Democrats Have a Serious Problem

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Summary

Episode: Democrats Have a Serious Problem
Date: October 2, 2025
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook

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Overview

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast centers on the Democratic Party’s struggles during a government shutdown in 2025. The Ruthless crew, with their signature irreverent tone, skewers the Democrats’ lack of messaging, internal disarray, and Chuck Schumer's leadership. They discuss key political dynamics, offer commentary on media coverage, and dive into policy debates related to healthcare and immigration. The episode features a notable interview with Eric Trump, explores political strategy, and closes with the podcast’s recurring “King of the Hill” game.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dysfunction in Democratic Leadership and Messaging

• Chuck Schumer’s Weakness:
  The hosts repeatedly mock Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for appearing ineffective and indecisive, with Josh quipping, “Chuck Schumer, their leader, can’t hear when somebody on CNN asks him a question” [00:00, 12:06].
• AOC’s Influence:
  The guys discuss how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and House progressives are seen as the real power brokers, referencing her public invitation to negotiate government funding issues:

  “She knows she's in charge. ... It's almost like she is giving people a tour of her new office in the Schumer suite, dude.” —Josh Holmes [09:25]

• Pelosi’s Role and Party Divisions:
  Nancy Pelosi’s diminished, symbolic status as “Speaker Emeritus” is lampooned, while the broader theme is that Democrats lack unity and a coherent strategy.

2. The Government Shutdown: Blame Game & Media Spin

• Confusion Over Responsibility:
  The hosts dissect who actually is at fault for the shutdown, laying blame on Democrats for not being able to manage their caucus and messaging, particularly Schumer’s capitulation to House progressives [14:44].
• Media Messaging Fails:
  The group laughs at Democratic attempts to win the messaging war, including Hakeem Jeffries’ poorly-viewed livestream (only 47 viewers) [31:13].

3. Progressive Rhetoric and Policy Demands

• Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants:
  The topic of Democrat priorities—especially expanding healthcare access to undocumented immigrants—draws intense criticism, with hosts pointing to Maxine Waters’ and others’ inconsistent public statements [22:29, 23:16].

  “She just admitted it. ... Democrats are demanding health care for everybody.” —Comfortably Smug [23:12]

• Hyperbolic Language:
  The team roasts representatives like Delia Ramirez for invoking “fascism” and “authoritarianism” to justify their position, dismissing it as “vacant theater kid behavior” [20:34].

4. Republican Strategy and Trump’s Communication Edge

• Trump’s Messaging vs. Democrats:
  Trump’s ability to “bracket” the Democrats—framing himself in action (lowering drug prices) while Dems bicker—is praised [33:02].

  “You couldn't pick a better bracketing ... real contrast in politics, we'd call that bracketing.” —John Ashbrook [33:14]

• Ross Vought and OMB Cuts:
  The crew teases future discussions about Ross Vought’s aggressive OMB cuts and the leverage Republicans have during the shutdown [40:15].

5. Listener Interaction and “King of the Hill” Segment

• Listener Questions:
  The hosts review listener feedback on the likely duration of the shutdown, skepticism about GOP resolve, and speculation about Democratic political strategy around the shutdown and their upcoming Napa retreat [44:03, 46:04].
• King of the Hill:
  The recurring contest sees Bill Kristol triumph over Matt Dowd for capturing the most ludicrous liberal hot take, with the panel providing biting commentary on both pundits’ online statements [54:08-59:26].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Schumer’s Leadership:

  “The reality is we're here because Chuck Schumer is a pussy. He's a bad leader of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate.” —John Ashbrook [14:44]

• On AOC’s Rising Power:

  “She knows she's in charge. … There’s video of her giving a tour of the Senate leadership suite … like she is giving people a tour of her new office.” —Josh Holmes [09:25]

• On Democratic Disarray:

  “It's only a Senate Democratic discussion. All Republicans were able to pass a full bill out of the House. ... Democratic side, so I mean, look, I think that it leads to a question of the day.” —Host [37:43]

• On Maxine Waters and Immigration:

  “Democrats are demanding health care for everybody. We want to save lives.” —Maxine Waters, as cited and critiqued by hosts [23:12]

• On Democratic Messaging:

  “I mean, you can't even get the demo like you said, 47… Not even every Democrat in the House is watching.” —Host/Moderator [31:33]

• On Trump’s Humor and Communication:

  “What I really appreciated about the Trump administration this time around is that they are willing to entertain the laugh... there is no point in debating these people. You just have to make fun of them.” —John Ashbrook [49:54, 50:13]

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Segment Timestamps

• Opening—The Leadership Void: 00:00–02:02
• Dems’ Message Meltdown & Schumer/AOC Dynamics: 02:40–12:06
• Pelosi, House/Senate Power Shifts: 12:19–15:21
• Democratic Messaging Fails, Progressive Priorities: 18:18–24:51
• Maxine Waters/Cory Booker on Healthcare & Immigration: 22:21–29:23
• Media Messaging & Livestream Flops: 31:13–31:59
• Listener Comments on Shutdown: 44:03–46:44
• Mocking Dems’ Showboating (Wanted Posters, Gimmickry): 35:34–39:04
• Trump’s Leverage, OMB Cuts Forecast: 40:15–41:44
• King of the Hill Segment: 51:20–59:26
• Eric Trump Interview: 62:34–88:20
• Reflection on Trump Family & Close: 88:29–end

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Eric Trump Interview Highlights

• On the Dems’ Self-Inflicted Wounds:

  “They’re shutting down government literally over the premise that, you know, every illegal immigrant who came to the country illegally should be getting free health care while our bridges and roads and schools rot...” [64:18]

• On 2016 vs. 2024 Campaigns:

  “Coming back around, like, it’s so much fun now, understanding the whole system, having the four years off, which was actually the best thing that could have ever happened.” [68:15]

• On Trump Family Resilience:

  “They tried to destroy our lives. They tried to destroy the movement. They tried to destroy my father. They tried to kill my father... And what a journey it’s been.” [71:36]

• On Trumpian Humor and Levity:

  “He’s always kind of used levity… it’s a great, like, disarming tool, if that makes sense. Totally. There’s a real genius in it...” [75:25]

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Tone and Language

True to form, the episode mixes biting sarcasm, joking asides (“theater kid behavior,” “got their whole bill rammed up their ass”), and dismissive one-liners. The hosts keep the conversation snappy, often interrupting to mock or exaggerate Democratic positions, with Comfortably Smug’s irreverence and John Ashbrook’s intensity particularly prominent. Profanity and banter are frequent, in keeping with the show’s “no one is safe” ethos.

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Conclusion

This episode is a case study in conservative podcasting as the Ruthless crew highlights what they view as the Democratic Party’s strategic, rhetorical, and leadership failings amid the 2025 shutdown. The Eric Trump interview supplies an insider narrative of the Trump era’s resilience and strategy, and the recurring “King of the Hill” segment locks in the program’s signature blend of politics and satire. Ultimately, the episode frames Democrats as divided and hapless, while touting Trump-style boldness and messaging as ascendant.

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For Ruthless fans and new listeners alike, this episode is a fast-paced, joke-laden takedown of Democratic politics, offering both political analysis and plenty of sharp-edged entertainment.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Because unfortunately for Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer, their leader, can't hear when somebody on CNN asks him a question. And so Democrat leadership is presented on msnbc and AOC is clearly their leader.

[Michael Duncan]

Here we are.

[John Ashbrook]

We're here. And the reason why we are isn't because AOC is secretly orchestrating this thing or all of that sort of stuff. The reality is we're here because Chuck Schumer is a pussy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, as soon as she said AOC is directing this bro, Nancy Pelosi, it was like if a broker called and said, you're down today, she's like, that's not like she's, she's like shaking.

[John Ashbrook]

Our nation is standing up for American workers, restoring the pride of making products here at home. That's what we do every day.

[Host/Moderator]

We're America's beverage companies, making American products with American workers in America's hometowns, delivering.

[John Ashbrook]

Brands that have been enjoyed for generations.

[Host/Moderator]

Creating good paying jobs, the kind that require only a strong work ethic.

[John Ashbrook]

Because we believe in the promise of America and the people who make it great.

[Josh Holmes]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Comfortably Smug]

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

[Josh Holmes]

It's time for our main event.

[Host/Moderator]

Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. My name is Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left right across your radio dial. As always, you may have noticed that the government is shut down to no discernible effect whatsoever. Maybe you can't go to a national park. I'm getting.

[Josh Holmes]

It's unclear.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, I mean, D.C. doesn't seem different.

[Josh Holmes]

It really doesn't. I mean, the traffic was bad. People were driving in, you know, not very different.

[Comfortably Smug]

Let Rus Vaugh cook. They're gonna regret this shit. Traffic.

[John Ashbrook]

Traffic was bad. This gotta fire more people from the federal bureaucracy.

[Host/Moderator]

Well, working on it. Somebody's working on it. This is like the most hysterical thing. So if you rewind the tape back to March, the Ruthless Variety Program basically predicted exactly what it is that we were gonna go through. And then we had Thune in June back to like sort of confirm all of that. And we haven't talked about it a lot because frankly, it's fucking boring.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

We do this on an annual basis in the United States government and there's always some like congressional disagreement that threatens to get to the brink of a government shutdown.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. But then we actually get to the thing and this is where it is fun and not boring and entertaining. And that is like all of the Democrats and all of their rationales for this. Thing and them all sniping at each other and not knowing what to say. And it's hysterical.

[Comfortably Smug]

It is.

[Host/Moderator]

It's like the whole run up to what eventually is going to happen is, like, boring. We don't bother you with it. But when it happens, boy, oh, boy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Then the entertainment begins.

[Host/Moderator]

Boy, oh, boy, the entertainment begins. Before we get started on all of that, I have to let you know Eric Trump is in the House today. Very good interview. Where we. A little perspective on the life in the Trump family. He's written a new book, which is great. And everybody should order it. We need to put that thing on New York Times number one for sure. Because that would. Nothing would break the New York Times like that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. The new book is called Under Siege. And we talked a little bit after the recording. And my thing to him was like, when this thing goes to number one on the New York Times bestseller list, when you do CNN or something, like, you have to demand that on the Chiron, you got New York Times bestselling author.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, not Eric Trump. You know, Trump Organization. No. Make them have to say that.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. 100%. They will hate every minute of that. That. So look forward to that. That's coming up here shortly. But we have to start with. Well, the Democrats shut the government down.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Host/Moderator]

And what happens when you have a party that controls the White House, the House, in the Senate, is that, typically speaking, the minority party in all three situations doesn't have a lot of say. Like, they try to get one. They try to confine the damage to their political ideology. And their political ideology is just the expanse of government. That's all it is.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

Really, when it comes to it.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

No, that's. That's exactly right. And when one party, namely the Republican Party, controls all levers of government and they change the date on a document written by the president from the other party, in this case Joe Biden, you would expect two words out of the Democrats. Thank you.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, you would.

[Josh Holmes]

But they didn't do it.

[Host/Moderator]

They didn't do it because Chuck Schumer went through a ration. Democrats in the progressive side of the party decided they should be running government, American people notwithstanding. Last November.

[John Ashbrook]

And not just that, is that changing that date is the end of democracy.

[Host/Moderator]

People will die, Michael. People will die.

[Josh Holmes]

Simply can't do it.

[Host/Moderator]

So we gotta check in on how Chuck Schumer is managing this message. Perspective.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

This is, you know, part of this is the legislative message.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

But really what the goal is, when you get into shutdown territory, you Gotta message this thing. You gotta win the hearts and minds of the American people. Check out this.

[Michael Duncan]

Every Republican who's gone on TV the last 12 hours or so has called.

[Host/Moderator]

This the Schumer shutdown.

[Michael Duncan]

What do you say about that name?

[John Ashbrook]

He doesn't hear him. He's got nothing.

[Michael Duncan]

Senator Schumer, can you hear me?

[Host/Moderator]

I can't hear.

[John Ashbrook]

Hello?

[Host/Moderator]

Senator Schumer, can you hear me?

[Josh Holmes]

Hello?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't think Senator Schumer can hear me right now. Maybe the government shutdown included audio on Capitol Hill, bro.

[Comfortably Smug]

How is the CNN guy putting jokes on him too?

[Michael Duncan]

I know he wore the glasses and everything. Hello?

[Comfortably Smug]

Hello?

[Host/Moderator]

Hello? What's going on out there?

[Comfortably Smug]

This is so good.

[Host/Moderator]

So, okay, so I think the question that everybody has been asking is why is it that the Democrats. Let me just remind you one second, you hate this of parliamentary stuff, but the House passes a bill, it goes to the Senate. When it's a budget like spending bill, it's a filibuster level. It requires 60 votes. Republicans have never in the history of the Republican Party had 60 votes. So you need a couple of Democratic votes to make this thing work. Well, Democrats have decided en masse that they're not interested in participating in this process for a variety of reasons that we'll get into here, but they have no clear message whatsoever. But we've uncovered over the last few weeks what is the reason why the American government is transmitting to the world that we can't govern ourselves. What is it? CLIP 1 Let me ask you this.

[Michael Duncan]

There are some people I have seen who have the following theory of why Senate Democrats have not cut a deal where they give eight votes and you know, move along. And that is that Chuck Schumer is.

[Josh Holmes]

Worried about a primary challenge from you.

[Michael Duncan]

And is worried about the politics to his left. And so because of that worry about a primary challenge, he's going to shut down the government. Ergo, it is AOC's fault that the government's shutting down or that you are somehow the kind of fulcrum of this. And I want to just ask you straight up, like are you planning to primary challenge him? Do you think that's why he's doing this? This is so not about me in this moment. This is about people being able to to insure their children.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I will say, cuz I saw.

[Michael Duncan]

Some senators speculating about this and I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, oh well if we have this shut down, it's because of aoc. Well, if that's the case, my office is open and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly, because what I'm not going to DO is tolerate 4 million uninsured Americans because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are dying because they don't have access to. That's not gonna happen. And so those senators think that we're having a shutdown because of me. They're free to enter my office and negotiate because what we're not gonna do is allow all of millions of people in this country to not be able to afford their insulin and their chemotherapy. So come strike a deal with me if that's what they really think is going on.

[Comfortably Smug]

So real quick, real quick. Those, like, millions of Americans she's referring to Democrats want illegals to have health insurance. But I think the most interesting part of that is she's like, why don't they just negotiate with me? I'm calling the shots in this.

[Host/Moderator]

It's.

[Comfortably Smug]

And that she's so comfortable saying that on national tv. And she said nothing about, like, of course I'm not primaring Schumer.

[Michael Duncan]

She went right into, like, no, step into my office, dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

I already got the job.

[Josh Holmes]

She knows she's in charge. She knows she's in charge. I don't know if you guys saw this, but there's video of her giving a tour of the Senate leadership suite on the Dem side of the Capitol that showed up on Twitter today. And it's almost like she is giving people a tour of her new office in the Schumer suite, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

So what else is funny about this is like, number one. And you mentioned it earlier a little bit, Holmes, like, the House passed the thing. She is a rank and file member of the House of Representatives. The idea that she is somehow in control of this conversation about whether we have a shutdown in the United States Senate is hilarious.

[Michael Duncan]

It's amazing.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like Al Haig being like, I'm in control.

[Josh Holmes]

I think Duncan, I hate. Dude, the reality is she is in control.

[John Ashbrook]

And she didn't exactly say no to any of those things. You know what I think, kind of honestly, I think Chris Hayes listens to our show. I think he hates you, Holmes.

[Michael Duncan]

He hates you.

[John Ashbrook]

There was this whole run up, like, to the election in 2020, where, like, he tweeted at you every single day. I think he hate, hate. Listens to the ruthless variety program.

[Host/Moderator]

I think he does because it's part. Listen. This is the construct that we came up with like, six months ago as to why the government was gonna shut down now, which is no stradamus level stuff. If you think about a lot of things could have happened but this was in our mind very, very pretty.

[Comfortably Smug]

And we'll never get the credit for it, but it's okay.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, we'll never get the credit. But there are five parties of people that matter in this discussion when you start. House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats and the President of the United States and his administration. The House Republicans and the House Democrats become irrelevant when they pass a bill and send it to the Senate. It then becomes a Senate discussion. So you got three remaining parties. What you will find out in the next 20 minutes of this show is that the rest of these like parties are not the ones that are talking about this stuff. It's the House Democrats that are like we're. They have the AOC view.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

Come negotiate. I'll tell you what it is that I'm going to do.

[Michael Duncan]

So.

[Host/Moderator]

No, no, no. They just rammed it up your ass with a hot poker and you have nothing. You have. They're not. One minute. Should anybody negotiate with you about anything? Cuz it's already passed. Your one job is done. It's already done. It's a Senate Democratic question one way or another. Not particularly. One that they're handling well, I might add.

[Josh Holmes]

No, because unfortunately for Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer, their leader, can't hear when somebody on CNN asks him a question. And so Democrat leadership is presented on MSNBC and AOC is clearly their leader.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. So how does Pelosi, you know, she's like Speaker Emeritus, which is a fake.

[Comfortably Smug]

Title that they keep running with.

[Host/Moderator]

It's speaker of Merit.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like tenured at Harvard. It makes no sense.

[Host/Moderator]

It makes no sense. And the best part is because like the press just lets it happen. You know, the press is like, oh, but Pelosi. Yep. Like build a monument to this lady. Yeah, whatever.

[Josh Holmes]

If I write that you're important, will you give me a stock tip?

[Host/Moderator]

I mean they should name them. They should name the building that was Bear Stearns, Nancy Pelosi building. But they're not going to do that. They're just going to make her Speaker Emeritus. What does she have to say in clip 1B was a thought from the.

[Michael Duncan]

Republicans that AOC is directing this and.

[Comfortably Smug]

She said that senators are welcome to.

[Michael Duncan]

Go to her office directly.

[John Ashbrook]

Is she, is she driving that?

[Host/Moderator]

Why are you saying such a ridiculous thing?

[Michael Duncan]

I'm just said she said go to her office directly.

[Host/Moderator]

Do you think there's any credibility to that? She's directing that she's wonderful, she's a real.

[Michael Duncan]

Team player. And the rest of that, you started.

[John Ashbrook]

By saying Republicans saying that she's directing this.

[Host/Moderator]

She is not Hakeem Jeffries.

[John Ashbrook]

That's a broker.

[Host/Moderator]

And she has a lot of experience, a lot of unity from the caucus.

[Michael Duncan]

In terms of point of view.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's what this is.

[Host/Moderator]

She's an articulate spokesperson for her point of view. The button for the.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, that's awesome.

[Host/Moderator]

That's it.

[Comfortably Smug]

She's like, you know, very clean. Well, speaking like Biden said for Obama, she's like, she's very.

[Michael Duncan]

There we go.

[Comfortably Smug]

She's very articulate. But like, again, for the folks who are just listening, go to the YouTube because you have to see how furiously, like as soon as she said AOC is directing this bro, Nancy Pelosi, it was like if a broker called and said, you're down today. She's like, that's not like she's like shaking the whole time. She's like shaking.

[Michael Duncan]

She's like, AOC's not trying to.

[John Ashbrook]

I think we gotta understand about somebody like Nancy Pelosi, for all of her faults and everything, like she's an institutionalist and she did the job and all that sort of stuff. So like the very idea. Idea that a rank and file member of the House Representatives could pretend to be in charge of a shutdown negotiation.

[Michael Duncan]

Minority. Wild in the minority.

[Host/Moderator]

I mean, like they just got the whole bill rammed up their ass.

[Michael Duncan]

Here we are.

[John Ashbrook]

We're here. And the reason why we are isn't because AOC is secretly orchestrating this thing or all of that sort of stuff. The reality is we're here because Chuck Schumer is a pussy.

[Host/Moderator]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

Let's just be honest about this whole thing. AOC isn't pulling the strings in the back. She'd like to pretend she is, cuz maybe she thinks she can run for president or be a primary challenge to Chuck Schumer. But the reason we're here is that Chuck Schumer is a pussy. He's a bad leader of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate. The job of being leader in the Senate is being a heat shield for your caucus and you find some consensus and you figure out your way forward. But when you entirely sell out to the left wing lunatics in the House who have no say in this entire thing because you think you might keep the job for six months longer, you're a pussy. You're a pussy.

[Host/Moderator]

Can I get, can I get one more of the Nancy Pelosi react racist There we go. I just.

[Josh Holmes]

AMC is articulate.

[Michael Duncan]

Get articulate.

[Josh Holmes]

Get out of here with your stock trades.

[Host/Moderator]

All right, so when we come back, Democrats are all over the map on what they want. It's everything from ending fascism to securing money for illegals to children, which I don't know how they worked their way into this, but that was.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, you gotta make shit up.

[Host/Moderator]

Like there's a whole bunch of different. They don't have a message as to why they closed it down, but we do have an awful lot of hilarious clips right after this.

[Josh Holmes]

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[John Ashbrook]

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[Host/Moderator]

All right, so listen, we find this. So this is funny again. The one particular body in the one party that doesn't matter a lick when it comes to opening up your government. Government has a lot to say. So much they're driving the conversation. And I think Duncan said it well. This is like Schumer just scared of everything. Like, he just can't. He doesn't think he's gonna stay in the job if he can't just, like, say, shut down the government for them. He hasn't quite calculated as to how it is that he gets out from underneath this box canyon, but he's like, knows that you have to put us in it in order to at least keep the job for a little while. That may be just his job as a senator, too, with the AOC thing, but it turns out everybody that AOC is listening to in the Democratic progressive base, well, they've got a lot to say. Clip 2 and I want to make.

[Michael Duncan]

Sure that you know this, that as long as I am breathing in a United States member of Congress, I will not forget fund authoritarianism. I will not support fascism, and I will not be voting for any continuing.

[Host/Moderator]

Resolution that will allow Donald Trump and.

[Michael Duncan]

These Republicans to continue to take away from the people, steal from the people. Because there's a moment where you are asking members of Congress, you are asking.

[Host/Moderator]

Elected officials, which side are you on?

[Michael Duncan]

Are you on the side of the people? Are you on the side of our children? Are you on the side of our communities? Or are you going to continue to bend the knee to a wannabe king? Which one is it, dude?

[Comfortably Smug]

So right off the bat, I just have to say, like, I am so incredibly sick of Democrats saying this is fascism, authoritarianism. This shows they will never learn. They will never stop with the rhetoric which is inspiring that party's grassroots to commit violence and murder and cause mayhem in this country. She has no idea what she's talking about.

[Host/Moderator]

That is what. Lies, Representative Delia Ramirez.

[Comfortably Smug]

Absolute lies.

[John Ashbrook]

It's just vacant theater kid behavior.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's exactly it, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

Like, the whole start about, you know, I will not take a breath in fun, you know, like, it's just traumatic.

[Host/Moderator]

And then also the turn.

[John Ashbrook]

And well, and then also, like, a reference to, like, which side are you on? Like, like, like this, like, pulling out Woody Guthrie. Like, like, you, like, you. You're fighting. Yeah, you're fighting. Like, she's on the grind in, in Harlan, you know, like, get the fuck out of here.

[Josh Holmes]

The contrast between that and HR 4671, continuing resolution, date change. Therefore, I will not support authoritarianism, which.

[Comfortably Smug]

Is the Biden budget.

[Josh Holmes]

It's the most ridiculous thing on the planet.

[Host/Moderator]

Just to rewind the tape. We said this on Tuesday. We've Said this for a while. What they're talking about on the Republican side is a Biden passed appropriations bill, the budget of the United States that all of them voted for.

[John Ashbrook]

But it doesn't fund pbs. And so democracy is going to end.

[Host/Moderator]

That's the argument. That's what whose side are you on comes from. Our children are at stake. If they can't get full funding of our propaganda networks.

[Josh Holmes]

It is just, it's just hilarious to hear. I will not support authoritarianism. I will not support fascism. I will not support the continuing resolution. I mean, listen to yourself.

[Host/Moderator]

It's insanity, fascism, authoritarianism, the budget I voted for, you dumb fucks. Like, it's totally hilarious. All right, so she's not the only one. Maxine Waters, real favorite here. I mean, she's done a lot of great stuff.

[John Ashbrook]

She's a highlight reel, but she's just.

[Host/Moderator]

Continuing to do her work.

[Michael Duncan]

Clip for Do Democrats want to prioritize.

[Host/Moderator]

The health care of illegal aliens over a government shutdown?

[John Ashbrook]

Because if the government does shut down America.

[Host/Moderator]

Excuse me. Stop it right there. We're not prioritizing. What we're doing is saying simply, we want to keep the government open and we want to work with the Republicans and have a bipartisan agreement to keep this government open. And health care is at the top of our agenda.

[Michael Duncan]

But aren't Democrats demanding health care for illegal aliens?

[Host/Moderator]

Democrats are demanding health care for everybody. We want to save lives. We want to make sure that health care is available to those who would die but having the help of their government.

[Michael Duncan]

There it is.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, she just admitted it.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay. It's like that meme.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh my God, she admitted it.

[Host/Moderator]

So you got on one hand, Chuck Schumer puts out the Sherman esque statement that it's like at no point have Democrats ever discussed the idea that we would ever be in favor of health care for illegal immigrants grants. And then they submitted a proposal to the White House that was reversing the cuts from the big beauty that were specifically outlined for health care for illegal immigrants as their number two thing that they needed to get done. Literally two of four. There's four that they. Four demands. PBS being one of them.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

But number two on that was reversing the illegal immigrant things. JD Vance did a nice job, by the way. Great job of explaining exactly what we're talking about here. Because it's like a, at some level, as a consumer of political information, but not like you don't have time to like look up the bill number. It's kind of feels. He said she Said he's like, we've never done that. And the administration was like, you're doing that? And then JD Walked through it, and he's like, no, number two on the. On the list right there. That's what that is.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And then you'll have a bunch of progressives on Twitter be like, well, actually, that's a state program. That's a New York state does that program. And it's, you know, it's for illegal immigrants in the state. But we believe in federalism. And it's like, well, actually, we block. Grant all of this shit to the states and then use it to make some budget gimmick in your state budget. And then you use money from the federal government to give health care to illegal immigrants.

[Host/Moderator]

We said, you can't do.

[John Ashbrook]

You can't do that part. You just can't anymore.

[Host/Moderator]

Sorry.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, democracy's over.

[Host/Moderator]

Democracy. So anyway, so that's Maxine Waters doing what? And I think on Tuesday's show, the old man may have said, how long do we have to go into this before we get Cory Booker?

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, easiest call, I would point the bat to the outfield just knowing I'm hitting a home run.

[Host/Moderator]

Well, here he is. Clip 4A.

[Michael Duncan]

We just went into a shutdown because Republicans refused to work with us to.

[John Ashbrook]

Deal with the health care crisis that they created.

[Michael Duncan]

Donald Trump and Republicans control the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House.

[John Ashbrook]

They need to do their job and put forward a budget that will help Americans.

[Michael Duncan]

I've heard from New Jerseyans all over my state that they are struggling with health care costs and the rising costs of pretty much everything. And Republicans are refusing to work with us to do something about it. But we are going to continue to.

[John Ashbrook]

Stand and fight to try to help Americans. And really, this should be a bipartisan.

[Michael Duncan]

Commitment to doing the things necessary to.

[John Ashbrook]

Help folks who are struggling right now.

[Michael Duncan]

Have access to health care, have more affordability in their lives and less of.

[Josh Holmes]

This kind of reckless politics on behalf of Donald Trump.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Host/Moderator]

All right. So the first two things are. The most important two things is that, according to Cory Booker, the Republicans have shut down the government.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh.

[Host/Moderator]

And they've done it well, basically because of a health care crisis. This is his words that they created. The last and most meaningful piece of health care legislation that has gone through was, of course, Obamacare, which we were all assured was the Affordable Care Act.

[John Ashbrook]

It was gonna make it affordable, which.

[Host/Moderator]

Would make it affordable. And the most important part of it, in terms of both access and just the longevity of the program is we're gonna bend the cost curve. You guys remember that?

[John Ashbrook]

We were gonna do that. But also, if you liked your doctor, you're gonna be able to keep them.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I remember that.

[Host/Moderator]

That one sailed in January 2010.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

Like four days after that thing passed. Everybody's like, I can't get my doctor. And they're like, oh yeah, a couple of black bad.

[Comfortably Smug]

It was like one of the few even PolitiFact admitted. They're like, that was lie of the year.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Which is crazy. It was the last time they went against the death.

[Host/Moderator]

But if you're listening to this and you are covered by health insurance, you know damn well this thing has gone up. They keep saying doubled. That's fucking bullshit. It is quintupled. I mean, I know this personally. We all know this person. We've dealt with it. Health care costs in terms of being insured. If you have any sort of family whatsoever, it is five times. And it just keeps on going up and going up. And the whole bet that they made was of course you expand Medicaid to make more people insure, which doesn't affect the markets, but it is government health care, which is what their ultimate goal is. And then the second piece was just adding a whole bunch of tax incentives and whatever to make sure that you could pay insurance companies to cover people with a precondition situation. Insurance markets used to price higher people who had cancer and wanted to be the first time insured than they did everybody else. And they were like, no, you have to price everybody else the same. Of course, what happens in a free market economy is that like a 27 year old, healthy single individual who wants to get healthcare coverage is now paying like 100 times what they would pay in order to do that. And their way around that was a crisis.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

It was the old Rahma manual. Never let a crisis go to waste. Of course we had the scary situation of COVID uncertain situation. And the first thing they did in this trillion dollar spending bill is ensure that you could have tax credits that were given. This is 1012 years after this thing passed into law. Tax credits to help afford the premiums that had since skyrocketed since they said it would be affordable and it wasn't. To afford health care during a scary time of a pandemic. Okay, that was intentionally a temporary situation to try to get you through a pandemic. And now we find ourselves with Cory Booker telling all of us that the unaffordability of health care.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, Republicans did it is a Republican Problem.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, right. And Josh, you're exactly right. And I remember all of the promises from Obamacare. I remember Covid, just like everybody else. But I remember something else Democrats did. They let 35 million illegal immigrants into this country, and presumably they get sick sometimes. Who do you think pays for that? When the 35 million illegal immigrants who are in this country get sick, who pays for that? Is that out of pocket? Does that come from Blue Cross Blue Shield, or is that paid for by the American taxpayer?

[Comfortably Smug]

Bingo.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that burdening the system in a way that Republicans warned about? But Democrats were like, oh, no, no, no. We need open borders because we want to change the demographics in this country. Democrats are at fault for every single one of these problems. And all we're trying to do is change the date on a Biden budget. And they're like, no, you need to solve all the problems.

[Host/Moderator]

We created a crisis that you've created. It's the most galling, it is thing of all time. So, look, they're out there and they've tried to make these cases to the American people, you know, and like I said, since like the new Gingrich era, shutdown showdowns are all about messaging and, like, who can win the messaging more. So Akeem Jeffries, I mean, a real, like, you know, technological wizard, front lines in terms of communicating directly to the American people, decides, well, I'm going to put up a live stream, a live stream where we can get people, we get real lawmakers, never mind the fact that they're relevant to this process, but real lawmakers to come in and talk to you about the damages that this shutdown is doing. So they throw this thing up. Graphic one, please. You saw that, right? 47 people were watching.

[John Ashbrook]

Those are the people in Hakeem Jeffries office and Yvette Clark's office. Yeah, 47 people are watching their official livestream about how they're going to win the messaging war on what they call the Republican shutdown.

[Josh Holmes]

So not even every Democrat in the House is watching.

[Host/Moderator]

Not even every Democrat staffer in their offices are watching? No, I mean, you can't even get the demo like you said, 47. I mean, you've got 100 and some 200. Yeah. Plus Democrats, but just in the staff offices of the minority leader in her office. They're not all in. They're not all watching the livestream.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, they're 100% going to lose this messaging war. And we talked about this on the show, I think, last week, where it was like, I just, I trust Donald Trump can win this messaging war in Trump 2.0 of this administration where he just, like, he's like a dog on a bone, and he just. Just won't let go of. Of winning on the thing. And he did it with the DC Crime thing and everything else, and it's, it's incredible. The other thing. And you know, when I, I was in New York for Outnumbered on.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah. On Tuesday, we saw seven glorious minutes.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it was, it was a little abbreviated because of a live press conference, but I think what was awesome about that dude, and, like, it wasn't great that, like, I, I didn't get to do the whole show, but everybody up there was super nice and thank you, Fox, for, For all of that. But watching that press conference, I thought to myself and I talked about it on the show is like, on the same day that Hakeem Jeffries and Schumer are shutting down the government, and their demand is the taxpayers need to pay the subsidies for the thing we called the Affordable Care Act.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

That is not affordable. At that same time, Donald Trump is hosting a press conference to figure out how to lower drug prices for Americans.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. You know, like, you couldn't pick a tangible action point.

[John Ashbrook]

You couldn't pick a better bracketing. Real contrast in politics, we'd call that bracketing. Right. Like, where you find something that the opponent wants to do and you figure out a way to get around them. Do it better, do it better. And that's what Donald Trump did. That is a remarkable thing. It's. And it's a very difficult issue in American politics to figure out health care policy. It just is. You know what I mean? Like, this is obviously a very hard thing. Like, the Democrats tried to do this and they fucked it all up and now they blame us. Right?

[Host/Moderator]

Yep.

[John Ashbrook]

But Donald Trump doing that whole press conference on the same day is just such, like, a remarkable messaging win.

[Host/Moderator]

It's a remarkable messaging win. And it turns out, like, the whole thing is working Graphic, too. New York Times, obviously, is the New York Times no friend of the Trump administration, But they found that 65% of respondents in a poll say Dems should not shut the government down. That's an extraordinarily high number.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, and also the breakdown of the show of. For Democrats, 47% said they should, 43 said they should, not.

[Host/Moderator]

They.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, that's, to me, the most striking part of this.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, independents, huge. You know, it's basically 32 said yes, shut down, 59 said don't. But for the Democrats, man, they're like, literally, they're in disarray. Dems are divided.

[Host/Moderator]

And that in that 43% you're dealing with increasingly, it's kind of a high number if you think about it. But it's the AOCs and everybody that we've just heard from, they were like, no, burn America to the ground. We don't give a shit. Like, do what you do. We need blood type attitude that they've expressed over the last few months. And Schumer is so weak. He's in a position where he's like, I gotta listen to that.

[John Ashbrook]

It's just a failure of leadership. Like, I'm not surprised by those numbers of the Democratic Party, but those numbers are a reflection of the weakness. Weakness of Chuck Schumer. You only end up in a situation like that where half the Democratic Party is like, no, shut the government down because it's allowed through a permission structure from the leadership at the top. Like, that is a failure to be a leader. That's what that is.

[Host/Moderator]

It's what it is. So when you're losing a strategy war. No strategy to get in or out of this problem, and you're losing a messaging war, as evidenced by all that, you got to do gimmickry. There's some great gimmickry out there. Clip five, please.

[Michael Duncan]

We're barreling towards a shutdown. All my Democratic colleagues are here. I'm gonna go search for my Republican colleagues.

[Host/Moderator]

Oh, really? There's a government shutdown?

[Michael Duncan]

Anyone here?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you really gotta watch this on YouTube.

[Michael Duncan]

Is Mike Johnson in here? Let's see if some Republicans are in here. Are there any Republicans in here? Hello?

[Host/Moderator]

So creative.

[Michael Duncan]

No Republicans here.

[Host/Moderator]

They left a mess and left town.

[Josh Holmes]

Theater kid.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'll give Sarah McBride credit. He's got more balls than Schumer.

[Michael Duncan]

He's got more balls than.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, only listeners if you're like, who is that dude? You hear that voice? That Adam Apple going crazy? That's Sarah McBride.

[John Ashbrook]

I was gonna say before Smug beat me to it, but I was gonna say it's like, what is more stilted? Like her comedy or her pretending to be a woman?

[Host/Moderator]

All right, so they're also. There is a women's caucus. Unclear. I don't know if my bride.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, that'd be hilarious if the rides in there.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude. The chair.

[John Ashbrook]

He chair.

[Michael Duncan]

Probably the chair.

[Host/Moderator]

Sports Illustrated made Caitlyn Jenner the woman of the Year that one year.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

Remember that? It's kind of. But I don't know if she's A chair. I don't even know if she's in this, but there is a woman's caucus. Here's clip six.

[John Ashbrook]

Congresswoman, what are you doing?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you know, I'm going to put up some missing poster signs because we got some missing people. They fled town or they're missing. We're worried about them. You know, normally you would stay and show up and deal with things, so something had to have happened. It's like a wanted poster shutdown. So I'm gonna go put up some posters.

[John Ashbrook]

Speaker Johnson.

[Michael Duncan]

Listen, if any of you out there.

[Host/Moderator]

Know where they're at, give their offices a call, tell them to come to work.

[Michael Duncan]

We're worried about them.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

Oh, it's so funny because the one thing, remember we talked about the five different things. The one thing that actually did all of that was the House Republicans. It's not their job. This is only a Senate Democratic discussion. All Republicans were able to pass a full bill out of the House. It's no longer a House issue. They have no point in this. Senate Democrats have to deal with it. But it makes it even funnier in that literally the moment that she's walking outside with wanted poachers in the theater. Kid BS of Speaker Mike Johnson. Here's Mike Johnson.

[Michael Duncan]

Right there.

[Host/Moderator]

He's like, fucking feet away.

[Michael Duncan]

Feet away.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's on the speaker balcony from the Speaker's office.

[Michael Duncan]

It's so funny.

[Host/Moderator]

Also, like, you got. Cotton's in there, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

They're doing a full press conference and she's handing out wanted posters.

[Host/Moderator]

It's like, all she needed to do with that wanted poster is like, turn around.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, collect the reward.

[Host/Moderator]

There they are, looking down at me.

[Comfortably Smug]

So pathetic.

[Host/Moderator]

What a dumbass. All right, so, like, look, I mean, I don't know how this whole thing's gonna end. What I do know is that typically speaking, the way that government shutdowns end is that you've got a constituency that's, like, particularly aggrieved on all of this. And people are like, all right, like, I understand it's part of some bullshit, but, like, I'm. We're gonna. And you've seen some Democrats, what is it, like three or something that voted?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. There's maybe another one who's coming along.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. So it might be four. You can see some cracks in the armor. But then, like, the larger political thing is, like, who's winning the political message war and, like, what party needs to give? And can you come up with some veneer of a win enough to get people back together? I just don't think Donald Trump gives shit about the veneer of a win on this thing. And furthermore, he's got Ros Vaught out there. We're going to cover this in detail on Friday. Yeah, he's out there just like, all right, you want to shut the government down, I got some ideas. And he's just cutting left and right.

[John Ashbrook]

Another thing we called, by the way. Yeah, we called it, we called it. But the important component of that back to the constituencies you were talking about is like, when Russ Vaught suddenly puts a pause in some program in New York, shit might change. Yeah, people are gonna get some calls and be like, what the are you doing?

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, like, can you please just do your job? Like you're fighting over a date change. Yeah, it's a date change. The whole healthcare thing that they're talking about, by the way, if you can get over the fact that it's a tax subsidy to try to rectify a marketplace that they broke with Obamacare. If you can get over that and you just, you're like, fine, but I do need the taxpayer subsidy just because it doesn't expire until January 1st. Like, what are we doing right now? You got like four more bites of the apple. What they're talking about is like a six week window to just make sure the lights are on in the Capitol and people continue to get like government benefits and whatnot. And like it's all self inflicted on the Democratic side. So I mean, look, I think that it leads to a question of the day. Yes, Question of the day is we know Russ Vad has started the cuts and we'll cover that. As I said in tomorrow's show, if you're sitting in his shoes, I love this question. And you just take a look around and you have the opportunity. What cuts would you make during the shutdown?

[Michael Duncan]

Great question.

[Host/Moderator]

What cuts? What cuts? I mean, we heard the whole Doge thing and like, there's been some things that could go through and others that couldn't. But like, you've got things on your mind. What cuts would you make? Put it in the likes when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Fry program. We read all of them and we summarize it and give you back the next show, which is Friday. And that's what we will do. And when we come back, we're going to get to your comments from Tuesday's episode. A great discussion about how long this shutdown will last seems pertinent now after this.

[Josh Holmes]

Only 58% of Americans today say they're proud to be American, the lowest number ever recorded. That's not just sad, it is very dangerous. Because if we forget what makes America special, we risk losing it. That's why Americans for Prosperity is launching the One Small Step Campaign, a bold, nationwide initiative to reconnect Americans with our founding principles that sparked unparalleled innovation and prosperity. It's not just a celebration, it's a call to action. Through the 250,000 Steps for Freedom challenge, AFP is partnering with the grassroots in all 50 states to take meaningful steps that defend freedom and advance opportunity. Call your representative, attend a local event, knock on a door, talk to your neighbors. Every single step counts, and every step moves us closer to a more perfect Union. Go to takeonesmallstep.com to learn more. Then join the [e-mail].

[Host/Moderator]

Okay, I'm still. I'm still kind of reeling from the. It's true that you had said Sarah McBride has bigger balls than Schumer. I just, it's. It's hard. It's very funny. That's very funny. Okay, your comments from last show. When how long would this whole government shutdown last? When you like and subscribe to the ruthless Friday program. We lead with it in the very next program and we always start with the voice.

[Josh Holmes]

First comment comes from Jim Monaghan and Jim writes, shutdown won't last long. Maybe a week. Trump should make them agree to further rescissions before starting back up. Get something for the left Santics. Fafo, baby. Be like that scene in Draft Day. We lived in a different world than we did five minutes ago. Make em squeal. That's Jim Monaghan.

[Host/Moderator]

Very good.

[Josh Holmes]

Jim's bringing the heat.

[Host/Moderator]

Bringing the heat. I love it. All right, comment 2. Dunks, runks.

[John Ashbrook]

Commentuse from Plausible Deniability.

[Michael Duncan]

Great name.

[John Ashbrook]

I like that they write, never underestimate the ability of the GOP to lose even when they are in full control of all three branches. The spirit of quote crossing the aisle has been the death knell for conservatives forever. I hope they stand strong, but they know they will get drug in the media. So I am not 100% sure they don't capitulate to some democratic items, but I pray I am wrong. I mean, this is.

[Comfortably Smug]

I like that.

[John Ashbrook]

Keep the feet.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

Keep the feet on the fire. We gotta go hard in the paint.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. Is Sig that smugs the.

[Comfortably Smug]

I like that. I knew I like possible deniability.

[Host/Moderator]

All right, comment three. Smug.

[Comfortably Smug]

Comment three is from Joseph Spiegel Joseph writes, the shutdown will last through election day in November because the Dems are sure it's a winning election strategy. Chaos theory.

[Michael Duncan]

Jesus, that would be something.

[Host/Moderator]

Holy cat. A year, you get 13 months of a government shot down. Can you imagine?

[Comfortably Smug]

That would be amazing.

[Host/Moderator]

I'd be interested to find out.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, you give Russ about 13 months, man, he's gonna chew them up.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right.

[Host/Moderator]

Do you think anything actually would happen?

[Comfortably Smug]

There'd be nothing left at a restaurant that's got 13 months.

[Host/Moderator]

So it's pretty tough to get poor investment. I know.

[Josh Holmes]

And he slipped in. Chaos theory. Tribute to El Rushbow.

[Comfortably Smug]

There you go.

[John Ashbrook]

So they have an upcoming retreat, the Democrats in Napa.

[Josh Holmes]

No kidding.

[Comfortably Smug]

You didn't hear about this?

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's such a tough look if they're on their Napa trip.

[Host/Moderator]

Wait, is that.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's true.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a serious thing. I think it starts the 13th of October.

[Host/Moderator]

I mean, they're gonna have to cancel it, bro.

[John Ashbrook]

They won't.

[Comfortably Smug]

You think Dems are gonna give up a retreat, bro?

[John Ashbrook]

A chance to go to French Laundry?

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Host/Moderator]

They'Re gonna go check out Napa Reds and, like, sip on wine and crackers and stuff while they're shutting down the government.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I'm. I, I, I'm. I think that's the backstop. Like, I don't think they could do it.

[Michael Duncan]

It.

[John Ashbrook]

If, if they did that, that'd be.

[Host/Moderator]

Hold on. Do you think that that is the backstop?

[John Ashbrook]

It is. It has to.

[Host/Moderator]

You're like, we have to make this. We got to go to Naples. I think.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think.

[Josh Holmes]

Sorry, Illegals.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You're seeing the way that they have. Like, their party has fallen apart.

[Josh Holmes]

We're going to Napa.

[Comfortably Smug]

You don't get health care. I think the Dems really think that the media can just float them. Dude, I'm dead serious. It would not surprise me if they go out to Napa.

[John Ashbrook]

No, man. That's a tough blood.

[Host/Moderator]

They are killing Americans.

[Michael Duncan]

They don't care.

[Host/Moderator]

Stripping away children's health care. That glass of Chardonnay looks.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it looks so good.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm telling you, what's going to happen is they're going to wake up in the morning, they're going to do like, four Instagram videos each, and they're going to take the rest of the day to hit the wineries.

[Host/Moderator]

They'll be like, I reluctantly voted to not fund the illegals.

[Michael Duncan]

All their teeth.

[John Ashbrook]

All their teeth being super red.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's hilarious.

[Host/Moderator]

It is more important. That's the best. We should probably do it a part of a show about what the ultimate statement of capitulation is for Democrats. Like, we'll write our own.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's a great point.

[Host/Moderator]

We should write our own because we used to do this for a living. We would write statements for politicians in all sorts of chaos. And there's always a formulaic component to it. It's very funny, Wolf. Mark, bookmark that thing. Let's do that next week. Like, what does the statement look like ultimately, when they come to the conclusion I can. I know mine. Yeah, I have mine.

[Josh Holmes]

Given the economic turmoil.

[Host/Moderator]

I reluctantly agree with great reservation.

[Josh Holmes]

But in the interest of my country.

[Host/Moderator]

A huge amount of animus towards a.

[Josh Holmes]

Authoritarian administration with an eye toward the next opportunity.

[Host/Moderator]

All right, so listen, there's one more clip. While the Democrats are doing all of this, the Trump administration seems to be having a lot of fun. And it's not that they don't take this seriously. They do take it seriously, but sometimes you just have to, as we have in the first 40 minutes of the show, just laugh about how insane they ultimately are. And like, what I really appreciated about the Trump administration this time around is that they are willing to entertain the laugh.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Host/Moderator]

It's necessary. If you can't make fun of this, what the hell can you make fun of, right? Anyway. Clip eight, please.

[Michael Duncan]

No way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore.

[Host/Moderator]

We have no voters left because of.

[Michael Duncan]

All of our woke trans.

[Josh Holmes]

Not even black people want to vote for us anymore.

[Host/Moderator]

Even Latinos hate us.

[Michael Duncan]

So we need more voters.

[Host/Moderator]

And if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us. They can't even speak English, so they.

[Michael Duncan]

Won'T realize we're just a bunch of.

[Host/Moderator]

Woke pieces of shit, at least for a while until they learn English and.

[Michael Duncan]

They realize they hate us too.

[Comfortably Smug]

So. Dude, that is so.

[Host/Moderator]

What makes it so funny is that Trump posted that in his X account count. Yeah, that is. It's Keem Jeffries in a sombrero.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

Next to Chuck Schumer with a clear AI voice giving the Democratic.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, and so like many people in the mainstream media would talk about the coarsening of American politics and how absurd this is and that and the other thing. But I think sort of the ethos of this show that we've done now for five years is that there is no point in debating these people. You just have to make fun of them because they are ludicrous on their face.

[Host/Moderator]

Face. They're insane. They're insane. People, when you act insane, you have to be treated as though you're insane.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

You know, you can't have, like, a realistic policy discussion with these people. They're not asking. They're not like, this is an argument over a date change on a bill they all voted for.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Host/Moderator]

Like, we're not talking about the absurdity of that. They voted for every single thing in the thing that they're now saying is a assault to the American democracy.

[John Ashbrook]

It's the end of democracy.

[Host/Moderator]

They voted for it for two years. They voted for it last in March. Like, they just. It's the end of democracy if you can't make fun of that. And that's what the Trump administration is doing. Hats off.

[Josh Holmes]

I think it's funny. It's creative.

[Host/Moderator]

Very, very funny. When we come back, King of the Hill, our signature game here in the ruthless variety program right after this. Okay. King of the Hill. I think I'm a participant this week.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's right.

[Host/Moderator]

I might as well go with Bill Crystal. It's been a while since he's been on the program. I'm gonna bring him to play. Champion is what? Ashbrooke.

[Josh Holmes]

Champion is Matt Dowd.

[Host/Moderator]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

And Duncan's our bailiff and I am the judge. So I hope you got some good stuff.

[John Ashbrook]

And I'm gonna run a very tight court, as I often do. I believe in law and order.

[Host/Moderator]

Law and order.

[John Ashbrook]

Let's go ringside.

[Josh Holmes]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Michael Duncan]

It's time for King of the Hill.

[Josh Holmes]

In the red corner, fighting formally from the Weekly Standard, a battle of war now, war forever.

[Michael Duncan]

Crystal.

[Josh Holmes]

And now, in the blue corner, fighting from who knows where, and current champion of the world, Matthew Melpadder.

[Host/Moderator]

Burned down.

[Comfortably Smug]

Best in the business.

[John Ashbrook]

Did Ashbrook have like a Celsius before that?

[Host/Moderator]

I feel like he back into it.

[John Ashbrook]

That was a lot.

[Host/Moderator]

It was a lot.

[John Ashbrook]

It was good.

[Host/Moderator]

It's good every time.

[Josh Holmes]

We have good contestants.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, well, you're the defending champion, right? You gotta go first.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, let's do exhibit. Exhibit number five, please. Matt Dowd. Exhibit number five. Democratic candidates in swing Senate races should come out and say they will not vote for Schumer to be majority leader under any circumstances. It will help with both the Democratic base and independent voters. Matt Dowd is now an anti establishment left winger. Not just a Democrat. He's moved full anti establishment left. He was a Republican press secretary who.

[Michael Duncan]

Worked for the Army.

[Comfortably Smug]

That is incredible.

[Host/Moderator]

But hold on. Is he wrong?

[Michael Duncan]

That's what I'm saying.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, actually good take. Is horseshoe theory real?

[Michael Duncan]

He's gone.

[Josh Holmes]

So far we've seen, I think not a bad take. I think there's good political advice as a judge.

[Comfortably Smug]

Do I vote for that? Because this is a good take.

[Josh Holmes]

Your Honor. I think there's art in the metamorphism.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dude, I love the take. It's a good pick.

[Host/Moderator]

It's a good pick. It's a good pick.

[Comfortably Smug]

What do we have at home?

[Host/Moderator]

So exhibit 10, please. Bill Kristol is reacting to the ice crackdowns. He says our cities aren't war ravaged, they're ice ravaged.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's so nuts, dude.

[Host/Moderator]

Like Vice ravage.

[Comfortably Smug]

I can't get over it like Bill Crystal being like, no, we gotta help the illegals. Ice is the problem here. It's just. That's just so wild. I gotta give that round to Crystal. I mean, man, what is happening?

[John Ashbrook]

It's tough. I agree with you, judge. I will say one thing is I appreciate that Ashbrook played on theme for the show of the shutdown. And that should not go unnoticed.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's a good point.

[Host/Moderator]

It's nice. So it's a nice little footnote in the commentary of an otherwise decided to.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, who could possibly beat that?

[Josh Holmes]

I would never. I would never criticize the court in that way.

[Comfortably Smug]

Round two, challenger.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. All right. Exhibit 12, please. Hegseth fires general officers and jags cracks down on dissenting views in the military orders killing civilians at civilians. Calling the terrorists civilians without legal rationale. Venezuelan drug runners calls generals to Quantico to demand loyalty. Trump deploys troops to US cities. What are Trump and Hegseth up to? It's a mystery.

[Comfortably Smug]

That is. This is so wild that Pierre Omadia money must hit so different that like this guy. Those are terrorists. Those are narco terrorists that the military is taking out by drone strike. And it's because we got left win judges who once the like narcos are in the US they will fight tooth and nail to keep them here. Like what's the name of that Maryland man.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So civilians is my favorite civilians.

[Comfortably Smug]

Bill Kristol, who did his best to send Americans to fight and die overseas fighting terrorists is now like, no, actually narco terrorists are civilians. It's just, man, that Pierre Madar money must be good.

[Host/Moderator]

And cracks down on dissenting.

[Michael Duncan]

That is crazy.

[Comfortably Smug]

I hope you got something good, ash bro, because that's just crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

Exhibit number four, please. Matt Dowd, Quinnipiac, in a recent poll asked, do you think that the way people talk about politics these days is contributing to violence in the United States or don't you think so. 82% of voters agreed with this, including the majority of Dems and dependents in the gop. I said basically this, and I got fired.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, my God. Dude.

[Michael Duncan]

Why won't.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like a real life version of that meme of the person looking in the mirror, and they're like, get in there and make it about you.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

So, like, I. I had the luxury of forgetting what a twisted person doubt is because he got fired for saying Charlie Kirk deserved to be murdered. I was so happy to have forgotten that. And then that just brings it right back. What a piece of garbage. He wins that one. He wins that one.

[John Ashbrook]

Round three.

[Host/Moderator]

Around three.

[Michael Duncan]

Edge.

[Host/Moderator]

Brown deciding round three.

[Comfortably Smug]

It all goes down to this.

[Host/Moderator]

Okay?

[John Ashbrook]

And Ashbrooke, you gotta go first, pal.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. Okay, let's go. Exhibit number one, please. And this is a Matt Dowd retweet, a bot account saying you got fired for paraphrasing Yoda. Dude, that's just wrong. And it's a picture of Yoda. And Matt Dowd retweeted it. This appears to be a bot account. Although maybe it's not. We. I really don't know.

[John Ashbrook]

Is this on Blue sky.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a blue sky.

[Host/Moderator]

Can I. Can I just. Can I just raise an objection for the court?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yep. 100% objectionable.

[Michael Duncan]

We.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Sustained. That was a horrible. Sustained.

[John Ashbrook]

What do you explain it?

[Host/Moderator]

Well, you have to ask the court whether or not you can read or paraphrase the tweet.

[Comfortably Smug]

And Ashbrook didn't care.

[Michael Duncan]

He just did it anyway.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, in his defense, I think it was.

[Host/Moderator]

This is.

[John Ashbrook]

He was nothing.

[Host/Moderator]

If it's just.

[Comfortably Smug]

Sort of.

[Michael Duncan]

Order, Holmes.

[John Ashbrook]

How could you explain that otherwise? You couldn't really explain it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Then you should have played it.

[Michael Duncan]

Bingo.

[John Ashbrook]

But he should know what he should have.

[Michael Duncan]

What he should have done is ass.

[Comfortably Smug]

Could I have silence in my court? Could you make sure the court.

[Host/Moderator]

Wow.

[Michael Duncan]

Wow.

[Comfortably Smug]

Go do your job, bro.

[Host/Moderator]

Do your job, bro.

[John Ashbrook]

That's fucking unreal.

[Comfortably Smug]

Could we get to Holmes?

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. Okay. Exhibit eight, please. And this is on the Ice shooting.

[Comfortably Smug]

No way.

[Host/Moderator]

One. It's terrible. That's nice. This is a work of art, fellas. This is a work of art.

[Michael Duncan]

This is so good.

[Host/Moderator]

Ice Shooting one. It's terrible. Okay, so you got that out of the way. Set that aside. Number two, too many disturbed people have access to too many guns. This was a Second Amendment rights guy up until Donald Trump became president. Number three, too many political figures use incendiary and dehumanizing rhetoric. By far the most significant is the president the fish of political violence rots from the head down.

[Comfortably Smug]

That is so nuts, dude. He's saying this about President Trump, who's had multiple assassination. That's just too crazy, bro.

[Josh Holmes]

He says it every day.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, Kristol's won that, dude. That is just insane to have a take of like, can't have it. Donald Trump, who's had multiple assassination attempts, is causing this. That's nuts.

[Host/Moderator]

It's a work of art to say his attacks on his own administration are his doing crazy and then to come out in favor of gun control.

[Michael Duncan]

It's not a fool.

[Comfortably Smug]

Not only did you win this on the takes, Ashbrook lost it on that horrible idea to try to play that. And also the bailiff was out of control, bro. I soldiered through this.

[Michael Duncan]

So really, you won. You won.

[John Ashbrook]

I. I have to say one more thing. I think the funniest thing about that crystal take is the idea, the idea that you make a tweet with a 1 dot the thing. 2 dot the thing. Like you're making like a syllabus.

[Host/Moderator]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so good, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

Unbelievable.

[Host/Moderator]

We'll have a new champion. Bill Kristol will return again next week. We got a couple of things in Variety here before we get to Eric Trump. The most important of which is several weeks ago, maybe. Last week we covered the fat bear contest and this was important to us. It's been a long running thing. We've covered the runaway sort of Cosa Nostra of bears in the upper Northwest, Hank being the. The ringleader of all this. So they started. Instead of like punishing and killing these bears, what they've done is create a contest.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

Who's the fattest bear? The fattest and beingest. And we featured one bear.

[Michael Duncan]

One.

[Comfortably Smug]

We only talked about one.

[Host/Moderator]

One bear on the ruthless variety program. Got our focus. That was chunk 32. Do you want to know who won the fat bear contest? Chunk 32. Dude, look at that image.

[John Ashbrook]

The ruthless bump.

[Host/Moderator]

Ruthless bump. I'm just telling you, like Chunk. Here's the thing. If you're in and around this area and you have the proper permitting, we would like you to harvest chunk 32 and send that rug to comfortably smuggle.

[John Ashbrook]

Here's the thing, please. Chunk is big enough that I think Ashbrook and Smug could both get their own rug.

[Comfortably Smug]

They always try to take.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, fellas, listen. I made it clear on the previous episode. I made it clear on the previous episode that magnanimously I am going to give Smug first dibs on chunk 32's hide. Because what I want, all I want is a full orca on my wall. If someone can catch and stuff an orca, I will put it on my wall. And somebody asked, wow, how big is your house that you can put it on your wall? I'm not putting it inside. I'm putting it on the front of my house. So everybody sees and everybody knows that this guy does not like the blackfish, and he will defend you from the teeth. Terrible demon fish.

[Comfortably Smug]

They are bad. They are the bad guy, dude.

[Host/Moderator]

Proper permitting required.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. You have to take it fairly. They barely cut a seal in half and use that as bait.

[Host/Moderator]

All of that being said, we have a very special guest here, Eric Trump. I want to welcome to the program a very special guest, Eric Trump. How are you, sir?

[Michael Duncan]

It's good to be with you guys.

[Host/Moderator]

Listen, bud, you know, it's your kind of first run at the whole authorship thing. Turns out that sucker went to number one. You're now dominating the Democratic nominee for president against your father. That didn't seem that tough, huh?

[Michael Duncan]

Listen, I never thought I'd be an author. It wasn't exactly my thing. Right. I never. I never thought I was a great orator. I was always a good guy at building skyscrapers. And we had to dominate, Kamala. That's all I cared about. We did it once. We did it in 2024. We had to do it again. Yeah. Listen, the book hit the top of the charts. There's a great story about the way they tried to freaking destroy the family and the fact that we won against all odds, and frankly, our country's winning now. So it's. It was a lot of fun. I wrote every single word in the book and had a lot of fun doing it.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, it's kind of nice. You actually put some of your own thought into it. Typically, people who are in politics just sort of have a ghostwriter do that. They give it a once over. It seems like that must be what.

[Michael Duncan]

Come out, I think, how that works.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

Maybe if you actually work hard, you can succeed. Right? Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

It's shocking. Shocking. So I want to get to your book in a minute, but I do want to talk to you a little bit about the news the day. So it turns out like none of the lessons of 2024 have been learned by the Democratic Party. They're shutting down the government, I think, because your dad was elected president. I can't. There's no other discernible reason. They haven't articulated anything that is, like, at all pertinent to this argument. Whatsoever. It's just simply because they lost. Is that your take?

[Michael Duncan]

Listen, guys, you know, I run one of the big real estate companies right in the world, obviously, Trump Warren. This is kind of what I do every single day other than, you know, have fun on stuff like this. And, you know, once in a while, like a little inward reflection is a good thing. You know, hey, we all screw things up in the world and. But it's nice to be able attack when you lose every single swing state, when you lose the popular vote, when every state in the country, guys, every state in the country went far. Right, right. Voting, meaning we won 11 counties in California that had never been won before, as Republican can. And, and we won Miami Dade, by the way, a county that hasn't been won in 37 years. We won it by 11 points. So you would think they would step back and be like, I don't know, maybe our stance on illegal immigration isn't great. Like, maybe having guys, Eric Trump size, you know, 6 foot 5, 2, 15, swimming in collegiate women's sports, like, isn't a great topic. Like, you know, just kidding, guys. That was the guys before us, you know, they were the crazy ones. We're actually saying these people are freaking insane. I mean, they're shutting down government literally over the premise that, you know, every illegal immigrant who came to the country illegally should be getting free health care while our bridges and roads and schools rot, While we have $37 trillion worth of national debt. You know, and they literally. You have Chuck Schumer standing up there as if he's like, guys, it doesn't make any sense to me. You might want a little inward reflection.

[Host/Moderator]

Maybe you can give me just a little internal thought process on what you all. How you viewed the second term versus the first term in that the first term, you guys were all doing this. And I mean, you guys by the Trump family, obviously you by extension, when you're outside, but you're still a very big part of the family and effective surrogate. But you walk into the first time around, it's Washington, D.C. it's crazy. Even in a crazy business like New York real estate or international real estate that you've been in, it doesn't prepare you for the insanity of D.C. in the first four years. And then you came back to secondary. It seems like you're totally prepared for that. The President seems like he's got an inner calmness. He and his team have an inner calmness on how to deal with this kind of insanity. And you can see it playing out right now, as Democrats make all kinds of irrational moves, shut the government down, like advocating for all kinds of illegal immigration type policies, it seems like you guys kind of have it handled.

[Michael Duncan]

Guys, we won in 20. We were on 2016. Right. And, like, you know, we had no idea what the hell we were doing. I mean, if you ever, you know, like, if you ever want to use the definition of winging something, right, like, faking it until you make it. That was. That was awesome, guys. I was really good at building hotels. I was really good at building real estate buildings. Really, you know, we were great capitalist. We understood the world, obviously. We were on The Apprentice for 14 seasons. We were really comfortable in front of a camera. We were comfortable on stage. I remember my father calls me up, I talk about in the book, and he goes, honey, Megyn Kelly is going to fricking kill me tonight. Like, I need somebody to go on. Like, I. Like, we have no friends. He's like, can you go do it? So I turned. I turned around. Instead of going back to my apartment. I lived in the city at the time. I go down to Fox News, I'm literally like the center box. There's all these illegal immigrants around me. And I said to him, I go, so, pops, I love you to death. You know, I don't know. I'll use a nicer word, but, you know, I don't know a fricking thing about. About immigration. And. And listen, we spoke from the heart. We meant everything we said. We were pragmatic in terms of how we spoke. I talked about him as a father who I freaking adore, who works so hard.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And how he would change a country just with pragmatism and smarts and not allowing us to get ripped off and creating the greatest economy and everything else that he ended up doing. But guys, like, we didn't know what the Iowa caucuses were. We didn't know what. Right, Guys. We kept on winning all the states, and then, like, we were losing the del. We weren't losing the delicate gamble. We weren't, like, pulling ahead from Ted Cruz. And, like, we figured out that just because you won a state didn't necessarily mean you got all the delegates. So all of a sudden, we started whining and dining all the delegates. And, like, you know, we had to learn this stuff.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Coming back around, like, it's so much fun now, understanding the whole system, having the four years off, which was actually the best thing that could have ever happened. My father, because we had the Senate, we have the House, we have the Supreme Court six, three.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, obviously the executive branch. He has a cabinet of like fricking rock stars.

[Host/Moderator]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

But now I see my father put a hat that I created, the Trump 2028 hat, you know, rewrite the rules. Yeah, right. Puts that on the fucking desk in front of. And he's just, he's just trolling him. I mean, he's just absolutely trolling these guys. And he's having a lot of fun and he's throwing so much lead in the air that they literally don't know how to like counter narrative, the whole thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, look, I mean, the thing about it is it's like 2016. I've said this on the show before. It felt like a pop quiz. And 2024 felt like a take home test. And to your point earlier, Holmes, it's like, it just seems like your father's having so much more fun this time around. And he's swinging such a hot bat with all this stuff, whether it's the trade deals or the drug pricing thing and all this sort of thing. But I wonder, Eric, like, you know, because this book recounts all of it, the highs and the lows and the. Everything. The law, everything from the law fair to the elections and all that sort of stuff. You know, as someone who came into all of this from the business world, what is the one thing that was like, man, this is the most surreal.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, I'll never forget being at Arlington National Cemetery the morning of. I talk about this a little bit in the book, but. And just the quietness. Right. I mean, we get up there and, you know, the President always goes from kind of, you know, St. John's Episcopal Church. That's the one that the BLM rioters, you know, torched in the summer of Love, I think they called it. Right. The summer of. The summer of anarchy.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, we're a block away from that right now, actually.

[Michael Duncan]

And we went over to. We went from there to Arlington National Cemetery. And I remember it's like the first time I've heard a city just absolutely quiet. The only thing that you heard was, I just shuttered from the paparazzi. And you're looking over, you know, thousands of graves, and you're looking over all of Washington, D.C. and you're sitting there saying, shit, this is real. Like, this is real. Right. I mean, the guys walking into that office, you know, we were, you know, becoming that day. We became, you know, first family of the United States. And it's amazing. And guys, that's when they lay siege to us. I Mean, I called the book Under Siege at that time. I mean, 12 minutes after my father was elected, the Washington Post came out and wrote an article. This is when the impeachment of Donald Trump begins. They impeached him twice. They made up the Russia hoax. They made up the dirty dossiers. I was the one that was getting calls from the FBI about having having, quote unquote, secret servers in the basement of Trump Tower, which was wild. They took us off of Instagram, they took us off of Twitter, they took us off of Facebook. They silenced us. They gag ordered us 91 indictments. I mean, I became the most subpoenaed person in American history for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I mean, crackhead Hunter Biden was selling his finger art to Chinese nationals and other people for hundreds of thousands of dollars with drugs on his thing, with everything that we know was on the laptop to hell. Yet I became the most subpoenaed person in American history by these animals. Our houses were getting raided. My father was being pulled off the ballots in Colorado, in Maine. I mean, guys, they tried to destroy our lives. They tried to destroy the movement. They tried to destroy my father. They tried to kill my father. You saw what they did with Charlie Kirk. I mean, I never would have guessed in a million years that that could have been the system in the United States of America. And you know what the coolest part of all of this is because of guys like you. And let me give you, like, the immense amount of credit, I think you were the first podcast that had my father on. All of a sudden you had a media that no longer believed right or people, citizens that no longer believed in the mainstream media and started turning to independent voices. They started listening to you guys. They started listening to us. You know, all of a sudden the Charlie Kirks were effective, whereas before, they would have never had a voice on the traditional stage. And we literally made an entire set system are relevant because the movement became so big. And it's a hell of a story of perseverance and resilience and not backing down and having backbone and fricking fighting to the death. And what a journey it's been.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you're right, Eric. It is a hell of a story. It's one of the great triumphs in American history. And I think people will be writing about it for generations. You wrote about it, a firsthand account in your own book. And we all have watched in, just in awe here in the last six months of what he's done to undo some of the terrible things that biden did in his four years. I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about what we can expect to see over the next three years going forward.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you know, two years ago, I was saying that we're gonna win again. Even when we were stuck in the middle of courthouses and in rigged cases that we won every single one of them, thank God. As we were sitting there, I was going out every day on the courthouse step saying, we're going to win this election because people are pissed off we're going to win it. And by the way, Trump 2.0 is going to be Trump 1.0. As successful as it was on fricking steroids. Like, you know, he's the Energizer Bunny in a red tie, you know, taking steroids. That is literally doesn't care. I mean, you know, hence what he did with Hakeem Jeffries yesterday, hence some of the funny stuff that he's posting on, you know, on X, which is hysterical. I mean, you saw the thing with Schumer the other day, and the guy wearing the. I mean, it's pure comedy. But, I mean, what he's doing, again, he's throwing so much lead in the air that they can't counter narrative. I mean, this whole Most Favored nations with drug pricing, why hasn't anybody done that before? I mean, they're charging US citizens 10, 15 times the amount that they're charging people in France for the exact same drug. American companies are doing that. They're ripping everybody off. And the Democrats will find some reason to hate it. And it's, look what he's done. He's blowing the hell out of every drug boat, you know, that's coming up from Venezuela and coming up through the Caribbean, you know, so our kids aren't getting poisoned by fentanyl, and we're not, you know, losing children every day. And, you know, all of a sudden, they find some reason that that's not appropriate, and he closes the border to make sure illegal immigrants aren't coming into the country. And, you know, he's deporting people who create massive crimes with, you know, some reason. You know, they still don't want him to go into Chicago and clean it up. And Pritzker is having a fit. I mean, it's why the Democratic Party is, like, the weakest they've ever been, because, I mean, they're nonsensical in terms of. Of their policies.

[Host/Moderator]

Can I ask you a little bit about the humor? So, like, look, I've had the good fortune of being around your father in small settings on a number of occasions. And everybody always asks, right? I mean, everybody wants to know everything about your dad. And everybody. Everybody asks, like, what's the takeaway? And I'm like, you know, here's the thing. You can have serious conversations, and you can deal with serious stuff, but he's actually one of the funniest human beings I've ever been around. It's like an evening at the Improv when he's. He's on and he wants to be right. When he's not wanting, we can set the serious stuff aside for a second. We can just have a laugh. And it strikes me as something, watching you, watching your brother, watching your sister, both sisters, you guys just have this innate appreciation for a sense of humor that has been so sorely lacking in American politics. It's devoid on the left, by the way. Completely devoid on the left. How much of that is just part of what you grew up with and, like, what you've brought to the political stage? Like, just. Can you talk about that for a sec?

[Michael Duncan]

Listen, he's always kind of used levity. I'll tell you. It scared the hell out of the people in 2016, because, remember, he never used a teleprompter. And so he'd go out, he'd give these rallies, and it's like, whatever came to mind. You know, if he was pissed off, if he was on a sugar high, you know, it's. And you got, like, the greatest comedic kind of. And it was serious, but people enjoyed it. And listen, guys, on both sides of the aisle, I'm gonna bash Republicans, I'm gonna bash Democrats for a second. Like, how many of these people are totally full of. You know what? Yeah, they rehearse all these soundbites, you know? You know, Hillary Clinton, you're so lucky that Donald Trump won't run the legal system in this country, because it's like, how many fucking. How many times did you rehearse that sound bite in a mirror? Like, you can, like. I mean. And yet DJT is letting these rippers fly. Yeah. Because you'd be in jail, like, you know, and he's doing this off the cuff, right? Like, only Rosie o'. Donnel. And he had a thousand of these. And he's just. He's a funny guy. And guys, I was the first person he called after Butler, right? I mean, they shot his ear off. They almost took off his head. And, like, you know, the first thing he says to try and bring levity when I want to literally fight the Entire world because I was so pissed off at what happened. Was something about having the worst earache in the history of the world and equated it to, you know, Tyson and Holyfield or, you know, I mean, it's. No, the guy's always been able to bring kind of levity to dark situations. And I actually think that's like a great, like, disarming tool, if that makes sense. Totally. There's actually. There's a real genius in it, if you want to know the truth.

[Host/Moderator]

Yes, it is.

[Michael Duncan]

People are uncomfortable. I mean, when he went out at Butler, when he returned to Butler, you know, as I was saying. Right.

[Host/Moderator]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

That wasn't what was expected. It was far. And the place just starts chanting, usa, usa. And so. So I think when you see these politicians, they're all full of it. They're all canned. They're all scripted. And finally, you had a guy go out there and he was on PC, totally Politically Incorrect. He said what was on his mind. He said what everybody was thinking. He wasn't afraid. He didn't back down. He had backbone. And Americans instantly, especially the tough guys. Right. I mean, especially people with, like, a little, like, they appreciated a little bit of the bravado and the lack of staleness and. And, you know, one of the great monologues, if you guys ever have a chance to watch it, is when. When my father, you know, killed Al Baghdadi, when he. Oh, yeah, I love that.

[Host/Moderator]

And I love the Shane Gillis recreation.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Versus, you know, Barack Hussein Obama, who goes out there, say, Americans executed. My father's like. They went in, they shot him up like a dog. They said, the German shepherds. The German shepherd bit the hell out of the guy. And he. And he.

[John Ashbrook]

And he cried.

[Michael Duncan]

And he cried.

[Comfortably Smug]

He said.

[John Ashbrook]

We said, don't cry.

[Comfortably Smug]

He said, don't cry.

[Michael Duncan]

Like a little baby who doesn't go through the front door. Everybody goes through the front door. These guys didn't go through the front door. They blew the wall apart.

[Host/Moderator]

Totally.

[Michael Duncan]

The guy tried.

[Host/Moderator]

I wonder how much of this. Cause, like, look, you're the business guy, and you've been totally straightforward on that. You're the business guy. I'll let you speak for yourself. But there was always a sense of. In the political world that you were sort of like the most reluctant of all the family to be in the world of politics. Now. You're a tremendously effective political surrogate for your father, for the things that you believe in and everything else. But, like, you'd rather build buildings at some level. Is that still true. I mean, I know you're still running the business, but, like, it seems like you're having more fun, too.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no question. I mean, first of all, I think you can compartmentalize what politics is now better than ever before. Like, I realized it's just a game, right? And, like, I've grown up and I've grown comfortable with my own voice. I'm not hiding anything. And I don't, you know, I don't need to mince my words anymore. I think that's a little bit different when you're younger.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, we all get older.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Guys, I was the first one on that stage. We went down that escalator and I never left. I mean, the darkest times I was there, I was in the courthouse every single day. As they were charging my father with felonies, they came after me. They wanted me in jail. They wanted to destroy our company. Again, guys, I became the most subpoenaed person in American history. I spent a lot of time in underseas talking about that. And I. I'm a guy that texts my kids in bed and says little prayers with them every night, and then I'm out, right? I'm up at 5 o' clock in the morning. I'm not doing heroin benders. In the past, if anybody had an.

[Host/Moderator]

Excuse to do heroin benders, by the.

[Michael Duncan]

Way, you might say the other guy's more fun than I am. But I always lived a pretty clean life. But listen, I love the company. I'm the one guy, I don't need to be in the spotlight. I can turn it on. I can be on that stage and I can do it as well as anyone. And I'm also happy to win the race in the background. And, you know, my father came to me, I was 33 years old, and he goes, honey, I want you to run the business. You're the guy to do it. You're the guy that's built most of these assets. And listen, this was his entire legacy. This was everything that he had ever done until Washington, D.C. was what I do right now. And he was going to have to step totally out of it. He wasn't going to have any control. He had no visibility. He had nothing to, you know, honey, I want you to do a great job. And I love building. I love real estate. You know, I love, I love it. But at the same time, I'm the first one, even though it doesn't serve my purposes most of the time to stand on the stage and swing away at these radical left lunatics. Because I love this country. I love the American flag. And our country was going to hell.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. I mean, well said. It just seems to me like it is hilarious if I'm in your shoes. Where you grow up. First of all, you gotta tell me a little bit about you grow up. Your dad's famous. I tell this story all the time where I was, like, 6, and I remember being in bed. You know, you, like, get in bed with your parents, and they had this old clock, alarm clock that played the radio. It was a local Minneapolis station. And I remember, like, frequent occasion, it was like, well, Donald Trump says that Taj Mahal is going to be the greatest thing in the world. And then, like, they play audio of your dad. I can't imagine what it's like. I'm in Minnesota. I can't imagine what it's like. That's your dad. He's famous. When you were an infant and, like, you've grown up with all of that all around you. Now, this is like in a different galaxy in terms of, like, how big your dad has actually become and what he's doing for this country and everything else. But that's gotta be just sort of an interesting perspective.

[Michael Duncan]

Listen, there was definitely duality in my childhood, right? I was flying on helicopters to Atlantic City every weekend as a kid with Michael Jackson and.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, weird, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Never alone. Never alone. But I was, you know, and listen. And Don King and Mike Tyson and, you know, Tina Turner and, like, you know, go down the list. Like, you know, we saw it all. And I think, you know, looking back, you kind of got to pinch yourself. It's like a childhood that was very different at the same time. Let me tell you the duality. You know, when I got to 11, you know, my father. And we were spoiled as hell. We lived in Drum Tower, you know, always had a warm house, always had a, you know, a comfy bed. Best schools. But, you know, Eric, you're gonna work. And Don, you're gonna work. And Ivanka, you're gonna work. And I started on construction sites in our company with. With, you know, stone Masons. At 11 years old, I was running conduit. I was doing stonework, concrete work. I mean, like, you know, guys, I can. I still run. I ran half their electrical in my house just for fun, because I enjoy this stuff and I'm. I'm good at it. Yeah, there was no, like, you know, here, honey, here's a free Ferrari. You're 16 years old. Congratulations.

[Host/Moderator]

Thank you.

[Michael Duncan]

Success of your life. Like, guys, like, if we wanted something we worked our butts off for it. There was no. No jokes. And my father, every day before going to school, no drinking, no drugs, no smoking, you know, and frankly, never trust anyone. He said that a lot. I rarely put that in, but it's like, you know, life's tough. You're going to go work, you're going to learn what it feels like to work minimum wage. You're going to actually learn a task. I'm going to tire you out so much that you're not going to go, and again, do those crack benders, right? Because you're going to, first of all, appreciate the money and not want to spend down drugs, knowing how hard it is to earn, you know? Second of all, nothing good ever came out of giving type A kids. And I say we're certainly type A free time, right? And no, guys, he made us work. He expected results. He was a phenomenal father. And just, I can't tell you how many friends I had that went to school with us, you know, who might be in the same socioeconomic categories or whatever it is who went down these disastrous paths. And not a single one of us ever did. I mean, and by the way, even Hillary Clinton will say that. She goes, you know what? If I have to compliment Donald Trump on one thing, it's he's got good kids, good, hard working, very capable kids. And he was a great father, Amazing man, probably my closest friend in the world. I love him to death.

[Host/Moderator]

It's incredible. It's fascinating. I mean, look, that is the takeaway, because what you guys have gone through, and you go through this in your book Under Siege, nobody else has gone through to this extent. Right, right. Not this publicly. And when you have the upbringing that you had, always being in the limelight, always having some entree into this larger public discussion, albeit with a father that made you work hard for every step of the way, literally everyone else in your situation has always had some crack in the armor. And what I find so fascinating about your family is how tight you are, how close you all are, how much you care about not just the outcomes that you're all working on, but each other. And you can really circle the wagons in a way that people similarly situated, honestly, Eric, they just, they don't know how to do.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, guys, if I could tell you the number one rule of politics is keep family the hell out of politics. Right? It's like, like you'll joke every campaign manager and once again rewrite the rules, right? I mean, we rewrote the rules. And listen, my father At a young age, kind of, you know, put incredible faith in me. You know, he'd give me a task that I thought was so insurmountable, and you would reach it, and you would. You would. You know, and then he'd give you one that was a little bit bigger, and you'd reach it. And he kept on kind of building you up. And the only thing we've ever done as a family is fight together. I mean, whether that's in real estate, you know, the hotels are gone, golf courses, you know, the Apprentice. I mean, he gave me the opportunity when I was, you know, relatively young kid, to go on the Apprentice, be in the boardroom.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, that's a wild thing. I want to talk about that.

[Michael Duncan]

For seven seasons, I'm watching, like, Nene Leakes, and these, you know, guys curse each other out at 7 o' clock in the morning on, like, a Tuesday. I'm like, what the hell am I doing here? I'm. I'm watching Gary Busey in a boardroom shouting meatloaf, right? And the guy's like, we had never known anything other than fighting together as a family. And. And when he called Don, Ivanka, and I, and he called us, I talk about this in the book, but he called us. You know, he called me, and he goes, bring the kids up. So we go up to his floor, his office, and he goes, kids, I'm gonna do this. Let's do this. Meaning when he said, let's do this. It's like, this is a family approach, guys, when I say we had no friends, when I saw 20, 24 roll around, and every senator and every congressman, they're all, we would love to endorse you. Not that their endorsements meant anything, because we didn't have a single one of their endorsements in 2016. He still won. But I'm sitting there like, how funny is this? Like, I think I was the only. I think Don and I were the only two people to endorse my father in 2016 until, like, you know, three days before the election, when it was already over and we already like it. It's everything we've done. We've always fought together, and that's like the antithesis of normal politics. Like, name another political family where the kids have anything to do with politics. I mean, listen, Sasha and Malia were too young, and God bless him, keep them the hell out of it. Because it's just, at the time, they were young and innocent, and. Don't pervert, Right? And Melania did an unbelievable job keeping Barron out of Totally agree. It's a gross world. But, like, there were political kids that were older that had the ability to fight, and they always had a problem. Normally it was the actual candidate trying to hide the child from the press versus the exact opposite. And so we embraced it, and I think we did so with a level of sincerity that just somehow worked.

[Host/Moderator]

It is a level of sincerity. No question about it. Fellas, you got anything you want to wrap up with?

[Josh Holmes]

I'll tell you, we are really looking forward to having you in studio very soon to talk a little bit more about your book because every single guy on this set is reading it. Every single guy is recommending it to our buddies, we're recommending it to. It to our families. And we can't wait to have you in studio because it's a lot more fun when you're sitting here at the desk.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, you can get a little taste of the fellas upright and personal. And I'm not sure that I have.

[Michael Duncan]

A feeling I'm going to get in trouble. I think that's good. You three plus me is probably headlines on the Daily Mail, which, by the way, is totally fine with me. I'm beyond giving a damn at this point. But we're going to, we're going to have. We're going to have a good time. And I'm hell bent on being number one New York Times bestseller. It's going to make them absolutely freak the hell out when a Trump who they've been trying to take down for years is the top of their book charts. So honored by the success. And we're going to have a lot of fun together.

[Host/Moderator]

Listen, nobody other than your father has gone through more personal turmoil than you have. You've popped out the other side, more successful than ever. He's soon to be a New York Times number one bestseller. Eric Trump, thank you so much for joining us.

[Michael Duncan]

Good to be on, guys.

[Josh Holmes]

He is so funny. He is so great. And I cannot wait till he's in studio very soon.

[Host/Moderator]

It's gonna be really good. A lot of fun commentary there. You know, I mean, we live in kind of dark times in a lot of different ways, but it doesn't. We shouldn't neglect the fact that there are, like, families involved and stories involved. And, like, they've always gotten through things with an element of humor, which we wanted to explore a little bit. What its life's a little bit about. Like his observations on the View. He did all of it. Like, he's just a good dude, you know, and, like, they're so cartooned by national media where it's very hard for anyone, even supporters, to get a real sense of like who Eric is and Don Ivanka Baron.

[Comfortably Smug]

And at the end of the day, it's a tight knit family. It is like, yes, you may have the president, yes, you may have multiple successful business, but they're a family.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, they're a family and they've done this thing together and they're right in the fight now. And God bless them for doing it. Fantastic interview. I'm so glad we did it. I'm also like pumped he's coming in here in a couple weeks. We're gonna have a good time. Heck yeah, we're gonna have a good time. All right, so remember our question of the day. We know that Russ Vaught has started the the cuts over at omb. And the question to you is what would you do if you were in his seat? What cuts would you make if you were the OMB director now that the Democrats have shut the government down and you have free license to do whatever it is that you want when you like. And subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. We read all of your comments and feature them the very next episode. In this case, it's going to be Friday with that fellas, I think we did it.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thanks again to Eric Trump and thank you to the listeners. Remember, like Holmes said, if you have not yet hit the subscribe on the YouTube because it's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and on the libs, we'll see you Friday.

[Michael Duncan]

Stay ruthless.