Exposing Left Wing Hypocrisy & Giving A Crash Course on Actual First Amendment Freedoms

Summary

Ruthless Podcast - Episode Summary

Episode: Exposing Left Wing Hypocrisy & Giving A Crash Course on Actual First Amendment Freedoms
Air Date: September 19, 2025
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Special Guest: Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH)

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Overview

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast dives into the fallout from ABC’s suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, using the event as a lens to dissect left-wing hypocrisy around free speech and the First Amendment. The discussion also explores the intersection of media, government influence, and what is (and isn’t) a constitutional violation. Later in the show, the hosts interview Sen. Bernie Moreno about the Senate climate, auto industry reform, and observations from his first year in Washington. The episode wraps up with the signature “Fun Time Friday”—animal news and banter.

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Main Theme: First Amendment Hypocrisy and Media

The Kimmel Firing: Constitutional Crisis or Business?

• [01:17] Josh Holmes introduces the Kimmel scenario, highlighting left-wing claims that his contract cancellation is an assault on free speech.
  • “Anytime a late night host ... converts what was Johnny Carson’s formulation of late night into just a straight propaganda center and they get fired ... oh, they hate it.” – Josh Holmes [01:17]
• [02:00] Guest Commentator mocks how progressives escalate contract firings into constitutional crises.
  • “It becomes a constitutional crisis.” – Guest [02:00]
• [02:13] Michael Duncan and others satirize the idea that private corporations firing hosts is a First Amendment issue, joking that the Constitution forbids firing unfunny late night hosts.

Key Context:

• The First Amendment restricts government actions, not private corporate decisions.
  • “The First Amendment applies to the government's ability to limit the speech of citizens and it has no application to corporate America.” – Josh Holmes [05:55]

Hypocrisy: Corporate Censorship vs. Government Intervention

• [05:57] Holmes and the panel dissect how liberals previously cheered platform bans against conservatives, only to claim outrage when one of their own is removed for poor ratings.
  • “We just went through a four year period where the liberal elite ... decided that if you had an opinion contrary to theirs ... you could just be removed from platforms.” – Josh Holmes [05:57–06:57]
  • “[Jimmy Kimmel’s] show sucks. It’s not funny. The ratings have been a disaster.” – Josh Holmes [06:18]
• [07:06] ABC’s financial losses on Colbert and Kimmel are highlighted, suggesting that business, not ideology, motivated the firings.
  • “This guy’s getting fewer viewers than a successful podcast.” – Michael Duncan [07:05]

Media as Political Activism—Not Business

• [08:00–09:09] Hosts discuss how legacy media and entertainment became extensions of the Democratic Party, even at massive financial losses, until the business reality forced a course correction.
  • “Hollywood is slowly learning this lesson ... why are we setting our money on fire to be free operatives for the Democrat Party?” – Michael Duncan [08:00]
• [14:02] Guest commentator calls liberal late-night and news shows “an in-kind contribution to the Democratic Party.”

Selective Outrage and Changing Standards

• [10:04] Michael Duncan reads Barack Obama’s social media post decrying “dangerous” regulatory threats against media—contrasting with his administration’s aggressive actions against journalists and leaks.
  • “Obama’s Justice Dept. dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources ... with unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people than all previous administrations combined.” – Guest [11:24]
• [12:01] Josh Holmes: “Isn’t that interesting?”—on Obama’s selective concern about free speech.
• [18:27] Chris Hayes’s quote on “straightforward attack on free speech” is lampooned as the hosts recall the left’s embrace of platform bans and COVID orthodoxy.

Quote Highlight:

“Do you think you have a memory of a goldfish that would allow you to seek back 24 months when you and your network cheered on the banning of the President...?” – Josh Holmes [18:29]

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Crash Course: What the First Amendment Actually Means

• [05:55] “The First Amendment applies to the government's ability to limit the speech of citizens and it has no application to corporate America.”

• [19:54] “They would say, ‘...there are limits to our First Amendment, and these people are causing danger by speaking their mind.’ Well, it turns out those people were right.” – Josh Holmes

• [30:21] Brian Stelter (old clip): “Reducing a liar’s reach is not the same as censoring freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is different than freedom of reach.”

  • Used by hosts to draw out liberal inconsistencies when ideological tides shift.

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Guest Interview: Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH)

Segment Start: [34:30]

Ohio, Senate Freshman Experience, and Political Climate

• Moreno shares personal stories about Ohio’s unsung brands (e.g., Sam Adams beer brewed in Cincinnati, Smucker’s HQ), and how traveling the state improved his understanding.
• Offers an outsider’s perspective on D.C. dysfunction and explains the “mean girls” dynamic of Democrats fearing their base.
• “Fetterman is by far the smartest and strongest willed Democrat. They treat him like garbage, which is a shame.” – Moreno [42:38]
• “I went out and captured the VIN numbers of my colleagues on the Commerce Committee ... you want to mandate all the safety technology in this car, but here’s a window sticker of your car. You didn’t buy the safety technology that you could get.” – Moreno [49:06]

Policy Initiatives

• Advocates for tariffs to protect working Americans and limit offshoring of call center jobs—the HIRE Act (25% fee on outsourcing), and the American Worker Liberation Act (10% tariffs, removing income tax for <$65k/year earners).
  • “Working Americans are still getting crushed... and we should center both parties around how do we just help working Americans now.” – Moreno [55:14]
• Explains negotiations around auto industry standards, removal of EV mandates, and why legislators sometimes don’t even know details of new laws.
• “There is no constitutional right to make $16 million a year. There just isn’t.” – Josh Holmes [32:30]

Memorable Moments:

• Moreno’s playful but pointed Senate observations ("Did you know you just voted no on a guy you like for the DEA? Why?").
• Hilarious story: Moreno’s wife wears “Friends of the IDF” hat and is harassed by a protester, but he assumes it’s because people recognize him. [51:23]

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Fun Time Friday Variety (Animal News & Lighter Notes)

Segment Start: [66:03]

• Bear walks into Dollar General—hosts play video of a black bear inside a store, later euthanized as a “nuisance bear.”
  • “If you're ever in a store and you see that ... drop a bear, get it turned into a rug...” – Michael Duncan [67:40]
• Orca attacks on European boats—satire on scientists calling it “playful” behavior.
  • “If it’s a game, then I got a game. It’s called Pin the Harpoon on the Whale.” – Michael Duncan [70:51]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “We just went through a four year period of time where the liberal elite ... decided that if you had an opinion contrary to theirs ... you could just be removed from platforms individual, like random Americans. And then they escalated to ... President ... United States...” – Josh Holmes [05:57]
• “The First Amendment applies to the government's ability to limit the speech of citizens and it has no application to corporate America.” – Josh Holmes [05:55]
• “This guy’s getting fewer viewers than a successful podcast.” – Michael Duncan [07:05]
• “Obama’s Justice Dept. dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources...” – Guest [11:24]
• “Reducing a liar’s reach is not the same as censoring freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is different than freedom of reach.” – Brian Stelter [30:21]
• "There is no constitutional right to make $16 million a year." – Josh Holmes [32:30]
• “Working Americans are still getting crushed... and we should center both parties around how do we just help working Americans now.” – Sen. Bernie Moreno [55:14]
• “If it’s a game, then I got a game: Pin the Harpoon on the Whale.” – Michael Duncan [70:51]

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Conclusion

The Ruthless crew roasts left-wing figures for sudden concern over free speech after years of championing censorship and cancel culture. The Kimmel saga is presented not as a constitutional issue but as a basic business decision—one the left only objects to when directed at their own. Sen. Moreno offers a refreshing look inside the Senate and populist policy priorities, before the show wraps with trademark humor and animal stories.

For listeners seeking critical insight on First Amendment debates, media bias, and the shifting tides of political outrage—with a heavy side of irreverent humor—this episode delivers a comprehensive conservative take.

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00 – First Amendment Satire & Intro to Kimmel Firing
• 02:00 – “Constitutional Crisis” Mockery
• 05:55 – First Amendment 101 & Corporate Decisions
• 07:06 – Corporate Media as Activist “Super PACs”
• 10:04 – Obama’s Hypocrisy on Media Freedom
• 18:27 – Chris Hayes & Media Memory
• 34:30 – Bernie Moreno Interview: Ohio, the Senate, and Policy
• 66:03 – Fun Time Friday: Bear Incident, Orca Satire

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“Keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs.”

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Let's be clear.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's be clear.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's be clear.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, buddy. About what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, this.

[Michael Duncan]

This guy's administration was bugging journalist phone lines.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, they sic the IRS on every single conservative nonprofit.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, it's clear to me that Disney has internalized this lesson after that Snow White debacle. They're like, why are we setting our money on fire? To be free operatives for the Democrat Party. A nation isn't just built. It's powered by people like us.

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[John Ashbrook]

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[John Ashbrook]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Michael Duncan]

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

[John Ashbrook]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Fun Time Friday. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I am Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan. John Ash Brook, left to right across your radio dial. As always, fellas, we got a lot to talk about here. It turns out, well, the left has got sort of a convoluted formulation of what the First Amendment constitutes. And anytime a late night host who's converted what was Johnny Carson's formulation of late night into just a straight propaganda center and they get fired as a result of it because their ratings tank, oh, they hate it.

[Guest Commentator]

It becomes a constitutional crisis.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's a constitutional crisis, Michael, you're exactly right.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right. So like abc, as a private company, according to the Constitution, is not allowed to just take away a comedian show.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a lesser known provision of the Constitution. You know, I mean, we all. We've seen it. We read through, you know, they got those 10 pasky, right, Bill of Rights there at the top. And so, you know, we kind of brush through all that. What we didn't know is that abc.

[Panelist]

Constitutionally mandated, there is a subsection that says, thou shalt not let Jimmy Kimmel go if he has a terrible program.

[Guest Commentator]

Guys, I don't think we should be laughing here. I think this is a serious situation.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's be serious.

[Guest Commentator]

I think the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel does threaten our First Amendment. I do worry it's a slippery slope that you might end up in a situation where, like, average Americans might be banned from a platform on the Internet for talking about natural immunity, you know, that maybe like a former President of the United States might be removed from a platform. I just, I just wonder the slippery slope consequences. We might, we might not, maybe we might not envision it.

[Josh Holmes]

Michael, do you think that maybe we could get to a point point where such an action as removing Jimmy kimmel from a $16 million a year job could lead to a situation where there is an agreed upon shadow ban and removal from the Internet of information that might be somehow not positive about a front running presidential candidate at some point in October, two weeks before an election?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you think that that could happen?

[Guest Commentator]

It's. Well, all of this is just hypothetical, guys. I don't know the future, but you know, my heart goes out to the left that they finally have to live by the rules they created.

[Michael Duncan]

Bingo.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That's it, boy.

[Panelist]

Well said, old timer.

[Josh Holmes]

Hey, listen, fuck you. Fuck you. I mean, this is. Dude, I. This is my hobby horse. I'm sort of a First Amendment purist in a lot of different ways. Some of that came naturally. Some of it became, you know, how my professional career got started and seeing the value of like drawing super hard lines. Even when you don't like it, even when you're partisan, your party doesn't like it and being like mount First Amendment, like shelf it. But, but this is fantastic. We just went through a four year period of time where the liberal elite in this country decided that if you had an opinion contrary to theirs, which by the way, was completely uneducated in retrospect, whereas it dealt with COVID or as it dealt with all kinds of different things, you could just be removed from platforms individual, like random Americans. And then they escalated to your point, Duncan, where they said the President, United States could be removed from a platform.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

For First Amendment. Like it didn't apply.

[John Ashbrook]

Right, Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Because it wasn't a government thing. Sure.

[Guest Commentator]

I mean, and here's the thing is like people who take that purist view of this entire thing, I mean, like, I respect it, you know, I can understand it. And in a world, a normal world, that is the way our country should operate. Is that speech you disagree with? Well, the solution to that is more speech. Right, But I'm not exactly gonna sit here and cry crocodile tears for Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, let's be serious.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's not.

[Panelist]

Nobody, he's not being arrested.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly.

[Panelist]

Nobody's saying you're not allowed to say what you said. What ABC is saying is the contract's not worth it.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Panelist]

That's. That's the only thing.

[Guest Commentator]

Fundamentally different thing.

[Panelist]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And for those of you who have just joined us on this First Amendment fight, something that I've been a part of For 20 years, the First Amendment applies to the government's ability to limit the speech of citizens and it has no application to corporate America. That is, of course, an at will component to what we're talking about. And so when the government over the last four years decided to intervene to not only, shall we say, encourage people not to say anything other than their point of view, but outright ban ordinary American voting, taxpaying citizens from their First Amendment rights, they were all good with it. Now you take a guy who's been in a job for 25 years, who's making 16 million bucks a year, his show sucks. It's not funny. It's been. The ratings have been a disaster.

[Michael Duncan]

Can I say something? So excuse me. They just revealed his ratings and we have more listeners than he had viewers.

[Panelist]

Yeah, Are you kidding?

[Michael Duncan]

Think about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Panelist]

On the, on the ABC night show.

[Michael Duncan]

Abc, yes. ABC came to the realization before I did. They're like, wait a minute, this guy's getting fewer viewers than a successful podcast can get list. Like, that was mind blowing to me. Is that like, wait, if he's making $16 million, this guy's getting away with bank robbery, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

It's unbelievable. It's genuinely incredible. Because of the reaction, right. First Colbert, that show was losing 60, 60, 40, or $60 million a year. Yeah, something like that. Like this is a show where David Letterman was printing, printing like that became an iconic show, turned it over to Colbert, and in the end, they're losing 40 to $60 million. The ratings are in the tank. There's nothing going on. And all of a sudden, because it was a left wing.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's the thing, it's like, it's a very stupid choice for someone, an entertainer especially. And Hollywood is slowly learning this lesson. Like, it's clear to me that Disney has internalized this lesson after that Snow White debacle. They're like, why are we setting our money on fire to be free operatives for the Democrat Party. When voters themselves have decided they want nothing to do with Democrats, why should we as a company, like, make our product pro? Democrats have it floppy, burn our money. This is a bad idea. So companies have started walking away from this. You saw Colbert. They're like, this guy's show is just basically the Democrat talk show where he just brings on their candidates. He brings on elected Democrats. No one watches no one cares. And we're paying 40, 60 million. Lighting it on fire. They got done with it. They cut him off. Jimmy Kimmel's the same like.

[Josh Holmes]

But they all sent First Amendment on that too.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That's my favorite part is the whole protestation of the left where they're like, oh, this is the most significant infringement on our First Amendment rights.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, this is what set me off.

[Josh Holmes]

Barack. Go ahead.

[Michael Duncan]

Why will he not ride off into the sunset? Dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Go ahead.

[Michael Duncan]

All the Hollywood people, like he got a Netflix contract for a dude who cries about like climate change, rising seas. And he bought his like million multimillion dollar Martha's Vineyard beachfront property. He got his Netflix money right off into the sunset. Bro. Get out. But he had to keep.

[Josh Holmes]

But all any of us want him is to go away. But he can't. Why don't you read the. So Barack Obama weighed in on this. Of course.

[Michael Duncan]

Of course. He can't help himself.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not just like a redistricting fight. You know?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. He's like.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like everything.

[Michael Duncan]

Eric Holder. You know, he's still getting me my money with his dark money group out there trying to rig elections with his gerrymandering. But it's not enough for Obama.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Guest Commentator]

Let's put up. Let's put up graphic one.

[Josh Holmes]

All right. So there he is. Smug. What is it?

[Michael Duncan]

It says Barack Obama. After hours of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators. It doesn't like.

[Guest Commentator]

That has been good.

[Panelist]

Here's a question.

[Josh Holmes]

The cadence was.

[Michael Duncan]

That was him. Dude.

[Panelist]

Guys. Can we put that graphic back up? Because there's something I noticed. And smug is our Internet guy. Duncan's our Internet guy. Is that Jimmy Kimmel in the picture?

[Michael Duncan]

Because you can't tell.

[Panelist]

You can't see the face. It's just like a.

[Josh Holmes]

You don't think that was well formulated?

[Panelist]

It's like he's selling a Joseph A. Banks million dollar sale.

[John Ashbrook]

What is that? Dude.

[Michael Duncan]

What's funny is the alternative text for this because he links to a Yahoo article. Which is why it is. But it starts with saying it sounds like Obama's like, let's be clear about what happened to Jimmy.

[John Ashbrook]

No. No.

[Josh Holmes]

There is nothing more Barack Obama. Let's be clear.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's be clear.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's be clear.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, buddy. About what happened to Jimmy Kimmel. Dude.

[Michael Duncan]

This. This guy's administration was bugging journalist phone lines. Dude.

[Josh Holmes]

They sic the irs on every single conservative nonprofit in the country.

[Guest Commentator]

Let me just go ahead and read from a 2018 this is Associated Press fact check because Obama was very concerned about how Donald Trump might chill free speech in America's President United States. From the Associated Press. The Obama administration used the 1917 Espionage act with an unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people under the law for leaking sensitive information to the public than all previous administrations combined. Obama's Justice Department dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources as part of that effort.

[Josh Holmes]

Isn't that interesting?

[Michael Duncan]

Be clear. It doesn't count when I'm bugging your house.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's be clear. I'm not interested in people talking about my administration. I mean, what an asshole. It's just incredible because he goes on to say in a subsequent tweet that this is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevention and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it. So we have so much to say. Honestly, this is why this podcast exists, because of this exact thing where the Democratic Party, over a series of years, both culturally and through the government itself, has basically pressured all of modern information flow on a corporate level, legacy media level to adhere to exactly what their demands are. And that goes for movies, that goes for news, that goes for like just regular reporting. They've done all of this systematically over a period of time to a point where we spent four years in the early 2000s dealing with people who are just banned from. They were fired and banned if they disagreed with what the Democratic prescription for what was happening to the country.

[Guest Commentator]

I think it's even more than just being banned or fired. I think for these large multinational corporate media organizations, you know, the Kimmels of the world, the Colbert's of the world, became almost like the nonprofit component of their companies. An in kind contribution to the Democratic Party. Yeah, that, that a lot of these corporate outlets, that was their way of doing political activism by way of their whole corporate structure.

[Panelist]

It's their biggest super pac.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah.

[Panelist]

Like that they've ever come up with. Remember, remember the Chairwoman of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel? Oh, she got a job at MSNBC and they fired her. I don't remember all these people saying oh they, they shit all over.

[Guest Commentator]

But I mean like it's the only way you could justify a publicly traded company looking at their balance sheet at a show. Yeah, like Colbert that loses 40, 60 million dollars every year and, and be like, well this is a good investment. And it was that it's if somehow it's placating the interests of government that you need to curry favor with.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, isn't that something? It's almost like they have a plan. Oh, right, yeah. What was that guy, Gurderski or whatever his name was? Cnn. Ryan.

[Guest Commentator]

No, no, no, no, no. That's. He's a conservative guy.

[Josh Holmes]

No, no, no, no. He was the guy that got fired from CNN for. For. Yeah, he had Mehdi Hasan.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

After he got fired from MSNBC for just like completely ridiculous stuff. And then he showed up on this panel on CNN and he was like, I hope your pager.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah, he made the beeper joke.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. Which was legitimately hilarious.

[Guest Commentator]

I thought it was funny.

[Josh Holmes]

And also a guy who, like. I mean, I don't know, he wasn't technically everything about him, but he certainly sympathizes with the plight of Hamas. Yes, right. So, like, it's a kind of on point, educated, funny joke. Like, if you follow.

[Michael Duncan]

It's funny as hell, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And he got fired immediately.

[Panelist]

Well, but what you're forgetting is that CNN all of the next week spent a lot of time talking about the First Amendment rights of Ryan Kandurski. You know, they were saying, this is wrong what management did to this guy.

[Guest Commentator]

Of course not.

[Josh Holmes]

So I get it. I think what it is is that they create something for so long that it becomes too big to fail. Sounds kind of familiar. That might be something the Democrats have invested in for a period of time. So they've created people like Jimmy Kimmel and Colbert that if you look at their guest list, like, we're not making this up. It's just all Democrats. Yeah. But they went from taking like a list Hollywood movie stars where you have like a fun conversation, you get to know them a little bit, and they can promote their movies and whatever, which is like what Johnny Carson and David Letterman always.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, it was. It was a straightforward formula, which is great. You have a late night show, you open with some jokes, you come back from breaking. This guy's got a movie coming out this weekend. Tell us a few funny little stories. That's it. The band plays and you're out. They changed that completely into being like, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna lecture you on why Democrats are right. On why Trump is bad. Our next guest elected Democrat member of Congress. And that's it. That's all you're getting.

[Josh Holmes]

And like, once in a generation you'd get like, the President of the United States.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And that was basically what you had from a political plat. I mean that was it.

[Guest Commentator]

But now it's like this Dem Senate candidate who's running against this Republican that I hate that you've never heard of.

[John Ashbrook]

Swing district congressional candidates.

[Guest Commentator]

Now I'm going to sit on my soapbox and lecture you why this Senate candidate is so important and they should say their domain five or six times over the course of the interview so they get a bunch of money from all my left wing lunatic audience.

[Michael Duncan]

And here's the thing. To me, the most shocking thing about Jimmy Kimmel is how did he ever show his face in public again after Ted Cruz beat him in a basketball game?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that's fair.

[Michael Duncan]

There's no coming back from that, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it's fair. It honestly is fair and we've talked to Ted about it.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, Ted Cruz beat you at a basketball game. Dude, you gotta go.

[Josh Holmes]

If you get back down and turned around, Jay on top of you to win against Ted Cruz, you're done. You can't show your face.

[Michael Duncan]

And so to further, you can't do that. To further the point of just how these shows have transformed into nothing but basically just like hour long Democrat ad. Can I get graphic 5 please? This is the DNC's account legalized comedy Free Jimmy. If there's no more apparent proof that all that show is is an ad for Democrats, literally the Democrats are saying, hey, let our show back.

[Guest Commentator]

I mean my response to them is like, where was the comedy?

[John Ashbrook]

Where was it exactly?

[Panelist]

Comedy is in the tweet, Michael.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, fair enough. Let's go through other graphics. Graphic 3. Chris Hayes, one of our favorites here on the program. Remember when he was going after me for a period of time?

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah, he was a real, like he.

[Josh Holmes]

Thought, I don't know if he thought I was like a weak link or something that would sympathize was his point of view. I don't know what it was, but he was like coming after me anyway. This guy is just an absolute clown. He said, this is the most straightforward attack on free speech from state actors I've ever seen in my life. And it's not even close. Oh, is that right? Is that right? Do you think you have a memory of a goldfish that would allow you to seek back 24 months when you and your network cheered on the banning of the President of the United States from social media or banning of ordinary Americans for suggesting that natural immunity could be a substitute for a vaccine?

[Michael Duncan]

Or what was incredible is remember when they were calling Americans, including Tom Cotton a racist for suggesting it was a lab leak, which then the government was like, so now we have evidence it was a lab leak. Yeah, we're sorry about that.

[Josh Holmes]

And they would say at the time, if you recall, they would say, well, there's a difference. Look, we all respect the First Amendment and anybody's opinion to say what they want to say, but there's a public danger. It's like, this is what they said. It's like yelling fire in a crowded theater.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

There are limits to our First Amendment, and these people are causing danger by speaking their mind. Well, it turns out those people were right.

[Michael Duncan]

And, I mean, the fire in a theater thing is the craziest lawyers always jump in on it. We're like, no, that's already in court. Been tried in, like, 1930.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, we've dealt with, like, 80, 90, 100 years of shit on that whole thing. They just make it up as they go along. But now if you pay some guy $20 million in a corporate infrastructure where he becomes a liability to the company and they decide, well, we've had enough, well, it's a grave constitutional concern.

[Michael Duncan]

Can I say another thing? When we talk about, like, how.

[John Ashbrook]

All.

[Michael Duncan]

These corporations are coming to the realization it was a huge mistake to turn into dem super PACs. Can I get graphic six, please? This is Wajahat Ali saying, every major talent that works for ABC and Disney should refuse to show up for work until Jimmy Kimmel is reinstated. Marvel movies need to shut down dinner. The sitcoms collective boycott. Corporations love money more than anything, and this will really harm them and force them to do the right thing. All these companies, like, we spent years shilling for you people, and now you boycott us.

[John Ashbrook]

You gave.

[Josh Holmes]

We gave you 33 years.

[Michael Duncan]

It was. It's like. It's so funny, dude. They had this just absolute vice grip on the media. The left did. Right on. On popular culture, on all of it. And then you see, like, in the last election where Trump wins, like, the youth vote and how do they let conservatives become the counterculture Will always blow my mind.

[Panelist]

I think. I think that whole dynamic, you just des. Lulled them into a false sense of security. They were like, every single manager of every single broadcast news outlet is one of ours. And therefore, we just go on and say our talking points and every single one of these outlets, and everybody's gonna hear it and everybody's gonna love us. And it turns out their talking points are absolute lunacy. And everybody in the country is like, no, I want something different. So it lulled them an easy press and We've said this on the show so many times, easy press for Democrats has made them weak.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, Stockholm syndrome is a real thing. Right? And I mean, the reason for those of you Google Stockholm syndrome, when you're surrounded by captors and you, you start to sympathize with them and with the situation that you're in because you human nature is that you try to make the best of your situation. Right. If you think about where the media has been in terms of Democratic control and they always have a little like, nice house, ashamed if something happened to it.

[Michael Duncan]

They love the protection racket. Left loves their protection racket.

[Josh Holmes]

So you've got the ideological left in Hollywood and everything else, but then in the modern media and everything else, FCC Republicans have never played in this space where they're always like, well, maybe you should just speak exactly what it is that we say. And they've had this for so long that they've just become accustomed to it. And I think to the point that you just made, Johnny, I mean, they are now entirely flummoxed. It's gotta be constitutional. Certainly our founding fathers thought that we had a cod lock on information flow. And if you doubted that for one second. There's a list of demands that Chuck Schumer made for how he won't shut down.

[Panelist]

Oh, this is a really good point.

[Josh Holmes]

A bunch of stuff like you don't give a shit about. The fourth one caught my eye. There's four, by the way. They were all Dem. This is a minority government. Like, you don't make demands when you're in the minority. You either want to keep the lights on or you don't. Generally speaking, when you want to have a continuing resolution and somebody says it's clean from. If you're in the party that's in a universal minority, that makes you thrilled because you're not making forward progress on the other side of the ledger. He's got other ideas because he almost lost his job last March. And the last one, the fourth one, is you need to fund pbs, which it's insane.

[Panelist]

I will not fund the. I will not agree to fund the government to send checks to vets unless you taxpayer, fund pbs.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, think about this. That's insanity. Think about this. I mean, you, yes, veterans, we're very pro veteran, no question about it. We're, you know, good patriotic party. We're not going to give you your medical benefits unless we have an uncritical, taxpayer funded broadcast of our views.

[John Ashbrook]

Right, right.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, but it gives away the store, doesn't it?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Totally does.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah. You understand the dire straits they are in from a communication standpoint. They no longer have a COD lock on the information flow in this country and they're trying desperately to cling to the one last thing they could, and that is taxpayer funded left wing propaganda.

[Panelist]

But it, dude, it's a pretty low place if they think dark circle. It is a pretty low place if they think PBS funding will help them get back to a majority in this country.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, the 17 people who are watching here be super pissed. Not that they didn't have them already.

[Michael Duncan]

So we went through that with John Ali thing where he's like, listen, there should be boycotts because this is an attack on the First Amendment. Can we go back to what he was saying in 2021 though? Can I get graphic seven?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you brought some research.

[Michael Duncan]

A little bit. He said in 2021. He was saying employers have the right to hire and fire whom they choose. Right. Republicans. We can't force bakers to bake cakes for gay couples. And we shouldn't force Disney to employ Gina Carano, a hateful conspiracy theorist. The free market will decide meritocracy. This is the way.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's so interesting.

[Michael Duncan]

So weird, right?

[Josh Holmes]

So I don't know who that person is, but I'm guessing they didn't share his views.

[Guest Commentator]

Well, she, she worked on the Disney, one of the Star Wars Disney shows and they.

[Michael Duncan]

Disney just settled with her because what they did was wrong. So yeah, it's hilarious how they believe in letting companies do what they want and having the free market when it's working for them. When the shoes on the other foot, all of a sudden they're like, no, this is a First Amendment issue.

[Josh Holmes]

So you get it, right? I mean, this is what we're talking about. The ruthless variety program is one of the reasons why we exist. This is all bullshit. All of this. Like, if you've thought for yourself, and believe me, I am a First Amendment purist, if you thought for one second, okay, I'm a little bit concerned about this. Don't be, don't be. These people have absolutely thrown the First Amendment through the shredder over the last five years. There is nothing that Brendan Carr or Donald Trump did to make a market decision to cancel shows that are objectively terrible. Nothing. Like this is just a market decision. How about, can we get Swalwell just because I want to see him. Clip one, please.

[John Ashbrook]

I was a guest on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Look at that. Every night.

[Josh Holmes]

What a fucking dude.

[John Ashbrook]

Coming to any house that wants to Watch and entertain Americans. Just as Greg Gutfield on Fox has a right to be not funny and go on his network and entertain Americans. It's a part of who we are, John. And frankly, it should shake every American that the President of the United States is out there firing comedians who make fun of him. That is not who we are. And every American should care.

[Guest Commentator]

Is he gonna cry? Sounds like he's gonna cry. At least he's not farting.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, this guy was balls deep in a Chinese spy, like several years ago.

[Guest Commentator]

Do we actually know Confirmation? Is it still an allegedly?

[Josh Holmes]

Is it allegedly?

[Guest Commentator]

I think it's alleged.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, maybe allegedly. He hasn't confirmed it.

[Guest Commentator]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

So I guess never was prosecuted for it. But I don't know if that's prosecutable. Banging spies. Is it?

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, I would hope so.

[Josh Holmes]

If you're a member of Congress and you unknowingly bang a spy, do you have culpability?

[Guest Commentator]

That's a good question.

[Josh Holmes]

What do you think? Smug.

[Michael Duncan]

Honestly, I just. I find him just completely boring. He tries his best to. To get attention with these, like, stupid. That's why he did it. He wore that stupid hat and got on tv.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

He never has anything interesting to say. And it's like when he tried running for president, he was polling below 1%. I don't think anyone but CNN cares what he has to say. And they just have him on to fill time.

[Josh Holmes]

He's just such a contemptible individual.

[Michael Duncan]

Speaking of again, how CNN is absolute trash. Can I get clip two, please?

[Brian Stelter]

Well, meanwhile, ABC still has more questions.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you.

[Brian Stelter]

But whether it plans to bring the show back in some form at some point. We don't even know if Kimmel would want to do that. By the way, his contract was coming due in a few months and he had made some noise about wanting to retire. So right now, in some ways, the ball is in Kimmel's court. But there are some very serious questions for all Americans about how the government is jawboning, pressuring media companies into changing coverage and content.

[Michael Duncan]

So that's what Brian Stelter, he's CNN's chief media analyst, had to say about.

[Josh Holmes]

This is a potato.

[Michael Duncan]

Can we get clip 3? This is interesting about what he said earlier.

[Brian Stelter]

It's as predictable as the sunrise. Democrats win elections and then Republicans say they are being silenced. But while some cry cancel culture. Let me suggest a different way to think about this different way. A harm reduction model.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, harm reduction.

[Guest Commentator]

Harm reduction.

[Brian Stelter]

Most people want clean air and blue skies and accurate news and rational views. And then in that healthy environment that looks beautiful. Then we can have great fights about taxes and regulation and health care and all the rest. The vast majority of people can agree that disinformation about, let's say, the pandemic.

[Guest Commentator]

Here we go.

[Josh Holmes]

It's harmful.

[Brian Stelter]

So how can that harm be reduced? Well, big tech platforms say they are removing lies about vaccines, stamping out stop the steel BS and QAnon cult content. Now, do these private companies have too much power?

[John Ashbrook]

Sure.

[Brian Stelter]

Many people would say yes, of course they do. But reducing a liar's reach is not the same as censoring freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is different than freedom of reach.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

That's fascinating.

[Michael Duncan]

Cause, I mean, he's singing a different tune today. Kimmel got caught lying.

[John Ashbrook]

Hey, what a great clip.

[Michael Duncan]

Reducing his reach is not attacking freedom of speech. Source Brian Stelter. Thanks for that, buddy.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't get enough of that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That is incredible.

[Panelist]

Can I say one thing that's JR Rider worthy? Slam dunk.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[Guest Commentator]

In the first clip, like the new Brian Stelter now returned as chief media analyst at cnn. The potato's been well baked.

[John Ashbrook]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

You notice he's in the deeper bronze.

[Guest Commentator]

Very bronze.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Guest Commentator]

Good for him.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, he had kind of a pale thing going for a while. He almost looks sickly in some ways. Yeah, they rubbed a little something on that head.

[Guest Commentator]

He looks good.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Guest Commentator]

Good for him.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe poked a couple of fork holes in him. It's important something. Well, listen, it just doesn't end. And I think the biggest problem that we have with all of these things is it's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. It doesn't. There's a fundamental difference. And we're not gonna get in. We'll have Brendan Carr in here at some point to talk to you about exactly where the law lies. And there is a difference between broadcast licensing from the FCC, 1996 Telecommunications act and everything else. We're not gonna bore you with with that shit. But there is a point where there used to be some understanding about what constituted public benefit that is a part of the law that they have just thrown out the window for as long as we can remember. I mean, if we were concerned for a moment about Jimmy Kimmel getting fired, where were you with Roseanne Barr?

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Where were you with the myriad of people who've been shown the exit from a corporation in. It's not. I'm not picking on abc, but cbs, NBC and everybody else who at some point they found like, look, we're in a political culture here that this isn't gonna work, so you move on. There is no constitutional right to make $16 million a year. There just isn't.

[John Ashbrook]

I would love if there was.

[Josh Holmes]

I would love it. But they're gonna make that decision. And it's not the government that's making that decision one way or another. Anyway, fantastic stuff. When we come back, we got a great interview for you. We got a bunch of stuff, but we got a great interview for you. Bernie Marino is one of our absolute favorites. Send her from Ohio. You're gonna love it. Right after this.

[American Petroleum Institute Spokesperson]

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[John Ashbrook]

Our nation is standing up for American workers. Restoring the pride of making products here at home. That's what we do every day. We're America's beverage companies. Making American products with American workers in America's hometowns. Delivering brands that have been enjoyed for generations. Creating good paying jobs, the kind that require only a strong work ethic. Because we believe in the promise America and the people who make it great.

[Josh Holmes]

You've heard him here a couple of times, two or three times, I think. Well, as a candidate and as a senator, he's one of our absolute favorites. This guy is just fantastic. Wonderful to have him in Washington as a part of the United States Senate. Bernie Moreno. How are you, sir?

[John Ashbrook]

Good. Thank you for having me.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, I think the first time you came in here, you got us some like Colombian moonshine or something like that.

[John Ashbrook]

I did, I did. You guys just recovered, right? Yeah. I got you Sunday. Better. Because you guys talk a lot about Ohio. Evidently. Did you know? Did you know? I'm going to show you.

[Josh Holmes]

Hold on, wait.

[Guest Commentator]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

Hold on. Did you know? So if I had to give you show and tell and I say to you, where is this beer made?

[Josh Holmes]

Sam Adams, I would say it's a Boston product.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a Boston product, right? That's. No, you can't. Remember.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't.

[John Ashbrook]

All right, I will do this one. But you're an equal distributor, so what you don't know is that that is brewed in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that right?

[John Ashbrook]

Sam Adams started in Cincinnati, Ohio. They got the.

[Josh Holmes]

Stolen from you.

[John Ashbrook]

They got the. Well, there may have been a relocation, but the. That's still brewed there. The recipe for Sam Adams beer was in an attic of Jim Koch's great grandfather's house in Cincinnati. Really? That's how they got it? Yeah.

[Panelist]

Just a wonderful town.

[Guest Commentator]

I've had my problems with Cincinnati because of my co host here and his affinity for the place, but I. I will say I love Oktoberfest.

[Josh Holmes]

I do.

[Guest Commentator]

I love the Sam Adams product. I kind of consider it like the man's pumpkin spice latte.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that feels right. Yeah, that's an adequate.

[John Ashbrook]

Does this change your view of Ohio a little bit?

[Guest Commentator]

It does.

[John Ashbrook]

You're improving it. Improving it. I got something else. You know, you guys, you've think you've been giving. You've been giving out a lot of vegetables.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

This week. Don't you think A lot of vegetables.

[Josh Holmes]

We're too heavy on that.

[John Ashbrook]

So these, by the way, candy also. We got across the Smuckers, also made in Ohio. Look at that.

[Josh Holmes]

Smuckers.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. There you go.

[Panelist]

It's incredible.

[John Ashbrook]

What's better than an uncrustable in a beer? Nothing. It's what everybody wants. That's the lunch of champions.

[Josh Holmes]

That's how I would spend my weekend.

[John Ashbrook]

All the food groups represented right there. So Smuckers is headquartered in Ohio, largest purchaser of coffee in America. They huge company, Great company. And of course, Sam Adams.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I ask you a question about all that? Because, like, you're now just a total aficionado. Have you always been, or was that when you.

[John Ashbrook]

Uncrustables.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes, that included. But like, look, you've always been successful, driven, your business has been successful. We know your, your personality. You've been in here several different times. But when you decided to run for Senate, you gotta meet a bunch of different people. You take a bunch of different inputs. Did you always know everything there was to know about Ohio or is this like a new thing?

[John Ashbrook]

No, you gotta remember, I only moved to Ohio 20 years ago. And in fact, most of my dealerships were in northeast Ohio.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

In fact, you appreciate this, being political experts. When I had my first poll, you gotta ask, you know, what's your name ID? I said, what's your name ID? We ran a poll. It was one. It was 1%. I actually thought that was really good. I'm like, really one out of 100 people know who I am. Yeah, that's amazing. Like, that's not good.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like. Yeah, no, no, no.

[John Ashbrook]

That's evidently not good. The margin of error was 4.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So it could have been negative.

[John Ashbrook]

Could have been negative three. But yeah. You know who in that same poll had a chance of winning? Mine was one. J.D. vance's was four. That was three years ago. Yeah, I remember three years ago.

[Josh Holmes]

I remember that well.

[John Ashbrook]

So J.D. vance had a 4% chance of winning. I had a 1% chance of winning.

[Josh Holmes]

I think that's when we first heard.

[John Ashbrook]

So what does that tell you about Pol? Yeah, I know. Pretty good. But no. So to fix that, by the way, I traveled to every single corner of Ohio. I sampled the great cuisine of our entire state. We literally, I think, went to every square inch of the state of Ohio.

[Josh Holmes]

I think you did too. I mean, so that's why I asked the question. It's like when you go and travel around and talk to everybody, you just kind of absorb all of that information. Now you're like a walking chamber of commerce.

[John Ashbrook]

It really is. And the best part actually, you get to go to the fairs. So there's 88 counties in Ohio. I went to all 88 county fairs. And sometimes your body says, eh, those deep fried Oreos at 4:00'. Clock. Maybe have a vegetable. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

The late afternoon event is. You're gonna be a little late.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly, exactly. And Senator Thune came out and campaigned with me. Yeah. And we started him at six in the morning. You know, he's running for majority leader. So what's this guy's stamina? So we started at 6am and we kept him at 11pm, tested him. Oh yeah, this is the interview. These gu are already from majority leader. I see. Like, what do you got? Put it through his paces. And the man can eat desserts unlike any other human. He's from South Dakota. It's. Yeah, but, but he's physically fit. It's, it's.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but those people, they, they can just like intake.

[John Ashbrook]

It's, it's some human. He. We went to a Bob Evans at 10:30 at night and I ordered ice cream. He ordered pie. I wasn't going to order anything, but he said, oh, let's have dessert. I'm like my kind of guy. Let's go. And he looked at my ice cream. That looks good too. I'm gonna have that too. And like at 10:30 at night, it's unreal.

[Guest Commentator]

I've seen Thune crush a 16 ounce rib eye. An entire like family sized cream spinach.

[John Ashbrook]

It's true. And then dessert.

[Guest Commentator]

And the guy is so fit.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, don't forget about the huge hash brown that he gets with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's great.

[John Ashbrook]

So he had my vote. I figured any man that can last two days in a row doing that. He got me. He got me. Exactly, exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

So listen, you came in at an exciting time. It's not the case for everybody. The freshman center, you get involved and you actually do stuff. But like immediately you guys start doing stuff and obviously the big beauty, which is what we call it, big beautiful bill passed at the end of June. Incredible for the good people of Ohio. You keep working on things. But here we are in September and like we had Thune in, in June and he just sort of forecasts what he thought was going to happen, which was Schumer in March did what every responsible minority leader in millennia has ever done, which is like, all right, I can do the basics. We can just make sure that the lights are on in the Capitol. We'll push it down the road and deal with all of these things. And then he got absolutely killed by the left. I mean, they just went crazy. Almost lost his job over the whole thing. And his prediction, Thune's prediction in June was the lesson that he has about that is that he's going to have to shut the government down in order to keep his job. Here we are in the middle of September. A lot of this sort of looks like it's coming true. Interested your vantage point under the dome. You're talking to all these people. What do you think?

[John Ashbrook]

You know, I'm still the optimist, of course. You know, nine months in, you still. Exactly. I still think the Democrats aren't going to shut the government down. We'll have a clean cr. We'll present that to them. Hopefully the House passes it and then gets it to us. We'll come back, we'll vote on it. I think we're decently united. We'll say, hey, look, we don't want to keep, we don't want to close the government. Let's punt this thing till November 21st. And you know, I like to say the alcoholics don't like to shut down the bar. So I think the Democrats shutting down government, I don't know that they can get there. So we'll see. But look, AOC runs the Senate. That's the reality. Chuck Schumer does whatever he feels he needs to do so that he fends her off. And it's a shame because I think there's a decent amount of normal Democrats out there.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you can see the Fetterman like he was on with McCormick the other night on Special Report, which I found provided a measure of comfort, to be honest with you, because we've talked about it a lot on the show over the last couple of weeks about how this party is just now entirely beholden, scared, whatever, to this increasingly violent, increasingly radical far left movement, whatever that is funded by Soros and everything else. And then we saw Fetterman do that thing on Special Report and it was like, maybe there are a couple.

[John Ashbrook]

No, Fetterman by far is the smartest and strongest willed Democrat. They treat him like garbage, which is a shame. He's actually a really nice guy. Now, look, we're not always going to vote the same. Probably most of the time we won't vote the same. But he's decently reasonable. The others are inside reasonable, with a few exceptions. Let's call it four or five exceptions that are clear. But they, they just are so afraid of their base.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what it is.

[John Ashbrook]

Like, it's like, it's like the, the show Mean Girls. Yeah, they're trying to suck up to the mean girls. And the mean girls are always just gonna be really mean to them and.

[Josh Holmes]

They'Re gonna be more mean.

[John Ashbrook]

They are. And they keep getting meaner and meaner as they do more things. So. But hopefully, look, this is my theory. Hopefully we win big in the midterms. I think we can pick up seats in the House and the Senate and then we break the fever where they go. We just can't keep, you know, a pro crime, pro illegal immigrant, pro green New Deal, pro, pro foreign countries, anti America platform is not. I'm again, I'm not a political genius for thinking that's a bad platform. Yeah. And also I'm all for crime.

[Josh Holmes]

Sort of conflicted about assassinations. Like they can only do the talking points.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I mean, it's right. You know, we spent an incredible amount of time up there. And you're right. I mean, you get to know somebody at a human level, you're like, nah, this person isn't as bad as they convey to the American people. But at the same time, they're afraid of a political base, so they have to act.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what the best example is? Honestly, Remember, for me, this is all new to me. Right. I'd never been in D.C. for more than two days in a row in my life until January 3rd. You go to the State Union address, which for me is. You sit there. It's a decent honor, right? It's amazing, right? The United States of America, the Capitol, the whole thing there, the President, it's.

[Josh Holmes]

All much smaller than it looks on tv.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly, exactly. And they couldn't clap for the kid with brain cancer. They couldn't clap for the kid who got accepted to West Point. Imagine your son gets accepted to West Point live on TV by the President, United States. And imagine what it's like to look down in a chamber and only half is standing and clapping. Yeah, that's just weird, right?

[Josh Holmes]

You're like three weeks into it at this point.

[John Ashbrook]

That was. Yeah, that was.

[Josh Holmes]

You're like looking around, like, the hell? Did I get involved?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Well, what's wrong with these people? And because you meet them personally and they're really nice, they're engaging. In fact, Cory Booker and I had a long hour and a half meeting on that Friday. I thought I'd never met him before. He pointed out he weighed 280 pounds. I thought that was odd information that he wanted to share. That's what I said. The entire meeting I'm thinking, that screwed me up. The whole meeting, I'm talking to him, and every once in a while he popped back in my head, like, 280. Wow, that's like. That's a lot. Where do you. I mean, he's a big guy, but that's a lot, right?

[Guest Commentator]

He doesn't maybe get help and run support for the Bengals, you know?

[Josh Holmes]

Yo, he could maybe do some garbage.

[John Ashbrook]

He's a big guy, right? So. So anyway, we had a great conversation. Hey, let's get together. We're gonna do this and that. We'll figure out where we can work, what are some things we can work.

[Josh Holmes]

Great.

[John Ashbrook]

And then Tuesday rolls around. State of the Union address is a disaster, right? It's like, my God, this is nuts. So I see him the next day on the floor, I beelined it right to him. I go, dude, you couldn't stand up for the 13 year old black kid with cancer? Like, what's up with that? And he goes, no, I was clapping. I just looked at him like, you really weren't. And he goes, yeah, it was a bad night. So it's just like, why? Like, I don't think. I don't think they have to be that way.

[Josh Holmes]

So, like, cut on that, right? I mean, what you just illustrated is a guy who just showed up, you don't know anything about, like, D.C. itself, you're four weeks on the job, you get to know somebody. You have a. You know, a generational compatibility, you understand, and, like, the same things you're trying to do and accomplish for your constituents, the same thing. So you have this, like, sort of bond, and then all of a sudden, the next day, you show up at one of these things, and you're like, why are you acting like a lunatic?

[John Ashbrook]

Why can't you clap for that guy? Yeah, right. I mean, it's the mom who. Grandmother who saw the guy kidnapped in Russia. We can clap for that. Are we not allowed to clap for that? Releasing hostages is good. That should be bipartisan, right? I'm pro hostage. So then the other thing that I now like to do, which is a little bit tormenting my colleagues, so they asked me to be one of the whips. So Republicans have been pretty together on this. Although I do enjoy torturing my colleagues that tell me I'm not sure how I'm gonna vote. I'm like, yes or no? The card says yes or no. It doesn't say I'm not sure.

[Guest Commentator]

Classic, classic businessman.

[John Ashbrook]

Always be classic. I'll give you these two choices again, right? So. But we've been pretty good on that, so we don't need to do a lot of whipping. So now what I do is I'll walk. I'll see the Democrats come in, especially the ones I've built kind of relationships with, and they'll vote no. And something I say, it's a nominee, and I'll walk up to them and I'll say, who did you just vote against? And they're like, I'm sorry, what's that? I'm like, you just voted no. What's the name of the person in the position? They're like, I have no idea. I'm like, then why'd you vote no? And one of them, they said, well, who was it? And I gave the person's name, actually turned out to be Terry Cole, the head of the dea. And the president looks at me and goes, oh, he's a good guy. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You're like, but you just.

[John Ashbrook]

But you just voted no.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[John Ashbrook]

And they go, I don't remember why we decided we were gonna vote no. That's sad. That, to me, is a little bit, honestly sad. If somebody really loves this country like you guys do, and, like, we should. Let's not be like that thing that says no, this guy's position on this, and I don't like that. I mean, I think enforcing drugs is a decent Bipartisan issue seems like something worth considering. Right? So that's a lot of fun for me.

[Josh Holmes]

I think it's. Listen, one of the reasons why you're such a breath of fresh air on all of this, it's why we started the show and everything else, is that you make observations like that, and it's funny, right? And, like, you can wrap yourself around the axle just being just mad all the time. But I don't think they're responsive to it, obviously. I mean, the more angry that the conservative movement gets at these people treating their government as though it's like a Monopoly game, and they just have to, like, fend off whatever it else that they're dealing with on their base. Like, it makes us angry. I get it. But, like, when you laugh at it and point out the absurdity of it, like, even they at some point have.

[John Ashbrook]

To be like, yeah, maybe I don't need to be like this. Well, I'll give you another one. So I'm in Commerce, so we're obviously the auto industry. Near and dear to my heart. So one of my colleagues was talking about how every new safety technology invented in the world has to be mandated by law on every car. I said, well, that's great. Every car's gonna be 100 grand, because then nobody will be able to afford cars. I see that as a problem. By the way, people hold onto their cars longer, which means the fleet will be older. Like, if you care about safety and climate, make the fleet newer. The way you make fleets newer is fake cars. That didn't work. That logic did not expose it. So then, of course, I can't wrap that around my head. So I went out and captured the VIN numbers of my colleagues on the Commerce Committee. And then I decoded their VINs. And so I said to this particular senator, I said, well, you want to mandate all the safety technology in this car, but here's a window sticker of your car. You didn't buy the safety technology that you could get. Absolutely. And why is that? So you want somebody else to pay for it, but not yourself. Another one was, Everybody should drive EVs. Okay, well, you drive a car that gets 22 miles per gallon. I mean, by the way, total respect. 450 horsepower engine. Yeah. Not an EV.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

So for them, but not for you. So those are the things I have fun doing.

[Josh Holmes]

Fascinating. So you're out taking down VIN numbers?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, yeah. By the way, the Capitol Police does look at me a little weird.

[Panelist]

I'm just like, no, no, no, no. Here's the pin. Here's the pin.

[John Ashbrook]

I swear, I'm not. Nothing nefarious they got on their car.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you have any of those issues, by the way? So every new Congress you get into, somebody like yourself, you're duly elected United States Senator, shows up, and security's like, who are you?

[John Ashbrook]

You know, I wear the pin for that reason because I think people who don't do it, it's kinda like, well, you know who I am. I don't expect that.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

So that combined with every Thursday, I bring them coffee or donuts. Oh. So I've gotten to know him, dude.

[Panelist]

This guy, salesman through, and he's from Ohio. He knows how to treat people.

[John Ashbrook]

Although along those lines, I'm gonna give you the ultimate. I shouldn't do this because this is gonna be the worst thing for me, but I'm gonna tell you the story. So perfect. We had an event on Friday night. We had an event on a Friday night. So my wife was there, and I said, well, why don't we just spend the weekend, be tourist in D.C. it'd be kind of fun with a diplomat for branch, you know, that type of thing. So we did that. So let's walk the whole mall. So we were going from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, which you can.

[Josh Holmes]

Do now that we have safety, right?

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly. Well, this is before that, but. And that's the point of the story. So there's a couple times when people, like, glanced at my wife Bridget and I and kind of gave us the, like, stink eye. And like, that's just weird. I wonder if they were just a bad mood. It could have been me. They obviously don't know who I am. Just a guy I don't expect my people who know. And you're not me, right? Not like a famous center like Ted Cruz. Right. So anyway, so then we're walking very peacefully, my wife and I chatting. This guy with a Palestinians are being murdered by Israel, shirt on, beelines. The rest just starts yelling at us. And now I'm sitting there, I'm not responding. My wife starts yelling back. I mean, do not mess with her.

[Josh Holmes]

Bridget is not to be messed with.

[John Ashbrook]

And so anyway, she scared him. He walked away. He was not engaging. He's like, she's crazy. He walks away. And I turn to her, I go, I can't believe people and random people in D.C. don't know who I am. She literally hits me. And she goes, it's not you, you idiot, it's me. And she has a hat that says, friends of the idf. Oh, no way. Are you serious? She's the.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[John Ashbrook]

I can't believe people recognize me as a serious. They don't.

[Josh Holmes]

It looks like we're making some progress here, honey.

[Panelist]

She is a ball. She is an absolute baller. I mean, like, she.

[Josh Holmes]

She's one of our absolute favorites.

[Panelist]

She came in. We were talking about this a little bit ago.

[Guest Commentator]

She.

[Panelist]

She came in and she brought us some Buckeyes right before the Ohio State. Texas game. That Ohio State won. Michael, just so you know, in case.

[John Ashbrook]

You forgot, where are they ranked?

[Guest Commentator]

I love the Big Ten.

[John Ashbrook]

Where are they ranked now? Number one. Okay. Yeah.

[Panelist]

That's above Penn State, right?

[Guest Commentator]

That is. That is above. They are going to play.

[John Ashbrook]

They had a good season last year, right? How did they end up last year?

[Panelist]

It was pretty good.

[John Ashbrook]

National championship.

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. They won. All right. Perfect. That's. That's great.

[Panelist]

Did Penn State win last year?

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Guest Commentator]

I'm happy for the Big Ten. I'm. I'm a Big Ten guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Unbelievable. So are you. Are you going to games?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, yeah. So I went to the Texas game we talked about earlier, before the show started. I did think it was boring. I'm gonna confess, I'm not a big sports guy, but I do enjoy watching football. That's specifically when I do watch it. But what was interesting. So if I were a coach, every down would be Hail Mary first down, Hail Mary second, fourth and 10th, Hail Mary doesn't matter. That's all for every single play. It'd be a lot more fun to watch, wouldn't it? It would. Every single play certainly be more entertaining.

[Josh Holmes]

No question about that.

[John Ashbrook]

Two yards. No, that's like. That's. What's the point of that? That's a lot of abuse for two nights. Oh, good.

[Josh Holmes]

Before we let you go, is there something you're working on? Nobody's focusing. Focusing on that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Guest Commentator]

We get past this, like, Schumer shutdown stuff.

[John Ashbrook]

So.

[Guest Commentator]

What. What, what. What can you focus on?

[John Ashbrook]

We got a great bill. It's called the Higher Act. Yeah. So here. Here. You know, my early career was running a call center for General Motors. And these call center jobs are actually decent jobs. Believe it or not, people with disabilities do really well in call centers. Blind people have incredible level of empathy. People who are disabled can put a headphone on keyboard. Great jobs that otherwise would not be available to them. And we have a lot of companies, too many companies that are outsourcing these jobs to foreign countries. So the hire act, which we introduced is a 25% fee. On those contracts. So if they want to outsource, we can't tell them not to to. So we'll put this fee on, and we'll use that money to upskill and train workers for their certificate programs, trade schools, etc. But we can't just keep sending money overseas and jobs overseas because that money doesn't circulate in our communities. So I think that's. I think, think of it like a tariff for services, and I think that's a good bill. We have another bill called the American Worker Liberation act that I'm really proud of, leveling up to 10% tariffs across the board, using that money to eliminate income taxes on people who make less than 65 grand a year. I want to eliminate the entire income tax, but let's start with the people make 65,000 or less. The big thing we got to all recognize here in D.C. is working Americans are still getting crushed. Maybe they're not getting as beat up as they were during the Biden time, but they're still getting hurt. And we should center both parties around how do we just help working Americans now? Maybe we have different approaches, but we have to solve for that problem. And if we don't, we're doing this country a disservice.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you worry about tariffs, or do you think that those things are being negotiated out at an adequate pace, where we're actually, actually just getting a better deal over a period of time? Because you listen to some folks, mostly Wall street folks, Wall Street Journal, that are, you know, I mean, they're constantly concerned about anything that resembles a tariff. But then we've also just observed and watched the President do deal after deal after deal. And all these things kind of come together with, at the end of it, you feel like you got a better deal, but there's still a lot remaining. Like, what are you. Where's your head on?

[John Ashbrook]

Well, what the President's doing is resetting the table. The Wall Street Journal wasn't complaining about tariffs when they were on us. In other words, you never saw an editorial board about Europe putting tariffs on American goods. Now it's the other way around. So I think the President's done an incredible job. Actually. I don't think most people would think that between him, Bessett, Lutnick, and Greer, they could have done as many deals as they have done. It's pretty remarkable. So what our bill's doing is say, hey, let's just accept that it's 10% across the board with some obvious exceptions like scarce natural resources, generic Pharmaceuticals, airplane parts, things that we want to exempt, but gives more certainty and it protects President Trump's legacy. We're collecting more tariff revenue than corporate income taxes right now. So it's a good way to say to the working Americans, hey, we're not going to charge you income tax because we're charging foreign countries and foreign companies a 10% access fee to our nation. And that gives certainty because now it's in legislation. And as you know, there's lots of tariffs on the books now. This is just leveling up to at least 10. If it's more, we keep it. But, but leveling up, but also provide.

[Josh Holmes]

Some leverage for a larger discussion.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, and if there's a free trade agreement, the Free Trade agreement would override that, like usmca, which the President will renegotiate. But look, for me, I'm blessed to be here. We have unified control of government. I can contact the administration. This is how it always should be, right? Rick Scott uses the best analogy with me. He says that it's like parents that were poor when they had their first couple kids, then later in life they got money and they had a third kid. I'm the third kid. And so they keep saying, we used to eat Spam. Cause they're like, you have no idea how bad these are. This was bad, this was bad. Things are great. This is fantastic. We get to go to Disney World.

[Josh Holmes]

What a fun job.

[John Ashbrook]

So that's Rick Scott's favorite thing. He always looks at me, he goes, you have no idea how bad it was. Evidently it's bad in a minority.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know.

[John Ashbrook]

They say that it's a rumor. Another visit, another visit. Let's hope we never have that conversation.

[Josh Holmes]

We never have to. Last question. We talked about in your very first visit, the electric vehicle mandate, all of that. You were in the auto industry. You saw sort of just ham handed way in which the Biden administration handled all that. Obviously you all made huge impact. I don't think everybody really appreciates what a significant impact the United States Senate and this Trump administration has done at sort of realigning American incentives when it comes to your car and things like that. There are pieces of trade deals though, that deal with this kind of thing because we've seen the EU in particular get to a point where they're mandating certain environmental standards and they're like, you gotta go open kimono on your entire business unless you meet like an EV mandate tomorrow. And people are pulling their hair. Everybody from the energy sector to auto manufacturers, everybody else but it has a real impact on America. As you're talking to colleagues and talking to the administration about how they settle all these things. Trump is in Europe right now talking about some of it. Like, you think this. Is that an issue that we need to focus on at all?

[John Ashbrook]

I think we settled it honestly. So we got rid of the California's ability to set the different emission requirement we've been working on for 40 years. Yeah, done. It's gone.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the suicidal version, right? Where we're just like, we're going to eliminate our own ability to.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, that, by the way, meant 35% EVs in 18 states right now. So that hadn't passed today. 35% of the cars sold in Massachusetts, New York, California would have to be electric. Disaster is gone. They don't have to pay CAFE fines anymore. Ted Cruz led that effort. So no fines. That's two and a half billion dollars a year car companies were paying. The consumers pay for it. They just pass the price on. We got rid of the EV subsidy. So it's very sad now because the guy leasing that electric Rolls Royce will no longer get 70$500. So there's a millionaire crying somewhere. The horror, the tragedy. Which was, by the way, can we just say objectively, the dumbest public policy ever. I actually asked some of my Democrat colleagues in total earnest, what were you thinking? Like, did you think? And they usually looked at me like, that's in there. Which I realize is a thing here. Like, wait, that's in that bill? Are you kidding? What, did I vote for that? Yeah, you voted for that.

[Josh Holmes]

See, you think we're, like, being hyperbolic here on the ruthless Friday. We are not being hyperbolic. Like, Bernie's here to tell us, like, this is the way it works.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I've actually had some colleagues where we talk about even the big beautiful bill say, that's in there. That's really great. I'm like, I don't want your listeners to lose confidence in our government. But so we got rid of that. We also, basically, through EPA and executive orders, we're back to a very simple concept. Customers will go pick a car, and car companies will get that signal and decide what kind of car to make. And in the trade deals, we're also accepting each other's standards. So if you make a car for Europe, that car also works for the US and vice versa. So you don't have to make different versions of cars because we got to drive the cost of cars down. Cars have gotten way too expensive. And of Course, we got our bill across the finish line, which is you can deduct auto interest on an American made car. I'll give you a quick stat. Beginning of the year, 51% of the cars sold in America were made in America. 51%. Back in the day, that number was in the 80s. At the end of July, that number was over 56.

[Panelist]

Wow.

[John Ashbrook]

So we moved. That's a lot. That's a lot of jobs in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and even Pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[Guest Commentator]

That's right. McCormick made it.

[John Ashbrook]

McCormick's one of my favorites. He's a great guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Isn't he a great guy?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, great guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. No, I imagine you're getting along pretty well. You have a pretty good class with all that.

[John Ashbrook]

We do. We. Banks is a great guy. She. He's. She. He's great. Yeah. We usually leave the meetings with about the same takes. It cracks me up. He's a good guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, this is one of the very good people in all of government. We're so happy that he's there. We've known him for a while, before he was a United States senator, I might add. Thanks for what you're doing.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Congrats on the ongoing mainstream.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that where we are?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, yeah, you guys already established. I mean, if you think about it, I love it. Corporate.

[Josh Holmes]

We're gonna bookend this interview with just the most objectionable content you can think of. Just because of that.

[John Ashbrook]

You guys be banned. I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

Bernie Moreno. Bernie's a great guy, isn't he?

[Panelist]

Oh, he really is. I mean, and not for nothing, he's from again.

[Guest Commentator]

He has to do it again. Wasn't enough times.

[Josh Holmes]

The only thing that makes us like a little bit hesitant about praising Bernie.

[Michael Duncan]

Is we're gonna hear the Ohio thing.

[Guest Commentator]

I gotta say, as much as Ashbrook has made me dislike Ohio, Bernie Moreno makes me love it.

[Michael Duncan]

That's an incredible confidence.

[Guest Commentator]

And he's an incredible salesman. Not just, you know, in his personal life, as you know, in cars, but for the state itself. I mean, bringing in the incrustables and the beer and everything.

[Josh Holmes]

His observations about his colleagues. I mean, that's why he sort of.

[Guest Commentator]

Reveals the theater of it all.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he's like, oh, no, I thought we were getting along. And all of a sudden I see him acting like a psycho.

[Panelist]

Yeah, it's the observations you would have if you were walking in from Ohio to the United States Senate and be like, wait a minute, you just told me this and now you're doing something else.

[Josh Holmes]

So when you hear from the Variety program that elected Democrats at a national level and I think at a state level at somewhat too are just afraid of their base. Well now you just heard from a guy who hangs on with them, has to, forced to. I'm not saying it's a choice, but he listens to him, talks to them and then he sees how they act. Just proves the point.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

They just act like psychopaths. It's Funtime Friday, fellas. You know what you do on Funtime Friday? You start with Zbiotics.

[Michael Duncan]

Good point.

[Guest Commentator]

Very important. One of our favorite sponsors here at the Ruthless Variety program. We are users of the product.

[Josh Holmes]

It is a game changing product that we use what they call a pre alcohol drink where you take one before you have a nice night out, makes you feel a lot better in the morning. We are not only sort of advocates for this in this show, we are consumers of the product.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Panelist]

One of the things we always say to each other is there is no tomorrow without Zbiotics today.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah, I mean it's Ashbrook. Can I get a little look here at the product? You have some for me?

[Panelist]

It's right here, buddy.

[Guest Commentator]

Okay. Yeah. So Zbiotics right there, it's a pre alcohol probiotic. And everybody thinks, you know, when you've had a little bit too much, you've overindulged, that it's, you get dehydrated and that is the reason you don't feel so well the next day. It's not just that, it's you know, alcohol produces a toxic byproduct in your gut and Zbiotics goes right in there and neutralizes that thing.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean they're just bottles.

[Panelist]

You know what I would like to.

[Michael Duncan]

Point out as part is it's empty.

[John Ashbrook]

Because we use it.

[Josh Holmes]

You should be concerned as a listener, not so concerned if you're Zebiotics that this is entirely empty. My friend has provided us a box that he has emptied.

[Panelist]

Yeah, but I've shared it with my buddies.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not sure you did.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I'm not sure.

[Guest Commentator]

He's hoarding. He's hoarding it.

[Panelist]

Listen, if you, if you, you know what, I'm going to hoard it because it's great.

[Josh Holmes]

If you go to zebiotics.com ruthless to learn more, you get 15% off your order, fellas. And when you use Ruthless at the checkout, Zbionics is backed by 100% money backed guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. We believe in this product. Trust me, we really do believe in this product. You should too. Go to zbiotics.com ruthless to get yours. You guys ready for some variety?

[Guest Commentator]

Always. Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so there's a animal. Should we just do animal?

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Animal nose. All right, so a bear euthanized after entering Vernon Dollar General, injuring a woman. All right, let me just put some context here. Can we just put up, I think it's clip eight. There's a bear.

[Chevron Representative]

This is Tuesday afternoon at the Dollar.

[Michael Duncan]

You're way too close to a bear.

[John Ashbrook]

Where's the exit in Vernon?

[Chevron Representative]

Sussex County, New Jersey, where a black bear paced the aisles and came face to face with customers as people looked on in shock and started recording.

[Josh Holmes]

Guys, just walking up.

[Chevron Representative]

Sean Clarkett is the person heard on the video.

[John Ashbrook]

The bear was going through the store. Seemed very timid.

[Michael Duncan]

Long island, bro.

[John Ashbrook]

Just strolling through the store like he.

[Josh Holmes]

Was trying to get out.

[Chevron Representative]

Police say a 90 year old woman was hurt during the ordeal here when the bear either scratched or bit her leg. Police are seen on video arriving to the store and off camera putting bear down.

[Michael Duncan]

As soon as I heard the gunshot, my heart dropped. They said they had to shoot him to kill him because he was a nuisance bear.

[John Ashbrook]

He was a nuisance bear.

[Michael Duncan]

Hold on.

[Josh Holmes]

If you see, if you're not subscribed to the YouTube channel, what you are not seeing is this bear slow walking through the aisles and being like gently escorted out the front of the store where it just kind of like walks into the parking lot. What I didn't know until I just saw this is that somebody showed up and just blasted.

[Michael Duncan]

It was the cops, dude. So here's the thing. I want that bear rug in my house so bad, dude. Like if you're in Long island, if you're ever in a store and you see that, you know, it's hello RuthlessPodcast.com Drop a Bear, you know, get it turned into a rug. Hit us up. Hello, RuthlessPodcast.com but that is so funny. She was like, it got dropped because it was a nuisance bear. Every dude, nuisance bears.

[Josh Holmes]

Every time we have a bear story, this guy goes direct to consumer with you where he's like, I just want to rush. That's all I want.

[Michael Duncan]

I just, I love the whole situation because first off, you'd think that like animals in Dollar General would have been normalized by now. Like you just accept it. If you go to Dollar General, you're gonna see animals in action and the bear Seemed kind of chill, but I just see it as an opportunity to rug the thing. Also, it's so funny that the Long island accent. Yeah. It was a nuisance bear, so they dropped it. Soprano, over here.

[Josh Holmes]

So.

[Guest Commentator]

So again, again, if you're on audio only, you gotta like and subscribe and Ruthless and watch that in video. It was a black bear, not a brown bear. It's like typically or a grizzly. Like those are the more aggressive bears, you know, the black bears typically aren't as aggressive.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Guest Commentator]

But a nuisance bear, one that's become too normalized to being around humans like that. You gotta put it down.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Guest Commentator]

Because it's gonna be a problem where if it feels comfortable around humans, that's when it crosses the line and you gotta take it.

[Josh Holmes]

It was pretty comfortable.

[Guest Commentator]

And yeah, that's the problem.

[Josh Holmes]

I will give you that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Snatch. You like to kill all animals.

[Panelist]

I'd like the rug too. So you need to send the rug care of John Ashbrook. Do not send it to smug because I want the rug first.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

You have no idea the battle royale that will ensue here in the ruthless variety program if somehow a bear rug shows up and Smash takes possession.

[Michael Duncan]

He probably would. He put all his ebiotics, of course.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah, he did.

[John Ashbrook]

He'll hoard that too.

[Josh Holmes]

Dead. It's empty as shit.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep, yep.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what he does.

[Josh Holmes]

Alright.

[Michael Duncan]

More animals always.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so scientists claim a spate of orca attacks on European boats are the whale's way of playing, according to a report. This is the Daily Mail. And the Daily Mail reports that after a recent incident in Portugal, Renaud de Stefanis, president of Spain's Conservation Information Research on Cetaceans.

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Cetaceans.

[Guest Commentator]

No. Cetaceans, yeah. Not crustaceans.

[Josh Holmes]

Cetaceans.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that a fucking whale?

[Guest Commentator]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You can't just say that.

[Guest Commentator]

No. They gotta be fancy.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. They're a whale guy. Anyway, they said that the behavior is part of the whale's playful nature. Quote, what is happening with the Iberian orcas and boats is not an attack in the sense of. Of aggression.

[Panelist]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Predation or territorial defense. He told the Daily Mail this interaction is closer to a game than to an attack. They're not mistaking the boats for prey, nor are they defending territory. So we've covered this for a long time about how orcas are like sinking boats.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So I mean, here's the thing is, if it's a game, then I got a game. It's called Pin the harpoon on the.

[John Ashbrook]

Way.

[Michael Duncan]

Just a playful game, fun for the whole family.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you have to plug the blowhole?

[Michael Duncan]

That's an approach. I mean, honestly, kill the damn things. I'm so sick of this where it's like, oh, you know, scientists are like. It's actually the problem here is humans, folks. You see, all of us are the problem. It's their playful nature. To try to kill us.

[Panelist]

No, it's just a game. And its teeth are chess pieces on a board.

[Josh Holmes]

Digested in their lower digestive system. It's simply just another part of the game.

[Panelist]

It's like the end of every 80s board game commercial where they're like, we won.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God. Unbelievable. All right, so listen, I think we had a hell of a week. Appreciate everybody for tuning in. We've. We've covered it all and we had a little fun time Friday, fellows. How absurd are these people?

[Guest Commentator]

How absurd are these people crazy?

[Josh Holmes]

It's First Amendment. You got to pay the guy $16 million or it's constitutional crisis. Anyway, thank you for joining us like, and subscribe to the YouTube channel and listen on audio. And with that, fellows, I think we did it.

[Michael Duncan]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen. Thank you so much, Senator Moreno, and thank you to listeners and all of you who have been subscribing. We just hit 150k. Let's go to. To 200. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you Tuesday. Stabardless.