DNC Humiliation + Spencer Pratt Joins the Progrum

Summary

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Ruthless Podcast | May 5, 2026

Episode: DNC Humiliation + Spencer Pratt Joins the Progrum

Main Theme & Overview

This episode delivers the signature Ruthless blend: sharp conservative commentary on current political drama—specifically turmoil inside the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—and an in-depth, irreverent interview with reality TV star-turned-L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt. The fellas also chat with Mary Katherine Ham about the "Maha mom" phenomenon, parental empowerment in politics, and tackle a surprisingly heated debate: the proliferation of water bottles in American households.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. DNC Drama: Leadership, Autopsies, and Fundraising Woes

Timestamps: [00:00–33:38]

• DNC Leadership Under Fire:
  The show opens with a deep dive into dissatisfaction within Democratic ranks—focusing on DNC Chair Ken Martin’s reluctance to release a post-election “autopsy” report after their 2024 defeat.
  Josh Holmes calls out Martin for dodging transparency:

  "Why is it, do you suppose, that you wouldn't release the findings of an autopsy on an election that you were clearly humiliated by on the national stage?" - Josh Holmes [11:00]

• The "Lessons," But Never the Truth:
  The guys mock Martin’s evasiveness about the report, noting the use of “lessons learned” as a shield against accountability.

  "But the sleight of hand is saying, I'm not releasing the autopsy. I'm learning. I'm releasing the lessons from the autopsy. ... Oh, we're not allowed to talk about those." - Michael Duncan [11:58]

• Progressive Power Struggles:
  They discuss the Democratic Party’s leftward drift and factional battles, with Obama’s influence looming over internal DNC politics and 2028 positioning.

  "Barack Obama, for all intents and purposes, still controls that party." - John Ashbrook [16:40] "If you say for a second ... like, hey, you know ... it turns out, like people who put Nazi tattoos on their chest, they are a little bit crazy. And people think we're a little bit crazy, which is why we shouldn't do shit like this. And they're like, how fucking dare you?" - Josh Holmes [25:56]

• Fundraising and Infrastructure Issues:
  The fellas point out structural Democratic anxieties, particularly around funding tools like ActBlue and what happens if they falter.

  "If ActBlue did not exist at some level ... Democrats literally rely on this piece of their infrastructure to try to fund otherwise completely unimpressive characters ..." - Josh Holmes [29:00]

Notable Moment:
They rib Ken Martin mercilessly, daring him to "say the truth" about party problems, suggesting he’d be purged if he tried.

"Just say it. Just give us a little look under that thing." - Josh Holmes [24:09]
"Say the truth and you're gone." - John Ashbrook [24:22]

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2. Spencer Pratt: From Reality TV Villain to L.A. Mayoral Candidate

Timestamps: [39:40–69:09]

• Citizen-Turned-Warrior:
  Spencer Pratt explains his unlikely entry into politics after losing his home (and his parents’ home) in LA’s wildfires—frustrated by political negligence and corruption.

  "My goal was just for these people to go to jail. And then when they didn't go to jail ... I decided the only way to stop these people is to take their power from them." - Spencer Pratt [40:52]

• Message Resonance:
  Pratt details his journey from apolitical “hummingbird feeder” and crystal seller to a crusader gaining viral traction with “common sense” and “pure facts.”

  "Everything that I talk about is not politics. These are criminals I'm running against. They are taking all of our tax money ... and then they steal it and then they go increase problems with that money and make other people that they're friends with rich." - Spencer Pratt [42:53]

• Broad Appeal Beyond Politics:
  Though cast as a conservative, Pratt insists he transcends labels, with support from liberal Angelenos.

  "All my neighbors voted for Kamala Harris ... They frame me ... oh, he's a Republican. No, ... I'm a citizen. I'm an Angelino." - Spencer Pratt [44:33]

• Fighting LA’s Establishment:
  The hosts highlight both the political and personal barrage Pratt faces—but also his unique “Teflon armor” after two decades as a media villain.

  "What they don't realize is I'm like the Highlander. When you come out with me with the negativity, I chop your head off and ... I get more pumped up." - Spencer Pratt [63:37]

• Memorable Exchange:
  Pratt’s grassroots campaign is so viral because “the truth is priceless”—and he credits his ability to withstand attacks to years of public vilification.

  "The best thing they would have done was to ignore me, but to give me more lightning from the clouds is they're done." - Spencer Pratt [63:49]

• Call to Action:
  Pratt invites all listeners—especially the disaffected and “pissed off citizens”—to join his campaign for good governance:

  "Go to Mayor Pratt. You donate any amount helps ..." - Spencer Pratt [66:20]

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3. [Mini-Segment] The J.P. Morgan “Sexual Outrageousness” Sidebar

Timestamps: [34:40–39:17]

• Comedic Relief:
  A quick roast of a salacious and evidently fabricated J.P. Morgan workplace scandal. Holmes and Duncan riff on the absurdity, celebrating listeners' tongue-in-cheek résumé submissions.

  "Waiting for Stevie writes: JPM job app, Hardworking, go getter. Willing to rise to any challenge on command ..." - [37:45]

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4. Mary Katherine Ham on “Maha Moms,” Parental Power, and Family Life

Timestamps: [73:24–101:45]

• The Maha Mom Adjacent Perspective:
  MK Ham discusses the rise of “Maha moms”—parents skeptical of institutions, hungry for more information and empowerment regarding children, education, technology, and health.

  "I would consider myself ... Maha-adjacent mom. Like a Maha-curious." - Mary Katherine Ham [74:53]

• Transparency & Trust:
  The group agrees: distrust in institutions post-COVID is well-earned, and politicians ignore it at their peril.

  "I think distrust in institutions was earned honestly. ... More information, not less. More empowerment, not less." - Mary Katherine Ham [79:01]

• Messaging Matters:
  They discuss how Republicans can appeal to this growing, not-easily-categorized parent vote, suggesting practical measures like device bans in schools and HSA flexibility.

  "Your job is to appeal to people on a bunch of levels and maybe grab a couple people on this issue where you wouldn't otherwise have attracted them ..." - Mary Katherine Ham [85:55]

• Notable Insight:
  Josh Holmes notes Democrats' blind spot:

  "At no point did they get to a level where they were actually intellectually curious about what millions of moms, dads, and everybody else are asking about." - Josh Holmes [86:44]

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5. [Debate] America's Water Bottle Obsession

Timestamps: [91:48–99:45]

• Thermos Recall & The Water Bottle Plague:
  In a humorous “domestic politics” tangent, the guys and MK Ham dissect the “epidemic” of water bottles cluttering American homes.

  "What is it about women and the collection of water containing devices that is so alluring by which our homes are inundated by them?" - Josh Holmes [93:26]

• Possible Explanations:
  MK Ham: "Stanley never did this to me... We want to have luminescent, bouncy skin. And that comes from proper hydration..." [93:55]

• Resolution:
  MK and the hosts ultimately agree: some domestic battles—like cup accumulation—are never truly won.

  "You need to get comfortable with the fact that there will not be order in your household." - John Ashbrook [98:50]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Just study the lessons, please. The lessons..." – Michael Duncan [23:42], mocking the DNC’s evasions.
• "My message is just pure facts. I don't need to say anything, but they're stealing from you and they're making your life horrible." – Spencer Pratt [42:53]
• "It starts to pile up … the backpack gets heavier and heavier. You might be a partisan Democrat … but eventually there has to be a tipping point." – Michael Duncan [71:18]
• "Trust but verify." – Mary Katherine Ham [89:43], on health, parenting, and government recommendations.

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Segment Guide & Timestamps

• [00:00–33:38] DNC chaos, Ken Martin’s autopsy dodge, Democratic fundraising/troubles
• [34:40–39:17] JP Morgan scandal comedy, audience responses
• [39:40–69:09] Spencer Pratt interview: LA corruption, personal loss, grassroots energy
• [73:24–101:45] Mary Katherine Ham: Maha moms, trust issues, family life, and water bottles

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Tone & Style

Irreverent, fast-paced, and deeply skeptical of Democratic politics, the Ruthless crew mixes serious political analysis with wry humor and personal asides. Spencer Pratt brings emotional intensity and populist energy, while Mary Katherine Ham offers relatable, practical wisdom and an inclusive touchpoint for nonpartisan parents.

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For First-Time Listeners

This episode encapsulates what makes Ruthless a favorite on the right: a takedown of establishment politics, a celebration of outsider voices, and a willingness to poke fun at daily life.

If you only have a few minutes:

• [09:00–13:00] Listen for the DNC autopsy debate.
• [42:53] Hear Spencer Pratt’s anti-corruption rallying cry.
• [79:00] Catch the Maha moms/parent power analysis.
• [98:50] Relate to the great water bottle debate.

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To join the ongoing conversation:
The hosts invite listeners to submit their own “autopsies” of the Democratic Party for the next episode, continuing their interactive style.

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Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Ken Martin and the dnc. And he was there to defend himself against charges that he's backed out of his promise to release an after action report about what went wrong in the 2024 election.

[Michael Duncan]

It's not just the Ken Martin situation. It's the overall anxiety that these people have about the fundraising disparity and some of the act Blue things that Ashbrook was alluding to.

[John Ashbrook]

Nobody's ever heard of Ken Martin. Who the hell knows who Ken Martin is? Of course he's not qualified to run the DNC into the 2028 field, like 100%. But now all of a sudden that the DNC matters in a way that it never has before, there's a reason to want control.

[Josh Holmes]

The weakness of the Democratic leadership across the board game. Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, anybody in power is that they can't actually speak the truth to anyone.

[John Ashbrook]

Obama wants to control the shape of the 2028 electorate.

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[Announcer]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

This program has become one of the

[Interviewer]

most influential podcasts in America.

[Josh Holmes]

I love the personality.

[Michael Duncan]

You guys are killing it. I just saw your number one.

[Josh Holmes]

So congratulations. It's an honor and a pleasure to welcome the great Sean Hannity.

[Spencer Pratt]

Guys, I love you. Congratulations on all your success. This is why you listen to the

[Michael Duncan]

Ruthless Podcast, because nobody else would ask that question. The only political podcast worth listening to

[Josh Holmes]

is the Ruthless podc. Time for our main event, the Ruthless Podcast.

[Interviewer]

Good Tuesday to you.

[Josh Holmes]

Welcome to an incredible week here on the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes along with Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Comfortably Smug. Expecting Smug junior at any point here. And so he's gonna, you know, get some grace here on the program and we wish him and his family the very best in what is in a very exciting time. And, you know, we'll bring news to you as quickly as we can.

[Michael Duncan]

Smug watch.

[Josh Holmes]

A smug watch.

[Michael Duncan]

I feel like we should do it like CNN tracking a missing airplane. Like we need like a ticker or something.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

On the YouTube.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, days without seeing smug, you

[Josh Holmes]

know, that feels right. Maybe like.

[Michael Duncan]

Maybe like a voter poll on names. I mean, like we need. We're not selling this enough.

[Josh Holmes]

I think you're right. I think you're right. But in. In absentia, what we've decided to do is just overload a program with incredible stuff.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

And, you know, you can't replace smug in many ways, but what you can do is provide all the content in the world. Way ahead of the world in the way that only we can do. Here on the Ruthless variety program and including on that, is the hottest candidate on the political scene today, a guy named Spencer Pratt. If you're online, you've undoubtedly seen his ad. He's running for mayor of la. I would say he's a conservative guy, but not particularly political one way or another. If you recognize the name, in a lot of ways, it's from the hills back in the day. And those of us from a certain generation grew up. He was an omnipresent personality, shall we say, in the media world, kind of

[Michael Duncan]

reality star, kind of cast as sort of a villain. Yeah, right. And now he's just like the hero. The hero, you know, he's just a frustrated guy who lives in LA who decided to do something about it. And he's like an unvarnished truth teller.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, facing off against an entrenched, corrupt political establishment to try to right the ship in la. I mean, it's an incredible story.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, you may have seen interviews with him before, you may have seen his ads, you know, by now on Ruthless. There's only one conversation that makes all of that come to life, and it's when he sits down with the fellas. We're going to have that for you shortly. In addition, Mary Katherine Ham joins the program.

[Michael Duncan]

Hammer Time.

[Josh Holmes]

Hammer Time.

[John Ashbrook]

It's always great when she shows up because you never know what you're going to get. And I feel like everybody's in store for a great treat today.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. She's going to talk to us a little bit about some things that she's been working on lately, including the whole Maha mom situation. And as it relates to the Republican Party, Donald Trump, everything else, it's a big question that everybody's been talking about.

[John Ashbrook]

And we're going to confront her about a growing trend in households all across the Country. So stay tuned because you will love it.

[Josh Holmes]

Put her on some defense. Yeah, make her play some defense as one of those moms, because that's what we do. When you show up for the writing program, especially if you're a mom, you're going to have to play some defense. We've got thoughts on all of that, but we wanted to start today with some new drama inside the dnc, or so reports the Bulwark. I can't remember a time where we've gone to the Bulwark to help illustrate what is happening. But if you're trying to get some insight inside the Democratic Party today, that's as good as the New York Times or the Washington Post.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I find it fitting. It sort of completes, I think, the horseshoe of their career trajectory. And that is disaffected Republicans who left the party because they were outraged by Donald Trump and now they're full blown Democrats, establishment Democrats, but now they're trying to rehabilitate the Democrat Party.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So it's all come full circle here, really.

[Josh Holmes]

They're going to be disappointed at some point and we'll see what the next iteration of the Bulwark is. But as of now, it's useful information, which is why we're bringing it to you. Laura Egan, Lauren Egan from the Bulwark wrote a piece called New Drama Inside the dnc. It's about Ken Martin. He's the chair of the dnc. He's from my home state, which I just, you know, I deeply regret. But it is what it is. In his tenure as chair of the Democratic National Committee, look, you may have noticed there's a huge discrepancy in fundraising. And the DNC in and of itself is not talked about very much in large part because I think Democrats have to play defense on it. And if you notice the tenor of the conversation that you get from national media, even conservative national media, is it's inevitable Democrats are going to win. They're going to win the House, they're probably going to win the Senate. Donald Trump's tenure is basically neutered by the inevitability of massive wave Democratic election. And we've been around long enough to know, like what those fundamentals and the challenges of the Republican Party are. But we've also just witnessed how you can screw that up and how there are times where the infrastructure of your party does not perform the way it needs to perform. And so the stories like this catch our eye. They catch our eye when you see the Republican Party basically attempting to try to put all the pieces in place to do what they say that they're going to do. And then you get a Democratic Party who's just like basically surfing off opposition and nothing else. And, and this is the case of Ken Martin and the dnc. And over the last year he's been defined by largely frustration with his leadership. That frustration created or crested last week when Martin went on Pod Save America. The old Pod Bros, they're hosting the establishment as they do. And he was there to defend himself against charges that he's backed out of his promise to release an after action report about what went wrong in the 2024 election. I find this so funny. It's so funny for so many reasons, as well as accusations that DNC has had trouble raising money and balancing its budget and all this. Why don't we give them a little taste and then we'll just use that as a jumping off point for the larger discussion. Clip 3 so I want to start

[Interviewer]

with the 2024 autopsy, which you call an after action review. When you won the chairmanship In February of 25, you criticized the DNC's refusal to release their 2016 autopsy is exactly what not to do. You said, quote, was there any utility in doing that? And then promised your 2024 autopsy would be different. Your exact quote was, of course it will be released. Why did you change your mind on that?

[Ken Martin]

Well, look, I mean, what I said all along, even when I ran for this position, is that we were going to focus on the things that will help us win the upcoming election, right? Making sure that we learn the right lessons that could help inform our victories. And that's what we've done. We said this when we sent out the press release back in November saying we weren't going to release the report. We were going to actually keep our focus on those lessons. And we released those lessons.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

All right. So I actually listened to this entire thing.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sorry.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you know, I mean, you got to do some research.

[Josh Holmes]

The old man does it so you don't have to.

[Michael Duncan]

That's exactly right. And I listened to this part like five or ten times. It was the audio version of the Zapruder film for me. If we could possibly go back just to Ken Martin's part of that. Eddie, do you think we could play it one more time? I want you to notice how he catches himself saying release the first time. Can we play that?

[Interviewer]

Did you change your mind on that?

[Ken Martin]

Well, look, I mean, what I said all along, even when I ran for this position, is that we Were going to focus on the things that will help us win the upcoming election. Right. Making sure that we learn the right lessons that could help inform our victories. And that's what we've done. We said this when we sent out the press release.

[Spencer Pratt]

Sent out a press release.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, immediately. It's just so funny the way he has to about face on doing the one thing he said he would do after the election.

[Josh Holmes]

So why is it, do you suppose, that you wouldn't release the findings of an autopsy on an election that you were clearly humiliated by on the national stage? There was nothing to suggest two, three years before that election that you wouldn't be able to basically roll. Donald Trump and Republicans going into that election and Democrats, I guess rightly are pointing to the fact that they invested record amounts of resources into doing what everybody said was going to be an inevitability. And he came up short. And so they're asking like, okay, how do we invest that money that didn't work? And they're like, well, don't worry, we got an autopsy for that. We're going to look into everything and we're gonna, we're gonna release it all. It's all good. Like, we'll talk about it and we'll make sure that we learn these lessons.

[Michael Duncan]

But the sleight of hand is saying, I'm not releasing the autopsy. I'm learning. I'm releasing the lessons from the autopsy. And it's like, but what about all that money you spend and all the things that you fucked up? Oh, we're not allowed to talk about those.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

But like Jon Favreau and I gotta give them credit. I mean, like, they held his feet to the fire in this, in this interview. But he's not done. He come. He comes back to it. Let's do that next clip on this show.

[Interviewer]

In August, you told me this about releasing the review. Quote, we have to do it to give people who invested so much time, energy and money a sense of what happened and why we lost.

[Ken Martin]

Correct.

[Interviewer]

Especially why we lost. So what changed between August and December? I understand there are lessons, but those are not the full report. Why not release the full report? What's in the report that you wouldn't want?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, first, publicize.

[Ken Martin]

Yeah, there's no smoking gun in the report. And I know that's what everyone's so eager to learn. Smoking gun. Guess what, John?

[Interviewer]

But if there's no smoking gun, why wouldn't you just release it that way?

[Ken Martin]

Because we want to keep the focus on the lessons.

[John Ashbrook]

The lessons yeah, we got to have the lessons.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just lessons, guys. Just the lessons, that's all. I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is. They're not going to say what it is. And then we've got reams of more information on all of this. But having gone through this, on the other side of the Republican Party is that there are obvious lessons that you can't talk about because you've got a segment of the party that is so dogmatically committed, particularly in a minority position, of ensuring that you represent the reason that you lose in a louder place than you did as you lost it, that you need to be on board with a full coalition in order to make up for it in a midterm capacity. Right? I mean, look, everybody knows that when you're talking about 80, 20 issues like boys playing girls sports or you're talking

[Michael Duncan]

about taxpayer funded surgeries for transsexual criminals, or that's an actual thing, or open

[Josh Holmes]

borders, which is all these were the issues that were litigated upon. Everyone knows that if you did an actual autopsy and you looked at any polling, I don't care if it's Republican polling, Democratic polling, independent polling, all the consortium of polling, they would say those are politically toxic positions. You probably shouldn't take them. But you can't say that. Why can't you say that? Because the progressive left is the ascendant piece of the Democratic coalition today.

[Michael Duncan]

So much so that Pod Save America, the you know, house organ for the Democratic establishment, has now repositioned itself as the voice of the disaffected grassroots of the progressive have left. I mean, think about that. And I think a lot of it is the scar left over by Biden and all the work they did defending him as he was a cadaver in the Oval Office. And so because they got hoodwinked by that thing, they've now repositioned themselves as the guys are going to hold their feet to the fire. Right? Because that's what their listeners and their viewers want. But it feels funny.

[Josh Holmes]

It's hilarious, right? It's hilarious because he can't say the thing. And if you can't say the thing like they he is what you suspected him to be, which is just this empty suit who's attempting to just sort of like, everything's great. I mean, it's a Baghdad Bob of domestic political op operations.

[Michael Duncan]

I can suggest one other thing. Sorry, Ashbrooke, real quick. Is the. I think there's one other reason why they have to release These vague lessons.

[Josh Holmes]

Learned the lessons. They've already learned the lessons.

[Michael Duncan]

It's also, it's unclear who's gotten the lessons. You know, if like they're emailed directly to you only if you're like a DNC member, you know, voting member of the dnc. Or maybe if you're a top tier campaign, you get some of the lessons. Maybe it's like you got to buy enough of the cereal and you get the Dakota ring and then you put in the coupon in the mail and then you get the lessons. That's how it worked when we were growing, growing up. The lessons, the lessons. But, but I think they also have to be extremely subscription only lessons.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, hold on, I gotta stop. That's unbelievable.

[Spencer Pratt]

All right, go ahead.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, but like, they gotta be vague about it because I don't know if you guys have looked at the polling, but their front runner is still Kamala Harris.

[Spencer Pratt]

I know.

[Michael Duncan]

And so they can't assign blame really where it belongs in a lot of these areas because then they're undercutting who may be the future of the once and future king.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's. That gets it. What I was going to say is I think that there is a titanic power struggle happening behind the scenes among Democrats. And you aren't going to read it explicitly in the mainstream media. The people who are best sourced among Democrats, who are in the best position to write about what's actually happening behind the scenes, they are only going to write about the meta effect, okay? You know, they're only going to write about the fight here. But Barack Obama, for all intents and purposes, still controls that party. And when a guy like Ken Martin is in charge of the dnc, who is not directly an Obama guy, okay, he's a Minnesota guy, he's a Tim Walls guy, he's an Ilhan Omar guy. He is not like Pod Save America, an Obama guy, not a made man. And they know that 2028 is on its way and Obama wants to control the shape of the 2028 electorate on their side. And what is going to happen in the next year as it relates to party committees? The Supreme Court is about to rule that party committees are allowed to coordinate directly with candidates. So all of a sudden, a job like DNC chair, it's a much bigger

[Josh Holmes]

thing than it has been for 20 years.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a much, much more important thing than a guy like Ken Martin is capable of managing.

[Josh Holmes]

Gotta run him out.

[John Ashbrook]

So the Obama guys are like, he's not doing it. We're gonna expose him, for whatever reason, that we think he's inadequate so that we can control the future of the party. And it's going to be a fist fight, dude. I mean, there are so many different camps who want to be the nominee in 28 act blue falling apart. Every single one of these Dem candidates is going to have their own small dollar fundraising operation.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, look, we're going to get to that in a second. But there's a few loosely organized quotes in here that are interesting. If you pull up graphic three, this is from Jesse Lark. He says, I think it would be a very hard job no matter who has it. But in parentheses, Martin seems to be uniquely ill suited for it. Who is? He's not involved. He wants to make sure that he's not involved in any of this. But he's. Which is why he's quoted, quote, the pod save interview was mind blowing to me. All right, Guy who's been involved. I mean, he was involved back when we were involved in this kind of thing. I mean, he's seen all iterations of it. But speaking freely, clearly, and maybe it goes to your point.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, well, back to my point, like nine months ago, 12 months ago, everybody would have said, of course nobody's ever heard of Ken Martin. Who the hell knows who Ken Martin is? Of course he's not qualified to run the DNC into the 2028 field, like 100%. But now all of a sudden that the DNC matters in a way that it never has before, there's a reason to want control.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, yeah, they're also just setting the stage for any disappointment.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, this is true.

[Josh Holmes]

It couldn't possibly be that you let Hamas in underneath your party banner.

[John Ashbrook]

It's his fault.

[Josh Holmes]

It's.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You couldn't possibly be that. You have people like Graham Platner who are defining your party's message. It couldn't possibly be that Kamala Harris is still your front runner some year and a half after she got waxed by Donald Trump. Like, it's gotta be somebody in the nuts and bolts category.

[Michael Duncan]

In the nuts and bolts. Back to Ashbrook's point on like the meta fight. I have to flashback to a Politico story about Ken Martin from last year that offered a interesting vignette. This was back when David Hogg, remember, you know, he was, you know, threatening to. He was gonna run for DNC chair and then he show me your hog. Gonna spend a bunch of money in safe BL districts to elect more progressive members and hear from the Politico piece at the time. This is a recording that they have. An emotional. Martin describes being deeply frustrated by the fallout over Hogg, who has ignited a firestorm in the party by vowing to spend $20 million in safe blue primaries to oust incumbent Democrats he believes are ineffective. Martin paused twice while appearing to choke up. Bro's crying on a conference call about

[Josh Holmes]

Hogg, about David Hogg, about Hogg.

[John Ashbrook]

Some kid they knew then. He was inadequate. But I do think that it's interesting that this is all reported in the Bulwark. And you know who the editor at the Bulwark is? Sam Stein. There's nobody who is better sourced among Democrats than a guy like Sam Stein. He's built his entire career on Democrat sourcing. And so I think it's only natural that they're the publication to sort of build this up and like, bring it to the fore.

[Michael Duncan]

It is funny that a publication that kind of was founded as like, the alternative to the real conservative Republicans now just encapsulates the anxieties of your establishment Democrat.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, totally.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, because it's not just that. It's not just the Ken Martin situation. It's the overall anxiety that these people have about the fundraising disparity and some of the Act Blue things that Ashbrook was alluding to.

[John Ashbrook]

But it's also, you guys raise an interesting point. Like, what if there is disappointment for Democrats in November? You know, think back to 2022, when the incumbent party, the Democrats at the time held onto the Senate, lost the House by nine seats. But now, after redistricting, Democrats are gonna need nine seats just to be in the conversation. So if there is a moment where they underperform in November, they can't say it was because of Hamas. They can't say it was because of the fraud in Minnesota. They have to say it's Ken Martin's fau.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Which goes back to the initial autopsy.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Why can't you release the autopsy? Well, for one, because it's pretty critical of the nominee we had who probably is going to be our nominee the next time around. Secondly, it's the fringe elements within our party that are having boys playing girls sports, that are having transgender surgeries amongst children.

[John Ashbrook]

That can't possibly be the explanation that

[Josh Holmes]

are fully endorsing terrorist organizations over Jewish people across this country. Like, none of those things are things you can say. And that is the thing in Democratic politics. You can't say it. You can't even whisper.

[John Ashbrook]

They know. They know that Ken Martin can't say that.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

They know that the Guy's hands are tied. And so that's why they pursue the question because they know that he's. They know he's weak and they.

[Josh Holmes]

What are you going to say, Ken? Right, what are you going to say, Ken?

[John Ashbrook]

You're going to say the truth.

[Josh Holmes]

I dare you. I dare you.

[Michael Duncan]

Just study the lessons, please. The lessons. You say the truth, you're to going

[Josh Holmes]

be done in a week, Ken.

[John Ashbrook]

That's true.

[Michael Duncan]

Poor Ken, actually.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, he's such a pencil neck, but like, you look at him and you see the fear in those eyes in what is like supposed to be a friendly interview and you can tell exactly what you just said. They're daring him. Say the truth, Ken. You'll be out in 48 hours.

[John Ashbrook]

I double dog dare you, asshole.

[Josh Holmes]

Just say it. Just give us a little look under that thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Because the truth, he can't say. He can't say saying because he has no swat inside the party. He's trying to build that up so he can have a little bit of influence.

[Michael Duncan]

I get it.

[John Ashbrook]

They know his position.

[Josh Holmes]

Say the truth and you're gone.

[Michael Duncan]

The thing is, the autopsy, the autopsy would be the only thing they can't pin on him. If he releases the autopsy, it's the only thing that's not his fault.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah, everything, it will be.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it will be like, dare you can this. Ken Martin says that we're the problem. You're the problem, Ken Martin. I mean, that is the brutality that is Democratic politics. Which is why you get a window again, what we talked about for what feels like months and months and months in the variety program, the weakness of the Democratic leadership across the board, Kim Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, anybody in power is that they can't actually speak the truth to anyone. One they did for like a 90 day window following losing the 2024 election, where they're like, yeah, this is not our best stuff. Like, we need to reorganize and, and think about it. And then immediately they're like, back to open borders, trans no kings, everything else. And then you see the rise of candidates like Graham Platner and the like, literally psycho, I mean, people you would not allow on your property, who they are attempting to get Americans across this country to get behind. Because they're like fighting in a voice. But that is where they're. The strength of their party is. So if you say for a second, like, hey, you know the platinum dude that was in the autopsy? It turns out, like people who put Nazi tattoos on their chest, they are a little Bit crazy. And people think we're a little bit crazy, which is why we shouldn't do shit like this. And they're like, how fucking dare you? How dare you? Graham Plantner is a patriot. You know what I mean? That's what they say, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

They may pick up a majority in the fall, but they, it doesn't change the fact that their party is in very, very bad shape. And I mean, I was talking to a friend of ours and I won't say his name, an Iowa guy who put it very, I thought in a very, very smart way about the rise of Trump and these Democrats who were much more comfortable in FDR's party than they are in AOC's party, who were like, yeah, I want Trump. And Democrats are doing absolutely nothing to get those voters who are more interested in FDR's party back into their fold. Nothing. You listen to that show, you listen to every single one of their politicians. They're going further toward aoc and that does nothing for their candidates in the middle of the country.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, look, I think there's a good point to be made that we focus all of our time and all of our effort thinking about like, what's going wrong in Republican politics because that's what the media drives, all that. And look, there's plenty to talk about there. But you know, the amount of ink spilled over the Tucker Carlson's and the podcast wars and all of that stuff pales in comparison to these fundamental infrastructure problems that Democrats currently have here. So it's worth raising the question, if you're just an independent arbiter, you don't work in the field. Is this like, could you defy odds here? Because nobody's going to report that. But like, what if House Republicans hold the majority? What if Senate Republicans hold a majority? Like, that's a pretty tough handout.

[John Ashbrook]

Cards are on their side.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, and I, I think, you know, there's been a lot of Supreme Court decisions recently in the VRA stuff and everything. The one that's still around the corner.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Is the coordination limits.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

With party committees and you know, you know, this is sort of in the weeds, listener and viewer, but it's incredibly important. You're not going to hear it really, you know, on TV or in a lot of news.

[Josh Holmes]

The old man is happy to oblige.

[Michael Duncan]

But, but this is the sort of inside baseball that has helped and I think provides context for why people are so concerned about the financial dire straits that the DNC finds itself in. If the Supreme Court knocks down those Coordination limits between party committees candidates. Republicans are going to find that advantage that they have on paper is a lot more in practice because of the ability to work with those candidates means they can run more positive ads earlier on in the cycle. They can help define themselves as their own person so that they can rise above what are the atmospherics of a campaign where you're the party in power.

[Josh Holmes]

I just want to do one more thing here before we break, which is the second story from the Wall Street Journal, which is now, I think, the fourth story on ActBlue, which is the internal drama that they have on their payment processing situation, which is again, an infrastructure issue like the dnc. And look, I'm just going to read a couple of things here. The platform that is integral to the Democratic Party's infrastructure is now enmeshed in controversy in fueled by the management of its CEO, Regina Wallace Jones, whose spending and legal decisions have raised concerns among Democrats and employees, according to people familiar with their operations. We have reported here what some of those legal issues are that they've been dealing with the leaking of memos from their own internal lawyers about whether or not they did anything at all to try to prevent or at least be aware of foreign contributions coming into their platform. The memos suggest they didn't do nearly enough, and that's why you had a whole list of resignations. But it turns out, like if you read this whole long article, a lot of internal problems with ActBlue. If ActBlue did not exist at some level, this isn't a closed race like Democrats literally rely on this piece of their infrastructure to try to fund otherwise completely unimpressive characters at an amount of 4 or 5 to 1. On a candidate level, what the Republican candidates are running, they can routinely spend that and lose anyway in a lot of these races. Which again, a great time to be a Democratic consultant, right? A great time. Like you can spend 5x.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Because win or lose, you're building the network effect of Act Blue, right? So it doesn't matter if you're Amy McGrath and you blow $100 million running against Mitch McConnell. Right. Or you're Bernie Sanders and you have a huge grassroots support in that primary against Hillary Clinton. It all ends up in the same database for Democratic campaigns. And so you have these people who, like you said, are like no names, who suddenly raised $10 million a quarter.

[John Ashbrook]

But if you're one of those damn consultants who's not on the take for one of those races, you look at the list of losses and you're like, what the hell are we doing? You know, and you can see, I mean, this story start to finish and the authors hint at it actually say directly at the very top who their sourcing is. This shooting is coming from inside the house. I mean, we've talked extensively on this show about the New York Times story with the Covington and Burling memo, who is a, you know, Eric Holder's law firm, like, you know, gold plated Democrat law firm that runs a lot of what their party does, had a memo that said we are concerned about foreign funding into the ActBlue and into these campaigns. We don't think you're doing enough about it. This story, if you read all of it, all of the catalog of expenses from this CEO Regina Wallace Jones, nobody is putting all of that together and going through the FEC and sending it off unless they're motivated to bring her down a peg. And you're not going to be motivated to bring her down a peg unless you don't care about the future of ActBlue. And if you don't care about the future of ActBlue, that means that you have another avenue to raise money and deliver it to Democrats and a little

[Josh Holmes]

bit of infrastructure and infrastructure problems, no question about it. Well, listen, it brings us to our question of the day, which is with the collapse of many pieces of the Dem machine here over the last year that none of us have really had a full throated conversation about what would your autopsy of the Democratic Party be in their loss of 2024?

[John Ashbrook]

Great.

[Josh Holmes]

He's not releasing it, Mark. Ken Martin. He can't release it. That poor bastard.

[Michael Duncan]

You've distilled it down to these helpful lessons.

[Josh Holmes]

He can't. What would your autopsy be as a voter out there when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we read all of your responses and get back to you the very next episode. Put some thought into this one because I think you'll be funny, I think you'll be good. What in the world would your autopsy be of Democrats in 2024 and beyond? When we come back, we're going to get to your comments from last episode which included the JP Morgan thing. Got an update at the topper of all of that and then your comments right after this.

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[Josh Holmes]

okay, so. We did a doozy on Friday. It's one of those stories that I think it's sort of custom made for the ruthless variety program.

[Michael Duncan]

Outrageous Sexual. Yeah, it was fun.

[Josh Holmes]

It's fun. It was about. If you haven't listen to it, you ought to go back and listen to it. Some of our best stuff, but we just simply recounted what the public reporting was of a litigation involving executive at JP Morgan and somebody who had alleged illicit sexual behavior. And it's funny.

[Spencer Pratt]

It's.

[Josh Holmes]

It's very funny.

[Ken Martin]

But we've.

[Josh Holmes]

Over the weekend we learned that this cat, very thin ice that he was skating on like she wasn't his supervisor. And there was a whole bunch of circumstantial stuff that like made it impossible for what he said happened.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, we, we said here on the show that we didn't believe it and it's quite possible we were exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, well, I think, I think it's quite possible. And then there was something that popped on Monday that caught my eye that I thought was equally completely hilarious in that the New York Post reported not only who this guy was, but reported that he actually had notified J.P. morgan of a bereavement policy because of death of his father. The New York Post unfortunately spoke to his father who's very well alive and witnessed.

[Michael Duncan]

Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

This guy's just spinning yarns left and right. Just a complete huckster. It's like we sniffed it out immediately that this story was not true.

[Josh Holmes]

It was not on the up and up.

[Michael Duncan]

But like, you know, the cat's out of the bag. I feel terrible for this woman who like this is gonna be.

[Josh Holmes]

She got. She has to go with it.

[Michael Duncan]

This is her front page of Google for like the next 10 years. I mean, and you know, don't.

[Josh Holmes]

But in today's day and age, you can ride it. Like if I would be. I just rename my, my Twitter platform like Lorna Cannons or something. You know, just Go with it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I mean, you got, at some point you gotta, you gotta embrace it, I guess, I think. But I, I hope, you know, if he really did make all that stuff up, if he really did make it up, I hope she just sues him.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, well, you know, that doesn't strike me as somebody. If they work at JP Morgan that has, you know, a lack of capability of find restitution.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm sure she can handle herself at some level.

[Josh Holmes]

But anyway, we asked you after that crazy fiasco, free to send in your resumes if this was true. And we caveat it that we didn't think it was true. But if it was, would you be interested in applying for a job at such a vocation? And when you like and subscribe, we read all of them and just do that. We start with the voice.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay. First comment is from Waiting for Stevie. Waiting for Stevie writes JPM job app, Hardworking, go getter. Willing to rise to any challenge on command.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my God.

[John Ashbrook]

Outstanding linguistic skills, unsurpassed dexterity and a real people pleaser. Have experience with cross functional teamwork. Served in artillery unit in the military and had extensive hands on experience with cannons of all sizes. Stevie, that's waiting for Stevie.

[Josh Holmes]

Waiting for Stevie. You got the assignment.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you, Stevie.

[Josh Holmes]

He understood the assignment.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, you knew.

[Josh Holmes]

Just deliver it. All right, Dunks. What else?

[Michael Duncan]

We got this from Arlen Fisher. Arlen writes, Dear Ms. Hajdini, please consider this letter as my application to work under you at JPMorgan Chase. Or as I understand, perhaps you would prefer I worked somewhere other than under you.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my God.

[Michael Duncan]

I am of Arab and Indian descent. Please disregard the photo attached to my resume. And a former basketball player. Again, please disregard my resume. And I am a very hard worker hard all caps, if you know what I mean. It would be my pleasure and yours to be able to do this job also. What does JP Morgan chase again?

[Josh Holmes]

They got these assignment.

[Michael Duncan]

They got it.

[Josh Holmes]

They got the assignment. That's why your comments are the absolute best. Like and subscribe. We read absolutely all of them. Without further ado, we want to get to this guy who are super excited about Spencer Pratt. I want to welcome to the program. I think he's the hottest candidate in the country. I don't think there's any question. Do you guys think?

[John Ashbrook]

Not at all.

[Josh Holmes]

I, I, I mean this is. Everyone's talking about him and for all the right reasons. Unlike everything else we've seen DC and everything else. Spencer Pratt, welcome aboard. How are you, sir?

[Spencer Pratt]

I am having so much fun.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen you, you're running for mayor of la and in a city that I think a lot of people who are in the middle of the electorate or right of center of written off for an awful long time. But that's because I think from my perspective, an awful lot of what's been going on there is just sort of your party politics, as would, you know, there's more Democrats than Republicans or whatever and nobody's had a chance to actually assess whether they're being served good government in a very long time. You with the fires, your personal experience struck me as somebody who had probably no intention of getting involved in politics at all, but just felt like you needed to get involved. Is this the am I right about that assumption?

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah. My goal was just for these people to go to jail. And then when they didn't go to jail and I saw that it was just business as usual, that's when I decided the only way to stop these people is to take their power from them. But going back to after discovering all the criminal negligence that led to 12 of my neighbors burning alive, my house burning down, my parents house burning down, everyone I've known my whole life's house burning down 7,000 homes and figuring out that it was completely preventable, avoidable at so many levels and layers. Going and getting a congressional investigation, having whistleblowers expose the COVID up, the obstruction of justice, everything that I assumed puts people in jail with modern Internet, with me making videos, going viral and everyone's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing happens. And then when I saw nobody was going to run against Karen Bass, she was just going to guaranteed win on June 2, unopposed. For me, it was more for my kids. I wanted to be able to tell them when they grew up, your dad fought these people every way I could. Even if they end up, you know, the Death Star explodes the planet. Even if that were to happen, I wanted to be like, I'm Luke Skywalker. And I flew into the Death Star and blasted as much as I could. And what's so empowering is I always just did it for my own family and my neighbors. But then as my message of just common sense started exploding everywhere I was going in the city of la, I had all types of people, senior citizens, younger people holding my hand, hugging me, crying, and getting me so much more pumped up because I was already pumped up off my own anger. But then when you connect to everyone's anger all across Los Angeles, everyone just being like, where is all of our tax money going? Why are there 50,000 plus drug addicts naked, smoking fentanyl and super meth in front of our kids schools part the list of just disastrous policies going on. It got me like so much more pumped up where I can hardly go to sleep at night. I'm just in bed just like looking up at the ceiling. It's like, I can't wait for tomorrow to get these people. And it's not. Yeah, I'm not a politician because I am more of a, like a warrior because I don't want to be a politician. I want to go and stop corruption. Everything that I talk about is not politics. These are criminals I'm running against. They are taking all of our tax money. Whether you're a Democrat, whether you're conservative, whether you're center, independent, libertarian, everyone pays taxes and then they steal it and then they go increase problems with that money and make other people that they're friends with rich. So that's why I'm exploding on the political scene because my message is just pure facts. I don't need to say anything, but they're stealing from you and they're making your life horrible.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, Spencer, I think you've really hit on something here because it seems like the greatest antidote to the kind of corruption that you've seen in LA is basic common sense and facts. You said that over and over again. You've talked about that in your ads. And I gotta think there are a lot of Democrats in that city who are like, hell yeah, we need to get back to the basics. And I think you're the guy to do it.

[Spencer Pratt]

Back to before my house burned down, I haven't posted a single political thing in my entire life. Yeah, the only thing I've ever been done politics wise is back in the day I did a paparazzi setup photo with a Sarah Palin shirt on. And then the next day I did a paparazzi photo with an Obama shirt on just to get multiple tabloid photos out there. That's as deep as my public political Persona is. So of course Democrats love me because I don't speak about politics ever. I sold healing crystals. I still technically do. And I fed hummingbirds. I am not a political person. When you burn my house, my parents house down, you then create somebody who's going to come after these criminals. So all my neighbors voted for Kamala Harris. Everyone I know is a Democrat. I went to the most Democrat high school from kindergarten to 12th grade. Everyone I grew up with is a Democrat. I didn't identify as anything because I was trying to be a famous person forever. Famous people that talk politics get unfamous very quick. I truly made an effort to never be connected to anything political. So, yes, Democrats can back me all day long. And my opponents try to be like, oh, he's a Republican. What? Because I don't want you to steal from us. No, Democrats don't want you to steal from us either. Because I don't want drug addicts to torture dogs on the streets in front of everybody. And you let them happen. Oh, that's a. That's a republic. No, I'm a citizen. I'm an Angelino. Not to mention, it's a nonpartisan race for a reason. There's a reason the mayor is supposed to be a nonpartisan city employee. Because at the end of the day, they're employees. People forget, Karen Bass works for me right now, and she's fired, she's failed. She's done. She should be in jail. So this idea that I'm a politician. No, I am a citizen that has had enough of these criminals taking our tax money and destroying our city and having seven people die a day in the streets because they have the right to do it. No, I have the right as mayor to keep these people alive, get them mandatory treatment, get them back in society, give them a life. These people are demons I'm running against. It's crazy. So, again, they're so stupid, thinking they're going to win, because they're like, they frame me. Oh, he's the Republican. No, no, no, no. I'm the Angelino, and everyone is voting for me with a functioning brain. That's not a socialist or literally an evil demon.

[Michael Duncan]

Spencer, I love your passion, and it really came through for me when I listened to your interview on Joe Rogan, because, frankly, I didn't know what to expect. Because what I remember about you is you being painted as kind of like this villain of reality.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, the reality TV villain.

[Michael Duncan]

And then I listened to that Rogan interview, and you're given, like, a passionate dissertation of the failures of public. You know, the public works department and you know, what they did to drain the reservoir that led to that horrible fire situation, the burning down of your house. And to think that, like, your public Persona back then was as this sort of reality star person, and now you can be sort of a hero to millions of Angelenos. It's. It's got to be an incredibly fulfilling experience in talking to your neighbors and friends now.

[Spencer Pratt]

It will be when I accomplish it. Right now, I feel the pressure and the hope, and that's my extra fight and the passion is because now I feel the responsibility to do this and I feel I can get through and do it. So I need to do everything in my DNA to just get in the game and then accomplish what's so easy to do when they say, oh, Spencer doesn't have the experience, the amount of successful human beings on planet Earth that are going to come around and be my team. My only job as mayor is to be in the streets fighting city council members. And I don't mean physically, I mean just for their communities, because their communities, these constituents, these city council members do not listen to their actual constituents. The mayor needs to be fighting on behalf of each community. That's my plan. The people that are going to be running the city, they're like, oh, Spencer doesn't know. It's a $15 billion budget. First off, after I'm mayor, our budget's going to be $50 billion, because I'm going to bring billions and billions of dollars back to the city when it's safe. You cannot have a functioning, successful city if it's not safe. So when my priority is the safety of the streets and the businesses and the kids and the moms who money will be pouring into the city of la, we won't be trying to make the deficit anymore because we won't be laundering our tax money to increase problems. So, no, I don't, I don't. It doesn't feel good yet. It'll feel good in about a year when I'm the mayor just cleaning up these dirty streets. Then it will. But right now it just feels like pressure and everyone's hope on my shoulders. Yeah, no, listen to that.

[Josh Holmes]

I get it. And it's a little jarring hearing so much common sense in one opening segment, but I want for the benefit of our audience to see the ad that you put out that has gone incredibly viral that has made what is an Angelino's story, a national story about hope to try to get out from some of the corruption across this entire country that we've seen. Clip one, please.

[Spencer Pratt]

This is where Mayor Vass lives. You notice something? Or here, where Nithya Raman's three million dollar mansion sits.

[Josh Holmes]

They don't have to live in the mess they've created.

[Spencer Pratt]

Where you live. This is where I live. They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are. That's why I'm running for mayor, for my sons and the rest of us Angelenos that want to stop these corrupt politicians from destroying, destroying our city. We are Going to get the golden age of Los Angeles back.

[Josh Holmes]

It's striking for so many reasons, in that you have the visual here that is impossible to ignore from everybody. Imagine being in that situation. Imagine somebody who has been in reality tv. He's been. He's got a successful career in his own right that decides to take it upon himself to run against this corrupt, embedded establishment in LA just simply because he's heard this stories of his friends and neighbors and personally experienced it. I think that's what's so motivating to everybody across the country. And while they're dialing into your campaign, I mean, just tell us a little bit about that journey.

[Spencer Pratt]

The journey to making the ad or just the journey to the national exposure?

[Josh Holmes]

The national exposure is sort of what I'm. I'm interested.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah. I think what I keep saying is everyone is doing performative politics, whether each side, whatever political. Everybody's now like a political influencer, and they're trying to get, you know, views and clicks. Everything I say is the truth. And that's why I'm so successful, because I don't ever speak anything that's not from my heart. I don't have speeches. It's just the truth. And people, it's refreshing because whether you live in Australia, I mean, the people from all over the country feel a piece of what I'm fighting against, where they feel like they think all these things, but if they say it, they'll get attacked or nothing will happen. And now that I have nothing, literally nothing, everything I've ever worked for was in that house. It was supposed to be my inheritance for my sons, based off of just property tax going up and the property value, and just this was going to be their future. They took everything from me. So I truly fight from nothing. You can't fake that energy. I'm not trying to be anything, but just as real as can be. And I know I'm going to win.

[John Ashbrook]

Spencer, was there a particular moment over the last few years where you were like, I got it. I got to do something. I mean, I know. Was it. Was it the. All the money that was taken by these NGOs, was it the fact that they're not allowing. Karen Bass won't allow people to rebuild their homes was when it. You learned that they didn't allow, like, they could have prevented these fires by allowing that reservoir to be filled? Was there? Or was it just like the combination of all of them and you just reached a point, you were like, hell, yeah, I gotta do this, because nobody else is Standing up.

[Spencer Pratt]

It all adds up. But to me, I. I truly believed, once I heard the. The word, the sentence, criminal negligence, and there was so much of that, and 12 people died. I truly believe Karen Bass was going to jail. In my heart of hearts, I was like, this lady is going to jail. The evidence is all here. And then you just find out that they can fight all these immunities. They can just kill you and be like, oh, immunity. It's immunity. Oh, we can let you burn alive in your house. We have no legal responsibility to come. The fire department's not for that. It's so sick. And I was like, this lady's running again. This is demonic. And when I saw that no one was running against her, that's when I stepped in. So whenever she announced and then I checked and you know, that Rick Russo was kind of running, and then he went to governor, and I was kind of like, okay, he's probably going to do it. And then I called him and I said, hey, are you doing this? Because I'm going to go after Mayor Bass. And he said, go after Bass. So I was like, okay, nobody's going after. I will be the one.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I think the thing that's really striking is the arrogance of Karen Bass and this entrenched establishment that then you launch this campaign. And I've seen a lot of reporting about this, of them trying to question your residency as you're living in a trailer.

[Josh Holmes]

Shocking.

[Michael Duncan]

When your home burned down because of their negligence. Could you explain that to me? It seems like a stupid political strategy from them, but they're trying.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah. That's when I knew the level of the machine, because I, you know, I threatened a legal lawsuit against LA Times. And I uncover in that, those back and forth, that it was clear that Nithya and Karen Bass teams pitch that to LA Times, to their.

[Michael Duncan]

Nithya's the DSA person?

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah, she's the DSA City Council member that fights parents in her community to keep drug addict dealing criminals in front of schools and says there's no difference between 1 and 500ft. So, yeah, she's actually worse than Karen Bass, which is the most psycho sentence you can put together. But they try to say that because my house burned down, I couldn't run for mayor. Which here's how fake it is, because I was like, maybe it's confusing. I grab Yelp and I search LA City Clerk, and I just call and somebody answers. I go, if your house burned down, can you still vote with the address of the dirt? Like, yes, it's on our website. You can get them like, but if somebody calls you, you can confirm. Like, yes, said. What about running for any city office? Like, yes, you can run on that address. I'm like, that's on our website also, like, the city office. I go, so I could run for mayor if my house burned down. This random me just calling to see how easy this was to prove was false. He's like, yes, it's on our website. It's like, okay, so that's how cooked up this conspiracy was. It was one Yelp phone call for me, which I didn't even Google it. Obviously, if I Googled it, you could have pulled the website up. If I had used any AI. So the idea that they're framing that 7,000 fire victims could not vote against Karen Bass, like, that's how big of a lie that is. And yes, back to. Let's go back to the reason I'm running for mayor and not feeding hummingbirds and taking my kids to the elementary school that you let burn down because everything burned, you psychopath. So, yeah, that was like. Not to mention, I. I can't rebuild until I win the lawsuit against Gavin Newsom because I had California Fair plan and only received $1 million for a structure which now to be up to zone, I have to put a million dollars in caissons into the bedrock that wasn't there for the 60 years my house was there. So I then take my SBA loan, which. It's a process. I don't just hand you the money. So I've been trying to get this SBA loan through for months to buy the Airstream that I'm now going to pay for 30 years every month for to put to crane into my dirt lot as just a troll because obviously there's no school in town because they burned it down by the preschools burn. There's no supermarket. Even if I wanted my family to be living in the Airstream I just bought, it's impossible. So, yes, we had to get a new rental residency in Santa Barbara when my house burned down. You.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, I imagine your whole personal experience has just given you greater insight into your friends and neighbors that, you know, you didn't have a reason to think about how they were so disenfranchised and defrauded over a period of time. And now that you've personally experienced it and watched your friends and neighbors, like, you got to get up and stand up and fight. But I'm interested from your perspective. Listen, you were a big deal long ago in reality tv. I think for a generation you became a household name.

[Michael Duncan]

My wife was more excited about this interview than nearly any other on our show for that reason.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, I get it, but, but it's got to be because of the friends and associations that you had in that, that previous life of yours. I got to imagine there's a fair amount of celebs out there who are like, look, from what you said earlier about if you want to be a famous person, you certainly can't be political on the right side or the center or anything other than a progressive left. I got to imagine there are a lot of people who have watched what's happened to you, their friends and neighbors in that community who are famous in their own right, who would love their big supporters, but they're just like, we can't, we can't talk about it, Spencer, but we're on your side here.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah, the list of mind blowing movie stars, directors, studio presidents, that's what I keep telling people. My supporters are who they think they have the Democrat established. These are my supporters. They're all behind me and I understand why they're not public facing yet, but once I'm mayor, the support I'll have for the industry to bring back and the meetings, it's all there. My advisors already to how to truly get Hollywood back and popping in LA are legitimate presidents and CEOs of these major streamers and studios. They know the people in power right now have destroyed Hollywood. They know I will work tirelessly to get all these jobs back for the grips, the lighting people, the catering, the glam. Everyone always thinks about Hollywood when they think like, oh, Tom Cruise. No, the Hollywood that was destroyed is all the workers, the people that build the sets. It's the amount of money that has been taken from our city because they allowed Hollywood to be destroyed is mind boggling. But just in the last couple weeks, Karen Bass and Nithya, oh, they're, they're tweeting away. We're gonna get Hollywood back. Like the level of just crazy lies that they do to try to get. You see the desperation of power of these politicians when they see they're about to lose an election. You see how disgusting they are. You have failed at everything. And now you think we're so stupid that a few weeks before an election, now you're putting on a hard helmet and you're fixing the potholes and going, it's, it's crazy, it's like a bad movie. But that's how dumb they think we are. Now we're not that dumb. We are. We have woken up to how freaking insane these powerful politicians are. But back to your question. Yeah. And I'm going to serious lunches people couldn't comprehend that are hosting for me in these backyards that are like, how can we help? What resources? What levers? Because it's not. I don't just need money. Obviously you need money to run a campaign, but like, my ad that broke every record probably in the history of campaign ads cost me $0. The truth is priceless. And I have. Everything I have is the truth. They have to come up with money and consultants to figure out how to lie to people. So the machine I need is a way bigger grassroots. I need their behind the scenes resources for ballots to get everyone, like, this is our guy. Tell everybody. That's how I use these powerful people, word of mouth. When the top down gets, oh, this is the guy. Everyone's boom, boom, boom. They're sending him ballots. And why I win June 2nd is I'm going to win in balance.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what's so fascinating to me, and I know you never considered yourself a political person, but there's so much about your background that makes you perfect for this moment right now. I mean, being a reality TV star villain, like, you had to live at a very young age, have people throwing darts at you publicly, whether it's true or not. I mean, you're playing your role, you're doing your thing, but you just learned to build an armor around you in some ways. And that's not like, you know, much of us were introduced to you years and years ago. And now you're in a situation where people are just throwing darts at you literally all the time. People who are in power. It doesn't seem to be hitting at all. Like, you just seem to be running through all of that. I got to imagine there was much about your early career that has helped you build at least the Teflon or the armor to be able to just take the withering attacks that they're throwing at your way because you're a threat.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Spencer Pratt]

It's back to where I connect with God on this. If God wanted somebody to destroy this evil, he would put me in the game because I have 20 years of just being attacked all day, every day.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Spencer Pratt]

What they don't realize is I'm like the Highlander. When you come out with me with the negativity, I chop your head off and I have. The lightning comes from the clouds and I get more, more pumped up.

[Josh Holmes]

I Actually feels like you sort of relish it, right?

[Spencer Pratt]

Oh, I. The dumbest thing they keep doing is saying my name. I actually do a dance when anybody with any platform says my name. How stupid are these people? The best thing they would have done was to ignore me, but to give me more lightning from the clouds is they're done. They're done.

[Josh Holmes]

Worst case scenario is trying to take Spencer Pratt and just take shots at him. He's like, buddy, this is what I do, right? This is who I am.

[Spencer Pratt]

I mean, not to mention I had to do it for all my whole life and career knowing I was standing on no truth. Like, I obviously sought out being the most hated person to get paid. So it's way harder to defend yourself when you're the bad guy. When now I'm the person telling everyone the truth. It's very easy to stand in. Ha ha ha. Nice try. You know, it's not going to work. I'm the one who's telling the truth. You liars.

[Josh Holmes]

It's gotta be liberating in a lot of ways. I mean, you're no longer playing any parts.

[Spencer Pratt]

You're just there shooting. It is like I keep saying, it's fun. I have fun every day because I am their worst nightmare. Truly. They cannot do anything to me. I wrote a book before I ran for politics trying to literally get rich off of destroying my identity. I already wrote, like, my book is a hit piece I joked about. Sounds like somebody wrote it about me to try to destroy me. Like, it's doing the audiobook was depressing, how horrible my existence was.

[Josh Holmes]

So you're like, can I skip that paragraph?

[Spencer Pratt]

Jeez, that sounds things like, all they would have to do is just read my book to be like, oh, we're done. We're done. He already wrote by Spencer Bratt in all of this.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, listen, you're doing it for all the right reasons. You've been an inspiration to an awful lot of people. I mean, we spent the last year figuring out all the fraud and corruption in so many cities and states and localities all have sort of Karen Bass like features to them, where ultimately the. The victim of their crime is, like you said, the people who live there who don't have any choices of somebody who's just authentically getting in the game, providing them a reason to get out from underneath this corruption that has been leveled upon them. And you're doing all that. Can't thank you enough for doing it. People want to help you out, Spencer. Where do they go?

[Spencer Pratt]

Well, we broke the city Record for small donor donations because under $100 people have just got from all over the country. Because that's the funniest thing the ops will say. They're not even from la. These people were from la. You made them have to move, you idiot. They're donating so that I win, so they can move back to the city of la. So thank God for people all over the state that I have people from other countries that move to Dubai to feel safe, that want to move back to la. When I'm there, they can't donate. That's illegal. But my point is, across the planet, people want me to win, to come back to a safe, beautiful la. So how to support you? Go to Mayor Pratt. You donate any amount helps. Because I love beating their records, even if it's small. Small donations are great too. So don't think you have to max out at 1800. But if you have 1800, max out,

[Josh Holmes]

obviously guy gets a candidate.

[Spencer Pratt]

This is like, it sounds like more billboards. Money is billboards for me. And my billboards are the craziest thing anyone's ever seen. Get ready. I think they dropped tomorrow, but they are. And the more these I can put around the city will just like. That's all I care about right now. I have 15 of them. In a perfect world, I have like 60 of these. So these criminals don't even want to drive around and look, but.

[Josh Holmes]

And there's a lot of traffic. So you got to see those billboards you're seeing. You got to see them.

[Spencer Pratt]

That's where I really. And I've never put a dollar behind one of my videos, so I'd love to be. Be able to boost posts. The money does matter in those type of sense. But if you have no money, you have a voice and you can convert anybody in the comments sections, anyone in the stories, fight these bot socialist DSA people. On any post you see, be the person arguing with somebody. 10, 10 Comments Back and forth. Just expose these people, make them bake their accounts private, make them delete their posts. This is digital warfare.

[Michael Duncan]

And we are so much.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, Spencer, you are an inspiration not only to us. Hollywood Hand is a part of the crew. Absolutely loves you. I gotta tell you, I can't wait. We might even fly out to your victory party. Because this is an inspiration not only for just reasonable human beings who are tired of all this, but somebody like you who has no real reason other than they want to go do the right thing, to get involved in politics for all the right reasons. Your authenticity is Just absolutely, crystal clear resonating with us, buddy. Good luck out there. Keep in touch.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, this guy is the quintessential pissed off citizen who decided to run for office and do something about it. I mean, the thing, the, the passion that this guy talks with can only come from someone whose house burnt down, whose neighbor's house is burnt down, and whose government has stood in the way of their effort to rebuild.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think it's. I'll tell you what, he is a little bit as a stand. He's a stand in for me having gone through the whole Minnesota thing. We haven't even gotten to your Ohio thing, which we probably, probably will this week. But fraud, with Doge uncovering all this stuff, he's a little bit of a stand in for your citizen who's just had it.

[Michael Duncan]

Good governance people.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they just had it. They weren't particularly political. In fact, it probably worked counter to their own interest to be political in any way, or even interested in politics. But they finally came to a point in their lives where something happened and something terrible happened to Spencer Pratt, where you're like, you know what? That's it. And they just go full blast into it. And that's what it's supposed to be about.

[Spencer Pratt]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what representational democracy in our country is supposed to be about. We haven't seen enough of that in places like la, Chicago, New York, like big cities across this country that is just. They've just decimated with fraud and disenfranchisement and, and poverty and everything else. There just haven't been enough people who've been like, you know what? Fuck you.

[Michael Duncan]

It reminds me of that scene in Network, you know, the famous line, I'm bad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's what he kind of strikes me as a guy who's channeling the frustrations of literally millions of Angelenos who look around and they're like, that maybe they weren't personally impacted by the wildfire. They see his frustration in it, but it also, it reveals the other frustrations that there are in the city. Why are there fentanyl addicts who are wandering around the city like zombies? And Skid row is blocks and blocks and blocks. The potholes don't get filled. And also the trash collection is fucking terrible.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, like it starts to pile up. Like, you know, the, the backpack gets heavier and heavier. You might be a partisan Democrat, you know, voted Democrat as long as you lived in la.

[Josh Holmes]

And the fail upward of the, of the democratic establishment in that you, you don't serve any capacity, which you were elected to do, but you continue to rise up the ladder to become mayor of your city.

[Michael Duncan]

So there has to be a tipping point and hopefully it's now.

[John Ashbrook]

Duncan, you mentioned network. It actually reminded me of a different quote from a different movie. And I was mentioning this to Holmes a little bit earlier. It's from Hoosiers. I know they're in. Dear to your heart. Remember when the dad confronted Norman Dale at the first practice and he said, mister, there are two kinds of stupid in this world. There's the kind of guy who gets naked and howls at the moon, and then the guy who does the same thing in my own living room. The first guy you'd like to ignore. The second guy you kind of can't. And I feel like that's what Spencer Pratt is dealing with. He's like, this is in my living room.

[Spencer Pratt]

You.

[John Ashbrook]

I can't ignore it. I have to do something.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's well said. It's such a good quote. Anyway, that's Spencer. And honestly, if you can help out, if you have any interest in just repealing some of the laws of political gravity to institute a little bit of sense anywhere in this country this year, that's a really good place to start. So check out that campaign, check out his website, check out what he's saying. If your reaction is anything like ours, I think you're going to be excited about it. And if you live in la, I don't think there's any other choice but get on board with both hands. Anyway, we've got Mary Catherine Ham, who is just one of our absolute favorites. And we talked her a little bit about the Maha stuff and then we confront her about some man problems. Check this out. Want to welcome back one of our absolute favorites here on the Variety Program, Mary Catherine Ham. How are you?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Hello. I'm good.

[Josh Holmes]

Everything going okay?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Everything's great. You know, just podcast in a way.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, you've gotten back in the full swing of things.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm trying too.

[Josh Holmes]

That's great.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yes. Normally in getting hammered, if you ever want to listen to me.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, listen, they're great. We listen to them all the time here in the Variety Program. But we couldn't help but notice some of your writings. You're a multi tool player.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

You know, I try to write sometimes when my children will give me more than 20 minutes at a time.

[Josh Holmes]

You write things, which is, I mean, it's good if you can do that.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I find it hard to do anything for 20 minutes in my house. I didn't mean it.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm just gonna let it be there.

[Josh Holmes]

Just let it. Just let it. No, but on this case, I actually took particular fascination because you're, you were examining Maha. Maha moms, the incredible force which benefited Donald Trump, obviously, in this election, the issue set that is not going anywhere, but also some weird things within it that is sort of, it's become a topic of conversation within the whole political right about like, what place does this find itself and how do you handle this constituency going forward? And you kind of examine this.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yeah. And I'm, I, I'm. I would consider myself a Maha to Maha adjacent mom. Like a Maha curious.

[Josh Holmes]

Sure, sure.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And, and a lot of suburban moms are. They have this feeling that sort of the powers that be are working against them when they're trying to make a healthy upbringing for their kids, whether it's phone usage and device usage in schools that they're trying to fight against or it's whatever snack they're trying to get for the their kid. And they can't get anything clean. And they want more information and they want people who signal, hey, we're willing to fight against the powers that be. Right. So now RFK became the avatar of that. Like, he definitely will fight against the powers that be. Right. He will go to bat on many of these things. But you run the risk with him, I think always of the messenger subsuming the message.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Because when you've got these normie moms you're trying to appeal to.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

They're like, am I on board or am I not on board? And there's, there's a couple ways in this op ed that I suggest, like, we could, we could shoot, Shoot the gap, guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

On talking about.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, talk to, talk to us about that because, I mean, look, we're not Maha moms.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

We're obviously interested in the health and well being of our families. And there was much that compelled to us, but in a very different way than the folks you're talking about.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yeah. I would say, look, there's, there's always the Maha faithful. And I think RFK has been interestingly happy to take this position and then take his wins and losses where he gets them. Like, he seems to understand that he's going to get some things and not other things. Some of the faithful understand that others are mad about various things. But I think when it comes to hitting normal moms, you can talk about ingredients you can talk about phones in schools, you can talk about all sorts of things. But I think the key is to say more information, not less. Because I think you see just a

[Josh Holmes]

basic transparency argument, right?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Transparency, more information, not less. More empowerment, not less. For you to make decisions for your kids, for you to have tools to do that, whether it's HSAs that you can spend more money with. That's the key. Because Fauci was so paternalistic. Right. That was what we dealt with. That's how we gained ground with many of these moms, is they were being told, no, this man's takes our health.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

They're like, wait a second, I'm not sure that's correct right now. If you just replace his takes with RFKs, I think people get the same feeling. They're like, don't be paternalistic for me. I want more information. That includes, by the way, because I'm a free speech gal. When you're talking about ads for pharmaceutical companies, there's things that you find out through that free flow of information. There's things you find out through the free flow of FOIAs from a guy like Fauci's right hand man who's now been indicted for hiding that kind of thing. So I think if you're talking about empowerment for parents, more information, you're on safer ground.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Because a lot of them will be with you on that.

[Josh Holmes]

It's fascinating because, like, look, I. Maha adjacent. I think I'm maybe even a step removed from that. I'll let these guys speak for themselves on where they're at. But my whole standpoint is, yes. Do I believe there are a whole bunch of corporations who sort of skirted rules and didn't provide transparency and allowed for perhaps the least beneficial health outcomes for our kids as a result of all that? No question. Like, I don't have no question in my mind. Do I think that the rise of social media and the capitalist sort of inclination to jump on that as an opportunity to provide more opportunities for folks that want to take advantage of that anxiety exists? I do. So I've always kind of like, like been a halfway on this in that, you know, you wake up one day and somebody's like, well, you know, here's a. You just have to drink turmeric and you don't have cholesterol anymore. And that's ma. And I've been like, what? Like that. It doesn't make any sense to me. But. But the whole movement is an incredibly important part of not just political Republican Party or anything else but this country.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And I think distrust in institutions was earned honestly. Right. They earned it hardcore. And so you have to, when you're winning back trust, I think trust people with a lot of information and say, okay, we're gonna be transparent, we're gonna push them to be transparent about drug prices. You're gonna be able to do more research on that. Whether it's the Trump RX or other mechanisms for doing that, we're gonna put that in your hands. I also think, think the numbers are crazy when it comes to parents being polled. This is 2025 poll, but 75% believe that mental health and social media for their kids is a major problem. And so I think Republicans should be out in front on something like device and phone bans in schools that have shown to be very beneficial. It's led to a sea change in parent opinion about this.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I noticed there's something on California just this week.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

So lausd, after telling you that devices were what your kids needed to be on for seven hours a day during the pandemic, are now like, okay, so that meant that they didn't learn to read. Our bad, our bad, let's switch. But Republican governors led the way on these types of changes. Youngkin in Virginia, Indiana, and then Desantis in Florida.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And that's an issue that really squarely speaks to Normie parents who are concerned about the well being of their kids because now they're finding out, well, I try to keep my kid off a device at home and I send them to school and they're on for, for four hours a day.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I mean, like, that's a maha issue. It's, it's addressed in the maha report.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I would say, like in my experience, you know, you try to keep it kiss. Keep it simple, stupid when it comes to a lot of the food stuff. And I, I mean you can certainly make an argument that a lot of our, like, you know, our, our, our food supply has been industrialized in a way that things get ultra processed or whatever. And there's a lot of benefits to some of that stuff as far as like, you know, delivering affordable things to people, you know, to eat. But like, eating whole foods is a good place to start.

[Josh Holmes]

Sure.

[Michael Duncan]

Like cooking the stuff is good. But like, I think Joey, our six year old must have gotten the like basics of the food table in school or something recently because he came home and he did the funniest thing. He was like, all right, dad, I'm going to name a food or you name a food, and then I'll tell you if it's healthy or unhealthy. Like, thumbs up, thumbs down. And I tried to explain to him that it's a little more complicated than that. Take a food like cheese. Cheese is great. Maybe the cheese pizza isn't the healthiest thing, but cheese is healthy to eat. And I just say that to say it's more complicated than just looking at calories on things. Things to know whether you're eating healthy. And I think that that's really the heart of a lot of the anxiety, is people grew up thinking, like, food pyramid.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[Michael Duncan]

Food pyramid, calories. And like, am I gonna have a heart attack because I have butter instead of margarine? Right. And we're learning, I think, with time that it's more complicated than that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And oops. Yeah. Fat might be okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, Right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

By the way, when I was 12, I knew that 12 servings of carbs a day was not a great idea.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I think I sensed that when they gave me the original food pyramid.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that when you're hawking down a tombstone after school every day? Because that occurred to me.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I mean, look, how many calories were we burning when we were in high school, folks?

[Josh Holmes]

That's true.

[Michael Duncan]

I never noticed that. The Olive Garden Unlimited Pastable, for example.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

It's tricky for me because first of all, the Quarter Pounder of cheese is a modern miracle, not just in taste, but in calorie delivery for amount of money for the number of people you can feed. We eat like kings, right? Eat a little too much like kings sometimes. But I think there is this shift in the food pyramid in just sense. Common sense changes. They're like, yeah, we knew that wasn't actually good. We know that Whole Foods are good for you. We've known that we were ahead of the government on this for a generation, making decisions about our diets. And so I think those shifts are good. And people actually do respond to RFK or anyone telling them, hey, here's the common sense alternative to the crazy stuff they were telling you and telling you was real for all that time. By the way, speaking of shooting the gap, Nicole Safire, who I know personally, has been named Sergeant General.

[Josh Holmes]

I remember hanging out with a couple of Christmas parties with you and Nicole Sapphire. We had a good time. She is not only incredibly smart, but she's just a. A very good human being.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yeah. And I think the shift from Means, Casey Means, who has some more unorthodox views than a Nicole Sapphire, is an

[Josh Holmes]

example what scares people this is not a commentary on Kayce Means, who I also have met.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And I think she has a ton of interesting ideas.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And I don't really know her from Adam, but there's a bunch of stuff there that I think what you were getting at in this op ed is that, like, okay, I understand what we're doing in terms of unmasking what could have been this industrial complex that is actually making us unhealthy and having ultimate transparency towards us making the choices for our family and then like the wildest conspiracy. And I'm not accusing her of this, but I just think that there are some of that that revolved around her nomination.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

As with all politics, it's important to not let an issue with a messenger kill the message.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And you have to be cognizant of that. And I think Sapphire is. Sapphire aligns with a bunch of parents who, if you pull even Maha people, they will tell you that on average, for vaccines, they're on board. They make a distinction for flu and Covid, as they should. I make a distinction for this. And I think Sapphire is more in that model. And she signals that very clearly. She's got a great credibility pedigree. And also she thinks critically about these things. That's what people want. They want a credible messenger who thinks critically about these things and has shown a propensity to fight back even when it's hard, like during COVID Yeah, Johnny.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. You know, mk, I just. RFK has really taken a sort of a front and center role on all this Maha. But I will tell you, it seems like it is driven by moms and. And you get at that. And, you know, I. I think all these guys subscribe like, a good man will do anything for his woman. And when you hear at home like, I've got a problem with this. Here's a problem. I've been reading about this. You listen to it because she matters to you. And I feel like this whole movement, aside from the fact that there are big, high profile people like RFK and Cali Means and Casey Means at the top of it, this is driven by moms at home, right?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yeah. There's a constituency here. That's why somebody like Jared Polis out in Colorado has at times applauded the Maha movement, nrfk, which seems like he shouldn't be doing that, but he knows where those votes are. And he got a bunch of crunchy moms in Colorado. Right. He knows where that is. So there are real voters here and they are not easily categorized. It's not a. A monolith of a movement. There are women like me, and there are much more crunchy women. Like, it's a. It's a. It's a spectrum, for sure. But I think as even in a midterm year, which is challenging, your job is to appeal to people on a bunch of levels and maybe grab a couple people on this issue where you wouldn't otherwise have attracted them to the polls on a midterm year. And these are some issues that people care deeply about that the Maha report has explicitly addressed.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what I think was so politically motivating about this entire conversation last cycle, and I think it continues now, needs to be refocused in a lot of ways, is that you have an entire. It seems to me, and I'm not putting words in your mouth, but an entire political party in the Democratic Party, they can talk all about how much they hate corporations and how much they hate any sort of business or capitalism or whatever, but it never occurred to them for one second to question any of this. Right? Their food pyramids can't be questioned. Their vaccine schedules can't be questioned. They're, you know, endorsements from all the doctors unions. Just trusting the science associations are all trusting the science. Like, at no point did they get to a level where they were actually intellectually curious about what millions of moms, dads, and everybody else are asking about. Like, dude, I've got this plate. Well, I can fill it with anything. It would be great if my government had some input.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Well, I'm a capitalist. And also I can recognize that an alliance of a large and powerful government and a business might produce results that are not necessarily in my best interest. Right. And so I think examining that became part of. Of being a mom. And post Covid, you tell me you are the science. I don't care who you are. I'm gonna look into it a little bit because my days of trusting without looking into it are over.

[Josh Holmes]

They're over.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And I was always fairly intellectually curious, but there are things I would leave to the experts because you got a busy life. And then I found out, oh, there's a bunch of things I can't do that with because you a holes decided to tell me so true that my children, my first grader should be on zoom for seven hours a day that would be good for her. And I said, I don't think that's good for.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, and some of that is just like, they call it women's intuition or whatever, but it's also just raising Families, you know, Like, I remember when I was a kid and I had, like, terrible, like, mucus and like, I was like, stuffed up all the time.

[Josh Holmes]

You're one of those kids. A gross.

[Michael Duncan]

This was like, very. I'm. Before I remember, I would think I was like two or three looking at.

[Josh Holmes]

you, like, horrible.

[John Ashbrook]

What's wrong with that?

[Michael Duncan]

And my mom kept telling our pediatrician, like, I think he's allergic to milk. But, like, when we were kids, they were. They said, that's crazy. That's impossible.

[Josh Holmes]

Everyone loves milk.

[Michael Duncan]

Everybody loves milk.

[Josh Holmes]

Strong bones.

[Michael Duncan]

Strong bones and all that sort of stuff. And my mom was just very persistent with, like, no, you're wrong. No, you're wrong. He's allergic to milk. Took me off. Milk cleared right up immediately.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Not the gross kid anymore.

[Michael Duncan]

And like, I, like, I became handsome

[Josh Holmes]

and strong,

[Michael Duncan]

you know, I, I outgrew it. I. I love dairy now. But, but isn't that. I just say that to illustrate the point that you're making, which is like, yeah, I mean, I want to trust doctors and science and what the government's going to say about health, but, like, trust but verify.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

Here.

[Michael Duncan]

And like, your experience is sometimes the most credible thing because you're invested in it.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, and also, look, I think what you're getting at, the tone of your op ed, and I think what you're saying here, parenting in particular, there's a nuanced experience. Everyone has got a different set of situations in terms of what health looks like. I mean, that's just human nature. But particularly when you're a parent and you're in entire control of what those kids look like, no matter what you're doing from a political movement that addresses that concern, nuance needs to be a part of it.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yes, nuance should be a part of it. And as I think Republicans have done too much in the past. Don't cede the argument to the left.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, totally.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

They say, we're in charge of the health stuff. We know all about this. Well, they proved they didn't.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

So you get this huge opening. Just like with education, you got a generational loss of lead for Democrats on the issue of education. Some public health stuff is the same story. And that is not. That does not mean those voters belong to you. As some have noted in the past, like, they're being rented. They may not stick around.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

But you have an opportunity to speak to them on things they care about, to give them tools to have a better life, to give their kids a healthier experience and to Tell them we're not going to do the same thing. We're not going to be the paternalistic jerks. And that's where you can speak to people who might not otherwise be in your coalition and might consider sticking around if they're getting a few things out of it.

[Josh Holmes]

It really is well said. It's well said. I enjoyed the op ed. I enjoy that whole conversation. Typical fashion.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

By the way, one more on allergies. By the way, the peanut allergies.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Right.

[Spencer Pratt]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Thanks a lot, guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

For all that gave a generation peanut allergies by just not exposing them to them.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And if you had spoken out about that back then, they'd be like, you're crazy. You're a crazy.

[Michael Duncan]

Trying to kill.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

You're giving your kid peanuts when they're young.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

That's what you should do.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe it was the airline industry trying to get those things off.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. You know, I used to enjoy those.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I don't know. Whatever it is, we have one more issue that we need to bring up with you.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

This is a mom issue.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Okay. I'm here for it.

[Josh Holmes]

Of great concern, at least for two of the three of us on this panel, because we. We have big issues.

[John Ashbrook]

Rise of a cultural phenomenon.

[Josh Holmes]

So it. It came to our attention in a way that we could bring up on this show this weekend. Clip two, please.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Thermos is recalling more than 8 million

[Josh Holmes]

stainless king food jars and Sportsman food and beverage bottles. Thermos says it's received at least 27 complaints of the stoppers on the containers, forcibly ejecting and causing lacerations and other injuries. At least three users reported permanent vision loss after being struck in the eye. Owners of the recalled thermos containers should stop using them immediately and contact the company for a free replacement part or bottle. Okay. All right. So thermos is blinding people because of this ejection.

[Michael Duncan]

They're just putting their faces over the thermos as they open it.

[Josh Holmes]

Evidently. Okay, evidently. And I'm not.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Imagine if you're at a soccer game and you have a little tipple.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And then it explodes. And everyone knows. And you're suddenly.

[Josh Holmes]

And you're bourbon everywhere. And you're blind.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And you're blind. I mean, that's the less problematic part. Yikes.

[Josh Holmes]

But the thermos is only a part. Like if. If. Look, if. If th. If thermos was blinding people. In the 80s, there have been 2/3 of the population of America that was blind because everybody had thermoses for coffee or whatever. There was no Other thing. Now there is 8,000 other things.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

And the thing that Joni and I in particular were commiserating about. What is it about women?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I can feel this is going to be one of those nuanced arguments that works for the ladies.

[Josh Holmes]

And the collection of water containing devices that is so alluring by which our homes are inundated by them.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Well, let me tell you this. Stanley never did this to me. No. I have to say again, I'm adjacent. I am not a water bottle collector.

[Josh Holmes]

You're not?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm not.

[Josh Holmes]

So you like Katie Duncan, which we were shocked to hear because I've got like 15 guys.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Katie and I thinker.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I got like 15 guys that I hang out with when I'm coaching ball or whatever. And we have this conversation on the regular about how we've dedicated now large parts of our kitchen to just the containment.

[Michael Duncan]

So is it Stanley's? Is it.

[John Ashbrook]

It's everything.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

It was Stanley's. It's now. It was Yeti's at one point. Hydro flask. There's a whole.

[Josh Holmes]

I have them all.

[Michael Duncan]

So how much.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

There's a flowchart.

[Michael Duncan]

How much of this can we blame on secret lives of Mormon wives? And those big, like, swig and like.

[John Ashbrook]

Was that where it started?

[Michael Duncan]

The drinks. They always have those drinks.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

They do have big. I. I think. Look, this comes from a good place.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

We want to be hydrated.

[Michael Duncan]

Help us understand.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

We want to have.

[Spencer Pratt]

Help us.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

We want to have luminescent, bouncy skin. And that comes from proper hydration. Okay. So you got to have your electrolytes and you got to have your water and you got to have. In large quantities.

[John Ashbrook]

All right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

It's also great for arm strength if you have a full stand. Like, you're not getting those bat wings anytime soon.

[Josh Holmes]

No, you got big tries.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yes, but I have a. I use like a. I'm such a bro. I have.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's. Let's see what you got. See, but she still has one.

[Spencer Pratt]

She just.

[Josh Holmes]

She completely disavowed what we were saying. And she's like.

[Michael Duncan]

But I got. Yeah, but that's a gym bro cup.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

You know, that's a protein shaker cup. Okay. I'm.

[John Ashbrook]

Is that dishwasher?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm outside the norm.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that dishwasher safe?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

This is dishwasher safe.

[Josh Holmes]

But you don't like to put it in there. Maybe top right.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

No, I'm Maha adjacent for sure. Because someone would tell me about the microplastics and I'm like, I can't deal with That I can't. I haven't. I haven't taken that road yet. I can't eliminate the microplastics. And I'm sure this is killing me.

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[Michael Duncan]

So.

[Josh Holmes]

All right. So it's just about the hydration. I mean, because. Well, it's.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

It also, it's a little bit of a signal. Like these are. You know, a Stanley is like a $45 water bottle sometimes. Which again, I am a cheapskate. So I'm outside the norm. I can't. I can't do that. If you give me one as a

[Josh Holmes]

gift, maybe you're like, I'm on.

[John Ashbrook]

But it does seem like those are given as gifts on the reg. And then over time, Christmas after Christmas, birthday after birthday, they accumulate in your house. You're not allowed dishwasher.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Here's what I would suggest if you are having a problem with overpopulation is you start signaling subtly that I don't know if I can count on you for subtle, but that the.

[John Ashbrook]

We've tried subtlety. It's not.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

These various brands are passe.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, okay.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

The Psyoperwise, the gals don't do that anymore. The gals are on to something different.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And like, convince her that she just needs the current one. And then you could eliminate the past ones and tell her like, Stanley ain't coming back for another 20 years. That's how trends work.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Like, everybody hates that.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Yeah. We're done with that.

[Josh Holmes]

People. People look down on it.

[Michael Duncan]

Although I've tried. I don't have this problem. But on. On many different fronts, I have similar problems. Yeah. Of the accumulation and the hoarding of things.

[Josh Holmes]

And I love that this is turned into. So we have problems with our wives. Can you help us? It's so rare that you're here.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

And dug it. Dug it is like triggering me because I'm imagining an argument I had with my husband.

[Michael Duncan]

But like, I can't believe you just straight face told like, the one in one out policy is going to work.

[Josh Holmes]

100. That is never going to work work that I was gonna jump ugly on it. I'm glad you did. Not me. Because I felt like I was a little bit more forward leaning on this. But there is. You did have the courage. There is absolutely no way. If I said that, I'd be like, you know what? You're right. That's why I need to buy three more. The new one. But the old ones still stay in the cupboard.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, just for, you know, for holidays.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Okay. Here's also a thought.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

You love your wife. She's happy with the mini water bottles. You're losing a shelf in the cabinet. What's the big deal? No, no, I don't love her that much.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I don't love. Because I love the seating of ground.

[John Ashbrook]

If it were just in the cabinet, that's one thing. But, like, it's all over every, like, five on the kitchen table. You know, the counters are covered with them. You're not allowed to put them in the dish.

[Josh Holmes]

Nobody needs to be that hydrated.

[John Ashbrook]

Actually clean them. No. Like, in all, how many members of

[Mary Katherine Ham]

your family do you have? They all got to be.

[John Ashbrook]

I live in a house full of women. My dog is a girl. All of them. Everybody's got one. And I just. All I. All I want is a little semblance of order, and it's not possible. That's what I'm coming to grips with right now in this conversation is that, John, you need to get comfortable with the fact that there will not be order in your household.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, on this.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

This front. Yes. I mean, my husband tries to do this, too. He's like, I'm gonna be customs and border patrol at this door, and whatever you bring in from Goodwill, there better be commensurate items going out.

[Spencer Pratt]

And I'm like, no.

[Josh Holmes]

You're like, sure. The procurement office is not going to honor those demands. No, it's not gonna happen.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

But at least they're from Goodwill, so they're nice and cheap, baby.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, geez, it is fun to have you on. So you have to take all the blame for womenkind.

[Josh Holmes]

I know, isn't it?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I gotta think of. I gotta come.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Equipped with more questions from my side.

[Josh Holmes]

Next time you're in, let's just do a segment on the complaints.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. You just, like, roast the bros, and then we will come with a commensurate, although respectful list.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

It's fine.

[Josh Holmes]

And we'll have.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm open to it. I'm a very.

[Josh Holmes]

It's fine.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I feel fine. I'm not mad at all.

[Josh Holmes]

That is such a great chick answer there. No, it's good. I'm fine.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm totally fine. Yeah. I don't even need water bottles.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God. I love you so much. This is so fun. Listen, welcome back here anytime.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Thank you so much.

[Josh Holmes]

Your work everywhere and these podcasts everybody needs to listen to, because I got to tell you, so insightful, so fun. You cover topics like the ones that we were talking about, but then just a wide range of things that, like, you know, you're not going to get on the Ruthless variety program because you

[Mary Katherine Ham]

might get some of the complaints about

[John Ashbrook]

the bros. Yeah, you get that on normally. Carol Markowitz. What you guys do on that show is incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it.

[John Ashbrook]

I love getting hammered. I mean, you. You've got so much good material. If people want to follow you, I know they know you. They already know you on Twitter. But will you just tell us?

[Mary Katherine Ham]

I'm at MK Hammer on X. I'm at MK Hammer Time on Instagram. And you can follow. Follow both shows wherever you get podcasts normally and getting hammered. And I have a joke for you guys before I go. I'm. I don't know if I told you this. I'm doing America 250.

[Josh Holmes]

I thought she was going to tell us she was pregnant again. I thought that's where this was headed because she looked at me like, I don't know if I've told you guys. And I was like, you're going to have 100th kid.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

We're hoarding kids at my house. We can't afford water bottles because we got too many children.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sorry to interrupt. You're doing America 250.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

So I'm doing some America 250 content on getting hammered, where I read letters from the founders from various days of the year through the year. So check that out.

[Josh Holmes]

That's awesome.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

But I have a founder's joke for you. Are you ready?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

What did Henry Knox say after he took all that artillery from Fort Ticonderoga and brought it down to George Washington? What? I bet your limey British army doesn't have these cannons.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, the part of the problem is that she knows that us too well. She just does this too well.

[Michael Duncan]

That's why it works.

[Josh Holmes]

It's so good. Oh, my gosh. You're the absolute best.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Happy birthday, America.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you for hanging out with us.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Thank you very much.

[Josh Holmes]

You're the best. Mary Katherine Ham.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, I absolutely love every time she comes in for the show. You know, she always comes prepared, and she always has something that she's pumping out there from her podcast. She's got two great podcasts. She's always good putting out good [e-mail] Mary Kathryn Ham is a treasure, and anytime we get her, it's always great. I absolutely love that we were able to confront her about. About these Stanley cups and the hydra flasks. And she. She had some answers I didn't find.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes, she had some answers. You're.

[Michael Duncan]

You're unsatisfied I'm unsatisfied.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm unsatisfied.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, a little unfair that we make her stand in for all of womankind and give us answers.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, she didn't identify with the problem.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which, you know, I'd like. I'd like to find some identification. We should have, like, our wife, Johnny and I. We should, like, do some kind of a prosecution of our wives. Point of views. And like, every single person that I live in my neighborhood who's got this same issue, but the issue of the water container.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In the prolific proliferation of these in our households is not something I can stand with.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, you started this show saying, we, of course, cannot replace comfortably smug, but to quote Moneyball, we gotta replace him in the aggregate. And I think we did that with Spencer Pratt and Mary Catherine Ham.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's so good. That's so good. I love it. And a little talk about a man being put down by. Yeah, yeah. No, it's fantastic. Absolutely great stuff. So remember our question of the day with a collapse of the damn machine, what's your autopsy of the Democratic Party in 2024 if they won't release it? What do you have to say when you like and subscribe to the ruthless variety program? We read all of your answers and get back to you on Thursday with all that. Check out our YouTube and check out our merch while you're there. We got some fun new stuff out there. I know you're working your hands to the bone.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

All that stuff. And with that, I think we did it.

[Mary Katherine Ham]

Another banger of an episode, folks. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs.

[Josh Holmes]

Sam,