell me every single single affiliate in Texas. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, like, all of it.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Have. Have said that they will honor a request. And I have seen zero news on this.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Zero. So you wonder, like, whether it's getting out the. Well, now, you know, in the Ruthless Variety program.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's a huge deal.

[Josh Holmes]

It is a huge deal. It is a huge deal.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Jasmine Crockett, if you're listening, congrats. Like, yeah, I feel like that's amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

It's the first favor we ever did for Jazzy. Huh?

[Michael Duncan]

Wow.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, she's been a favor to us. She's provided a lot of content.

[Josh Holmes]

She's been a favor. It just, you know, returning it. What comes around goes, you know, Chuck

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Schumer's like, God damn it.

[Josh Holmes]

Why did they bring this up 100%, though?

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Dude was pissed off about this. He did not want that getting out.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so there's a den autopsy that Axios got a hold of.

[John Ashbrook]

Scoop.

[Josh Holmes]

According to Axios, Dems working on secret report found Gaza cost Harris voters.

[Stephen Moore]

Oh.

[Josh Holmes]

So if you're listening to the Ruthless Variety program, you've known for the last two years, essentially the Hamas caucus within the Democratic Party, and we've talked about it, everybody's been problem. Everybody's been like, you know, like, oh, these caustic assholes. I can't believe they would suggest that somehow they have a Hamas caucus in the Democratic. Well, they've done an autopsy.

[Stephen Moore]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Turns out that's the case. At least that's why they blame themselves for losing. Top Democratic officials, according to Axios, who worked on the party's still secret autopsy of the 2024 election concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the Biden administration's approach to the war in Gaza. Axiosis learned why it matters. The DNC's research on what went wrong in 2024 has been under lock and key since party leaders decided last year it can hide it from the public. A reflection of how explosively it could resonate within the party.

[John Ashbrook]

Wait, so this has been hiding under lock and key? Do you think maybe it was in a tunnel under Rafah? They told me it was explosive.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, man. Dude, I think it's you like that.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you think that you could maybe get 72 versions out of this thing coming out to life?

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, I also think that the topic sentence on the autopsy is basically just, she's an idiot. I really. I mean, I know that. I know there's a Gaza component I know there are so many different components, but I do think that it is merciless on her and merciless on the handover from Biden to her, the fact

[Comfortably Smuggle]

that they keep it under lock and key and hide it from the public. And I think this is also because of, like, what we had just discussed earlier, of they're so captive to this horrible, untenable ideological position they found themselves in. Yeah, I mean, Kavala was essentially like a dei. They can't turn back on that. We all know she was an idiot. There were more qualified people in any building that Kamala would give one of her speeches at in the audience than her to be President of the United

[Michael Duncan]

States in their support for the terrorists who did October 7th that only, like, locked in what everybody already knew about them, that they're idiots, that she is an idiot. And it just reminds me of one of my favorite clips.

[Josh Holmes]

She's an idiot.

[John Ashbrook]

Comes from upbringing.

[Stephen Moore]

Parents are probably idiots too.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that's what the autopsy says right at the top.

[Josh Holmes]

It should be, but this is the way that Axios characterizes. And then we're gonna give you our take on all of this. During her brief campaign, Harris sought to strike a balance, showing strong support for Israel while calling for a ceasefire and expressing sympathy for Palestinians under attack in Gaza, as well as hostages being held by Hamas activists from the IMEU Policy Project. I can only imag imagine the insanity

[Michael Duncan]

that's involved in that operation. You know it.

[Josh Holmes]

They told the DNC the Biden Harris administration's support for Israel was a factor in the party's losses because it drained support from young people and progressives. And then they've got some quotes from this guy talking about it. But. But here's the thing. If you're an OG ruthless person, we have told you for two years that this is the fundamental issue that the Democrats were grappling with and that they knew what it was that was right and they couldn't do it because of the base of support. We called it the Michigan problem because they referred to it as a Michigan problem. Colloquially, every time they had something that came up with Israel, they would refer to it as a Michigan problem because of all the Palestinians or whatever that live in Dearborn or whatever they count as a basis of their support. So they couldn't actually be in defense of an ally to the United States because the vast majority of their voters, whether they be in Dearborn or scattered throughout the country in these progressive enclaves, felt like Hamas ought to win the battle with Israel. And they had to try to bridge that divide. It's why they put out Kamala Harris as the spokesperson long before she took the mantle as the nominee to try to deal with that community voice to the pro Hamas constituency within the Democratic Party. And then lo and behold, she becomes the nominee. Foreshadowing in some ways. And she can't just come out and be like, yeah, we should definitely eliminate the state of Israel. And so her nuance there, they say, was a problem with young voters within the Democratic Party. Amazing.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I think it also speaks to a larger issue in the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris lost because the message of the party is entirely dictated by far left activist groups. You know, this nonprofit industrial complex that controls the way that the party operates. The autopsy to fix the problems of the election has been hijacked just the same by the same people. This IM EU is why they can't put it out. Radical pro Hamas group and their website, you know, one of their main talkers is no weapons to Israel. And it's like, oh, wow, they've. They're convinced that the Gaza issues, the one that cost the election, they're the ones who made it the issue.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[John Ashbrook]

You see what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

Right?

[John Ashbrook]

And so these people can't ever get out of their own way because of the way that the structural problems of the party work.

[Josh Holmes]

But it also just goes to show as to why it is that you get this shit that we had in segment one where you're talking about Gavin Newsom pretending as though being dumb is somehow sympathetic to a black audience, how Gretchen Whitmer is deferring to a Trump ambassador on how we ought to handle Ukraine because she doesn't know the difference. How you get Andy Beshear citing the Bible as to why it is that you ought to cut off your prick. I mean, all of this stuff is nonsensical and idiotic, but it's driven entirely by these left wing cabals that are now the makeup of the Democratic Party. I mean, we do a lot of dumb shit as Republicans. I mean, a lot of things we deserve a lot of criticism over, but you can't mount a successful opposition to anything that's happening on the Republican side in terms of governance with stupid shit like this. I mean, this is. How are they going to get out of that? I mean, this is their leading candidates.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I will say, though, not all of them are doing so terribly. Some have actually increased their support.

[John Ashbrook]

Wow, I can't wait to hear.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

So this is also kind of like breaking news, but apparently Mayor Pete has significantly Increased his support among black voters.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, is that right?

[John Ashbrook]

Pete Mentum.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

He's gone from 0% support to 1%.

[John Ashbrook]

Let's go.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah, no. It's a nice ticker. Tape that son of a bitch, huh? Look at that chart. Look at that. So this, he's registering.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

This is provided by Focal Data who did this poll conducted from January through February of 2026. It's just fresh from the field. Harris is at 61%, Newsom is at 16%, AOC is at 8%, Shapiro at 2%, Kelly at 2%. Voodoo Judge on the board, 1%.

[Josh Holmes]

What? I mean, look, that's a lot of hard work that went into that.

[Michael Duncan]

He's been working on it for a very long time, since he was mayor, almost mayor, which we don't need to get into today. We've talked about it plenty on the show.

[Josh Holmes]

It brings us to our question of the day. What is the Democrats biggest liability? That seems like they accrue them all the time. And as practitioners in the field, I don't feel this way ideologically, and I certainly don't feel like this in terms of the way this country is going to and my commitment to what President Trump and Republicans are trying to accomplish. But there is a, from an operative standpoint, a sense of like, if you're a Democrat in this environment, if you just shut the fuck up and went away, you probably figure it out.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That'd be the best thing they could do.

[Stephen Moore]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, if you just put everybody in the basement, never said a word, you would probably come out on top in an election.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah, run back the basement. That actually probably is the best approach you guys have.

[Josh Holmes]

But they're leaking out odd tops. You got Gavin Newsom out talking about to black audiences about how dumb he thinks they are. You got Gretchen Whitmer deferring to Trump administration officials on her view of how to deal with Ukraine. I mean, they are just, they can't have it. So we ask you, the listener, what is the Democrats biggest liability? They are many. And we'd be interested when you like and subscribe to the ruthless variety program. We read all of them and get back to the very next episode. When we come back, we're going to get to your comments from last episode, which is what's your favorite Trump standup moment. We had a lot of fun on Friday and Funtime Friday playing some of the hits from last week, but he's got just a beautiful catalog to work with. And you guys came up with some great stuff that we looked up right after this,

[Michael Duncan]

they closed President Trump's accounts.

[Josh Holmes]

Now the big banks want to destroy

[Michael Duncan]

Trump's affordability agenda by putting tolls on your data.

[Josh Holmes]

I have no higher priority than making America affordable again. That's what we're going to do.

[John Ashbrook]

The banks that went after Trump now

[Michael Duncan]

want hidden fees on every transaction, making everything more expensive. But President Trump can stop them. Tell President Trump, keep big bank fees out of the open banking rule.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, your comments from the question of the day. Last week we asked, what is your favorite Trump stand up moment? There are a lot of them. And you provided us with just a great. It was like a highlight reel. Felt like a greatest hits album of stuff that we'd forgotten about. And to get back to, we always start with a voice.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, first one. To honor Team usa, we go to America's favorite medicine man, Eddie the medicine man. And Eddie writes, one of my favorite Trump showman moments was when he went back to Butler and started his speech with, quote, as I was saying, oh, that was great. The immigration chart popped up. It was genius. Spit in the eye of adversity and a good laugh.

[Josh Holmes]

That's so good. I mean, you're right. I had forgotten about that. I believe we've got a clip of this and in every one of them.

[Michael Duncan]

Great, thank you.

[Stephen Moore]

A very big thank you to Pennsylvania.

[Josh Holmes]

We love Pennsylvania. And as I was saying, It's amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

He could, he could have taught P.T. barnum a thing or two about showmanship.

[Josh Holmes]

Absolute showman. Absolute showman. That was fantastic. All right, comment 2 dunks, runks.

[John Ashbrook]

This is from Robert Leonard. Robert says favorite DJT stand up moment, you'd be in jail.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That was powerful. That was like og My God.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, we were all, all used to these stayed debate back and forth.

[John Ashbrook]

But this, the special thing I think about this clip and in this debate was this was one of the walk and talks with the microphone debates where the, the candidates are kind of circling. Almost like in a boxing ring.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. Let's play the clip. It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country because you'd be in jail.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Secretary Clinton, dude, even the audience jumped in. I was like, oh, my God.

[Josh Holmes]

She's like searching for.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

What are you supposed to say to that? I mean, I mean, that changed everything.

[Michael Duncan]

It did.

[Josh Holmes]

It did, actually. I mean, it really was a poignant moment. Obviously something you don't normally see.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Big audience screaming.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. It's like usually such a staid environment

[Comfortably Smuggle]

and they're like no, he's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comment 3, Smuggles Comet 3 is from

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Thomas Rafferty and Thomas Rafferty. The wall just got 10ft higher.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I forgot about this one.

[Michael Duncan]

Remember that?

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This was. I think it was a commentary between, like, maybe the Mexican authorities had sort of.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, they weren't going to pay for the wall.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. They were like, that's ridiculous. Just dismissive of Donald Trump and his rhetoric. And he had something to say about all of that in clip six.

[Stephen Moore]

So I get a call from one

[Josh Holmes]

of the reporters yesterday, and they said, the president of Mexico will not under

[Stephen Moore]

any circumstances, pay for the wall.

[Josh Holmes]

What is your comment?

[John Ashbrook]

I said, the wall just got 10ft higher.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Hell, yeah. And that's such a lesson. Is because. He never backs down.

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Always doubles down.

[Josh Holmes]

No, he always doubles down. And that's just like. People just love.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's it.

[Josh Holmes]

It's also funny.

[Michael Duncan]

It is.

[John Ashbrook]

It is funny.

[Josh Holmes]

It's good stuff. All right, so we gotta talk a little bit about. I'm obviously decked out in my American gear. The US Men's and women's hockey team won the gold medal. I'm from Minnesota. We've talked about that a lot in a negative context. But growing up, growing up. I know, I know I had to hedge right off the bat. But growing up, it was like the birth of Jesus, the founding of our Nation, and the 1980 Olympic team. That was like the things that mattered. When you were a child, you were taught basically three things, like, these are the things that we grew up with. And the reverence for 1980, which was 46 years ago to the date that this American hockey team won the gold against what is the world's powerhouse. Back in the day, it was the Soviet Union. Today, it's Canada, the hockey capital of the world. And they felt like they were just going to be owning us in a lot of ways. So we're really the underdogs in this thing. Well, clip.

[Stephen Moore]

Seven states with numbers.

[John Ashbrook]

Slow mo.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Yeah. Look at that.

[Josh Holmes]

The golden goal for the United States.

[Stephen Moore]

For the first time since the 1980

[Josh Holmes]

miracle, the United States takes the gold. Boys. I was in tears.

[John Ashbrook]

Who's the best?

[Josh Holmes]

I. I'm. I'm man enough to admit it. It was incredible. Just emotional. The guys couldn't be better. The team couldn't be better the way they did. It couldn't. It always had to be ot.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it always had to be a cliffhanger. If they won five. One, it just wouldn't feel right.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

So they had not won the gold since 1980. My question, Ashbrook, what was it like this time compared to when you watched them win it in 1980?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I've only seen it in the Disney movie Miracles and on the Netflix special about that team. I wasn't actually alive during that time, but it was a great moment. It was an incredible moment in 1980, and yesterday was just as incredible in my mind. I mean, it was electric. Beating Canada, I mean, beating the Soviets was. Was. I'm sure meant so much at that time because there was so much about world politics and everything this, that. That played into it, but there's just as much about North American hometown pride that played into us besting the Canadians at the sport that defines them.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, because they got the best of us at that four nations tournament.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

A year ago, you know, and.

[Josh Holmes]

And they really lorded.

[John Ashbrook]

Really lorded it over us. They really love to do that. And so I especially love drinking their tears after this victory and all of their whiny complaints up there in Canada. Oh, 3v3 isn't real overtime. And it's like, okay, well, you've got three of the fastest skaters on the planet on your team, and you lost.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

So, I mean, you missed an open goal. You like, like, like, what's the complaint here? You lost the game.

[Josh Holmes]

They lost the game.

[Michael Duncan]

They had plenty of opportunity.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we toss up graphic one while we talk underneath it? All right, so that's Jack Hughes. Obviously, he took a stick to the face.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Can we zoom in on? Because for the folks, this is like a horrific.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, he's missing a couple injury.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

And it's not like it just fell out. We're talking about pieces of teeth are left.

[John Ashbrook]

It's iconic in the same way that the Trump. Fight, fight, fight.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

But look at that image wrapped in the flag.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I mean, like, that's a ton of pain. That's a ton of pain. He played through and got the goal for the.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, also, it paints a serious contrast with Duncan soccer, where it is that they, like, you know, they get an ankle injury and they roll in the field.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, we're having a really, really great moment for America. And you tried to sully it. How dare you?

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's an iconic.

[Josh Holmes]

First of all.

[John Ashbrook]

First of all, he tries to steal valor about the USA and try to wedge Minnesota in there. Like, it's a nice place, terrible place. And now he wants to attack soccer. You know, we got a US Men's soccer team that's be playing in the World Cup. A World Cup. We're hosting you'd think you'd have a little more pride about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, let me just say, if they. If they do anything similar to that, I will be the world's biggest fan. I just don't see it didn't go

[John Ashbrook]

the way you thought it would, huh?

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Trump got the World cup over here. He inspired them to win the gold. Like, this is the golden age.

[Michael Duncan]

They're going to have to do more than that if they end up playing in Guadalajara. Have you seen what's happening in that city? They're going to have to shoot their way in and out.

[Josh Holmes]

Seriously, Seriously.

[John Ashbrook]

What is going on in Mexico?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, Mexico, we should probably cover that if that keeps going. A lot of cartel activity.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I mean, that's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Is like, great time for spring break

[Comfortably Smuggle]

news out of North America this weekend. It was like. Like US beats Canada. Also. Cartels taking over Mexico.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally the place to be. Look, I just think for those of you who are new to hockey or new to the significance of sports on patriotism and everything else, and you haven't watched Miracle, you don't know the story. The 1980 hockey. There are some things in some sports, in some games that mean more than the rest. Like if you win 100 meters and. And the Summer Olympics or whatever, that's great, and we're all proud of you, and I'd much rather have an American win than anybody else. Hockey since 1980 is the thing. Because of the significance of that 1980 win and what it meant from geopolitics, what it meant for our country, the pride in our country when we were at some of the lowest lows that we've been since World War II, it just. Me. It's always meant more. It's a game and it's a team that means more than everything else in the Olympics. And the fact that it was the last thing in this Olympics, the last game, and we could put our exclamation point on all of that also.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, here's one more thing. I think it should count for more in the metal. Count.

[Michael Duncan]

Count.

[Josh Holmes]

It should.

[John Ashbrook]

I think the hockey should count for more.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I think we've got, like 15

[John Ashbrook]

events that are different versions of the biathlon. It's just skiing and shooting. Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, I think.

[Josh Holmes]

How many Norwegian levels. 11.

[John Ashbrook]

They won 11 in just. Which feels like a thing that they made up for themselves.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, I love shooting and I love skiing, don't get me wrong. But the idea that you need that many competitions for something that's essentially just skiing on flat Earth and then shooting and then you're going to say you won the most medals. I call foul on that.

[Josh Holmes]

They're like, hey, we want you to ski 100 yards now. We want you.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

The next Winter Olympics is in four years, right? It's every four years.

[Michael Duncan]

France.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I mean, I think Hagseth can get our number count up for skiing and shooting. Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, we should train some. We should, we should military train some people.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's the thing is like, you know, we had. It was basically the Biden regime until like a year ago. So we're stuck with the Olympians that we have. But I mean, listen, I'm calling it

[John Ashbrook]

in four years, the Biden regime. Hilarious, by the way.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Our skiing and shooting their whole lives.

[Josh Holmes]

They're not. Well, if you need a palate cleanser on Smug's negativity towards our Olympic athletes, let's put up clip eight. That is the American hockey team. I'm sure you've seen the interviews. We're not going to play them all, but they're all that like, you know, you get Jack Hughes scores the game winning goal, they rip them off the ice. Five minutes after the literally moment that he's thought about since he was two years old happens, what's his first reaction? I'm just so proud to do this for our country. I'm so proud to be an American dude. That's what this whole thing is about. That's what the Olympics is about. They captured, they saved for America. Whatever it was that we got on the front end. That liberal nonsense about. I'm a little bit conflicted about representing my country and the Eileen Goos and just the fucking tramps of athletics across this globe and they just made it American again.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I will say one thing about Eileen Gu is it's probably the first documented case of China buying an American Good. Something made in America. You gotta give him credit for that.

[John Ashbrook]

It's an American export, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

Well said the White House was not going to be left out on all of this. Graphic 5. This is actually a quote tweet of a Trudeau tweet about the silver.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Yeah, Trudeau saying that you can't take our country and you can't take our game.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, let's. Let's put that Trudeau tweet up there. Just so. Yeah, so this was after that four nations.

[Josh Holmes]

Four nations.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Where he was dunking on us, which is another reason I don't want to hear any of this whining from the Canucks about how disrespectful Donald Trump and the Americans are being. And how gratuitous in our victory were being because they rubbed our noses in and they booed our national anthem. I would remind all of you they did. So I don't want to hear one thing from a Canadian about how we're being disrespected.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, the other thing I think is worth reminding the Canadians is they haven't won a Stanley cup since the early 90s.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Actually a really tough run for Canada. Let's keep going. Also, Toronto losing, you know.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

The World Series.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

They've lost everything.

[Josh Holmes]

It has been a tough. A tough go. All right, you guys want some variety?

[Stephen Moore]

Always.

[Josh Holmes]

I think you sent this one in. It's a giant runaway pig. According to the New York Post, a giant runaway pig with maximum confidence. Maximum confidence storms North Carolina home looking for a savory treat. Smuggles, what do we.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

So this is the New York Post. So you know is going to be wonderful. They opened it with bacon and entering.

[John Ashbrook]

Nice.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

But I think. Can we get graphic two up here?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Show the hog.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

A massive runaway pig with, quote, maximum confidence stormed in North Carolina home and searches.

[Josh Holmes]

Look at that size.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

Hauled away in disgrace by a strong armed cop. According to wild photos, the hungry hog named Penelope wandered into a home In Ellenborough, about 58 miles west of Charlotte on Monday, foraging for a savory snack before cops arrived to handle the snouty break in.

[Josh Holmes]

Snouty.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

This thing is enormous. And now here's the thing. I'll just wrap this up real quick. So the cops rolled up. They grabbed a graphic 3. This is what I oppose is they returned it to the owner. They said that, yes, after it broke in was running amok. They returned this thing to the owner. This is North Carolina. This is the home of pulled pork. This is the home of barbecue that gets the death sentence and folks get a nice dinner out of it.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. It's not every day that a grocery store walks into your house. They could have had bacon and pork shoulder and pork butt and ribs and everything that their hearts desired, if only they had the courage to take advantage

[Comfortably Smuggle]

of the food 100%.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, and thanks to Joe Biden, these things are expensive.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I mean, this was a grocery store walks into your house. I absolutely love it. Can we pop that graphic up one more time? No, the graphic, too.

[Michael Duncan]

The hauling.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

The thing.

[Josh Holmes]

The hauling. The hauling. Look at the size of that beast.

[John Ashbrook]

He's had a lot of tasty treats.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

That's the thing you're having A party with that thing, Maximum confidence.

[John Ashbrook]

It looks well marbleized.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. Okay. All right, so we're going to do an interview here and it's brought to you by the Electronic Payments Coalition. We're going to talk to Stephen Moore. All of you are wondering because, look, we're on the eve of the State of the Union, clearly. Economy, economics, your own pocketbook matters an awful lot more in midterm elections, but it means a lot to all of you. We have our views on all this and they think we're right, frankly. But we like to discuss these kind of things with people who actually have spent 40 years doing it. Stephen Moore, all right, so everybody's talking about the economy. Huge deal in the midterms. It's going to be a big deal tonight. The State of the Union figure, when you want some expertise on that. I think we know what we're talking

[Stephen Moore]

about a little bit.

[Josh Holmes]

But there's one guy over here that knows a lot more than we do about all this stuff. Stephen Moore, how are you, sir?

[Stephen Moore]

Great. And, and never better. And you know, yesterday was one of the greatest days of my life when the USA won the hockey. Wasn't that I'm a little older than you all, but I, I feel the same way I felt when we had the miracle on ice back in 1980. So what a, what a big win, by the way, for the men and the women.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Stephen Moore]

So, yeah, you know, and I don't know if you've seen the cartoon. It's like it has, you know, what's Canada better than the United States? Number one, hockey. And then they've slashed,

[Josh Holmes]

Used to be trees and maple syrup. I feel like we figured that out, too. So listen, you spent a career monitoring these sorts of things. Economy does more paddling than anything else in the issue bucket when it comes to midterm elections. For obvious reasons, the electorate largely self selects as a economic electorate in a lot of different ways. Give us your general views of how things are going.

[Stephen Moore]

Good. It's a strong economy and that's going to surprise people because the polls show people Trump's a little bit underwater on the economy. I'm baffled by that because so many of the signs are positive. We've got decent job growth. Wages are growing faster than inflation. Median income has risen a lot in the last 14 months that Trump has been president. Gas prices are more affordable than they've been in a long time. On and on. It's hard to point to things that aren't going right, except maybe beef prices and groceries which people are angry about and people are angry about the price of a house. I, I have two sons that are in their early 30s and they can't afford to buy a house now. Now when I bought my first house, a little shack at 31, even that is out of reach for a lot of young people. But no, I feel very good about where the economy is. And all of the objective statistics show things getting better month by month.

[Josh Holmes]

How big is setting the infrastructure that House and Senate Republicans, President Trump did last year with a big beauty and ensuring you've got a predictable tax rate for a period of time, allowing businesses and individuals to sort of plan for the future. I've always viewed that as sort of a key component to setting the infrastructure for a growing economy. What's your view?

[Stephen Moore]

Well, so I'm old, I just turned 66. So I've arrived in Washington in, believe it or not, 1983, 40 some years ago. And just to sort of put this in perspective, when you ask about why do tax cuts matter? I mean, when Ronald Reagan came into office, the economy was in complete shambles. We had double digit inflation. I laugh when people today, oh, 6% mortgage. When I was graduating from college, the mortgages were 15% rate, mortgage interest rate. And so we had high unemployment, we had, we had price out of control, we had Soviet troops in Afghanistan, et cetera. The country was falling apart. And Reagan almost single handedly rebuilt the American economy with supply side tax cuts, reducing taxes, reducing regulation and reducing inflation. And we've lived through the biggest boom in history. So when I arrived in Washington, you're not going to believe this because you're such youngsters, but when I arrived in Washington, you want to take a wild guess what the Dow Jones industrial average

[Josh Holmes]

was a fraction of what it is for sure.

[John Ashbrook]

1,000. I was going to say 8,000.

[Stephen Moore]

Now we're. Yeah, right. I mean that's what most people think maybe. So think about that. I mean, the Dow is at a thousand now we're at 50. Well, we're a little bit below 50. That's incredible. This is the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of civilization. And so what I mentioned that because it's not complicated. If you keep your dollar stable in value, if you keep reduce the size of government and you get rid of confiscatory taxes, good things are going to happen. And that certainly happened under Reagan and it's happened under Trump. People forget. Incidentally, I'm a little biased because Larry Kudlow and I wrote the very, very first version of the Trump tax cut. Back in early 2016 in Trump Tower, when we just put a pad of paper together, we just said, why don't we do this, why don't we do that? And yeah, let's do this, this, this, this. And by the way, much what we did was in the final bill. And so it's been tremendously stimulative and it's been really good for our companies to be competitive in the world and to create jobs. But also, just one little thing about that tax cut that matters a lot to middle class families is that in the year 2026, this year people would be paying about 2,000 to $3,000 more taxes this year than they will than they are if we had not passed that tax cut. Incidentally, every single, every single Democrat in the House and Senate, every one of them voted for a $2,000 tax increase on middle class families. And these are the guys who were saying, oh, affordability. So you know, that's been a big stimulus to the economy and I'm glad we got it done. And Trump, I mean, we got that done in six months. I thought it would take over a year to do so.

[Josh Holmes]

No question.

[Stephen Moore]

Quite a victory.

[John Ashbrook]

So, you know, we've talked a lot about the macroeconomic components that makes up what an administration tries to do tonight. Trump has the State of the Union and he has to put some of this stuff into real terms for the American people to understand the vision of where we're going and what they can expect here. You pointed to taxes, and people are gonna be filling out their taxes here coming up for April 15, and they are gonna see that. But are there any other real terms in their pocketbook that Trump should be pointing to tonight to give people confidence in the future of this economy?

[Stephen Moore]

Well, our businesses are doing well. We're really the only major industrialized country that's now. And so we're growing at a nice brisk pace of about 3% per year. And then you look at the fact that median household income has increased by about, increased last year above inflation by $2,500. And on top of that's pre tax. So then you include the $2,000 tax cut. So the average family is about 3,500 to $4,000 better off in terms of, of affordability. And again, this is after inflation, after taxes. And these are people in the exact middle. But people are still angry about things. I mean, my wife gets angry when she comes back from the grocery store. Why is you don't know what things cost, blah, blah, blah. And so those Things have to be addressed Republicans, by the way, if I were Trump's speechwriter or working for the Republican National Committee, I'd say the first thing. Republicans should say two things. One, 86% of the inflation that people are angry about did not happen under Donald Trump. It happened under, I was going to say Bill Clinton, under Joe Biden. And so that's when the inflation rate went to 9.1%. The prices rose 21% while he was president. And so Trump is sort of right to say, well, look, I didn't do this, they did. Second point to make is, look, it was only 15 years ago we passed something called the Affordable Care Act. And since we passed that, you know, health care costs have doubled and tripled.

[John Ashbrook]

It's funny you say that, because it's one of my biggest gripes in politics is Democrats are way better at blaming than Republicans.

[Stephen Moore]

Affordable Care act, it's not so affordable. So those are the kinds of things that Trump needs to make the case. Oh, the third thing that he needs to say, and this is so important, is so, you know, there's a different cost of living in every state. You know, some states are more expensive to live in. Well, if you look at just the very recent Census Bureau data that just came out a couple weeks ago, guess what? Nine of the ten most expensive states with the least affordability are blue states. California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, you know, Illinois.

[Josh Holmes]

Regulating these states.

[Stephen Moore]

Exactly. They tax, they regulate, they restrict energy use. I just got a text from a friend of mine, Lisa Nelson, who runs alec, and she's out in California. And there's posters there by every gas pump that says, in California, we pay the highest amount for gas of any state. Why is that? Because they have the highest taxes on it. So I think this is what Republicans need to say, is these are the people. These Democrats are the one who cause high prices. And so you're going to really hand the reins of government over to the people who created this crisis in the first. Look what's happening in New York now. It is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I mean, New York is the most important city in the world. It's certainly the most important city in the United States, and it's the financial capital of the world. And they've elected this moron as mayor who's got a nice smile, he's got a nice degree, he gives a good speech, he can't even collect the garbage. They can't even remove the snow from the streets. The. The joke is that, you know, the. Now they're giving the anti fat drugs to the rats they're getting. So. So

[Michael Duncan]

you have a whole host of Democrats and you've seen this for your entire career. You mentioned that you got here in 1983 when Dow was at 1,000. Today it's hovering somewhere near 50,000. And I think you had a lot to do with that. But you have fought Democrats the entire way. And Democrats have always played with socialism and they always have a new argument for why people should accept socialism. And now it certainly seems like they're trying to make socialism sound like the answer to the affordability crisis.

[Stephen Moore]

So let me correct you on something you just said that is not exactly true. When I first came to Washington, we worked with Democrats all the time. There were the Sam Nunns of the world, the Dick Gephardts of the world. When Reagan passed his 1986 Tax Reform act in 1986, just read Gucci goes. It was amazing, bill. We got rid of the loopholes, we lowered the rates. One of the best pieces of legislation in 50 years. Do you know what that passed in the United States Senate? Cutting the top tax rate to 28%, 97 to 3. Today, you could not find one single Democrat in the entire Senate who would vote for a 28% tax rate. So my point, and the point I'm making is it's not your grandpa's Democratic Party any longer. These people are radical leftists. And really, this was the whole story story of politics over the last 25 years. I have to hand it to the leftists. They systematically took over the Democratic Party and incredibly, first they got Nancy Pelosi elected as speaker. Then they get Chuckie Schumer in as their majority leader, and then they get a guy named Barack Obama in the White House. Whoever heard of this guy? Again, nice smile. But that's what's so different and so dangerous about America. You've got half of the politicians who are crazy. And look, I'm not a rah rah Republican either. I'm not. You know, I get mad at Republicans too. They're part of the problem. But it is a problem for America that we don't have two competitive. We have one party that's half sane and another party. And look, we saw this. Here's my thinking about this. I've been thinking a lot about it is that, you know, so in the 70s, we had Jimmy Carter, who was a disaster, total disaster. Nice guy, but total disaster. So then we get Ronald Reagan, who wins 41 states in 1980 against an incumbent president, wins by 10 percentage points. And then the Democrats run Walter Mondale, another kind of liberal Democrat, and then Reagan squeaks by by winning 49 states out of 50 and that okay, well, we gotta win in 1988. What do they do? They run Dukakis, Michael Dukakis. In other words, they ran three straight liberals. And then they finally got smart and they said, hey, we've got to move to the middle. And they did that with Bill Clinton. By the way, Bill Clinton never had a better economy than Bill Clinton was president because he was a deal maker and he was a centrist. And we had a very good economy. We had balanced budgets. And so my point is it took the them three times losing before the Democrats said, hey, maybe we better move back to the middle. I think that it may take the Democrats losing again in 2028 before they realize, hey, we've gone completely over the deep end. I mean, American people are not socialists. No, they're not.

[Josh Holmes]

As it turns out.

[Stephen Moore]

Yeah, thank God.

[Josh Holmes]

One specific issue that I know that you're working on that comes up and I think it falls into the category of like not being a rah rah Republican is that you've got some Republicans on this. The administration seems to be sort of playing footsie with it. Some folks in Congress is this whole credit card deal with interest rates. So the way the issue is laid out is basically very populist in that you can't have interest rates on credit. We're going to cap interest rates and do all these things. For those of us who have been sort of supply side economists, immediately we just sort of stop and say, well, what are we doing here? But I know you can put some finer points on.

[Stephen Moore]

So you're talking about this idea that President Trump and many members of Congress have come up with to put a cap, a 10% cap on interest rates on credit card debt. So by the way, my first piece of advice to your listeners is the worst possible way to borrow is to borrow on your credit card. Don't do that. Don't do that. And so, so people are doing, because they'll charge you very high interest rates for that. And so that's not what a credit card is for. It's not for borrowing. And so people do it and they get hit with a high credit card interest rate. So people say, well, just lower the interest rate. Well, do you know what will happen if you do that? People with poor credit card ratings, I mean, credit ratings will lose access to credit cards.

[Josh Holmes]

No access to credit cards.

[Stephen Moore]

Again, I'll tell you a Story I'm an old timer, but when I had my first job at the Heritage foundation in 1983, making $1,100 a month, it seemed like a lot of money back then. But what would happen is because times have changed so much, we would get paid at 3 o' clock every Friday, every other Friday. And so I remember. And then we'd get out at 5 and the banks would close at 5:30 and we'd sprint as fast as we could over to the bank so we could cash our paycheck check so that we could have. If we didn't do that, we were going to eat cereal over the weekend. And so my point is, what's different today is everybody has a credit card. So we've democratized credit in a way that's been very beneficial to everyone. Middle class and even low income people have credit cards. And by the way, now you go to stores. I don't know if you've noticed this lately. I've just started to notice it. It used to be again, 30 years ago he said we don't take credit cards. Now you know what the source is? We don't take cash.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, we only take credit cards.

[Stephen Moore]

Yeah, we only take credit cards. So what are low income people going to do if they lose? Now the credit card companies have been very clear about this. The people with the lowest credit scores will lose access to credit cards. And that's not going to help them. It's going to hurt them.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's the one population that it's designed to help is basically left out of the cold.

[Stephen Moore]

Yeah. Now look, I understand people. You know, I had a relative who got in trouble just, just borrowing on their credit card and the interest rates are going to accumulate. So don't do it, folks. But by the way, if you take away people's credit card then, and they can't borrow, what are they going to do? Guido the loan shark for money? I mean, it's just ridiculous.

[Josh Holmes]

There's plenty of payday loans.

[Stephen Moore]

And by the way, the left wants to get rid of payday loans too. What's wrong with a payday loan? You get a $200 advance and then DA. So, so this is a really bad idea. And we've today In America, about 90% of Americans have credit cards. It used to be only half of us did.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, well, no question. So.

[Stephen Moore]

And by the way, you'll lose your reward points. You're going to lose all sorts of, you know, other things if they stop offering it. Yeah, right. Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so in Sum. Feel good about the economy, Feel good about the direction that we're going. State of the Union. What does Trump need to do here?

[Stephen Moore]

By the way? One of the reasons that the economy has really turned around from Biden was, is that Trump is. He's a businessman. It's good to have a businessman in the White House. He's not especially ideological, but he just knows how things work. I mean, Joe Biden didn't know anything and it showed. Trump has. Because as an example, remember when Trump promised, I'm gonna get rid of three regulations for every new regulation. Do you know what the ratio is now? 100 deregulations for every new.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that right?

[Stephen Moore]

That is taking so much costs off the backs of businesses. Remember, we remember that Biden had the. You had to go buy. You had to buy ev. And all of these other ridiculous mandates, a lot of those have gone away. He just passed the money. Another of all deregulations, which was there was something called the endangerment findings of climate change that's going to save the economy a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. So these things matter. And I think Trump needs to talk about it more, about how much. How things are going in the right direction. But Bill Clinton, who we talked about a little bit earlier, he's famous for saying, I feel your pain. And maybe Republicans should do that. Look, I get it. You're angry about, you know, housing prices and you're angry about. And the other healthcare prices and grocery store. We've got a plan to deal with it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's all perspective, right?

[Stephen Moore]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, you've been selling your view of the economy, which I think is the right one, for a long time. My experience in the last 20 years is that you've never had an electorate that's open for business on the status quo. Everyone's perspective and what can you do for me? What are you selling, basically?

[Stephen Moore]

And isn't that another thing, by the way, that Trump should talk about? Because you asked, what are the things that are related to the economy? So we've seen in just the last 14 months the biggest decline in crime in 50 years. And you're seeing the murder rate is down, robbery rate is down, carjacking is down, rape is down. All of these things. Well, that's like a tax cut. I mean, not only is it good to make your, know, street safe, but if you don't have streets safe, streets and neighborhoods, people can't set up businesses and so on. So there's a lot. How about the fact that, look Trump was elected for two reasons. What were the two issues?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, immigration.

[Stephen Moore]

Immigration. What was the other one? Inflation.

[Josh Holmes]

The two.

[Stephen Moore]

Inflation was running out of control and people hated having all these illegal immigrants. I'm very pro immigrant, by the way. But they got to come illegally, not just stampeding across. Across the border. We're down 96% in terms of illegal crossings in one year. So he should be. And I'm sure he'll. He's going to be talking a lot about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I should take a victory lap on that.

[Stephen Moore]

He should. And by the way, my friend Tom Homan, who is the border czar, great guy, wonderful man. He's done an amazing job in a very humanitarian way. I was not a big fan of the deportations and going into neighborhoods and, you know, if somebody's in the country and they're working and they're paying their taxes and they're not committing crimes, you know, don't pull those people out. Get rid of the criminal aliens. We've deported 300,000 criminal aliens. That's a lot of criminals off the street.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no question. Homan gets it. We've had him on. Johnny's, talked to him. It's been remarkably effective. And actually, the more he's involved, it

[Stephen Moore]

seems the other thing. Trump loves America, you know, and that's what I, you know, he just bleeds red, white and blue. And I love that, you know, with a. This is the 250th anniversary of the country, and I don't know, I just. It bothers me that when you listen to Democrats talk, all they do is criticize America. Have you noticed that? I mean, look, we're not. We're human beings. We're not angels. Right. But, you know, this is the greatest country on earth. And I love the fact that Trump celebrates that. And I can't wait for the.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, there was a bar full of libs with Canadian Maple Leafs all over themselves last weekend and for sure. So, last question. How does a guy like you watch the State of the Union? Do you play? Like, is there like a bingo drinking game at the More household where you're like, ah, you said marginal tax rates and we all drink.

[Stephen Moore]

That's a good idea. I don't do that, but I like that. Look, I mean, you know, Trump's very good at this. One of the things that'll be just interesting, I see that a lot of Democrats are boycotting the. That's fine. That's the right. If they don't to want to show up. But, you know, One of the things it'll be interesting to see. You know, I wrote a little note to Susie Wiles. You know, the chief of staff just said, well, I'm sure that Trump will be, you know, saluting our men's and women's hockey teams that won the gold medal.

[Josh Holmes]

He invited me.

[Stephen Moore]

I'm not sure they can make it. I hope they do. And by the way, the hockey players are the best athletes. They all love it.

[Josh Holmes]

They're incredible.

[Stephen Moore]

They were just like some of these athletes. I don't know. I doubt. But anyway, I mean, I think that this. I've always said that what we need in America is a new people, patriotism, and Trump has brought that. And I think it's a wonderful thing because, you know, we are. We are a great and good country.

[Josh Holmes]

Very well said. Stephen Moore, everybody. You know him and you love him.

[Stephen Moore]

Oh, I wanted to say something, if I may. In the last minute, we have. Okay, so we put out our newsletter, which I'm sure all of you got. It's called the Unleash Prosperity Hotline. And so, folks, if you want to get that, it costs a thousand dollars. No, it's absolutely. It's absolutely free. Just go to unleashprosperity.com and either people in the White House are reading. CEOs are reading it. Newt Gingrich says it's the first thing he reads in the morning. So Unleash Prosperity cost nothing. Unleashprosperity.com and just sign up and we'll send it to you for free.

[Josh Holmes]

You said it cost 1,000 bucks. And I was like, man, I got a deal on it. I see it every morning. I read it every morning. Stephen Moore, thank you so much, guys.

[Stephen Moore]

Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you.

[Stephen Moore]

Ruthless.

[Michael Duncan]

Look out of this.

[Josh Holmes]

Jackson Hewitt knows taxes are complicated. And with multiple jobs and tax forms,

[Stephen Moore]

they're like Sonata complicated.

[Josh Holmes]

Our no surprise, pricing keeps things simple. Jackson Hewitt does your taxes for only $149 or less. And since we know all the new tax codes, you could get thousands back. So what are you waiting for?

[Stephen Moore]

Hurry.

[Josh Holmes]

File with Jackson Hewitt today for only 149 or less guarantee. Limited time offer for new clients on federal returns. Participating locations only. [e-mail] 149.

[Michael Duncan]

He has been around for a long time. The guy has been an expert on the economy for a long time, sought after by everyone for his point of view. And you got him right here on the Ruthless variety program.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I forgot that he, you know, basically drew out a lot of the tax cut for Trump on a piece of paper back in 2016 for sure. Which is, I mean, guy's got credibility.

[Josh Holmes]

Guy's got a lot of credibility.

[John Ashbrook]

You can thank him.

[Josh Holmes]

It was good to hear from him. Glad he stopped on by again. Electronic Payments Coalition helped get him in here. And that's a fantastic addition for all of you. Our question of the day. Remember it when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. We read absolutely all of them. We get back to you the very next episode. The question is what is the Democrats biggest liability? Laid out a few here, but I think you've probably got other ideas like and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Check out some merch while you're there. We're moving some merch these days. We've got some new stuff up there. It's gonna look good with that, fellows. I think we did it.

[Comfortably Smuggle]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentleman. Thank you, Stephen Moore, and thank you to the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that subscribe because it's more fun and in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you on Tuesday. Stay ruthless.