Dems Spending Millions to Learn How to Talk To Men

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Summary: "Dems Spending Millions to Learn How to Talk To Men"

Episode Overview

Title: Dems Spending Millions to Learn How to Talk To Men
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug (Michael Duncan), and John Ashbrook
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Description: In this episode, the hosts delve into the Democratic Party's strategic efforts to reconnect with male voters. They analyze policy decisions, internal strategies, and media portrayals that have contributed to the perceived alienation of men within the Democratic base.

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1. Introduction to the Democratic "Man Problem"

Josh Holmes opens the discussion by highlighting the Democratic Party's struggle to engage male voters. He asserts that the party's policies have inadvertently positioned men as adversaries, leading to a significant voter disconnect.

• Quote (00:00):
  Unknown Speaker A: "Every single one of your policies is designed to hurt half this country, the men."

---

2. Analysis of the New York Times Article

The hosts examine a recent New York Times article titled "Six Months Later: Democrats are Still Searching for the Path Forward," which underscores the party's internal recognition of its declining support among men.

• Key Points:

  • Democratic strategists and donors have been convening in luxury hotels to devise strategies targeting male voters.
  • A substantial financial investment, reportedly around $20 million, has been allocated to understand and address the "man problem."

• Quote (05:19):
  Michael Duncan: "Believe all women. And what they do is simultaneously a couple of things. One, you made every generation of Americans think... feel guilty about it."

---

3. The Role of DEI and MeToo Movements

The conversation shifts to how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and the MeToo movement have unintentionally marginalized men, leading to policies that critics argue disadvantage them.

• Key Points:

  • DEI initiatives have predominantly been administered by women, often resulting in the exclusion or demonization of men in the workplace.
  • The MeToo movement, while addressing legitimate issues, has been critiqued for fostering an environment where men feel universally guilty or under suspicion.

• Quote (13:50):
  Unknown Speaker A: "If you tell half the country that you think they want to vote for you."

---

4. Critique of Democratic Media and Communication Strategies

The hosts criticize how mainstream media, particularly publications like the New York Times, serve as echo chambers for Democratic ideologies, often portraying policy solutions in ways that alienate men.

• Key Points:

  • Media outlets are accused of being "stenographers" for the Democratic Party, lacking genuine understanding or connection with male voters.
  • Efforts to study men's behavior and preferences are likened to anthropological studies of "zoo animals," suggesting a lack of authentic engagement.

• Quote (10:16):
  Michael Duncan: "PowerPoint like they are studying us like zoo animals. This is like an alien who came to Earth."

---

5. The "Shadow Cabinet" Proposal by Democrats

A significant portion of the episode critiques a Politico proposal where Democrats suggest creating a "shadow cabinet" to counteract President Trump's administration. The hosts mock the selection of candidates, highlighting perceived inadequacies and symbolic appointments.

• Key Points:

  • Names like Giselle Fetterman and Nikki Glaser are suggested for roles such as Secretary of Homeland Security and Small Business Administration Administrator, respectively.
  • The appointments are portrayed as disconnected from the actual needs and competencies required for these positions.

• Quote (38:42):
  Josh Holmes: "And it's like, well, we're going to... they're willing to go beyond their own biases."

---

6. Tax Cuts and Economic Policies

The discussion touches on President Trump's "big beautiful tax cut," with comments from figures like Elon Musk criticizing the bill for increasing the deficit. The hosts defend the tax cuts, arguing they stimulate economic growth.

• Key Points:

  • Republicans utilize reconciliation processes to pass tax and spending bills without the need for a supermajority.
  • The hosts challenge the legitimacy of deficit concerns, attributing them to Democratic narratives rather than factual economic data.

• Quote (64:43):
  Josh Holmes: "If you're a deficit hawk and you haven't mentioned that component, like you, you're not a serious person."

---

7. Media Bias and Polarization

A segment of the episode criticizes journalists like Scott Pelley and Jonathan Capehart for perceived biases against conservatives, arguing that this undermines objective journalism.

• Key Points:

  • The hosts allege that prominent journalists engage in "lawfare" and biased reporting to discredit conservative figures.
  • Instances of reported conflicts and resignations among journalists are used to illustrate media's partisanship.

• Quote (73:14):
  Josh Holmes: "It's like a Norm MacDonald joke. But the whole thing... it's pre baked into the nomination itself."

---

8. The Impact of Democrat Policies on Men’s Perceptions

The hosts argue that Democratic policies and societal movements have fundamentally altered how men perceive their roles and value in American society, leading to widespread disenfranchisement and silence.

• Key Points:

  • Young men have been socialized to feel guilty and marginalized due to movements like MeToo and DEI.
  • The cumulative effect of these policies has led to increased support for Republican candidates among men.

• Quote (25:34):
  Josh Holmes: "How the fuck would anybody ever vote for that party? Like, you don't matter on your own merits."

---

9. Conclusions and Final Thoughts

In concluding the episode, the hosts reaffirm their belief that Democratic strategies to engage men are fundamentally flawed and unlikely to succeed despite significant financial investments. They emphasize the importance of policies that universally benefit voters rather than siloing specific groups.

• Key Points:

  • The Democratic Party's focus on specific identity groups has backfired, leading to broader voter alienation.
  • Authentic engagement with men, understanding their genuine concerns and contributions, is deemed essential for political success.

• Quote (36:28):
  Unknown Speaker C: "That's the right conclusion."

---

Key Takeaways

• Democrats’ Financial Commitment: The Democratic Party is investing millions to understand and appeal to male voters, recognizing a significant decline in support.
• Policy Alienation: Movements like DEI and MeToo, while addressing important social issues, have inadvertently alienated men, leading to broader voter disenfranchisement.
• Media Complicity: Mainstream media outlets are critiqued for reinforcing Democratic narratives and failing to authentically engage with male audiences.
• Shadow Cabinet Mockery: Democratic proposals for a shadow cabinet are mocked for their perceived incompetence and symbolic placements.
• Economic Policy Debate: The hosts defend Republican economic policies, particularly tax cuts, against Democratic criticisms of increasing deficits.
• Journalistic Bias: Prominent journalists are accused of partisanship, undermining objective reporting and contributing to political polarization.

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Note: This summary captures the essence of the "Ruthless Podcast" episode "Dems Spending Millions to Learn How to Talk To Men," focusing on the critical analysis and discussions among the hosts. For a comprehensive understanding and to hear the nuanced points and additional humor, listening to the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker A]

I shouldn't be doing this, but I'm going to tell the Democrats how to win and why they lost. Okay? And it's nothing to do with syntax or messaging or how to speak with the American mail. This is not a communications issue. This is a policy issue. Because what you've done is you have told half this country we want nothing to do with you. You're the bad guy. You're the problem. Every single one of your policies is designed to hurt half this country. The men.

[Dick Durbin]

He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress. Chicago Senator Dick Durbin. And now Dick Durbin has a new a government takeover of your credit card. Today, consumers have thousands of choices in credit cards, all with equal strong security. But Durbin's plan is less competition and less security, and that means more risk for your credit and your identity. Tell Republicans in Congress, stop Dick Durbin's team takeover of your credit card before it's too late.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Unknown Speaker A]

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

[Unknown Speaker C]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Welcome to the Ruthless Variety Program. I am Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left to right, across your radio dial. As always, we got an absolute banger. Yes, there are a lot of reasons why you subscribe to the Ruthless Variety Program. Remember, you like and subscribe.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like and subscribe while you're doing it. Like and subscribe if you haven't already. But there is a lot of reasons that you do that. You get some information. We call it candy and vegetables. Every once in a while you get a news cycle that provides an over index of candy.

[Unknown Speaker A]

It's just a bounty of riches.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, you're going to get diabetes on this episode.

[Josh Holmes]

Or depending on where you're from in the country, Sugarfoot.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, Sugarfoot.

[Josh Holmes]

You could get some Sugarfoot listening to this. Cuz it turns out, you know, look, Congress is out of town. The President's doing what he's doing. They passed the big beautiful bill last week. We covered that on Tuesday. So there's like this gap in the armor where people just start like looking inward for political coverage. And they're like, well, where are the Democrats? It turns out not good. Not a good place. And we've covered this all along. But they've put a finer point, they put a finer point on just how bad everything is. The man problem, it turns out they've recognized that they have a man problem because for like 10 years they were like, no, we can over index with women we hate. Men, we hate men. Let's do everything to hate men. Because it over indexes with women. Well, they've seen the upper echelons of what that can get them from an electoral standpoint and now it's a real problem.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So they've tried to put things together and we're gonna cover all that. You will absolutely love what it is that they've done and the reaction that you're about to get from the Ruthless Variety program and all that journal's gone wild. We can't get enough of this stuff either. It turns out like some household names in the journalistic community people would previously done admirable work. People like generational names have become absolutely insane. Trump derangement syndrome and everything else. We're gonna have some yucks on this too, because you will not believe it. We're gonna have some variety boys. We're gonna play a game. Because it's Thursdays, we play our signature game, King of the Elves.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

And we're gonna do that. Everybody enjoys that. That piece of it. And an update on our girl Hannah.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Hannah Trudeau developments.

[Josh Holmes]

Be another scout for the Ruthless Variety Proud crew.

[Michael Duncan]

We have so many. I'm not sick of winning.

[Josh Holmes]

It might be. So we got all of that coming up, but we are not going to start in any other place than what we have led with here. And I think the reason, like all of you have sort of been waiting since this story broke for us to cover this.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yes. Don't you think I saw it online like as soon as the chatter about this situation of Democrats being like, we have a problem with male voters and men want nothing to do with our party. How are we going to tackle this? Instantly you saw on X the replies have been like, ruthless, you gotta cover this. Are you seeing this? You gotta cover this.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, I couldn't. I can't count the number of menchis that I got from people being like, dude, please, please, please, please, you guys cover this. Cuz it's our M.O. i mean this is the thing that we do the best, the thing that we've talked about from the very beginning, the revolution of the Republican party that we saw in 2024. We were onto this in like 2021 saying like, ah, Democrats have a real problem with a normal dude.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep. Yeah. It's one of the reasons we started this show.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Like think about it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's one of the reasons why the show exists. And so now they've put it in writing and I'll preface this by saying there are many places that you can go to get under the hood of what it is the Democrats are thinking because they're like universally sourced, because they're basically stenographers. But there's no place that is. Is the actual ethos of the Democratic Party like the, the message delivery system.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, like this is their bat signal.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. There's like one place and one place only that is like everyone read every word of this because this is what we're thinking. And it's the New York Times.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

So if they do a big spread, like a big sort of like a rollout internal dialogue, it's gonna be in the New York Times. Like occasionally you get this in newsletters. But if you wanna really make an imprint, they know that every one of their voters, every one of their high net worth individuals who can give money.

[Michael Duncan]

For such a project, even more important.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Even more importantly, this is what they wake up every morning reading. Right. Where the rest of America could give two shits. But they're like, no, we read the New York Times. Anyway, they come up with a story this week called Six Months Later. Democrats are still searching for the path forward. Interesting. Interesting. I mean, something we've covered that's not breaking any news. What is breaking news is how they're searching for it. The subtitle is the Party's standing is startlingly low After a defeat that felt like a cultural rejection. What comes next? Well, it was a cultural rejection. That part I don't think is. Doesn't seem like anything. It was like, it's an amazing, startling rejection of what it is that they have in mind for the American people. But then they go through, they've got like a whole bunch of research and the whole point of all this, the backdrop to the article is that Democrats are like basically going from one high end hotel to another in cities across this country, presenting PowerPoints.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's the thing is like when, when this story first came out in the New York Times and you saw the headlines discussing it, where they're like, Democrat Party operatives and their major donors are meeting in luxury hotels, giving PowerPoint presentations on how do we speak to men.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like, I know how to solve. I know how to solve our problem with your average voter. A donor retreat.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Where they make a pitch. And like, we have long been critiqued of the way they go about doing this. Right. Which is exactly as has been laid out. This paragraph sort of sums it up. And then I'll get back to the larger picture. For now, Democratic donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working class voters. Just take that sentence. So, like, look, I know that we maybe foremost amongst people, have been critical of corporate media, of legacy media, in the way that they are stenographers for Democrats and they're being stenographers for Democrats here.

[Michael Duncan]

But that little sentence, they're revealing something.

[Josh Holmes]

They're revealing something even they're like.

[Michael Duncan]

Because they're laughing between. If you're reading between the lines, the reporter who actually wrote this is sort of laughing at them. Like the idea that between a bottle of Camus and a tomahawk steak, they're somehow going to. They're going to divine what. What your working class American thinks is sor.

[Josh Holmes]

Why, I wonder what the poor people are doing today.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I have pickleball at two and then we'll figure it out.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right, right. So commissioning. Hold on, let me finish the sentence and then I'll let you go smash. Commissioning new projects that can read like anthropological studies of people from faraway places. We've described it as zoo animals.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right, right. And here's just another thing, just another observation. Democrats hate America, okay? They hate the people who are voting every two years. And their whole strategy is, how do we trick voters into also hating America like the rest of us?

[Josh Holmes]

It's such a huge.

[Unknown Speaker C]

And it's not the way to actually attract voters because voters are like, wait a minute, I do like this place. I like where I live. I'm pretty proud of it. And they're like, no, no, no, you should hate it because of the climate. You know, you should hate it because it's a hateful country. And they're like, they're at a loss because fundamentally their ideology is broken.

[Josh Holmes]

It's the political equivalent of the banana pool that you talk about.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. Where it's like, let's lure the monkeys in with the bananas. They get in the pool, they can't swim and be the end of it. They'll drown to the end. So. Which is what they're trying to do.

[Unknown Speaker C]

That's what they're trying to do to us.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but anthropological studies of people from faraway places is such a. Like that, that paragraph, like the rest of this, the article is basically like stenography. Right, but. But this, this paragraph is like their, their element of. As you said, Duncan, they're laughing at this.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, they're laughing at this. I would also note what I found particularly interesting here was the $20 million effort.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Aimed to reverse the erosion of Democratic support among young men. Codename Sam, short for speaking with American men and code name I point out here, quote, not for nothing, quoted throughout here as the person who led all of these 250 focus groups of swing voters. Ms. A not Shanker Osorio. I got tip number one. Stop hyphenating your names if you want to appeal to your average shanker.

[Josh Holmes]

Sorio has done a lot of things, 250 swing voter focus groups that she's done.

[Michael Duncan]

But the fascinating thing in here is to quote from the article again, is that they're going to study the syntax, language, right? And content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Dude, it sounds like they're trying to learn how to teach sign language to the apes.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Every year, America's freight railroads invest 23 billion of their own capital, not taxpayer money, to to maintain the world's most productive freight network. That massive scale is key. It enables railroads to move goods with unmatched efficiency, driving down costs for American businesses and consumers. From energy and agriculture to retail and automotive, freight rail serves every corner of the real economy. And it's essential to America's re industrialization. Put simply, manufacturing depends on rail. Freight rail is America's engine, built on private investment, driving the nation forward. Learn [e-mail] let's take a step back for a minute.

[Josh Holmes]

Look, political parties, their success or failure in large part is based on their ability to resonate with the American people, both in terms of agenda, the personality of your candidate. It's like a resonance type thing. And like, if you look at what it is that this entire project is prefaced upon, it's that they know that they underperformed with a group and they're basically just trying to figure out, like, how do we say the words they say?

[Unknown Speaker A]

And that's the thing. So I probably shouldn't be doing this, but I shouldn't be doing this, But I'm gonna tell the Democrats how to win and why they lost, okay? And it's nothing to do with syntax or messaging or how to speak with the American male. This is not a communications issue. This is a policy issue. Because what you've done is you have told half this country we want nothing to do with you. You're the bad guy. You're the problem. Every single one of your policies is designed to hurt half this country, the men. You look at the statistical evidence on what we got out of DEI programs, and the craziest thing about DEI is it was more helpful to women and undermined Men more than any other group. I was surprised by that. You look at these DEI programs, they were over 85% administered by women. And their job, number one, was to eliminate all men from the workplace. So if as a party, your platform is, we will make it so that getting a job for you is more difficult. We will make it so that having any role in the community for you is more difficult. We will demonize you. We will tell everyone that you're a predator, that you should apologize, that every problem that we have in this country is because you're a racist, you're a bigot. If you tell half the country that you think they want to vote for you.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I think the one mistake you're making there, smug, is the idea that any of this is outcome based, that they actually want to succeed. And in reality, what this story reads to me, as somebody who's worked in politics for 15 years, this is a grant request. Oh, honry. That's what it is. Like, you're using the language. You're using the linguistic puffery of academia to sell some rich person on funding your bullshit.

[Josh Holmes]

You get a whiz bang presentation like.

[Michael Duncan]

None of this is actually fucking real.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, they haven't changed a single thing.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just about selling the idea, using this language of academia to basically get money to convince people you're going to do something you're incapable of.

[Unknown Speaker C]

And you know something else, fellas? Men have changed through the years. But one thing that has never changed and will never change is that men will never apologize for who they are. It's just who you are. And I think, I always think, unless.

[Josh Holmes]

You'Re a lib, in which case you apologize every day.

[Unknown Speaker C]

This is true. But I always think about, like, what would my grandfather say about these things? I've told you guys stories about my grandfather, how he.

[Unknown Speaker A]

He was the man.

[Unknown Speaker C]

He'd wait.

[Unknown Speaker A]

He'd wait. Folks haven't heard. He was the man.

[Josh Holmes]

The man.

[Unknown Speaker C]

He would wake my grandmother up in the middle of the night and ask her to make him a sandwich. And my mom told me a story over Memorial Day weekend. You guys are going to love this. He would literally sit at the dining room table. They didn't live in a big house, very small house. He would sit at his dining room table and over his head was a clock. So his back was to the wall and his back was to the clock. And he would ask, he would say, hey, Jen, that's my grandmother. Her name was Virginia. Hey, Jen, what time is it?

[Unknown Speaker A]

Amazing.

[Unknown Speaker C]

He wouldn't.

[Josh Holmes]

Wouldn't turn around.

[Unknown Speaker C]

He wouldn't turn around and look. He would ask her because he knew it got under her skin. You know what I mean? Like, it's. And the man would never apologize for that, because it was just fun. He's not doing it in a mean way. He's just. This is injecting personality into a household, and men are capable of so much. And the Democrats just shit all over us and every single day. And I think they're going to continue to lose until they figure out that.

[Michael Duncan]

That'S so I think there's one other component to this which is very interesting, and that is, like, the Democrats are having this come to Jesus moment on young men. They had a candidate who appealed to young men back in 2016. His name was Bernie Sanders. And anyone who supported them, you know, supported him or the movement was a misogynist. Right. They called him Bernie Bros. Yeah. Bernie Bros. Which I find fascinating because I think there's a parallel in when we. We launched this show, right? It was right wing frat bro.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what they called us. It was a way of basically mocking and care, making a caricature of, like, what men did.

[Josh Holmes]

And, like, we found it endearing.

[Michael Duncan]

I found it endearing because it was an attack coming from childless cat ladies and guys with, like, architecture glasses who live by themselves in Dumbo, you know what I mean? Like, talking about, like, what men, you know, like, not us. Like, like, we all are sitting here at this table, and we're all happily married and we have seven children between all of us. But, like, we don't understand the male experience in America. Those fucking people do. Well, you know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

Just wait till you see the PowerPoint. Just. I don't know.

[Unknown Speaker A]

You haven't given the PowerPoint.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just insane to me. It's insane to me. I don't know. Like, if you want to have a conversation with American men, maybe, like, have real American men have those conversations and not paid actors.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Because y' all remember that ad that was, like, last second trying to support Kamala Harris, where they're all paid actors.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And this is, if you don't recall, we made a lot of fun on the program about this. They had dudes who are supposed to be in authentic settings, basically saying, like, I'm a man for Kamala. And it was like, a dude in the back of a pickup or whatever who was sitting like, yeah. He was like, I'm a man for Kamala. You know what I mean? And it was like, dude, I I just don't. I. That's not. That's not it. And. But. But, like, they did all these series of vignettes with these dudes who are like 4. Kamala. And then they hired Tim Walls as a VP candidate to correct some of this problem because he, like, I don't know, wasn't a woman, I guess. But, like, other than that, I didn't see any appeal to American men whatsoever. I mean, this is a guy who. His. One of his signature accomplishments was putting tampons in boys high school bathrooms. Like, that's not something that resonates with American men at all. But, like, that was their version. And it goes to the point that you guys were making, which is like, let's put a PowerPoint together on how to talk. What's the syntax? How do you observe this zoo animal?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, like, you can walk into a gym and be like, you know, I just PR'd on my bench press. But what really gets me mad is in. In the locker room, there's no tampons.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Pr.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, like, they just don't. They don't live in that culture, and so they can't actually understand it to. Your whole point, and you've made this a thousand times, Holmes, is they study us like zoo animals. This is like an alien who came to Earth. And it's like, how can I understand these people?

[Unknown Speaker A]

Can I read real quick just the. The segment from the New York Times article about one of these focus groups.

[Josh Holmes]

Went like, oh, yeah, please.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Okay. So the lady who runs the focus groups for them, Anat. Shankar Osorio.

[Josh Holmes]

Shankar Osorio.

[Michael Duncan]

She asks, drop the fucking hyphen if you want to understand men. I'm sorry, free advice. Drop the hyphen.

[Josh Holmes]

Free advice.

[Unknown Speaker A]

She asks these focus groups to describe what animals Republicans seem like and what animals Democrats seem like. And so for Republicans, they're seen as, quote, apex predators, like lions, tigers, and sharks. Beasts that take what they want when they want it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Hey, I don't mind that description.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I know, it's great. I mean, they're not wrong. Democrats are typically tagged as tortoises, slugs, or sloth. Slow, plodding, passive. And so her ears perked up earlier this year when a Democrat man in Georgia suggested a very different kind of animal symbolized their party. A deer, he said, in headlights.

[Michael Duncan]

Hilarious.

[Josh Holmes]

It doesn't know which way to jump, but I know it has to.

[Unknown Speaker C]

But they never learn. Remember in 2004 on the bush Reelect when they. When there was a spoof video where Bush was. He was the Texas Tiger. And John Kerry was the liberal wiener. It hasn't changed in 20 years. Because all they want to do is change the way men think, and it's never going to happen. They have to change their policies.

[Unknown Speaker A]

To add one thing is also, without having to worry about how you speak to men or the syntax that you're using with young men, they've kind of. It's hard not to notice just the actual behavior of the Democrat Party at the highest possible level. You saw, just like Duncan described in 2016, when Hillary was supposed to be the chosen one, they steamrolled Bernie. All his supporters are like, you're misogynist. You're misogynist. Get out of here. And then you saw after Joe Biden, Joe Biden had to agree to have a black woman as his vice president. That's the only way they allowed him to have it. Right. And then when it was time for the old switcheroo, it was like, get the old guy out of here. It's Kamala's turn. The ultimate, just like DEI pick has never won a competitive race, has never been able to appeal to voters, had under 1% of support of voters in the primary when she had to drop out before Iowa, she's given, okay, now you're gonna be the top of the ticket. Just hand it to her. And they're like, all right, bring in another. Just bring in a token dude.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, maybe that a grander plan.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Could just trick some guys into voting for us. Being like, yeah, he's a dude.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, they knew at some level during that selection process that the old man was gonna be an absentee president. Clearly, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, people to run the joint.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Clearly.

[Josh Holmes]

But look, if you take a step back and you just look at the way the Democrats have handled, culturally speaking, men in this country. I mean, we go back far enough to remember, like, the war on women, that was like their big talking point started with Mitt Romney's binders full of women.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah. Because he was hiring women. They're like, you misogynist.

[Josh Holmes]

Which was like, well, I mean, but like, the whole point of it was to suggest to 51% of the electorate, women in this country, that Republicans commoditize women. They don't value women. That unless, you know, you vote liberal and sort of have a different view of, like, a next gen family structure that you, like, don't value women, period. And then we got into the MeToo movement, and I think this is like, look, I've told a lot of people about my theory on why it is that they've landed where they've landed because, you know, like the early 2000s, it wasn't like the gender mix was what it was, but it wasn't, you know, maybe abortion over indexed on Democrat side, but it wasn't like you just made a straight gender play as a political party or another. This changed with the whole idea that men were just guilty.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Believe all women. Right. And what you did is simultaneously a couple of things. One, you made every generation of Americans think back to like, you know, before they were family people and their, their like encounters that they had men and women as, as one does when they're an adolescent or college student or whatever and like, feel guilty about it. Right. And it wasn't like we're not talking about sexual assault, which is obvious, and we predated the nefarious nature of that and like the total condemnation, doesn't matter your political affiliation of that for generations. But they, they did something different in the MeToo movement.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I agree. I think it's actually more than that as well though, is they support. They told young, you know, American males, like, subordinate, like your own, well being in your interest for a woman.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

And what they would say is, and they said this throughout the campaign in 2024, and they, and frankly, they said it when Hillary Clinton was the nominee too. Like, it's her turn. Yeah. Like it's, it's her time. Yeah. Like, and, and what they said about men in 2024 was like a real man. Support supports women.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

About abortion. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's like, think about that as a young man, like somebody who's just graduated college or like you just finished trade school and you're just starting out in your career and you are filled. Maybe if you're a woman, you understand this, but like, if you're a young man, you're filled with like immense economic anxiety.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[Michael Duncan]

You absolutely are. Because you're thinking about like, how much money you have to make and not only just make for yourself, but like, how am I going to support a family? How am I going to raise children, like, where can I buy a house?

[Josh Holmes]

But also the whole courting process of getting married or dating in the first. All of those things is entirely defined if you're a man.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

So, but, but by your ability to do it.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. So if you're a young man and there's a political party who's saying you only matter in the context that you are supporting a woman.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

How the fuck would anybody ever vote for that party? Like, you don't matter on your own merits and what you do and what you provide, none of that matters.

[Josh Holmes]

So, but then think about.

[Unknown Speaker A]

You're told the future is female. There's no role for you here, just your vote.

[Josh Holmes]

They straight.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Unless it's trend raping one of those women, then they're allowed to stay. This is, this is exactly what Democrats want. There is a dichotomy on their side where they, where they treat some men some way and other men the other way. And I'm telling you right up until.

[Josh Holmes]

The point where they thought that 25% of black American men were going to support Donald Trump, in which case they're the misogynists.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, right. They're the problem.

[Josh Holmes]

They are the problem. And all of this is political is my point. And they thought they made a calculation somewhere in the mid 2000 teens that whatever problem that they had and they had bled out with white American men like it was 60% plus that were gone from the Democratic Party. And their, their solution to it wasn't. All right, let's figure out how to position policies that benefit everybody, like the Republicans. The way we think about this is like you don't deal with silos of people. You deal with people who are economic classes or whatever, and you try to provide solutions that would benefit more than just like one thing. Way Democrats think about it is that they're like siloing off women. Siloing off Hispanics.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Divide and conquer.

[Josh Holmes]

Siloing off.

[Unknown Speaker A]

They've always been divide and conquer.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but they deposit little chits into each bucket and pretend like that's the way to build a coalition. So like they made a decision the mid 20 teens, where it was like, if we just over index if we can bring women to 60, it negates men because as a percent of the voting population, they are the majority population and we can actually win all these elections. And it almost doesn't matter by state. Like, if you look at swing states, it's very, very similar in that regard and that you have majority women who vote as compared to men. And so like, their theory was a theory, but then they executed upon it whether it was the whole MeToo movement. Remember they ran Al Franken out for taking a picture of a woman 20 years prior where he had hands, not even on a woman, but like hovering over, hovering over her breasts. They made him resign as a senator as a result, in the height of the MeToo movement. So they were like committed to the bit. They were ready to get rid of like a rising star in their party, a Saturday Night Live character who had real media star power in order to execute upon this mission that men are a lower class, they're a second class, they're not somebody who we need to make a political case to. In an effort to try to consolidate as many women as you possibly could. What they didn't, I think understand is that like, I don't know, there's an awful lot of married women out there. There's an awful lot of well adjusted women, if you're married or not, who interact with men on a pretty frequent basis, whether in a corporate culture, in like a, you know, a ymca. Yeah, like they just understand men and women, they're different, but they understand and appreciate the differences and know that you kind of need both in order to have a civilization.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, there's a lot of them. We managed to find four of them.

[Josh Holmes]

Right?

[Michael Duncan]

You know? Right. There's a lot of them.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, there's a lot of them out there. And then if you look at where they took that to, they were willing to run it to the end of the earth before the politics overwhelmed them. And there was a whole new generation of young men who I guarantee as like 17 year olds in the mid 20 teens had to have a conversation with mom and dad about what it's like going to college and that you are not afforded the benefit of the doubt. Don't do anything stupid. They had to say to them like, don't hook up with random girls. Don't do. Because the likelihood of somebody, if somebody says that you were aggressive or you were a rapist or you were a sexual assaulter or you were all of these things, your life is over whether it happened or not. And they were aided and abetted every fucking second of that. And you can't get out from underneath that is my point. You can't. I don't care how many focus groups or 20 million or $120 million you spend doing it. That conversation happened to an entire generation of young men where they were not afforded the benefit. There is no justice for them is what they were told. And they were told rightly. If you had good parents at that time, they were told, you can't do it, dude. There is no justice in this country for you.

[Unknown Speaker C]

You know, and it goes beyond like, it goes even younger than like college guys and hookups and everything. It's like in high school, these guys would go to school every single day and be told you were the bad guy. You are the worst thing on this planet. You need to apologize because you Walked into this classroom this morning, and you are who you are. And that has turned off so many dudes in this country. And they're like, wait a minute, what did I do? I didn't do anything. Like, okay, well, they were shown. Did I get here, like, a minute late? No, no, I was on time. Like, what did I do wrong? And, like, I've talked to buddies who have sons in high school over the last, you know, during the Biden years, and they're like, you know, he comes home and he's like, dad. Everybody sort of attacks me. He's like, I don't think I really did anything. I'm not. I'm not. Like, I sat in the back of the classroom and made jokes. I'm pretty sure smug did the exact same thing. And I think both of you guys probably did something similar. Although I wonder. I think Duncan may have sat in the front. The front row.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I went to Arizona State. Johnny, you know what the answer is?

[Unknown Speaker C]

I know the answer to this. And we made jokes, and it was, you know, part of the thing. But, like, these guys were scared, silent because they were told they're nothing. And they're like, wait a minute, not nothing. And that's the thing is an American.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I'm part of this. They were told that they're the problem and to stay silent.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right?

[Unknown Speaker A]

They were told, don't speak up. I mean, the way that they just attacked men for a decade of being like, you are the problem. You're the cause of slavery in this country. You're the cause of inequality in this country. You've had everything handed to you. You could be a guy who's grown up in poverty in the middle of this country, like J.D. vance. And you were told, well, you're a Nazi, and you caused all the problems that our society faces, and you should get nothing. And we will give every possible opportunity and leg up to everyone to compete against you. Vote for us.

[Josh Holmes]

It makes no sense. But at the same time, it's just. As a political professional, this isn't a value statement at all. But, like, the largest segment is still straight white men. It just is. So if, like, they were begging for this problem, they were begging for it. They thought that they could commoditize a message in trying to run up the score with certain segments. And, by the way, also just assuming monolithic support out of the African American community.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right, exactly. It's not just straight white men. It's regular old dudes. There are a lot of black guys who are in this exact same Boat.

[Josh Holmes]

They're like, wait a minute, whatever, guys.

[Unknown Speaker A]

So that's the thing is when all, all these Latino men came out for Trump, like, so Latino men are white supremacists. Oh my God, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the way that they rolled. But so as a political thing, like it was begging to happen. Like they were at some point going to feel the backlash of everything that they created in the teens. And then they moved to dei and as you mentioned, it was a predominantly women run experiment. It was like the next gen of what they established in me too. After everybody found out that it was a corporate run, corrupt Hollywood made organization that basically paid themselves for trying to like point the finger at a whole bunch of people who weren't guilty of the crimes that they were, they had committed. And they like hold up Harvey Weinstein as if that like, like ground beef penis was like, you know, some. No. If you actually cared about women, knowing where the MeToo movement came for derived by a publicity outfit in Hollywood, you'd have blown the whistle on that 25 years ago, but you didn't.

[Michael Duncan]

Where were all the stories about the agents who sent those women to his hotel room?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, and it didn't care a little bit about anything.

[Michael Duncan]

We didn't actually cover any of that. We just decided that men were evil.

[Josh Holmes]

And like the thing that I keep stumbling upon you get back to when you read shit like this is like, you know what the biggest thing that would help Democrats is? Meeting a real man. Meeting a real man. Right. Somebody who takes care of their family, somebody who thinks every day about how to protect their friends and family, to earn a living, to try to give back to their community, to be a real man. The kind of person that our fathers taught us to be. They haven't done that. Right. And so many people. And look, this isn't a critique of everybody who's involved in the Democratic Party. I don't want to be a blanket thing, but so many pieces of the Democratic Party just haven't experienced that. They don't have it. You know, I mean, you can see it. I know it because we deal with it. And you know it because you see their names in the paper and you realize, you know, they're difficult stories, that they've, why they've landed where they are. But like maybe just spend a little bit of time with a real dude, ultimately understand what it is that they care about.

[Michael Duncan]

But the problem of the Democratic Party is the people in the Democratic Party who are the most normal, are the most quiet.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Ultimately that's the Problem. I know them. You know them. We've met these people who are Democrats. They're afraid, who are very fucking normal.

[Josh Holmes]

Because they know the base of the party is a bunch of activists who hate men.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. And so they just go along to get along and they shut up.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep. I mean, that is the reality that we live under with this Democratic Party. There's not a fucking PowerPoint in the world or $20 million that can reverse any of that.

[Michael Duncan]

No, keep doing it. More PowerPoints, more money, more grant requests, spend it all.

[Unknown Speaker C]

That's the right conclusion.

[Josh Holmes]

I just keep thinking in my head, like, what does it do look like that presented this?

[Unknown Speaker C]

Oh, you know, you know, like, you know, you know, you know, the dark rimmed glasses.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep. Yeah. He's like the caricature of the Obama boy.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't think he's a football fan.

[Josh Holmes]

He doesn't know ball.

[Michael Duncan]

Know ball.

[Josh Holmes]

He doesn't know ball.

[Michael Duncan]

Does not know ball.

[Josh Holmes]

Anyway, as Democrats problems pile up, the solutions get worse and worse. When we come back, we're going to tell you about an idea so bad it could only come from the libs and at Politico, the shadow government.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I can't wait for this.

[Josh Holmes]

This is another one we got tagged in a lot. The shadow government. Politico has taken it upon themselves to identify who a shadow democratic government would be if they ever had the opportunity to get power. You're not gonna believe this. You can't wait to hear what the fellows say right after this.

[Dick Durbin]

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

[Unknown Speaker C]

Hardworking Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done. Now is the time to unleash our.

[Josh Holmes]

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

[Unknown Speaker C]

And full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so as we mentioned before the break, Politico took it upon themselves every year. Helpful, just they always provide. And they thought, well, there's not a lot going on this week, so we might as well provide what we feel like would be the next Democratic cabinet.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I remember when Trump supporters ahead of his reelection in 2024 would like post who, who's our favorite option for his cabinet. And I feel like this is what the Democrats supporters of Politico are doing right now.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like a very cringe version of like the Avengers.

[Josh Holmes]

If it was clickbait, like it was just a generate. It's genius stuff. And like, you know, there is an element of that. They do have that capability at Politico. So this, this could be that. But it is, I mean, strategically absolutely brilliant. So let me just read a couple of different intros and then we'll get into the cast of characters. We've selected some, some that we'd like to highlight as Democrats cast about for a strategy to thwart President Donald Trump's agenda, rebrand their party and take back power. Senator Alyssa Slotkin recently offered one intriguing idea. Build a shadow cabinet. Oh, well, it's nice that a woman who's been in the Senate for all six minutes has got the solutions to their party's problems.

[Unknown Speaker A]

But she goes to pause for one second. Democrat senators are now assignment editors for Politico. Yeah, they're totally hilarious. I know, like, you know, article I want you to write at Politico. Here you go. And they're like done like, you know what?

[Josh Holmes]

Great idea.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, Smug. They always have been assigned editors.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's the funny thing. Always has been.

[Josh Holmes]

Anyway, the shadow cabinet is a vision by the Michigan Democrat in an interview with Politico. Could be composed of the ranking members of congressional committees who could take on the lead in challenging the Trump administration. It's a common feature of opposition politics abroad. That could be a way for Democrats to flood the media zone and deliver coordinated responses to Trump's most wild maneuvers. I love it. Wild maneuvers, right? They're like somehow the Democrats are the ones that have like the between the 40s deal. It's like forcing you all to get rid of your gas powered car is somehow the kind of the 50 yard line and like what Trump has proposed about like, I don't know, giving Americans tax breaks and evening trade deals and stuff. That's wild.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, Republicans are the wild ones. Now listen for 800 more words as I describe a fantasy.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, ranking members have their uses. They're good at reclaiming their time and making motions to recommit, but they're not fresh faces who can give Democratic Party a sleek new look. And then they go on.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, not exactly Hemingway, but it'll do for today.

[Josh Holmes]

All Right. So we've picked a few that we find absolutely fascinating. The first one, Secretary of Homeland Security recall. This is a principal outfit that is designed to keep our borders secure, American homeland safe. It was created after 911 to ensure that there was continuity in both the intel agencies and in law enforcement to make sure that anybody who is domestic within this country didn't pose this country a threat. You can go as far back as like Oklahoma city. Not just 9 11, it's Oklahoma City. And then now the recent border crisis. Like that's the, the whole idea for the Department of Homeland Security.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, I mean, and you know, a lot of libertarians don't love the Department of Homeland Security because the, the general deal is that we normies are like, okay, I'll give up a few of my personal liberties because the government is going to. Well, listen to me. Because the government is going to try to keep us safe. And now Democrats have an idea of who the best person to keep us safe would be. It's an illegal immigrant, Gisele Fetterman.

[Josh Holmes]

So this is the wife of Senator John Fetterman, who's become highly controversial figure as Politico describes it. And I should just say the reason he's become highly controversial is because he didn't support Hamas.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

They don't like that.

[Josh Holmes]

If you look at the voting record of John Fetterman, it is indistinguishable from Chuck Schumer.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah. Straight left.

[Josh Holmes]

And like the distinction is he speaks out in saying that like, I don't know, October 7th was a pretty bad idea. Israel is a generation wide ally in a very dangerous place. And like terrorism isn't something we support. Controversial, Very controversial. Anyway, his wife, less controversial because she is in fact an illegal immigrant to this country.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's the thing is like this is at the beating heart of the Democrat Party is they see every function of government as a way to just subvert law and order, instill their ideology. They're like, who controls the border? How about an illegal immigrant? Like that's actually their thinking. That's insane.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right, Right. She's going to give a pilot's license to every Saudi. Like you get a toy and a Happy Meal.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my God, pilot's license. I love that. So they go on to explain how his support for Israel has raised concerns about whether he's fit to serve within the Democratic Party. But they acquit all that by saying his wife has no such baggage. Yeah, no such baggage. And a compelling figure in her own right. An Undocumented immigrant who came from Brazil when she was a child. Giselle married John soon after he became mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. So obviously, obviously very qualified to serve as the Secretary of Homeland.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah. That's your first thought. You know, you think Michael Cheritov, Giselle Fetterman, you know, the chain of custody.

[Josh Holmes]

There is Tom Ridge Chertoff, Giselle Federer. It makes. It makes total sense if you think about it. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just funny to me that, like, they're outside the box thinking, and all of this in this shadow cabinet is like, you know, how are we going to, like, expand the tent? And it's like, well, we're going to. There's this. There's this senator who's being real uppity about Hamas. We don't like that. So we're his wife. So his wife. His wife is going to be DHS secretary in our shadow cabinet. Like that. Like, that is their way of, like, expanding the tent, this Democratic senator's wife. Like, that's how far they're willing to go beyond their own biases.

[Josh Holmes]

And, like, what do you. What do you think? I don't know. What are her liabilities? I don't know. She is an illegal immigrant.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So naturally, we'll put her in charge of the border.

[Michael Duncan]

So fucking crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

But it gets worse. That was like the cherry.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. There's other.

[Unknown Speaker C]

There's other ones.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah.

[Dick Durbin]

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[Unknown Speaker C]

Okay, folks, time to sound the alarm. Trump's big, beautiful tax cut is coming down to the wire in Congress. And my friends at Americans for Prosperity want your help to get it across the finish line. If the bill doesn't pass, the average American family is looking at a $1,500 tax hike. Americans for Prosperity says not gonna happen. Right now, some members of Congress are getting very shaky with every special interest in D.C. pounding on their doors. But AFP thinks it's time for hardworking Americans to do some pounding of their own. So AFP and its grassroots army is already out there pushing back on crazy ideas like raising tax rates and supporting the congressmen who want to cut taxes. AFP is the only organization I know that can bring this kind of grassroots pressure to bear. If you want to join the fight to Protect Prosperity, visit ProtectProsperity.com to help Trump get his big, beautiful bill. That's ProtectProsperity.com.

[Josh Holmes]

This is my favorite. Letitia James.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Oh, boy.

[Josh Holmes]

Attorney General.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

And listen to how they describe all this.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I can't wait.

[Josh Holmes]

Perhaps the most effective Democrats in the country now are the 22 Democratic state attorneys general tying up Trump's executive orders in court. But only one of them can say she won a civil fraud case against Trump family business with a $450 million judgment. And that's New York's Letitia James. That makes James uniquely qualified to argue that Trump is abusing the office of president to enrich himself while destabilizing the global economy for everyone else. Holy shit.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, she was so successful. He became President, United States.

[Unknown Speaker C]

But, I mean, but. But they. They. They put her on a pedestal. Like, it's the. It's the New Deal.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker C]

You know, like, she's fdr. She won a civil case with a stilted jury against Donald Trump.

[Michael Duncan]

They took a misdemeanor, and they chopped it up into, like, 31 felony charges. And she, like, had lawfare against Donald.

[Josh Holmes]

Trump and then had a banana Republic.

[Michael Duncan]

Court convicted, and then he still becomes president. And they're like, yes, and not. She's the one.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, she's it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

And not for nothing, but this is the woman who wants illegals to be able to vote in New York. The New York court. I'm full of libs. The New York court struck her down, but on the heels of an illegal immigrant as our ha. Or our Department of Homeland Security Secretary and Attorney General. Who wants to let illegals vote.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker C]

You understand the conspiracy.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like what Smug was saying earlier. It's like, key part of the job is being unwilling to enforce the law.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yep.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Well, I mean, this is. But she's not without her own legal challenges. The way that they frame it is hysterical. The Trump administration has responded in seeming retaliatory fashion.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, no.

[Josh Holmes]

You mean there's politicizing?

[Michael Duncan]

Are they doing the law fair?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God. Opening up a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into James for suspicion of mortgage fraud, which is precisely what she did to the Trump administration. I mean, this is. Look, if you were going to try to create in another world a Democratic administration that's worth a shit, she'd be the single last person that you would ever. Because this is a person who, by virtue of Even mentioning her is associated with the attorney general job would lose confidence in more than half of the country that justice will ever be done. And that targeting of who you are based on your political affiliation was not only coming, but was like pre baked into the nomination itself.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, there was this whole thing in the first Trump administration that he was violating my norms. My norms. My norms were being violated. Right. And so when Trump geared up to run again in 2024, the Dem sort of like, did a preemptive strike of violating every norm possible. And now, boy, golly, they're shocked. They're shocked that the norms are still being violated.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Shocked.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like, how does that medicine taste? Your own flavor.

[Josh Holmes]

Does he have any take on.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Well, that's the thing is. So like Duncan said, they try to roll this out to make sure he couldn't be present. He wins anyways, number one. That shows you that this is a loser, that they're not the one. Second of all their own corruption was the reason why people rejected it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker A]

After the fact is, when we learn about this case against her for mortgage fraud at the time, the banks, everyone says, like, no, Trump paid everything on top. We don't know why we're here. Literally, JP Morgan was in that courtroom being like, no, Trump paid everything. There's no problem here. We don't know why we're here today. And still she gets a kangaroo court willing to convict President Trump. Everyone, all the voters saw the corruption that was there. That's part of the reason why they voted for Trump. This just goes again with their fantasy that the Dems have of like, no, we weren't wrong. People are just dumb.

[Josh Holmes]

Just more lawfare is what's necessary. The next one I love, EPA Administrator Bill Nye, the Science.

[Michael Duncan]

Hell, yeah. Hell yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Because, you know, I mean, the lesson of all this is you just need a little star power. Somebody who's shown up on TV despite the fact that they know fucking nothing. Here is this guy. How to convey the urgency of the climate crisis to the average American. Stop.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Full stop.

[Josh Holmes]

What? What? How to convey the climate. I mean, you got a lot of problems in this world. The climate crisis is not one of them.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And like, we've gone. We've gone to show, like, Al Gore.

[Michael Duncan]

We saw him on the scissor stairs.

[Josh Holmes]

Wrote it, wrote an entire book about how the planet would be done.

[Michael Duncan]

The whole documentary.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah. Didn't they give him an Oscar for that?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. No snow on Mal Kilimanjaro.

[Josh Holmes]

You're breathing air right now. I mean, for Those of us who are a little bit older, we live through global cooling, acid rain, ozone layer. Ozone layer, and now this. And it's like, I don't know, the temperatures have changed like less than a degree in our entire lifetimes. And they're telling me that like, I don't know, we need to.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah, they said we'd be dead like 10 times over by now.

[Michael Duncan]

It is perfect though. It's, it's sort of West Wing brain. It is on the left to be like, I know what we need for. We need a TV guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

He can relate to people with comedy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Neither Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize winning wonky earnestness nor AOC's energetic utopianism. And that's the way that they like. It's not. There's not a quote. There's not a quote.

[Michael Duncan]

It's very funny.

[Josh Holmes]

This is just the way it's been characterized. It's not, it's not a quote unquote utopianism. It's actual, just utopianism. So AOC's world, that's utopia as far as politico is concerned, has done the trick. Why not give Bill Science Bill the Bill Nye the science guy a try. The bow tied engineer turned comedy writer turned children's TV host. Now here's has a long married science.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Here's where I'd like to stop you because why I would like Bill Nye to be nominated for AOC's EPA administrator is so that the United States Senate can have all of his files so we can learn where we going with who this guy is.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, hold on.

[Unknown Speaker C]

What are you suggesting? I think we need to learn who this science man actually is.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you've got your thoughts.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I do. I think that after paying his paycheck to PBS for all of these years, the American people deserve to know exactly what's behind the curtain on Bill Nye. And we won't know unless AOC has the courage to nominate him as her EPA administrator.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't wait to find out off air what he's talking about.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I know. He's being very vague.

[Josh Holmes]

He is.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like a smug thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it is.

[Michael Duncan]

And his jaw was open. He was like, I don't know where.

[Unknown Speaker A]

He'S going with this Bill Nye on the island.

[Michael Duncan]

When you're sure when only one way to shock when you're shocking so you know it's good.

[Unknown Speaker C]

There's only one way to learn and that's a thorough investigation brought forth by the United States Senate.

[Michael Duncan]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

This one I feel a Little bit conflicted about. Because I absolutely love her. And although I assume she's a Democrat, like, I don't feel like in this day and age even she would admit she could make a living saying the things that she says.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In a Democratic administration, because she, you know, like, you tell one dick joke, well, that's.

[Michael Duncan]

It's over.

[Josh Holmes]

It's cancelable material. They say Nikki Glaser for Small Business Administration administrator. So Nikki Glaser, as you recall, she did the Tom Brady rose.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Probably the highlight.

[Michael Duncan]

Good content.

[Josh Holmes]

It was great. If you've ever. If you watched it, you laughed your asses off. If you have a little bit of a sensitivity to, like, I don't know.

[Michael Duncan]

Put the kids to bed first.

[Josh Holmes]

The more blue humor. Like, you're not gonna find it that funny, but for those of us who live in this world, like, we think it's absolutely hysterical. I think she's very funny. Almost everything she does is completely hilarious. But they've all of a sudden commandeered her and she said, they say, hear me out on this one. What is a comedian but a small business entrepreneur and a traveling content salesperson? Of course, Nikki Glaser's value to the Democratic shadow cabinet is not her deep knowledge of how government regulations impact small businesses. Of course not, because he wouldn't want to actually look at that. That do affect small business. I mean, that's just what they've done for years. So, like, that's a prerequisite. At some level, not knowing what you're talking about is actually prerequisite.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just funny that you'd pick a comedian to lead the Small Business Administration. That's just objectively funny. And like, I wonder if, like, maybe the author of this piece just like, likes Nikki Glaser as a comedian.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Just to.

[Josh Holmes]

Tossed it.

[Michael Duncan]

Just tossed it in. Like, like, what it reminds me of is, do you know that Dave chappelle thing, the 911 Dave chappelle thing, where they're like, you know, I was watching CNN on 9 11. Let's watch CNN on 9 11. And like, suddenly they're like, Next we have Ja Rule. Ja Rule, what are your thoughts? Yeah, it's like, bro, we don't need Ja. Get somebody serious on here.

[Josh Holmes]

It's completely hilarious. But the whole thing, it goes to show just how unmoored these people. Segment one, segment two, you take the both of them. They're doing PowerPoint presentations in luxury hotels with a $20 million bounty, trying to get more to figure out how to talk to men as if they were like zebras. And then the second piece is like, I know, let's get a bunch of TV people, names you've recognized. And then a politician's wife, a politician who we deem incapable of doing the job because he disagrees with us on one issue. His wife, because she's an illegal immigrant, should do the border policy, right? I mean, dude, this is the modern day Democratic Party. I mean, what more needs to be said?

[Unknown Speaker C]

Nothing.

[Josh Holmes]

It just is what it is.

[Michael Duncan]

Give us $20 million. We'll give you advice every week.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it fails on situation.

[Unknown Speaker C]

You know, there are so many others. I encourage everybody to read this article. They got Katie Hobbs, the governor of Arizona, in there for department of education.

[Michael Duncan]

Hilarious.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Arizona is like 45th. And all these rankings.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God, dude, he's got a.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Whole host of insane takes. You gotta read the article. Please do not miss it.

[Josh Holmes]

Here's the thing, though. As mug, as you always say, a conspiracy theory. It's just. It's spoiler alert. It's a spoiler alert.

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's all it is.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a spoiler. So, like, you look at this, and we laugh, and we laugh, except if they ever get their hands on power.

[Unknown Speaker C]

You know what they would do.

[Josh Holmes]

In which case, you know, Letitia James, she's coming for you. It's brutal, but it's true. Listen, our question of the day encapsulates all of this. And the question of the day is, what does a PowerPoint say in the Dem pitch meeting on how to appeal to men? Like what? Like. And add some color, because you people are the most creative people on the planet. The way you do this, it improves our week immensely. By reading the prose, like, reading how you've crafted. I want to know what the dude or woman looks like who's presenting the PowerPoint presentation to a bunch of rich liberals on how to talk to American men? Like, who is it? What do they look like? What are they saying? What does it say in the charts? Like, I want to know all of it.

[Michael Duncan]

I want all of it. Honestly, whenever we do these, when I wake up in the morning and I'm still in bed, I'll open the YouTube and I'll start reading them, and it just brightens my day.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, put your back into this. This one. Put your back into this one, because this is. This is the one that actually, like, fuels us for.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I can't wait.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I love it. Okay, so everybody's favorite segment here in the ruthless variety program. Your comments from the last episode. We asked A question about the big beautiful bill, when you thought you could see it come to fruition, when, when Congress could act, actually get this thing done. We laid out all the various metrics that you could base a decision on and this is what you've come up with to do this. We always start with the voice first.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Comment comes from Dr. Thunder. Dr. Thunder writes, I believe there will be intense pressure to have it signed by July the fourth.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Makes sense.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, if you talk to House Republicans, this is what they say. They want an Independence Day signing. If you talk to Senate Republicans, they have a different view. So Dr. Thunder, very well educated on that. Comment two, please. Drunks.

[Michael Duncan]

Comment two gives us the Senate side of this. This is from Biggest. Biggest Rights. The Senate will do its usual who's your daddy? Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy Chant and get it done at the last possible microsecond. President Trump will sign around Labor Day.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Sounds like a source from House leadership.

[Josh Holmes]

Or maybe just somebody who spent a little time in government. Biggest good comment. Comment 3smuggles.

[Unknown Speaker A]

This comment is from Helene L. She writes, I predict the wee hours after adjournment in August after Jim Jordan, Mark Wayne Mullen and Nancy Mace crush Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Tim Peters in an Anacostia river mud wrestling contest.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my God, that's a prediction.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Alas, I predict any tax deduction against Social Security will be stripped from the final bill. Infuriating because I've been paying taxes on my earnings for over half a century. JD Will have to cast a tie breaking vote in the Senate. Good episode, guys. Another banger of a show.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Man, I love her.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you guys notice? We didn't plan on this, but I gotta pose the question. The week before they, they broke, Mace was doing this big hearing on. I don't know exactly what the topic was. It was basically like people try to sexually exploit people and she, for like 24 hours in the run up to a hearing, she was like, I'm gonna show a naked picture of myself as evidence as to how this is such a problem. And everybody was like, no way. Like this is really gonna happen. And then they got to the hearing and like it was just like a blurred out, distant like a, like a.

[Michael Duncan]

Ring camera inside a house or something. Yeah, I think she has some dispute with a ex boyfriend or an ex fiance or something.

[Josh Holmes]

Like she's been on the show before and like we talked to her from time to time and had our disagreements, had our agreements and like I find her to be like a colorful figure in politics, no question about it. But I saw this big push to, like, get everybody to sort of tune in to what she was doing by. She was like, I'm gonna have naked pictures of me. And then like, well, she didn't have naked pictures of her. And like, I was like, is that genius or.

[Michael Duncan]

I think it's genius. I think she brought attention to the issue.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, pretty smart.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's smart from a marketing standpoint.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

For sure.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Can't go back to the well, though.

[Unknown Speaker C]

But it's, it's par for the course in South Carolina. You got Dabo Swinney who was always like, yeah, watch the Clemson Tigers football team this season. We're going to win. And then they don't win. So I think that this is what you get in South Carolina.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Needs to get more active in the transfer portal.

[Josh Holmes]

A shot at our South Carolina listener. Listen, we love you a lot. Despite what it is that Smash just had to say one thing that we have to cover because this has been a big discussion on the online. Right. That I think we can probably clarify a few things. We'll do it fairly quickly. Elon Musk had a comment on the big beautiful bill, says he's disappointed. And you had a reaction from President Trump that said, I have a lot of reactions. I'm not going to. He basically, like, withdrew. What would be a point of criticism of the criticism in. Because that's, you know, that's what he does. He's a pro. But we've got all of that and we're going to cover it very, very quickly. If you don't mind spaghetti, can we. Do we have that clip?

[Unknown Speaker C]

So, you know, I was like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it.

[Michael Duncan]

And I remind the work that the.

[Unknown Speaker C]

DOGE team is doing.

[Josh Holmes]

I actually thought that when this big beautiful bill came along, I mean, like, everything he's done on Doge gets wiped.

[Michael Duncan]

Out in the first year.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I think.

[Michael Duncan]

I think a bill can be. Can be. Can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it could be both.

[Josh Holmes]

My personal opinion.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Okay, interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

So, listen, it's a valid comment and I understand why the American people are adhering to his concern, but there are some things that you need to understand, and that's the, you know, this is the vegetable part of the program that you need to understand about, A, how government works, B, what you're looking at with a big beautiful bill and Doge cuts and everything else, and how they work together. So what happens during a big beautiful bill is something called reconciliation. Reconciliation allows you to pass fundamental changes to spending and taxing at a, at a maximum level on a majority basis. You get around the whole Senate 60 vote filibuster situation. Republicans have used it incredibly effectively over the last 20 years to reduce taxes, reduce your burden as an American taxpayer. What he's talking about is his disappointment in the deficits that CBO and everything else has projected. Now, Stephen Miller at the White House has tried to reset an awful lot of this, but I just want you to hear from us.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Stephen Miller did a great job explaining.

[Unknown Speaker C]

He did, actually, it was very good.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Super good.

[Josh Holmes]

He did four. First of all, in the context of the bill that you're doing with reconciliation, I understand this is like arcane procedural issues, but you can't have a change in discretionary spending. Discretionary spending is anything that's not Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, entitlement programs, interest on our national debt, which as we've discussed is like 75% of the budget. It's a massive, like completely ridiculous part that, you know, people who say that they're interested in cutting their deficits and don't talk about that are not serious people. So if you're a deficit hawk and you haven't mentioned that component, like you, you're not a serious person, you can't discuss that seriously. What Elon is talking about is entirely in the discretionary spending. And that's what Congress appropriates annually in our budget bills, appropriations process, as they call it. That's done at the end of September. Now that is subjected to a 60 vote threshold. And so the balance there is always trying to figure out how many Democrats it takes to get to 60 to try to pass something over the finish line. Now I think he's made a very persuasive case to the American people. Like trans studies in Tanzania ought to be defunded. We're going to see that play out. If Democrats want to make that the hill to die on. Like there's a political ramification that comes in it. But you can't codify the things that he found in Doge in the context of the big beautiful bill, because it's actually not possible. There is no discretionary spending reduction in a reconciliation process. Now if you're worried about deficits, I'll say two things. Talk about the entitlement programs. You do something like chain CPI. I'll explain that another day. It reduces like 10, 15% of your long term 10 year window. Deal. You do you make changes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? Maybe raise the age by a year, maybe do some means testing in that regard. Like there's many things that you could do to fundamentally change what it is that we're looking at from a deficit standpoint. This administration in this House Republican Conference decided they don't want to talk about that. They want to talk about Medicaid to a certain extent. And I think they made a very good case. Chip Roy probably foremost amongst them, talking about how, I don't know, does it make a lot of sense that you have millions of illegal immigrants on the Medicaid program? No, it doesn't. And so that because it's a non discretionary expenditure fits in the category of things that we're talking about. And they made a real reduction in that. We'll see how it plays out in the Senate. But like ultimately that is. This is what they can talk about on that. Secondly, if you're worried about the deficit number that like the Congressional Budget Office came up with in the context of maintaining your current tax rates, you're fucking nuts.

[Michael Duncan]

You're accepting the Democratic premise, right?

[Unknown Speaker C]

You are.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the leftist argument that has been happening since the beginning of time that somehow economic growth as a result of lower tax rates is somehow not a relevant part of the topic of discussion in terms of ultimately what the federal revenue comes in.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. You're just, you're stealing money the government deserves.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, right.

[Michael Duncan]

No, that's what they believe.

[Unknown Speaker C]

That's it.

[Michael Duncan]

There's an entire industry in this town dedicated to taking your money and explaining why the government deserves it.

[Josh Holmes]

First and foremost amongst them, the Congressional Budget Office, who can tell you like super dynamic scoring and a whole bunch of range of issues, except they can't take the 30 year history of tax reduction in America and extrapolate out what happens in the economy as a result of it. They can't do it. They're like money in, money out, money in, money out. There were like three and a half trillion dollar debt is the 2017 tax cuts. Except for in 2018 and 19 you had actually more revenue to the federal government.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

As a result of the tax cuts that you did in 2017.

[Michael Duncan]

Don't tell them that. They hate when you tell that. You point that out, people get very mad.

[Josh Holmes]

They get mad. I mean they call it like the Laffer Curve is, you know, colloquially for those of us who've done this for a living, what it is. But it's a management fact, like it just is what it is. So don't accept that. Like if you're concerned about deficits, don't be concerned about this bill. Cuz that is not, this is not the deficit issue. If you're concerned about deficits in perpetuity, well then have a conversation with the President, have a conversation with Everybody else. About 75% of the budget that you said was off limits here because that is the driver of deficits. It's not like the. You can do everything that Elon, we.

[Michael Duncan]

Should make that statutory law.

[Josh Holmes]

Should.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. But that isn't Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. So it's two different things.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Is the point. And I think the like you as a listener deserve that explanation because it, it helps clarify. I saw a lot of traffic this week or were like how did they not codify the Doge cuts?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, they should have. Like, like here's my argument. One pushback. Pushback I'll give you is you can't spend the first hundred days of the Trump administration talking about this stuff that we pointed out and not make that statutory law. Like, like you should have done that before you did the rest of it and just made that thing fucking happened. Yeah. Because what it feels like is a bait and switch on your own voters. I think they should have just done it and made it law and cut these programs. And I understand the trans studies in Tanzania doesn't bend the cost curve of our long, long term deficits, but just do it first as a good faith exercise with the American people and the taxpayers of this country. Like that's what they should have done.

[Josh Holmes]

I think if you're. But I agree with that. Except the point is as a, the question was posed was it was entirely related to the big Beautiful.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I, Yeah, correct. And it never could have been part of that. But, but, but from a messaging standpoint and from a public relations standpoint of what you're trying to communicate to the voters, it just looks bad to point all this stuff out and then be like we're going to have this huge beautiful bill and it's not a part of it. Like education of the electorate aside from an optic standpoint, like make good on those things that you found and then let's get to the rest.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sympathetic, that's my opinion, very sympathetic to that. But point Scott Pelly, noted CBS journalist, somebody that many of us grew up with, maybe not like the Mike Wallace territory or the Harry Reasoner territory of like hall of Fame.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Charles Coral.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Living up to those guys. But his voice is good. It'll fool you.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So let's play this clip that he had at a commencement speech.

[Unknown Speaker C]

But in this moment, this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. And insidious fear is reached teaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts. Oh, really?

[Michael Duncan]

Is he describing DEI speak?

[Unknown Speaker A]

That's right.

[Unknown Speaker C]

In America, power can rewrite history with grotesque false narratives.

[Michael Duncan]

Crt.

[Unknown Speaker C]

They can make criminals heroes.

[Josh Holmes]

George Floyd.

[Michael Duncan]

George Floyd.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Heroes, Criminals.

[Unknown Speaker A]

The police, cops.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Men and women. This is amazing.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, here we go.

[Unknown Speaker C]

There's nothing new in this.

[Michael Duncan]

This is the turn.

[Josh Holmes]

There's nothing new in this.

[Michael Duncan]

He's Hitler.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, there is something new.

[Michael Duncan]

What a novel concept. What a newsman.

[Unknown Speaker C]

You know what? It's. It's in the fall usually that I hear his voice on a Sunday night and I think, oh, NFL is over for the week weekend. We gotta get back to work on Monday. But now it's the springtime, we don't even get the NFL, and we still have to listen to his bullshit.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what's so. What's so crazy to me? And I think this goes to the point that we've talked about with the journo community all along, which is there are people with great talent, Scott Pel is one of them, that have done incredible stories, they've done incredible acts of journalism. They've been a part of a. A growth of, like, magazine style, 60 Minutes journalism and doing important stories and a whole range of things. But then when you take the mask off in this current day and age, they tell you who they are.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

And everything that they've said before, it becomes a question mark for me. You know, like, if this is the. If the point of view of Scott Pelley is that America is under attack because we don't have dei, which, by the way, if you weren't following along closely, what he spelled out there in his critiques was dei.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And saying that a rejection of DEI was somehow anti American and an attack on our way of life. That is the furthest thing from journalism that I can ever imagine.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it's also the upside down because it's what infected, as he said, like our schools and our businesses and our society is this dei, is this thinking, this pressuring of people to stay silent, you know, because they Were going to upset somebody who's in this hierarchy, this ecosystem that controls our way of life. Like, that's the thing that I find most funny about it, is like, that entire speech could have been given by some conservative politician during the Biden era. And now he's going to claim. He is claiming free speech is dead in America. And he says that proudly into a microphone. Think about how fucking insane that is.

[Unknown Speaker A]

So ridiculous.

[Josh Holmes]

As a guy who's got a weekly show. Yeah, we're saying whatever the fuck he wants.

[Michael Duncan]

It's under attack. No, it's under attack, Josh. I say into this microphone because I.

[Josh Holmes]

Because I am under critique for what it is that I've done.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Means that the First Amendment of itself is gone.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm being held accountable. And I hate that.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I feel so bad for those kids at Wake Forest. Four years of getting their asses kicked by NC State, and then Scott Pelley rolls up and gives you this, hell, yeah. When does it end?

[Josh Holmes]

Get him a wolf pack.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Holmes]

A hard wolf pack take. I like that. Smug.

[Unknown Speaker A]

How did it get?

[Josh Holmes]

It's pretty good. But listen, that's not all. You also had Jonathan Capehart.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Now recall, I hate this dude so.

[Josh Holmes]

Much that our good friend Hugh Hewitt, who'd been a longtime contributor to the Washington Post, finally had it last fall.

[Unknown Speaker A]

So good.

[Josh Holmes]

They were doing one of those bizarre zoom things where they're trying to have the editorial board of the Washington Post talk about a range of issues, and then anytime you brought up anything the least bit center right shouted him down and pretended like he was like an animal. And he was like, I've had it. Do you realize how hard it is to push Hugh Hewitt to a point where he's like, I've had it. This man has made a living dealing with leftists.

[Michael Duncan]

He's the nicest man in politics.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like msnbc. He's done it. NBC, Washington Post.

[Unknown Speaker A]

He's the most honest broker dude.

[Josh Holmes]

But also there are many things that he disagrees with the Trump administration about, and he's never been afraid to discuss it. He is just an honest broker. You get what you get with Hugh Hewitt. Couldn't take it anymore. Walked off set, in large part because Jonathan Capehart, who was managing the conversation, wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise. Well, it turns out it came for Jonathan Capehart.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, no.

[Josh Holmes]

But it was in a sort of disguise because one of his colleagues, Karen Tumulti, could never, ever be confused as a conservative columnist. I mean, this is sort of A run of the mill leftist person.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right. She wrote a column last week in support of California controlling American EV regulations.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, right, right. I mean, this is somebody who's just. Is what? Anyway, he quits the Washington Post over frustrations about his inability.

[Unknown Speaker A]

No, he quit that editorial board. He's still with the Washington Post. He'll still take their money.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh. Oh, is that right? Yeah, it was just the editorial board.

[Michael Duncan]

He's made the courageous decision to do less work.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Unknown Speaker A]

He's like, you're all terrible people and will continue paying me.

[Josh Holmes]

She either. This is the quote that he's got here, which I find absolutely fantastic. I think this is the jump. Right. Because it was all about Joe Biden calling the Georgia Voting Rights act Jim Crow 2.0.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And like the Post, look, left is all. Can get out. But I don't think there's any denying at this point that that was like an overwrought. Ridiculous.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. They moved the All Star Game out of Atlanta as a result. Ridiculous. Insane to say so.

[Josh Holmes]

This guy has a problem with all that. And his quote is, she either couldn't. And he's talking about Karen here. She either couldn't or wouldn't see that I was black, that I came to the conversation with knowledge and history. She could never have that. My worldview, albeit different from hers, was equally valid.

[Michael Duncan]

And it was also completely wrong as. As proven out by election turnout. After that law passed, it went up. So he was wrong. And that's the funniest thing I think in all this is like, I quit. And also I was owned and I was wrong. Like, that's the funniest thing. It's like Jonathan Capehart thinks this is some, like, you know, big moral stand he made. But it also, in this, he's pointing out I decided to quit something over a disagreement I had in which I was wrong.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Can we lay down the facts of this disagreement? The disagreement was that the Washington Post called Biden's description of Jim Crow 2.0 as hyperbolic. They used the word hyperbolic.

[Josh Holmes]

He couldn't have it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

And in his book, Capehart was incensed when she didn't apologize to him for using the word hyperbolic.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, they made, they, they, they made her meet with Reverend Al Sharpton. Like, think about how fucking insane that is.

[Josh Holmes]

The fact that she did it.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, she had to do sensitivity training because she thought Jim Crow 2.0 being hyperbolic was maybe, Maybe she went too far.

[Josh Holmes]

Far.

[Michael Duncan]

I think I whacked.

[Josh Holmes]

What do you think the check was that they paid. That's what I'm saying is like, come in.

[Unknown Speaker A]

This guy, Al Sharpton, has such an amazing business model that he's been running where, like, companies will be like, okay, we have employees fighting each other over some shit. What do we do? You call him in. Reverend Al will show up, he'll listen everybody, he'll say a couple words, he'll cash the check and leave. And then like, you know, corporate can be like, all right, we've done it. Solved.

[Josh Holmes]

We've done it. But that's the situation. But I think it ties everything that we talked about together perfectly before. We get into variety in that you're dealing with a leftist mentality that is a socially acquired mental disease.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

It genuinely is. In this case. You're talking about somebody who fundamentally believes that voter id, the idea that you have to have a personal identification when you vote, is a racist thing and prevents African Americans from participating in the process. Belied by the fact that since they passed this law, you had record African American turnout. Not one, not two, but three cycles in a row.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. It is a social disease because you got a guy, Jonathan Capehart, who is one of the most privileged people in America, who resides at the Washington Post, has every right in the world that most Americans would love to have. Right. You have a direct conduit to the American people. You can say whatever you want. And he says that Karen stripped him of his humanity. Like he's fucking Kunta Kinte.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, like. Like it's absurd, you know, to have an African American in this country compare a voting reform bill to Jim Crow 2.0.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that their views of it?

[Michael Duncan]

It's fucking offensive to the people who actually lived through that.

[Josh Holmes]

It's their views of it. It's not even subjected to a policy that you have sort of first person view of one way or another. It's his views of somebody else's experience.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Of which there was record African American turnout that he thinks he is, in fact enslaved by.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That is the most amazing sickness and indicative of the Democratic Party today that I could anything I could. It's just unbelievable.

[Unknown Speaker C]

It's just ridiculous. The guy is so rich and he. Every time he ties a tie around his neck, it's got a full windsor, you know what I mean? Like the idea that he's this, like, hardscrabble upstart because he's at the Washington Post and Karen Tumulty used the wrong adjective to describe something. Get out of here, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Amazing.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, let's Play a game, fellas. We've got King of the Hill coming at us.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm the defending champion.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I'm back in the game today. I'm gonna take Jennifer Ruby.

[Michael Duncan]

Of course you are. He always does.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, not always. She hasn't played. She hasn't played in a long time.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it's just, you know, critique. Holmes always takes Sherry, my Sherry or Jen Rubin. He takes the all stars.

[Unknown Speaker C]

He does.

[Josh Holmes]

It's unbelievable.

[Michael Duncan]

And I've got defending champion George Conway. I. I believe you're both bailiff and your judge. Right. Ashbrook, let's go ringside.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Once again, it's time for King of the Hill. In the blue corner, fighting from her office that used to be the Washington Post. Among the cats and the hare, former champion Jennifer Brainworms Ruben. And now in the red corner, fighting from a Democrat's dream, and current champion of the world overweight and of council, George Way.

[Michael Duncan]

Wonderful. Great ringside announcement. Well, I have to go first and so spaghetti. I'd like Exhibit number 11, please. All right, so this is George Conway, quote, tweeting Russia today.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Oh, boy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Russia today is. I'll describe it in that. Basically, they're shitting all over Donald Trump. Russia today is because Donald Trump is, you know, pissed off that Putin won't accept a deal with Ukraine and all that sort of stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

State run media.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a state run media. It's funded by the Russian government. George Conway, quote, tweets it and says it's weirdly reassuring to know the Russians think he's as idiotic as we do. Oh, now why this is so funny, why it's funny to all of us and should be funny to all of you, is we've spent the last eight years saying Donald Trump is a Russian agent. Yeah, that's what all of these people believe, but it kind of belies the grift. That is their entire business. And that is the second that Russian today, again, as you pointed out, Holmes, State run media says something against Donald Trump. They're like, now they must be believed. Russia today is correct.

[Unknown Speaker A]

These people believe.

[Michael Duncan]

But they believe in fucking nothing, dude. And it's indicative there in that tweet.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Okay, Ruben.

[Josh Holmes]

You'Re the judge. Okay. I'm gonna just address the man in the robe directly. So Jen Rubin, who hasn't been played for a long time, finds herself on blue sky. She no longer recall.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Now admissible.

[Josh Holmes]

Have admissible.

[Michael Duncan]

That was a landmark decision on the Ruthless Variety program.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. She's re. Blue skied I don't know how they.

[Michael Duncan]

They skeet over there. That's what it's called.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Are you for real?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You have so. God, your culture.

[Michael Duncan]

I've been in deep, dude. I've been behind enemy lines.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So anyway, there was an article about accepting migrants in Europe. Basically.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Which anybody who's had even a remote remedial interest in following the recent history of Europe, like, you know, you get a real problem.

[Michael Duncan]

Counsel, are we going to show the tweet? Bailiff, where are you?

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, hold on. Co counsel is unbelievable. Intervening.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I mean, he's not wrong.

[Josh Holmes]

This is unbelievable.

[Michael Duncan]

Quite the wind up here. It's like a Norm MacDonald joke.

[Josh Holmes]

Let me just tell you. Not pleased at all by the. You got to run some order in this.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Let's try a tweet or a blue sky scheme.

[Josh Holmes]

I'll get to it as soon as you silence co counsel over there. Anyway, she says if.

[Michael Duncan]

What's the exhibit?

[Josh Holmes]

This is exhibit number four. Only if we focus on ripping out the maga menace root and branch will we spare ourselves the horrors that Europeans have experienced over millennia. Perhaps that is why EU countries have consistently chosen center left leaders in the Trump era. They know exactly what is at stake. So here's what makes this thing so brilliant. If you go to the article and you look at it, the argument is that you ought to just open arm, open border everyone. And what we know is a tangible result of what's happened in Germany and in Northern Europe and Ireland and Norway and Sweden and all those places is they're having like this massive revolt. They have huge crime increases and all of this as a result of like open immigration. What she is arguing is that the center left, as she calls it, that is ushered in all of that is the way. And that the idea that you actually have provincial borders, that you have sovereignty in your country is the problem.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know.

[Josh Holmes]

That is a wild, wild take.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Thank you. Thank you, counsel.

[Michael Duncan]

George Conway, Russia spokesperson or it's political scientist Jen Rubin.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it's kind of trite. This is like a global phenomenon. Like that is like, oh, we do Russia now I believe. Russia now I don't. This, this is like it took up.

[Michael Duncan]

Four years of the Trump administration.

[Josh Holmes]

She's arguing straight faced that all of the problems that have tangentially happened as a result of open border policy is something that we ought to replicate if we don't want to be.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know, it feels like we have to.

[Unknown Speaker C]

We have to remember that both of these contestants are former Republicans who Are now larping as libs. And I will tell you that is offensive as George Conway's hypocrisy is on Russia today. Counsel understands the way to this court's heart, which is through the open border. And the idea that.

[Michael Duncan]

Boring.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, listen, what he's doing. I want this court to know I didn't miss it.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm playing the rest of this in protest.

[Josh Holmes]

I won't stand for it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Kangaroo court. Jen Rubin wins round one.

[Josh Holmes]

Probably round two.

[Unknown Speaker A]

All right, round two.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's go to.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Let's go to challenger.

[Michael Duncan]

I fell asleep during that. That's maybe. Maybe that's why he liked it so much.

[Josh Holmes]

This is unbelievable. This court, please. It will not be disrespected. I'm going to go to Exhibit 1. The Dems civil war or directionless stories are crap. They are united versus Trump and heading for successful midterms. After that, the 2028 primaries. The party will chart course. This is non news. Hysterical analysis is why the corporate media is failing. I love that the reason the corporate media is failing is because they're examining the directionalist Democratic party. Well, that is a take.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Amazing.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

They're united. I do think since she's lost her position, the tweets have gotten longer and more analysis focused. It's like she needs an outlet. You know what I mean? Because she doesn't have column inches.

[Unknown Speaker C]

George Conway.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, exhibit number 15, please. Spaghetti. I feel like I'm being put on an unfair clock. That doesn't apply to my co counsel, but that's fine. I mean, George Conway quote tweets breaking news about Trump and you know, his new order on education. Basically, this is the foreign visas into our universities. He quote tweets and says, look, it's all good as long as we keep the visa program for Slovenian nude models. I just love that. Like an attack on the first lady who like, knows like six languages.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I can't.

[Michael Duncan]

He's gonna just. He's gonna do the misogyny.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I can't imagine why he got divorced.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, can't imagine. Tough deal. Nice message to the daughter.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Jen Rubin's ridiculous take was offensive. It's dishonest. She knows exactly what she's writing. She's. She's someone who used to pretend like she was a Republican.

[Josh Holmes]

But nudity is your thing.

[Unknown Speaker C]

But this short bite from George Conway I think wins this round.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

If you get. If you get border policy or nudity in, this judge is going to rule in your favor. And for that I just. I respect the consistency and thank you.

[Michael Duncan]

Pandering. He's pandering is what he's doing.

[Josh Holmes]

You're being.

[Michael Duncan]

We're going to. We're going to skip right to round three. Exhibit number 14.

[Josh Holmes]

Permission to treat counsel as a hostile counsel.

[Michael Duncan]

I am hostile. I'm proudly hostile. Conway 14, please. Spaghetti. The misogyny is not over from George Conway. Here we have him, quote, tweeting or posting an article here about Trump Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. He writes, White House Press secretary Caroline Levitt, who has been nicknamed Bullshit Barbie, is at it again on Thursday. Levitt, who has been caught lying countless times, was nailed again and again and again during a press briefing on Thursday. I think he's working out somewhere. Weird sexual thing, if I'm being quite honest with you.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Council. What is he, quote, tweeting?

[Michael Duncan]

It's an article from new jersey.com.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Can you describe the worst website on the Internet? Can you describe the nature of the article?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I think it was. It's a. A website or a newspaper that was founded by Christopher Columbus and some Italian, I'm sure. And. But yeah, it says AKA BS Barbie. I didn't want to read the entire thing because that's against the rules.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

But I appreciate your commitment.

[Unknown Speaker A]

When like everyone has been like, the only thing you're hearing from credible media, even like left wing media people, is she's incredibly good at it. Like the way she dumped dunked on Yamiche last week. Yeah, everyone knows she's great at it.

[Michael Duncan]

But it's very funny. Dude. There is definitely misogyny in this country when it applies to consensus conservative women. Oh, like, like what they actually face in media for the same reason that.

[Josh Holmes]

Racism exists almost fundamentally on the left when any person of color speaks up against controlling mechanism.

[Michael Duncan]

But like a woman who happens to be a little easy on the eyes if they happen to be conservative, is suddenly like, you know, a bimbo, a dummy, something like that. And they did that to Megyn Kelly all those years ago.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah, they still do it. They still do it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Okay, Ruben, listen.

[Josh Holmes]

There is an account that no one has ever heard of, ever in the history of politics that she's very familiar with. That is this leftist account in Exhibit 3 that she has tweeted out under her own volition, the Borowitz Report. And I did a little research here. This is just like left wing proppy propaganda. What she says is the best that Andy has ever done. And she' swith Andy familiarized herself with like the author because it Borowitz reported. At no point do you Understand, like, who Andy is. The report in and of itself is that I'll just read the headline and then we'll. We'll go into it. Man feared to be cognitively slipping after writing book about the wrong president and the entire.

[Michael Duncan]

So this is like hitting Jake Tapper.

[Josh Holmes]

It's his own website that nobody's ever visited.

[Michael Duncan]

Nice.

[Josh Holmes]

In left wing, like, I mean, deep dark. You mine the surfaces of the dark web to try to find this, where he's discussed Jake Tapper and how he's cognitively slipping because he has written a book about Joe Biden's cognitive ability when really he should have been discussing Donald Trump's.

[Michael Duncan]

I get it. So it's sort of like turning it on its head. It's like an Onion article, sort of.

[Josh Holmes]

But the kicker of the best that Andy has ever done, I think goes twofold. One, this is insane. Two, Andy. It's like nobody knows who Andy Borowitz or anybody. Like, this is not. Not only a household. Like, I bet you could walk over to the DNC and not find four people who know the fuck this guy is.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah. I will tell you, this round is very easy to decide. You know, like, I think that the George Conway take against Caroline Levitt is offensive. I think he's jealous. I think he wishes he was as smart as she was and he's not, and that's reflected in his tweet. But this, you know, like, obscure left wing blogger who is. Who is writing about how Jake Tapper is the one who has the mental breakdown as opposed to Biden having the mental breakdown. And all of a sudden, this former conservative columnist, the best he's ever done, who is now turned into a partisan enforcement mechanism, I think is the reason why Jen Rubin wins round three and. And she brings her crown back where it belongs.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm more than happy to take the crown. I appreciate.

[Michael Duncan]

I'll mention to Caroline you didn't defend her.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we're playing. I mean, this is a game. This is a game, you dick.

[Unknown Speaker A]

It's the next thing I'm going to say to her.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, you let Ashbrook in the room. He doesn't even defend you. Unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

Unbelievable. This guy's. He plays dirty as hell.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you got to work the refs.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so one thing. We have to get to Trudeau. Hannah Trudeau is somebody who's appeared not one, not two, but three different episodes because she kept coming at us and pretending as though we were having a conversation, but not denying any of the allegations of the things that we were.

[Michael Duncan]

Sent the Ferrari and then.

[Josh Holmes]

And then purses and then the house. But it always. It was all precipitated by the fact that she was like, let me come on and talk about it. And we offered her not one, not two, but three.

[Unknown Speaker A]

And then she tried to snipe back. She'd be like, just because I'm fabulous, fellas, doesn't mean I'm a ch. Not a champion for the working class. And they were like, also, she's got like $10 million in purses.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. So listen, we have a long history of taking scalps in this particular program.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, there. It's a long and distinguished list, some of whom are still power brokers in the Democratic Neera Tanden, for example. You know, like, we took that scalp. Hannah's going to add her name to the list. She decided that she was no longer seeking elected office and graphic font. But she's also done a couple of things that I find fascinating. So we always joked early on in our public relations world and we came of age in an era where Republicans were particularly terrible.

[Michael Duncan]

A lot of scandals, Scandalville, whatever.

[Josh Holmes]

And anything that popped up, it was like, okay, you either have to say you were drunk and you now have sobriety, or two, you found God. Or in best case scenario, a combination of the both, which means you have to be left alone.

[Michael Duncan]

Or if you're a Larry Craig, you just said he had a wide stance.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's right. But like, it's not to minimize either of those things because, look, seriously, I mean, look, that happens in the world and we all do things. You know, there are many of us who've gotten involved in substance abuse and you've had to, like, try to resurrect your life. And we get it. People who found Jesus and like, seen a different light and different path in life and you want to reject the things that you've done before. Like, that's not to minimize that. I'm just saying it's the most convenient thing that you can do other than get on that website and try to find a sugar daddy.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Which in and of itself was pretty convenient.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Full disclosure, the website has not been designed for sugar daddy.

[Michael Duncan]

Said that definitively. It's not a sugar daddy website.

[Josh Holmes]

They said that.

[Michael Duncan]

I just want to be clear.

[Josh Holmes]

They were very clear.

[Unknown Speaker C]

Yeah, that's vital. Proviso.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they very clearly said that. So what she has done is say that she's A, now she's not running, but B, that she's been sober for three. Hats off.

[Michael Duncan]

Good for you.

[Josh Holmes]

The Sobriety. Fantastic. I love that. She's also said that her sobriety and mental health come first. Look, no arguments at all. I would suggest that if you had an issue for multiple years with all of that and your mental health, maybe public office is not the way to resurrect all of that. And the idea that after you float your name for public office and then it's been shot down by the Ruthless Variety Program, surfacing afterwards is an excuse not to do it is pretty convenient. Now, I'm not saying again, I'm not minimizing all that. I think look good for her. I hope she gets what she needs. I hope she lives a wonderful life. But don't go journo to Dem politician to tell us as of six days ago that you're a working class champion only for us to undermine that. And then to come back the next week and be like, well, my mental.

[Michael Duncan]

Health'S at stake, so now I can't run.

[Josh Holmes]

It's my mental health and my substance abuse and all that that I'm working to get under. And so therefore you can't talk about any of that.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I mean, I wouldn't know, but man, you know, I don't blame her. I have a feeling that it would make your mental health feel terrific if you had a drop top Ferrari. You know, I think you just pushed that.

[Michael Duncan]

You got wind in your head, it.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Made you feel great.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I don't blame.

[Josh Holmes]

So anyway, we bid you adieu, Hannah. You're no longer a public figure, no longer running for office. Simply add your scalp to the rest of them that we've had here at the Ruthless Friday program. We wish you the best of luck and I genuinely mean it. If you're struggling with all that stuff, believe me, you could actually show up here at the Ruthless Friday Program. You will not find four individuals who are more willing to personally help you in a real way than the ones that you're looking at here. Because that's the way we operate. It's real. It's not political bullshit. Which is why you tune into the Ruthless Variety Program. Remember our question of the day? What's that PowerPoint say? What's that damn PowerPoint say?

[Unknown Speaker C]

I can't wait for that.

[Unknown Speaker A]

How do you speak to men if.

[Josh Holmes]

You'Re sitting down in front of a bunch of people who are gonna stroke million dollar checks and you're like, here we have a real problem with men. Here's how we get him back. Use your imagination and tell us what it is that it says on that PowerPoint.

[Michael Duncan]

More Carhartt jackets, break action shotguns and football.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. You gotta like and subscribe in order to opine, as you always say. Smash. I think you coined that.

[Michael Duncan]

You coined it.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I did.

[Michael Duncan]

You invented.

[Unknown Speaker C]

I did, yeah. Very important right here on the Ruthless Variety Program.

[Josh Holmes]

That's exactly right. And when you do, we'll read your responses. Check out our merch while you're there. We got some good offerings. Got some good. And we're going to have some more. We're going to have a bunch of new stuff coming at you here in the next month. Anyway, with that, fellows, I think we did it.

[Unknown Speaker A]

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