How the Left Creates Fake Narratives - ICE Shooting

Summary

---

Ruthless Podcast, January 9, 2026

Episode: How the Left Creates Fake Narratives - ICE Shooting
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug ("Smug"), Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook

---

Overview

In this episode, the Ruthless crew dives into how, in their view, the left and mainstream media manufacture and amplify fake narratives around contentious current events, focusing on the ICE-involved shooting in Minnesota. The hosts blend their signature satirical banter with pointed conservative commentary, examining media framing, Democratic messaging, protest organizing, and the alleged corruption behind recent scandals. The discussion emphasizes the ways in which narratives are constructed and weaponized—according to the hosts—to distract from Democratic failures and misconduct.

---

Key Themes & Segments

1. The Anatomy of a "Fake Narrative"

[00:00–00:12, 10:26–12:20]

• The episode opens by challenging what the hosts claim are longstanding, misleading narratives from the left, such as "hands up, don't shoot," which Josh Holmes and Michael Duncan claim "wasn't true."
• The hosts argue that left-wing activism and outrage are often built on foundational falsehoods, which then spiral into mass protests and political action.
• Josh Holmes [00:12]: "They are entirely castigated under the rubric that the left has now created, which begins with a lie."

2. The ICE Shooting Incident: Distorted by the Left?

[03:00–06:00, 09:19–10:26, 37:38–43:51]

• The team plays and discusses protest footage following an ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis. They critique descriptions of the protester as a "legal observer," lampooning the term’s elasticity.
• They describe the viral tweet about the shooting as intentionally misleading and accuse liberal activists of fueling outrage ("no one is illegal on stolen land") divorced from the actual issues at hand.
• Josh Holmes [10:26]: "Look at the terror in this man’s face... Enough is enough. Our government is committing war crimes abroad and murdering, terrorizing and terrorizing citizens at home. We need a revolution." [Reading viral tweet]

3. Media, Social Media, and Foreign Influence

[12:20–16:46, 26:23–29:20]

• Discussion of how protest footage and news clips are edited and spread on X (formerly Twitter), with the hosts highlighting foreign-based accounts (e.g., in Romania and China) as key spreaders of inflammatory content.
• They connect funding and organizational support for protests and left-wing social movements to international adversaries eager to sow discord.
• Michael Duncan [16:20]: "Why the hell is someone in Romania trying to get a bunch of Americans mad at each other?"

4. Protest Organization: Paid, Coordinated, and Transactional?

[21:16–22:58]

• The hosts point to reporting that protest organizers in Minneapolis used explicit goal times and AFL-CIO coordination, suggesting such events are staged and transactional rather than organic.
• Michael Duncan [21:56]: "They're on the clock."
• John Ashbrook [22:54]: "Very transactional when it comes to cash and carry government."

5. Minnesota Daycare Fraud Scandal

[07:31–09:19, 31:38–35:56, 52:15–56:11]

• Explores massive allegations of fraud involving daycare and healthcare funds in Minnesota, blaming state-level Democratic governance for oversight failures.
• The hosts single out high-profile Democrats (Gov. Tim Walz, Rep. Ilhan Omar) as uniquely entangled with both the governmental failures and the protests.
• Michael Duncan [35:30]: "Let in illegals, pay them, get the votes, rinse, repeat, do it over and over and over until we control this country coast to coast."

6. The Concept of the “Legal Observer”

[32:09–36:13]

• Mockery of Democratic and media descriptions of the shooting victim as a "legal observer."
• Josh Holmes [34:26]: "They make it seem like there’s an official rule, like you’re a UN peacekeeper...there’s no fucking legal."
• The hosts ridicule the perversion of language, tying it to a broader theme of left-wing narrative manipulation.

7. Bodycams, Policing, and Misinformation

[11:45–12:18]

• Argues that the left’s emphasis on police bodycams, intended to expose misconduct, has instead undermined anti-cop narratives.
• Michael Duncan [11:45]: "Turns out the cops are doing a great job...Turns out maybe that was all just made up."

8. Political Messaging: From Chuck Schumer to Ilhan Omar

[37:38–48:55]

• Clips and critique of statements by Democratic leaders (e.g., Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Ilhan Omar), with the hosts arguing these politicians actively mislead about ICE’s purpose, the nature of the protests, and the criminal elements involved.
• Josh Holmes [43:52]: "We have seen them terrorize so many citizens...that has tragically led to this murder that we watched on TV."

9. “Blood for Attention”: The Radicalization of Democratic Activists?

[49:40–51:39]

• A CNN clip reveals some Democratic voters urging party leaders to "be more willing to go out there and get shot" to focus the public’s attention.
• The Ruthless crew points out the media’s nonchalance in presenting these statements.
• John Ashbrook [50:54]: "We sort of just hand wave past the fact that your base is actually psychotic. So are you delivering what the base would like, sir?"

10. Debate on Immigration, Welfare Use, and Minnesota’s “Somali Problem”

[69:38–74:19]

• Discusses Brandon Gill’s Congressional questioning about rates of welfare use among Somali immigrant households, making the case that mass immigration has weakened, not strengthened, Minnesota.
• Brandon Gill [70:01]: "What percentage of Somali-headed households in Minnesota are on welfare in general? ... It’s 81%."
• The hosts argue that the Democratic Political Machine depends on immigrant welfare dependency as a "welfare industrial complex.”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Michael Duncan [00:47] (on “hands up, don’t shoot”): "They've been doing this forever. Remember, hands up, don't shoot...Wasn't true."
• Josh Holmes [07:31]: "Democrats want to make it seem like this is some kind of extra judicial squad of Trump enforcement...Not at all like what they said very clearly why they were there."
• Michael Duncan [16:46]: "It is disheartening if, again, you're a well adjusted human being to look at your TV screen and see 'rise up, take a stand'...you're like, what the hell are we talking about here?"
• Josh Holmes [34:50] (on “legal observer”): "There's no fucking legal. She was a poet."
• Josh Holmes [43:51] (on ICE’s mandate): "ICE...is an agency...created post 911 for interior enforcement...have laws on the books that have been there for decades."
• Michael Duncan [47:17] (on Ilhan Omar): "Those are the people that Ilhan Omar is protecting. She doesn't care about Americans."
• Josh Holmes [50:00] (on “blood for attention”): "There needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and public."
• John Ashbrook [51:31]: "All of a sudden, they're like, the Democratic base...is like, no, we want you to kill people."
• Brandon Gill [69:38] (on MN welfare rates): "What percentage of Somali-headed households in Minnesota are on welfare? ... It’s 81%."

---

Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–00:12 | Opening: “Fake Narrative” framing; “hands up, don't shoot” | | 03:00–06:00 | The ICE shooting video and protest coverage | | 07:31–09:19 | Explaining the Minnesota fraud as root cause for ICE action | | 10:26–12:20 | Media narratives and viral tweets amplifying false stories | | 12:20–16:46 | Foreign actors & social media manipulation | | 21:16–22:58 | Paid protest organizing exposed, AFL-CIO involvement | | 31:38–36:13 | The “legal observer” talking point debunked | | 37:38–43:51 | Democratic politicians’ media appearances & ICE criticism | | 43:52–48:55 | Ilhan Omar, legal context, and Democratic grift | | 49:40–51:39 | CNN’s base “willing to get shot” discussion | | 69:38–74:19 | Brandon Gill segment: Somali community questions and stats |

---

Tone and Style

The Ruthless crew is relentlessly sarcastic and combative, with a tone alternating between comic mockery (“kids that come out all fucked up” from the “leering center” [21:16]), populist frustration, and righteous outrage. Language is informal, sharp-edged, and peppered with expletives when host emotions run high.

---

Concluding Points

• The hosts consistently argue that the left’s misinformation and narrative management is coordinated, sometimes foreign-funded, and increasingly dangerous.
• They frame current protest activity as both grift-driven and a cover for systemic Democratic corruption.
• The episode ends by soliciting listeners’ answers to “What is the most absurd fake narrative Democrats have ever come up with?” re-emphasizing their deep skepticism of left-of-center media, governance, and activism.

---

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode is a combative, sardonic critique of left-wing narratives, presented with both current examples (ICE shooting, Minnesota fraud) and perennial grievances against the Democratic Party and mainstream media. The Ruthless hosts aim to entertain and arm their audience with skepticism toward progressive messaging and the actors (organizers, politicians, media) who disseminate it.

Key Takeaways:

• According to the hosts, many leftist protest movements and media stories are organized around foundational untruths.
• Allegations of fraud in public programs are routinely deflected by shifting the narrative to law enforcement abuse and immigration activism.
• The Ruthless crew characterizes the left’s information environment as both insular (“cooked brains”) and vulnerable to manipulation by foreign interests.
• They encourage mockery over engagement with the left, seeing debate as futile given what they consider habitual dishonesty.

---

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

And the question is, what is the most absurd fake narrative Democrats have ever come up with?

[Michael Duncan]

That's gonna be quite a title.

[John Ashbrook]

They've been doing this forever. Remember, hands up, don't shoot.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, that's. It.

[Smug]

Wasn't true.

[Michael Duncan]

Wasn't true.

[John Ashbrook]

Wasn't true.

[Josh Holmes]

They are entirely castigated under the rubric that the left has now created, which begins with a lie.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, okay, get the protesters out there. We need to turn this story into. Oh, no. Trump is trying to. You saw that idiot mayor being like. He's trying to rip families apart. No, this is ICE going after criminals.

[Josh Holmes]

They realize that the only way America can be stopped at this point is from within. And so they prey upon the biggest rubes amongst us.

[John Ashbrook]

For decades, the rising cost of health insurance has been a contentious issue, one that affects every single American. Big health insurance companies, who have been paid trillions in US Taxpayer money, are raising health insurance prices historically high on Americans. At the same time, it was reported that major health insurance companies were funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Gavin Newsom's redistricting effort in California designed to undermine President Trump and congressional Republicans. Just the other day, President Trump announced something historic. He's going to haul in the heads of the largest US Health insurance companies with the goal of saving Americans money by lowering the outrageous price of. Of health insurance. The President has been crystal clear. Big insurance companies have been, quote, ripping off the public for years. Now he's taking the bold step of holding those big insurance companies accountable. It's about time, and we should all thank President Trump. Learn [e-mail].

[Smug]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

[Michael Duncan]

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

[Smug]

It's time for.

[Josh Holmes]

For our main event, Fun Time Friday, here on the Ruthless Variety program. You might not think we can laugh about stuff this week, but we can. We can and we will. I am Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left or right across your radio dial? So, you know, we've had elements of war and elements of unrest, and it's. In my state. I mean, I think you probably tell by Thursday's episode we're a little worked up about it, but there are things that you need to know about the left and the way that they handle all of this, that they're funny. They're funny. I mean, it would be. It would be less. We could laugh about it more if it wasn't just so destructive. But you gotta take time to make fun of your enemies.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that was like one of the cornerstones of when all of us started the show is there's no point left in trying to debate the left because they're just gonna obfuscate and act like they don't understand what you're saying. What you should do is mock them.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So that's what we're going to do.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what we're gonna do. So let's just start with the first clip that I find funnier than I probably should. Let's just play clip one. Okay, so here's a.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like very fast consequences.

[Josh Holmes]

So the left freaks out about this, Right. Because they see a guy who is clearly law enforcement and somebody who's trying to interfere with whatever it is that they're doing. He grabs the.

[Smug]

He.

[Josh Holmes]

For all he knew, it was a gun.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

He grabs the gun from a law enforcement.

[Michael Duncan]

Don't try to take a law enforcement.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, don't. That's the best case scenario that could have happened to him.

[Smug]

Seriously.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like getting turned into a Cheeto is way better than what could have happened if that was a live round in that gun. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Turned into a cheetah. So it turns out it's like, what is it, Mace or pepper spray or something like that?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah. What I appreciate about it is it's sort of like paintball because it's colored, you know, whether you hit the target or not, which I find is effective.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it is effective. You can actually see what you've done.

[John Ashbrook]

Can we play it one more time? Because my favorite part is right when he gets hit, the guy drops his hands and he looks so defeated.

[Smug]

Watch. Wait. He.

[Josh Holmes]

There it is.

[John Ashbrook]

And he just drops his arms.

[Josh Holmes]

But, like, I don't think the pain hits yet, Right?

[Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, he didn't look like he's in a lot of pain there.

[Michael Duncan]

But that's my only suggestion is, like, I want to have a stronger type of a mace.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, like a bear mace?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, like, beyond bear mace. I want, like, you know, Carolina reaper peppers in that thing. Like, I want the guy instantly just, like, foaming and swollen, you know? Like, can we get a formula along those lines?

[John Ashbrook]

You want to take them right up to the line of anaphylactic shock.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Like, how close can we get to that?

[Smug]

But, you know, my takeaway was a little different. Can you pop that back up one more time? Because I just want to see the look on his face again, Lee. Because there he's reaching for the guy's gun. He Gets the pepper spray and then he's looking down. And my thought is, he's like, I'm not getting paid enough for this. Which is, George Soros, you're a trillionaire. You are not paying me enough.

[Josh Holmes]

I just took that.

[Michael Duncan]

That may have been what was going through his head.

[John Ashbrook]

Do you think you get workers comp from George Soros if you get maced?

[Josh Holmes]

No, it's actually a good question. There should be maybe a r about getting mustard gas to the face or something like that.

[Smug]

Somehow Tina Smith gets all the money and that guy gets the mustard gas to the face and he's like, no, no, no, you're not paying me enough.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, girder loins, folks. We told you in last episode that they were attempting to make the protest and the violence a antidote to actually finding out why it is that ICE is there in the first place. And the reason that they're there in the first place is because the state government didn't do its job, not only in terms of just outright fraud that they allowed to happen on their watch, but then any enforcement whatsoever. And no curiosity, they had spent zero time actually going to these daycares and trying to figure out whether or not people were actually spending the money wisely. Healthcare facilities, I mean, autism stuff. I mean, there was just like rank corruption throughout. They weren't doing it. What does the federal government, when it's providing these funds, have as an alternative when the state is not doing basic judicial oversight over any of it? Well, they have to do this. That's why ICE is there. You know, Democrats want to make it seem like this is some kind of, like a extra judicial squad of Trump enforcement that is out across the country doing all of these things, ripping people out of their houses and stuff. Not at all like what they said very clearly why they were there. They were there because they were like, Man, 8 billion. We're not having that on our watch. It's pretty shitty that you wanted it on yours. But if you're not going to do anything about it, we're going to send these people in. So these people have all now garnered the protest, I'm guessing, to your point, Smash, because they are paid at some level. You know, I like, I just. I genuinely do not believe that anybody, anybody is like, I'm going to go put myself in harm's way to ensure that these people who entered our country and steal $8 billion from us are not bothered.

[Smug]

Yeah, they're not.

[Josh Holmes]

There's no one who makes that decision. Rational.

[Smug]

No, they're not getting the 8 billion, they're getting some kind of like a wage, maybe under the table, maybe in cash. We don't know exactly how the payments occur. But they're not getting the 8 billion. They're getting a piece of it to attract them to go to Minnesota in the middle of winter on a Thursday morning. But they're not getting what the guy at the top is getting paid. And we talked about this in our Thursday episode. I cannot wait to get to the bottom of who is at the top.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's the other thing, is the important thing. We discussed this on Thursday. What the focus should be on is why are the Dems freaking out this bad? It's cause like hit dogs holler. Like, why is the reason that Tim Waltz couldn't even run for governor again? Is this scandal of on his watch, Was he a part of it? There's now an investigation into him. Did he knowingly allow. Was he a part of all this money being stolen from taxpayers? And you see them freak, they're like, okay, get the protesters out there. We need to turn this story into. Oh no. Trump is trying to. You saw that idiot mayor being like, he's trying to rip families apart. No, this is ICE going after criminals.

[Smug]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And you know, this entire morning you've seen DHS has been sending out tweets reporting on these sting operations where they had one really stuck out to me in Minneapolis. There was an illegal Somali alien who had been convicted sexual assault of sexually assaulting a child. Right. And they had tried to arrest him before, but the building tenant is one of these left wing woke idiots. Gave him a heads up so he could escape.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So they had to set up a sting operation to catch like these idiot libs are trying to protect criminals who are preying upon kids and innocent people in the community the same way that they're protecting these criminals who have been robbing taxpayers. All of us have been getting robbed. If you're a taxpayer in this country, you've been getting robbed because of this scheme and many more we don't even know about yet. And that's who Dems are trying to protect. And they're trying to protect this system because that's how they get elected.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, no question. So the reason we led with that is because we wanted to give you an example of how the left is portraying it. Because remember, these people live in a very isolated information flow. Like they don't have any touch with reality. You might ask yourself how it is that you can find yourself out on a street corner Trying to preserve the right of people to rob you. You know, I mean, just essentially what it is like a pretty difficult thing to try to wrap your mind around if you're a normal, well adjusted human being. But that's what they're doing. So why is it that they've got. Well, here's a good example. Graphic 1. Let's put that thing up. This is a tweet that went out to almost 400,000 followers that had 5.4 million views on this post. The post reads another horrifying image out of Minneapolis. Look at the terror in this man's face as a federal agent points a gun at his face and threatens his life. Enough is enough. Our government is committing war crimes abroad and murdering, terrorizing and terrorizing citizens at home. We need a revolution.

[Michael Duncan]

And folks, you just saw what happened in that video. You just saw that guy try to grab the gun of a federal officer and you just saw it was a non lethal weapon to begin with. But that's not how they portray it because these are dishonest people.

[John Ashbrook]

They've been doing this forever. Remember, hands up, don't shoot.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, dude. Wasn't true.

[John Ashbrook]

Wasn't true.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I think that the thing that is so unnerving to people who are, again, well adjusted, people who want this country to be a better place is that there are acts that happen from time to time across this country that deserve justice, that deserve to be looked into every once in a while. They are entirely castigated under the rubric that the left has now created, which begins with a lot, right? The hands up, don't shoot thing. The whole George Floyd thing. This thing, you can't actually believe in injustice anymore for half of this country because you've been lied to time and time and time and time again by the left trying to pretend that something exists when it doesn't, right? So when something does actually happen, which again, well adjusted human beings would look at and say, we need to do something about that, there is a hesitance to commit to that position.

[Michael Duncan]

I'll also say that, like, one thing about that was a total own goal by the left of trying to spread this, like, lie and smearing cops, of being like these police officers, they're all murderers. Is the. Is that institution of creating body cams all across this country has backfired so tremendously on the left where it's like, turns out the cops are doing a great job. And you see all the video of it and like there, it's funny. However, since all these body Cams became adopted coast to coast. We don't have any more of these situations that you hear about in the news of, like, wrongful murder. I guess maybe that was all just made up.

[Josh Holmes]

And you know how we laugh about how every lefty protests. It's like, you know, there's an injustice. We should do all this. And they're like, yeah, you know, the billionaires, they're ripping us off. And, like, some guy shows up and he's like, yeah, and they get rid of the oil. And then someone's like, yeah, and we hate Jews. You know what I mean? And you're looking around, you're like, what? Right, exactly. But we got a clip that perfectly illustrates how this is happening in Minneapolis. Clip 2. Rise up. Take a step.

[Michael Duncan]

Rise up. Take a stand.

[Josh Holmes]

Rise up. Take a stand.

[Smug]

Rise up.

[Josh Holmes]

Take a stand.

[Smug]

Stolen land. Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Stolen land.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, hold on, hold on.

[Josh Holmes]

So what they're saying, the chant is. And there's a lot of people there, you know, I mean, there could be some who aren't paid, although maybe incredibly maladjusted. And, like, we should work on the information flow for these people that wanted to show up to this thing. But for those people who did, they're like, yeah, no, we shouldn't be killing people in the streets. And then they're all of a sudden like, rise up, take a stand. No one is illegal on stolen land. This isn't about anybody being illegal, and it certainly isn't about Native Americans. Right.

[Smug]

What you were saying is exactly right. And you have to wonder, and we've talked about this all week, and there's been a ton of reporting on fox, where is this money coming from to push these leftists into the street? It's coming from foreign actors who want civil unrest in America. This is well documented.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Smug]

And when you look at the last sentence in the tweet, we put up in graphic number one, the last sentence. We need a revolution.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Smug]

Okay. That is what foreign actors who want America to fall. People who watch our special forces walk into Venezuela and pull out their fucking dictator at our own whim because we're so good. They want. The only way that America can fall is from the inside. And they know that. And so they're trying to push a revolution. They're trying to push this idea that it's stolen land. I mean, for crying out loud, everybody in this country grew up going to baseball practice and going to elementary school. Nobody's even thought about this.

[Michael Duncan]

We used to say the Pledge of Allegiance in this country. Do you remember? That we used to be a normal country.

[Smug]

They're trying to tear us apart.

[Josh Holmes]

Like it was no big thing. You just did it.

[Michael Duncan]

So when you.

[Smug]

When you see all of these people in gigantic crowds being paid to chant things about stolen land and revolution, you know that they're being paid by foreign actors who want to tear us apart from the well.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And you made the observation smug that on the Internet and an awful lot of places on X, the places that were doing the jump cuts of the like, the most.

[Michael Duncan]

There was. There was one account that I found. I can't start with like a D, like do co something. But they were playing. They had cut and edited a bunch of these clips from the aftermath of that lady trying to attack the ICE officer. And they were getting so many retweets. I'm talking about like 5, 6, 7,000 retweets of being like, these ICE agents murdered her and they stopped doctors from trying to help her. And it's like, okay, so some guy showed up and said he was a medic and the cops are supposed to be like, enter my crime scene. Please meddle with everything here. But anyways, you go and you check on theirs, and this is a great feature now on X. And it's like, account based in Romania. Why the hell is someone in Romania trying to get a bunch of Americans mad at each other? Trying to lie to Americans, get them to like, freak out. He's trying to inflame people in Minnesota because one thing that they loved, and Ashbrooke brings this up, is all the overseas money. Fox had that story on that guy in China who's financing all of this. Like Singapore, who's financing the socialist.

[Smug]

But it's CCP aligned money.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep. All of it that he financed. Like the time Times Square, like the socialist uprising, everything that they've been happening. The rest of the world sees what's happened when President Trump took over. You don't mess with America anymore. Like, you know, it's clear, eyes on the prize. America is getting better and better and better. And they had hoped to keep America the same way they had it when Covid hit and they got riots in the streets. So they gotta pray on these rubes. Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that's the thing, you know, it's disheartening if again, you're a well adjusted human being to look at your TV screen and see rise up, take a stand. No one is illegal on stolen land and there's thousands of people in the street. You're like, what the hell are we talking about here? We just had a national election on the issue of illegal immigration resoundingly result in one way. And yet people are willing to burn down their city in order to, I guess, take a stand on something like that. But then you realize that internationally, they realize what you just dictated. They realize that the only way American can be stopped at this point is from within. And so they prey upon the biggest rubes amongst us. It's not totally ideological. They do this on the right. You hear it on the right right now there's a whole bunch of people on the right who have a heavy foreign influence who are doing all kinds of like ridiculous stuff that you see. And you're like, what is that? How is it that you are not, how do you not have the jersey on of America at this point? I thought that we were all in that when we were a conservative, we put a jersey like it's America first, right? I think that's the slogan. I think we're all acquainted with it. But then the left, it's a business model. And because it's a business model, it is also incredibly naive and open to this kind of foreign influence that comes in that says, you know what? America is not the best country in the world. America is the worst country in the world and it's up to you to try to stop it. Because it fits ideologically very neatly within their bucket. They always have believed that America is not that great.

[Smug]

I think this, I mean, I'm sure this started long before what I'm about to say, but I think it started before Trump. I think that these foreign influencers saw the way our country came together after nine, 11 Republicans and Democrats coming together to be like, no, America is so important. We're going to stick together and we're going to rise up together as a country. And they're like, we have to stop that strength.

[Josh Holmes]

We got to stop internally. There's nothing you can do to attack America, right? What you have to do is get America to self immolate, right? Which is what the purpose is. All this stuff. I will say it's not that smart.

[Smug]

It's not.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not that smart. Let's go to graphic to look at it. Have a look at this, look at this.

[Michael Duncan]

Leftists, this is Minnesota for you. It says just in Minnesota.

[Josh Holmes]

I bet, I bet 3/4 of that crowd's not from Minnesota.

[Michael Duncan]

I bet. You know, she probably graduated from the Quality Leering Center FAME School of Minnesota.

[Smug]

The ESL classes need to turn up.

[John Ashbrook]

The great gifted program there.

[Josh Holmes]

I hear at Leering. Yeah, yeah, no, we do lear a lot.

[John Ashbrook]

The question we have to ask ourselves. Is the children leering?

[Smug]

Is the children leering?

[Michael Duncan]

Is the children leering?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you know what's so funny? Aside from that. It's not even our show sheet, but. So Minneapolis school district Thursday, they were like, oh, all this unrest. All this unrest. By the way, it's their government and their city council that oversaw the $8 billion in fraud that the federal government is now in there to try to. They're like, oh, it's all this unrest.

[Michael Duncan]

Mm.

[Josh Holmes]

We're gonna cancel school for the kids. Yeah, they just had two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's.

[Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And the first week back, they're like, we're canceling schools because of the unrest that we. We created.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, teachers got to go out and riot.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing. And then you saw that's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Immediately the teachers unions of Minneapolis show up on the front lines of all this situation and, you know, have no fear. Parents of Minneapolis, chalk it up one more time. Judice for Renee Goode.

[Michael Duncan]

Outstanding teachers in that union.

[Josh Holmes]

Judis. There's a lot of judice going on there. There's no question about that.

[Michael Duncan]

Also, you know what? Like, maybe this is also to try to help drum up some business for these empty daycares. If all these parents have to find a place for their kids, it's like a win win for the left.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's true. They could maybe fool a few people. They don't want anything.

[Michael Duncan]

We have lots of daycares available. We got plenty of space.

[Josh Holmes]

There's nobody watching their kids. Last place in the world you'd want to set him is the leering center. Kids that come out all fucked up. All right, graphic 2A. This is reporting from Breca Stoll of the real Daily Wire. I'm on the ground in Minneapolis for real Daily Wire this a.m. one of the organizers is an AFL CIO. Vest thought I was part of the group. Did everyone get the message? We're moving out? I said, no, we are moving out. We hit our goal time. Goal time. This is not organic.

[Michael Duncan]

Incredible.

[John Ashbrook]

They're on the clock.

[Michael Duncan]

Amazing.

[John Ashbrook]

Do you think it's overtime? That's what I want to know.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, if it was overtime, I keep pushing it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, well, that's the thing is, like, AFL cio. I thought that's the only time they operate.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank God we didn't tax that, huh? Like, I don't. I don't see a lot of overtime being appreciated by the organizers there, Unfortunately. Maybe in April, they'll have a different point of view.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that's just like, so incredible. And also how comfortable they are. That must be the environment in Minneapolis. Like, the level of corruption where there's no care of, like, well, could this person, like, expose me for being part of this corrupt thing? That to be like, okay, do we hit our time? It's time to go. Just being that comfortable with the corruption out in the open, even after it's become part of the national consciousness that everyone's realized, like, wow, things are bad in Minneapolis. But still being like, oh, we hit our goal time, time to go. It's just like, they don't care. It's been that easy for them.

[John Ashbrook]

Very transactional when it comes to cash and carry government.

[Michael Duncan]

It's unreal.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, and you know, well meaning Minnesotans, I've talked to a few of them over the last.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm done with that, dude. That's not well meaning Minnesotans. These are people who've allowed themselves to become conquered.

[Josh Holmes]

You're not listening. Yeah, but they're looking at this and they're like, my God, like, who are these people? You know, they're not from there. But it should become evident to them at some point that they have been beholden to a system that steals their money, pays their allies, and then at a drop of a hat, they can just produce all kinds of unrest to try to cover their tracks. Because that's. I mean, dude, we're five years removed. Not even four and a half years removed from George Floyd, that Savage. This country, I mean, every municipality was crushed.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is, like, every time you hear about Minneapolis or Minnesota in the news, it's them causing more problems for the country. We gotta do some kind of a trade agreement with Canada where it's like, okay, just take this failed state, take it off our hands. These people are menaces. All they do is cause chaos. Like, what is with Minnesota? How long are we gonna put up with these people?

[John Ashbrook]

We need to take the government of Minnesota and put it in a conservatorship. Kind of like Britney Spears.

[Smug]

You know.

[John Ashbrook]

That'S what I think.

[Michael Duncan]

The people of Minnesota can't govern themselves anymore.

[Josh Holmes]

Conservatorship. That's pretty good. Well, but the point I was making, there was an article column like two years ago from E.J. dion. Remember that left wing lunatic that used to write for the Washington Post? And it was like a Minnesota miracle or something. First of all, if you live there, the miracle, it's either Miracle on Ice or the Minneapolis Miracle. Stephon Diggs taking it 70 to the house against the Atlanta Falcons, or, I'm sorry, the New Orleans Saints. Those are. This guy is referring to a partnership that was built by Tim Walz and the Democratic establishment that allowed for them to push through the most left wing policy in the history of the state while they had slim majorities. And they're like, this is the model. And if you read through, like, you get to like 16, 17 paragraphs deep. And Obama tweeted about this, by the way, it was like, yeah, you gotta read this. This is true. 17 or 18 paragraphs deep. It talks about the partnership between outside groups where it's like, you have to get the ideas from the outside and you have to legislate those ideas, but then you have to use the ideas from the outside to insulate you politically in the groups, to financially back your politicians in a meaningful way. So there's a symbiotic relationship between left wing psychopaths and state legislatures and the governor. And, you know, it sounds remedial for those of us who are in politics, like, yeah, I mean, that's what they do. But when you do it in a state legislative context where it is so obvious that you are, what, six hours removed from a shooting of a woman, and all of a sudden they've got 10,000 people on the streets with AFL, CIO organizations, ACLU organizations, all these things, they've perfected it. Mm. And then they outsource it to every other city in the nation. So that's why, like, we're not having an honest conversation at any point.

[Michael Duncan]

No. There was this reporter, I want to say she was with the Wall Street Journal, who had this article up about how those various groups have organized so well, specifically using like Instagram or any social media. And they just have these networks that they activate where, I mean, the poster was basically like, essentially, show up and get paid.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Just like, here's the money. Show up.

[Josh Holmes]

It's so brazen.

[Michael Duncan]

It's out in the open.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just. It's so brazen. But that's how Somalis get $8 billion.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Because those organizations are there to. It's a pay to play operation, you know. One more clip for you here in this segment. Clip three, please.

[Michael Duncan]

But there was a right wing YouTube video that alleged fraud at daycare centers that came out just after the holidays. And that was the reason, as it was explained to me by senior DHS officials, for this escalation of ice. And today, Border patrol arriving in Minneapolis, even though the Minnesota department overseeing these daycare centers that were alleged to be fraudulently collecting taxpayer Money. In that YouTube video, the agency said they. That the majority of them actually were seeing children and not fraudulently deceiving taxpayers by taking in money in order, but not actually taking care of kids, that they were actual businesses and operations. So. So we're seeing a very quick response from the Trump administration based on that. That video is what led us to this point.

[Smug]

It's so dishonest. It is so dishonest.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, you see, the problem here is someone made a video about the fraud. No, dude, not the fraud, folks. The fraud is. Okay, it's funny. I'm really mad that someone made it known to everybody. As a person, any American, you should be ashamed to make that statement. But if your job is to be a journalist and you're like, so you see, uncovering the fraud's the problem here, folks. What are you doing here?

[John Ashbrook]

The real problem is people keep breaking news. Of course, I work in the news industry, news business. But that news report from that YouTuber is the reason why that woman got shot. It's his fault.

[Josh Holmes]

My favorite part about it is it just shows you what we were talking about earlier about the information flow, the cylinder. She was like. She presented it like she was telling the audience and the anchors new information. What had happened was there was a YouTube report that came out and they did some, like. Nick Shirley's stuff has literally been the single most viral thing that's been online in this country for 10 straight days. And she's telling this audience as if they have absolutely no idea. And they're like, oh, you do, really?

[Michael Duncan]

But that's the thing is, I bet they don't have any idea.

[Josh Holmes]

They don't.

[Michael Duncan]

I bet all those people, they just watch her like Rachel Maddow. That was NBC. They watch her like Rachel Maddow. They get their brains cooked all day long, and the only thing that they see on their social networks is like, my child came out as trans. We're taking him to the hospital. Chop him up. You know, like, these people are not living. They're living in their own little silos of insanity.

[Josh Holmes]

What had happened was.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I mean, they've been doing. They've been doing this forever. Do you remember when the ambassador was killed in Benghazi back in the Obama administration? And the initial intelligence from the Obama administration was this. This all started as a spontaneous uprising against a. A YouTube video. Yeah, YouTube video where this pastor was. I think he was burning a Quran or something, whatever. But they used that as an excuse, of course. We later found out that this was a well orchestrated operation by a terrorist organization. The Obama administration failed to give the ambassador and the embassy the resources it needed to protect itself. It was a huge, huge scandal. And it all started with that, like, oh, well, you know what? I think it was just a YouTube.

[Josh Holmes]

Video, but this is the way that they operate.

[Michael Duncan]

Good callback.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but it's so consistent on each and every national event. Just liars, you know, and they're present. They're poisoning the brains of so many people. Like, thank God there's not a lot of people who watch this slop because if there was, I mean, I'm not sure you'd have much of a country if there's a.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, there's a reason.

[Michael Duncan]

They're trying their hardest. They're trying their hardest.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they really are. All right, when we come back, Democratic politicians are playing a prominent role in shaping the fake news narrative beyond what we just discussed. And we got incredible clips right after this.

[Smug]

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

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so Democrats, we already gave you sort of the media filter that they're working off of. But there are a few things that are worth highlighting, one of which that I, I would again, I would find very funny if it wasn't pervasive to disgusting. And you know, 40% of this country was like bobbleheading along with it. But I don't know if you all noticed that there was this talking point that went out where they called the victim of the shooting in Minneapolis a legal observer.

[Smug]

Oh yeah, I saw that.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we put up this graphic? This was everywhere. But this one was highlighted by libs of TikTok where it's highlighting a whole bunch of different representatives. Right. Omar Fat. Nadler.

[Michael Duncan]

Fatman Nadler, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Surprised he could even reach the Keyboard at this point. Sarah Jacobs. What's that? Maxine Dexter? I don't even know who the hell that is. Was that the fat Kagan that we highlighted yesterday?

[Smug]

Maybe.

[Michael Duncan]

I think Sarah Jacobs is the dude from, what, New Hampshire or something. Right. But you see this legal observer where. As if that's a thing. That's a thing that existed before this memo went out yesterday.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we wanted to get into it a little bit because I was confused by this, because, I don't know. I mean, when you say a term that is repeated by media, and this.

[Smug]

Was that you haven't heard very frequently.

[Josh Holmes]

Before when you're in the communications business, as we have been, it pops up and you're like, that is interesting. Right? Either a legal observer, in the terms that we're used to, are lawyers who are on call that election night and observe elections on election night that go ensure that ballots are being executed properly and all the protocols being followed. That's what a legal observer is. There's not. There's an election here. And you're like, what is that? So we started searching around the Internet a little bit, and turns out, like, the ACLU calls anyone, any human who shows up at a protest a legal observer.

[John Ashbrook]

You don't have to have a law degree. You're literally just watching. And if you are watching and volunteering to watch, you are now a legal observer.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's not to watch. Like, you can just show up at the protest. And your definition, by their standard, is that you are a legal observer. You can protest the shit. You can light shit on fire if you want.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm gonna try that next time I go to an NFL game.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. It'd be like, I'm see if I.

[John Ashbrook]

Can get on the field.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm a legal observer. When you take your pants off and pooh bear across the 50 yard.

[John Ashbrook]

You don't understand. I understand. I'm a legal observer here.

[Smug]

This ticket says.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but that's so. But that's interesting.

[Smug]

Yeah, right?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, people ought to know that.

[John Ashbrook]

But, I mean, they do it on purpose, right? It's to obfuscate reality.

[Josh Holmes]

They make it seem like there's an.

[John Ashbrook]

Official rule, like you're a UN peacekeeper.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, like an innocent bystander that's just sort of caught in the middle. They were just trying to make sure everything was operating legally because they have a legal reason to be legal. Legal, legal, legal. There's no fucking legal. She was a poet.

[Smug]

I didn't think legal presence mattered to Libs. You know what I Mean, only in.

[Josh Holmes]

The minds of the press.

[Smug]

Nobody's allowed to say someone's an illegal immigrant in their mind.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's good point.

[Smug]

And yet the only time anybody's questioning legality is when they're an observer and doing what the libs want them to do.

[Josh Holmes]

It's because words mean nothing.

[John Ashbrook]

It's the perversion of language. And it follows along with the theme I think we're witnessing in all of this. And that is like, the crime is never the crime to them.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, the. The fraud of the Somali daycares. Well, that. That's just Nick Shirley.

[Smug]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, Nick Shirley started this whole thing, like the illegal immigrants who shouldn't be in this country that we let in 20 million under Joe Biden. Well, that's not the crime, ICE. Enforcing the law is the crime. This person is a legal observer, not somebody who's obstructing law enforcement and doing a crime. They don't think crime is crime.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep. That's the thing. It's like the important thing to remember is. Is not that ICE did this action. Number one, defending themselves. They're doing this because Tim Walsh allowed this fraud. It was so bad that he couldn't even run again. That's how pervasive this fraud is, that he could not even run for governor again. And they want to take your eyes off the ball. Hit dogs hard. This is the centerpiece of the Democrat primary now.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Let in illegals, pay them, get the votes, rinse, repeat, do it over and over and over until we control this country coast to coast. That's been their mission. And they are freaking out now that it's in jeopardy.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, serious, if you ever get caught in a bad situation. That's legal.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Oh, legal observer. It's unreal.

[Josh Holmes]

What are we doing in that strip club? That's illegal.

[John Ashbrook]

Observer, legal observer.

[Josh Holmes]

Legal observer.

[John Ashbrook]

Make sure all laws are followed.

[Michael Duncan]

I just.

[Josh Holmes]

I just want to make sure everybody's observing the law. What qualification? None. But I just. I'm observing law.

[John Ashbrook]

Volunteer.

[Michael Duncan]

I volunteer. I do it for free. I volunteer.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm happy to volunteer.

[Smug]

Joe Biden, president of the United States Legal observer.

[Josh Holmes]

He was a legal observer.

[Smug]

He didn't do anything else.

[Josh Holmes]

He was a legal observer. He might be the definition of it. All right, another clip. This is from NBC News. They're running cover for the Somali fraudsters. Check this thing out. And the bottom line is very simple, Jen. We should not have ICE agents patrolling our streets. They're not needed. They create chaos, and they even create deaths. The mayor of Minneapolis didn't want them. So many other cities didn't. This is sort of Trump strutting around. But they don't belong in our cities, plain and simple. We need a full investigation here as to what happened. So that's Chuck Schumer, right? I mean there you don't know moral depravity and like just brazen lies without knowing this gentleman well.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean he has to essentially do anything possible to keep AOC from taking his job. Like that's a tough place to be and things are really bad on your team when it's like AOC could take my job. How screwed up what is the ship you want to captain? What's there left to rule over if that's the situation?

[John Ashbrook]

It's sort of a hilarious bizarro world thing that Chuck Schumer is complaining about law enforcement, you know, targeting these illegal immigrants, you know, these ICE raids and whatnot. And he's complaining about it to Jen Psaki, who was the spokesperson for the Biden administration that let them all into the country.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, that is something, you know, and.

[John Ashbrook]

This is all Donald Trump's fault. Not their fault, Donald Trump's fault.

[Josh Holmes]

And they're pretending like they're having a news and information conversation. You know, like here's something. Well, here's a high minded thought leader, congressional leadership, one of the leaders in Democrat. Let me tell you something you don't know. And it's just back and forth covering their own asses about their own culpability in what's going on. I mean you're trying to like ICE is the one that's creating deaths here. I mean, come on. More clips. Clip 5 is a protester driving her car into. This is all about Hakeem, I think. Is this Hakeem? Clip. Yeah, yeah, let's see that. Let's, let's take a look at clip.

[Smug]

There is no evidence that has been presented to justify the shooting of an unknown woman resulting in her unnecessary death.

[Josh Holmes]

Kristi Noem, the so called Secretary of.

[Smug]

Homeland Security is a stone cold liar who has zero credibility on this issue.

[Josh Holmes]

Or on any other issue. And what you do, as I believe the governor has indicated, is a full and complete investigation.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh my God, this road. Can we get 2x speed on this.

[Michael Duncan]

Guy.

[Smug]

Could be criminally investigated to the.

[Josh Holmes]

Full extent of the law, including he's still going there.

[Smug]

Depraved indifference to human life. So you wanted Obama but Temu could only offer me.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing. He is Temu Obama. He's like, maybe If I slow down how I speak, people will think I'm Obama. Like, that's so called. It's pathetic. If he wants the whole talking point that they're trying to use of like, this was an unarmed woman, bro. That was an suv. That's a weapon. When you try to gun it and go after somebody, when you try to drive it into somebody. Everybody saw that bullet hole on the front windshield. Now, she was trying to kill that person.

[Josh Holmes]

I think there's context to that. And I want to pop up and then get back to Hakeem real quick. Can we put up 12A. So this is a DHS announcement. There was a bunch of stuff online about it. Can we pop that up?

[Michael Duncan]

Officer's hand in the vehicle.

[Josh Holmes]

In this video, you can see the.

[Michael Duncan]

Driver take off with the agent hanging.

[Josh Holmes]

From the car, dragging him 300ft through front yard. These graphic images show the aftermath. A bloody agent who needed 33 stitches for his significant cuts. So do you know who that agent was? The same agent?

[Michael Duncan]

Same agent.

[Josh Holmes]

That agent was in the same position a matter of months ago. This is in June. And he nearly lost his life by not taking action immediately. It was dra. I mean, thank God, like, you've heard all these. That he was able to get out of there.

[Michael Duncan]

All these libs online being like, bro, if that was me, I'd have done like a. Like a backflip and dodge the car like they're Arnold Schwarzenegger in a movie or some shit like this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I trust an officer who's been in the situation clearly months ago and knows that judgment call.

[Josh Holmes]

It's the same guy is the point. Right. And you're wondering why it is that he had quick action when a car was coming right at him. Well, I don't know. Six months ago, in a very similar situation, he nearly lost his life with someone who clearly intended to take it. That's what that we're doing there. So when someone guns their car at.

[Michael Duncan]

You, they're not unarmed. That car's the weapon.

[Josh Holmes]

Experience will dictate how you react. And they're all, you know. I saw a whole bunch of speculation from Democrats, like, they're only trained ICE agents. They don't have enough training. They don't have.

[Michael Duncan]

It's insane bullshit.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, this guy almost died trying to protect the laws of the United States of America. Just six months ago, he was in the exact same situation. And he took action this time by that experience that was provided to him by the same psychopaths that Tim Walls and that Jacob Fry asshole And all of them in Minnesota are saying that they're going to war against. I wonder why it is that there are people who show up and they're like, maybe we should try to run them down.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is, for so long these libs have been allowed to get away with it with a slap on the wrist. They think they can do whatever they want. And until we finally prosecute these people and they need to learn that there's consequences. We just played that video at the start of our show of a guy who thought it was okay to grab. Try to grab the gun from a cop. Like that's the level of emboldened that the left has become is because they saw after that summer of violence in 2020, after there wasn't even a crackdown on antifa, after Charlie Kirk was murdered, they've been allowed to get away with this nonsense for way too long. There needs to be a crackdown. They have to have consequences.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I'm gonna give a pass to the first Democrat that takes a belt sander to the mouth of Hakeem Jeffries, by the way. I just can't look at him with that tilted ass tooth situation. It's like a hypotenuse. What is that not good? No, seriously, he's the minority Leader of the House. Like he's trying to become the speaker of the House.

[Smug]

Look, when you buy a politician online, you're not going to always like everything. I just think it would. It's not his fault.

[Michael Duncan]

It looked like that when they ordered him from China.

[Smug]

He's made in a factory in China.

[John Ashbrook]

They're not all going to be winners, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's fair. That's fair. All right. Clip 6. This is about the Somali situation, which is what this whole thing is about. Clip 6 yeah, I mean, ice has been carrying out states and state sanctioned.

[Michael Duncan]

Violence in our communities.

[Josh Holmes]

We have seen them terrorize so many citizens in the 5th district and across Minnesota, and that has tragically led to this murder that we watched on tv. And so it is not helpful for us to have ICE agents unlawfully just carrying out these ridiculous raids that are not resulting in any sort of arrests, that have no explanation of why they are there. They are disturbing peaceful communities that are just trying. She's still talking to shut the fuck up. I joined our mayor. I understand Senator Mogadisha rules heck out of our city. Okay, dude, so this makes me so mad that I'm just trying to control myself a little bit because ultimately what they're talking about. Let's get past the shooting and they're trying to muddy the water with all of that. What we're ultimately talking about, what she's referring to there is the presence of ice. The presence of ICE was ICE in and of itself is an agency that was created post 911 for interior enforcement of people who shouldn't be here. Their visas have expired. They entered the country illegally. They had some kind of a student visa, some kind of a work visa, something where they didn't obey the laws of the United States of America. So an agency was created after people flew fucking planes into towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. shanksville, Pennsylvania, to say, I don't know if there are people who are in this country, not just at the border, but they're already in, who shouldn't be. Maybe we should have an agency that deals with that kind of thing. And so they very clearly statutorily lined out what the area of responsibility that ICE is. Then they have laws on the books that have been there for decades about what is and what is not permissible from a legal standpoint about being in this country. Very complicated. H1B. You hear you talk about work permits, you talk about green cards, you talk about, you know, legal status. I mean, very complicated system. But it is a system nevertheless. And it's in statute, statute, by the way, that people like Ilhan Omar preside over since she's been here for like 10 years. This is the immigration law of our land. So you have a law enforcement body that is charged with enforcing that law. The law that they fucking passed. Law enforcement officers whose job it is to go out and do the business that their federal government told them is the law of the land. What she is having you believe is it somehow not enforcing American law is somehow extrajudicial. That somehow there's an SS squad, which is, by the way, how they thinly sort of try to shape this, that it's like. It's like a Hitler, like special service.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I mean, that's why that woman thinks it's okay to not obey orders from a law enforcement officer.

[Michael Duncan]

That's why they do it.

[John Ashbrook]

Gun the engine to your car and almost run one over.

[Michael Duncan]

That's why Ilhan Omar does it, is because they want to get the lunatics to go out there and do the dirty work.

[John Ashbrook]

And she has no respect for American law because she said it herself that she wants to be a representative for Somalia in the United States. Representatives. She has said that maybe she's not exactly a fair, good faith arbiter of whether fraud is happening in her state.

[Michael Duncan]

When she said straight up, she was like, isis is doing this ridiculous work that's not resulting in our. Like I just said earlier, they gave that example where they removed a convicted pedophile this morning from the streets of Minneapolis after the super of the building was protecting this guy and they had to set up a separate raid to catch this pedophile. Those are the people that Ilhan Omar is protecting. She doesn't care about Americans. She doesn't care about Americans. She's part of this whole grift, the mockery that they've made of immigration in this country, where it's like, okay, there's documentation that you married your brother to get in this country and now you're in Congress. What is happening in this country? They do not want the rule of law. She is a product of how our country's rules are crumbling and we're allowing these maniacs to rule over us.

[Josh Holmes]

But she's sitting there on CNN like she's got an authority on it. Right? She's like a pornhub joke. And all of a sudden she's like somebody who's going to speak truth to power on this. I mean, it's just completely insane. But you remember when we had Lyons on the program, who runs ice, We've had the Border Patrol on the program. And, like, you get a very good sense from talking to them about what they see. Their mission is very simple. It's following the law. It's doing what their charter is trying to do. And then we saw, like, the Dallas shooting against ICE agents. You saw Gavin Newsom and Pritzker and all of these, like, wannabe presidential candidates talk about how these people are all, you know, like I said, Gestapo, Gestapo type outfits. And you've seen increased violence against all of them. And it's spread so far that it's just now becoming a Democratic base. Take.

[Smug]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, for most of us who are like, again, taking your kids to softball or baseball or soccer or whatever, you're trying, like, please don't raise my taxes to do nothing with it again, we're like, I don't know what you're talking about. We all voted on all of this stuff for these people. They have ginned up a vulnerable population of mentally insane people to believe things that are just simply not true. And if you don't take our word for it. This is clip 7 on how we got here. According to Axios, some are even being told they need to be more willing to go out there. And get shot when fighting. That was a direct quote. Get shot when fighting back against some of Trump's. Trump's policies. One House Democrat saying, quote, and I'll read it to you, our own base is telling us that what we're doing is not good enough. There needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public. How do you respond to that, Leader Jeffries? Are Democrats not meeting the moment, not doing enough to fight these developments?

[Smug]

Well, we are in a more is.

[Josh Holmes]

More environment in terms of the unprecedented assault on the American way of life and our country. More is more than Donald Trump and compliant House Republicans.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what I find most interesting about that? And it's both of them. It's not just Hakeem Jeffries, who is an idiot and could barely answer the question, but, like, the way that Wolf Blitzer reads that whole statement mentioning getting shot and blood to get the attention of the public. The question isn't that, are you meeting the moment, sir? It's not. It's not. You know what? Do you think your bass maybe is a little fucking crazy? Are you meeting the moment?

[Smug]

Right, Right. There are so many better.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, the bass requires the blood.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, but that's entirely left unsaid.

[John Ashbrook]

It's just. We sort of just hand wave past the fact that your bass is actually psychotic. So are you delivering what the bass would like, sir?

[Smug]

Dude, it's exactly right. There are so many better questions that Wolf Blitzer could have asked him. Like, what are the delivery terms that the Chinese offer on a Temu product like yourself? How long can someone expect to transpire before you show up at the front door?

[John Ashbrook]

Are batteries included?

[Josh Holmes]

When does Home Depot have a special on Belt Sanders that you could use to even out that fucking rickety mouth? I mean, but it's incredible. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point, Duncan. All of a sudden, they're like, the Democratic base, who's driving. The conversation that the mainstream media listens to is like, no, we want you to kill people.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And they're like, they seem pretty angry. Are you making a moment?

[Michael Duncan]

Thoughts? Not like, well, that sounds psychotic. Yeah, that's amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

If a Republican were in that situation, be like, what are you doing to de. Escalate the situation?

[Michael Duncan]

They'd be like, sounds like your base are a bunch of maniacs.

[Josh Holmes]

When are you gonna do the Sister Sojo?

[John Ashbrook]

When are you gonna stand up and denounce these people?

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. And that would be the only conversation that you would have.

[Michael Duncan]

Are you gonna give them the blood?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So do we get blood? It's great for ratings. It's great for ratings. The only time anybody watches CNN is when you guys are burning shit down. It's true, actually. I mean, I can't wait for the next. I mean, we're going to probably get one in the next 48 hours. Whether you got.

[Michael Duncan]

They're trying their damn.

[Josh Holmes]

Mostly peaceful.

[Michael Duncan]

These Dems are trying their damnedest to start a riot.

[Josh Holmes]

We got one more clip. 7a. This is the other side of the coin. This is the FBI and DHS and the irs. And the IRS showing up at these Somali daycares and all of these perpetrators allegedly of fraud that are taking all of the files and boxes out. This is the kind of thing that you can do peacefully when someone has broken the law, not the least of which is to $8 billion.

[John Ashbrook]

That can't be true, though, because Ilhan Omar told me that they weren't actually doing anything, that ICE was there for no reason.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I gotta say, like, this is actually an extremely smart move by the irs because over the past couple weeks, people have been like, so why am I paying these guys just like handing over billions just a month? Thank God they've taken a break from taking my money to go figure out who's been stealing it. Like, kudos to the irs. I actually like that they are doing this because for the past few weeks, man, it has been tough. People have been like, every year, why am I paying these people?

[Josh Holmes]

Every two weeks I have these huge checks.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, every two weeks these people hit my pocket. I'm paying them so much money and, like, I have to pay for my own stuff. And it's all. All my money's being handed over to people who hate me and just stealing it.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, dude, that. I don't understand how this is ever a conversation. When the federal government and your state government, your local government come in and take half your shit. Yeah, dude, Annually, they just walk in and they take half your shit. Whether you realize it or not, they're doing it. I don't care what your income tax bracket is. They're getting it through sales tax or property tax or whatever. They're coming and take half your shit. State tax, and then they turn around.

[Michael Duncan]

Income tax, property tax, sales. Like, dude, there's a tax on everything.

[Josh Holmes]

And then there are stories about how these people who showed up 10 minutes ago for a cup of coffee because they already ruined the country that they were already from are opening up storefronts where they spell the fucking name wrong and they're Getting several million dollars. And they're like, listen, this is just a partisan game. How in the world. I'll be honest, in like the world that I grew up with, you're worried about left wing violence? There would be some right wing violence in that. In the world that I grew up in. If you look at that's gone, dude, people taking your shit, taking half of your shit and sending it to those people.

[Michael Duncan]

That's Minnesota. Nice. That state is robbing us.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, man. I mean, I can't imagine there's anything that could make you more angry. What is it that could make you more angry other than violence against your own personal family? What could make you more angry than that? It's enraging, it's robbery, it's theft.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's the thing is Americans understand for so long there was this social contract of we're in this together, we're all Americans. I pay my taxes, I take part in the American experiment. We have this tremendous record of success. This has laid bare so clear what the Democrats are think of this country. They don't care about this nation whatsoever. They care about votes by any means necessary.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it.

[Michael Duncan]

They don't care if it comes from American citizens or it comes from people that they just shipped in yesterday illegally and they'll give money to vote for them. They're like, that system actually works better because if someone's in on the crime with us, they tend to keep their mouth shut. It's a good thing for both parties. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

If the difference between Kamala Harris being president and Chuck Schumer, like, whatever he was gonna do and Donald J. Trump being president consisted of just pulling in votes from Chechnya. He'd do it in a heartbeat. He'd do it like, these people have no authenticity whatsoever. Like, they'll spend all your money, they'll fix all the rules, they'll do whatever. And this is now abundantly clear. I don't know any fair minded person who is looking at what it is that they've done over the last six months and been like, yeah, it's just a different way of getting at the same goals. It's not they're crooks. These people are absolute criminals.

[Smug]

And they get away with it.

[Josh Holmes]

And they get away with it.

[Michael Duncan]

They do it in secret.

[Josh Holmes]

They do it in secret. What's that called again?

[Smug]

The poop hole loophole.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's almost enough to drive you to drink, which if you do, you're going to need CBiotics. ZBiotics is one of our absolute Favorites here on the variety program. I can tell you that. Over the New Year's holiday needed it, required it, and it delivered. And I had a whole bunch of friends, fellas that tried it all across the country were sending me texts, pictures of them doing it, and they were like, yeah, dude, zbay, it actually rocks.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's the thing, is, that's why we like them as a sponsor, is because it actually works. So what ZBiotics is, is it's a pre alcohol drink. You have it before you have a couple drinks and then you don't have to worry about feeling awful the next day. Because here's the thing is everyone thinks, oh, I feel like garbage the day after I drink because I'm dehydrated. No, no, no, it's not that at all. When you drink alcohol, your stomach breaks it down. There's these toxic byproducts. That's what's making you feel bad. You could chug all the Gatorade in the world. You can have your four glasses of water before you go to sleep. You're still gonna feel awful unless you drink ZBiotics. Because the biotics breaks down those toxins, knocks them right out, and you feel like a million bucks the next day.

[Josh Holmes]

Science backed.

[John Ashbrook]

It's backed by science. And we Trust the science PhDs you.

[Josh Holmes]

Know are behind this product in this scientific case.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, the reason why we trust the science is we've been getting pigs ourselves. And let me tell you, boy, we've pushed it to the limit.

[Josh Holmes]

We really have. We've tried and tested this product and.

[Smug]

We can say with full authority that there is no tomorrow without Zbiotic today.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right, the voice. If he can't do it, nobody can. You gotta go to zebiotics.com ruthless to learn war. Get 15% off your order when you use Ruthless at the checkout. That's Zebiotics and it's backed by 100% money back guarantee. If you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund it, no questions asked. You go to zbiotics.com ruthless and use the code ruthless at the checkout for 15% off. All right, Question of the day situation. You heard the whole top of what it was that we were working on there. And the question is, what is the most absurd, fake narrative Democrats have ever come up with?

[Michael Duncan]

That's gonna be quite a title. They've been coming up with some wild shit lately.

[Smug]

Yeah, maybe like Kamala Harris, legitimate national candidate.

[Michael Duncan]

Or Joe Biden. Or Joe Biden. He's like Actual cognizant human being. Because, I mean, they ran with that for a long time.

[Josh Holmes]

It wasn't even that. It was like, nobody can keep up with them.

[Michael Duncan]

Remember that?

[Josh Holmes]

I love that. Nobody can keep up with him.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is they can never try to just like, get away with it. That's like, oh, my God. We all fall asleep trying to keep up with him. Are you what?

[John Ashbrook]

He's like Good Will Hunting.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we read all of your comments. We're looking forward to this. Because there's probably some that we don't. There's a little bit of recency bias, you know, like Russiagate and things like that that come to mind. But, like, it stretches back a long way. So what's the worst? What's the worst? You get back to us. We'll get back to you the very next episode. That's gonna be on Tuesday. Your Thursday's comments. We're on the question when it's all settled, how big will the fraud be nationwide?

[Michael Duncan]

Good question.

[Josh Holmes]

To do that, we always start with a voice.

[Smug]

First comment from ndog. Ndog writes over or under a trillion? I'm saying over, Dude.

[Josh Holmes]

I agree.

[Smug]

You might be right.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, dude, that's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Is a B in Minnesota.

[Smug]

A might be right.

[Michael Duncan]

That we know of so far. Just in Minnesota. Like, a lot of people bring it up that, like, you know, California, I want to see. I want to see what we get there.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I hope it motivates. Lights a fire under the ass of a lot of people in a lot of states around the country to root this out.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[John Ashbrook]

Because if you don't do it, somebody's going to be the next Nick Shirley in your community. Finding it.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't understand having it like a passive viewers.

[John Ashbrook]

It's your number one job.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, as somebody in government. If you want the American people to pay these taxes and have confidence at all in the system of government that we have in this country, that's the one thing. It's the one thing you gotta do. It's literally the first thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Incredible. All right, Dunks. What do we got for coming to.

[John Ashbrook]

This is from William O'. Connell. William writes 100 billion plus. Unfortunately, Texas will be up near the top with California.

[Josh Holmes]

Interesting. Billy, OC has got something for us there. You know what? He puts his finger on something that I've seen in the comments based on our last couple of shows about, you know, we're predicting that every state in the Union. And there's a lot of feedback like, well, not the red states. Well, no, because remember these state and local funding that the feds are giving from a state distribution in red states. I got a lot of confidence in Republicans, governors, but they all have blue localities.

[Michael Duncan]

That's something I always wanted to know about. Why is Austin so messed up? Why is Austin so messed up?

[John Ashbrook]

The city council.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's the thing is like, you know, I don't think that should be an excuse. You know, Governor Abbott, you should just send the police and just lock them all up.

[Josh Holmes]

Just get the rangers in.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that's what I'm saying is like, if you're like the head of Texas, like, everyone knows Texas reputation. Don't mess with Texas. If you're the governor of that place, I would be the most right wing lunatic of all time.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what I mean?

[Michael Duncan]

I'd be like, do you know what the Alamo was about? It means I am cloaked in power to get rid of these scumbags.

[John Ashbrook]

If we get Chuck Norris, like, I would be rolling people, Chuck Norris down there, a few roundhouse kicks. Straighten it right out.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, I would clean the streets up. Like, I go to. We went to Austin. I was like, this is getting crazy. Every time I come to Austin, it gets worse and worse and worse.

[Josh Holmes]

There's like tents and stuff.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, roll these people up. This is supposed to be a Republican stronghold. I don't care if there's some city council. City council is just like, you're cosplaying. What is it? Legal observer, the fake UN or whatever these kids do.

[John Ashbrook]

Model un.

[Michael Duncan]

Model UN that's what a city council is.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't wait for the next time Abbott's in here for you to make the case to roll tanks on Austin.

[Michael Duncan]

I would support that. He should do it. He should do it. I mean, he's done a lot of great things for Texas. Crack down on Austin.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's good. All right. Comment three smuggles is Deborah Scott.

[Michael Duncan]

Deborah writes Elon was. Is 100% correct in saying there's over 2 trillion in fraud. I'm starting to believe these numbers. I'm starting to believe these numbers.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I'm glad you said that because when Elon started and they were starting to bark about this stuff.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Having been around government for a long time, I'm like.

[Michael Duncan]

No. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like it's, it's.

[Michael Duncan]

The conventional wisdom is like waste, fraud, and abuse is like nothing compared to like the entitlement programs. What if a bunch of the entitlement programs are fraudulent.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's the difference.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is like, turns out maybe the entitlement programs are fraudulent.

[Josh Holmes]

So I think I've like amended my view on a lot of this. I still think, I mean, I still think anybody's an absolute abject idiot who can't do remedial math if you think you can balance our $36 trillion deficit on waste, fraud and abuse. I think anytime anybody brings that up, I'm like, you're not a serious person. I'm moving on. But where I thought the high watermark of waste, fraud and abuse was in comparison to what I think I've learned over the last nine months is a very different place. And when you can get 8B out of Minnesota just over the last couple of years, and then you think about.

[John Ashbrook]

Medicaid and like block grants from hhs, all these things, then you're into the entitlement part of the equation fundamentally is different. SSI as we know, does drive our debt and deficit tremendously. So if that, if the 8B can be in daycares, in quality leering center, you know, if it's just that easy and our entitlement programs are this large, you have to do a little extrapolation into thinking there's a lot of it.

[Michael Duncan]

So like, you know, we've been seeing lately a lot of like, you know, it seems like Elon and Trump have patched things up. I would love to see Doge turned into like a 50 state project because I bet if Elon like leveraged AI to look into what's on. Because a lot of this fraud was the most like surface level ridiculous shit. Like a guy in Somalia look at.

[Josh Holmes]

A sign, be like they're not learning.

[Michael Duncan]

But like on the paperwork where the guy in Somalia has a health company in Minnesota and he lists Maniger, you can't even spell manager. He's not even in the country. And it's in the documents. It's like if Elon was unleashed.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the official take.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, we could we. I bet there's so much.

[John Ashbrook]

Or just like, you know, AI just look for outliers. When it comes to basic math of like how many children are in the Somali community in Minneapolis, St. Paul area, how many Somali immigrants own daycares and what did they claim as registration? How about you spit out a few of the outliers there? We'll go ahead and take a look.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And then I don't know, maybe give a glance under the hood and the rest of them that are getting Taxpayered out, right? Maybe show up every once in a while and see if they can spell their sign right. Seems like a pretty low bar. I mean, what the hell problem is, it's so, it's so vast, you know.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, but you can't get demoralized by that. You can't, you really, really can't.

[Josh Holmes]

You gotta keep going.

[Michael Duncan]

I want to see, for the first time probably ever gonna say this, I want an increase in government jobs. I want ICE to quadruple. I want every young man who's looking for a job get on board. I want ICE to hire so many people and just coast to coast, let's make this country great again because that's what's needed. It is so deep and so huge the amount of corruption and we just need some good Americans to go and start kicking indoors.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. It would be nice to say. Coming up next in our lightning round, more TikTok lip syncing from the Libs. No, dude, you can't. I mean we. This was in like our greatest hits at the end of last year.

[Michael Duncan]

This is my grievance. I'm so sick of this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it was your grievance. Well, they're back at it. They're back at it. You can't wait for you to see the next one. And our old friend Brandon Gill does it again at another hearing. You gotta see it. Exposing some more Somali fraud right after this. So comfortably Smug's favorite thing in the world is when elderly politicians and libs, you know, of all stripes do tiktoks.

[Michael Duncan]

It's so. I hate their comms people so much. I hate the Dems comms people so much. It's like 20 year old idiots who don't actually know comms and they're like, why don't I just put them on TikTok? I think that's comm.

[John Ashbrook]

And it's always like cadaver Ed Markey.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I know, it's the worst of the worst. It's not like they do anything other than like Jazzy Crockett who comes out and makes some moves. It's usually like literal cadaver.

[Michael Duncan]

They're just like, like I work for a 900 year old Congressman. Let me put him on tick tock dancing.

[Josh Holmes]

Check out clip eight.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh man.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean no.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the worst guy.

[John Ashbrook]

That's Jared Paulus from Colorado.

[Michael Duncan]

He is the worst.

[Josh Holmes]

So that was for our audio only listeners. A TikTok video said to you do. I don't know who sent you to.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, Jared Paulus is the Biggest slob in politics. How is this animal the governor of Colorado? He should be jailed just for wearing that outfit, number one. But for what he's done in Colorado, he should be jailed.

[Smug]

I also, guys, I also think it's evidence that dem politicians do do not need to make the case to donors about why they're the most competent executives in their state.

[Michael Duncan]

No, they don't.

[Smug]

That the money just pours in anyway. And we've gotten a little bit into this this week. Where's the money coming from? Maybe some of it's from this 8 billion that's been stolen from taxpayers or coming in from foreign sources, but that is not a sales pitch that would persuade anybody.

[Josh Holmes]

Anybody who has the capability of sending a $2,400 check was going to look at something like that and be like, you know, let's wait on that.

[Smug]

Yeah, surely there's another one.

[John Ashbrook]

I do really love the misplaced confidence that somebody scrolling some zoomer scrolling on TikTok is supposed to have. Any idea who any of these others are at all?

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that's a good point.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm sure they know who Tim Walls is that up?

[Josh Holmes]

Can you pop that up one more time? I want to see. Did they do a Chiron?

[Michael Duncan]

No, they didn't have any. They didn't have any names.

[Josh Holmes]

There's zero.

[Michael Duncan]

All it says is just, you're like, who are these idiots?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, I don't know who that is. I'm not sure who that is.

[Smug]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know who that is. I have no clue who that is. You definitely not. Nope.

[Smug]

I need 10% from your daycare. 10% from your daycare.

[Michael Duncan]

Look at what a weirdo he is.

[Smug]

10% from your food program. 10%, send it to my campaign and then I'll win.

[Josh Holmes]

So they're pointing at the screen to you do saying like, basically, Basically you need a Democratic governor.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the least convincing argument I've ever seen. Like, even if I was a Dem, I'd see that and be like, well, I'm never voting for these losers.

[Josh Holmes]

Honestly, if I was like 18, 19 year old and that showed up on my TikTok, I think I'd take the app off my phone.

[Michael Duncan]

We're done here. Right?

[John Ashbrook]

Right. What have I done to my algorithm that makes them think I want this?

[Josh Holmes]

They've infiltrated the only cool thing that I've got. So I need to find something else.

[Smug]

Report violence. An act of violence on TikTok for sure.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so our good friend Brandon Gill, just an absolute match. Love this guy so much because of what you're about to see that he does time and time again. Clip nine again, thank you for being here.

[Smug]

Ask you, does large scale Somali immigration make Minnesota stronger or weaker?

[Josh Holmes]

Certainly stronger. Certainly stronger. Do you know what percentage of Somali headed households in Minnesota are on food stamps?

[John Ashbrook]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

54%. Do you know what that number is for native Minnesota headed households? Well, to be clear, a majority of.

[Smug]

The seven, it's 7%.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a big difference between 7%, is there not? Excuse me sir, could I answer the question? Let me move on, we've got a.

[Smug]

Lot of questions here.

[Josh Holmes]

What percentage of Somali headed households in Minnesota are on Medicaid? I don't know.

[Smug]

It's 73%.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you know what that number is for Minnesota native households?

[John Ashbrook]

Again, you're using the phrase Minnesota native households.

[Smug]

But the majority, the number is 18%. That's quite an astounding difference. I think we would.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I answer the question please?

[Smug]

Let me ask you one more and then we can go on to that. What percentage of Somali headed households are.

[Josh Holmes]

On welfare in general? I don't know, it's 81%. What about, let me just ask you, after 10 years of being in the United States, what percentage of Somali immigrant households are on continue to be unwell?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know.

[Smug]

The number is 78%.

[Michael Duncan]

Jeez. Can I say one thing? The way that Brandon Gill presents it that is so effective is it's all pure facts. And you saw numerous times that witness is trying to obfuscate. Can I just say something? In this house we believe that no human is illegally. Cuz they want, they wanna confuse you, they wanna blur the lines. They want to create this gray area of like no, we're all Americans. Someone who just crossed the border yesterday illegally, they're as American as you or I. Yep, that's what they try to do. And he doesn't lava for that shit. And that's why it's so powerful. Do not let the left muddy the waters with their bs. He has the facts where he's like native born population 7%, that's 100% it. Facts are facts. You cannot argue with them.

[Josh Holmes]

You're 100%.

[Michael Duncan]

He just killed it. He killed it.

[Josh Holmes]

This guy wants to have a conversation about how you define a native born Minnesotan.

[John Ashbrook]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

Everybody knows you've got these Somalis that have been here at max 25 years, right? We know the difference. And yes, you could have Somalis that are born in that period of time in Minnesota. So I guess technically this guy's like, I'm going to make a technical argument. All right? So it's just Somalis versus Minnesotans, like Somali versus everything else. And it's a 70% gap in terms of welfare recipients on average. But the leading question, the brilliance of it, was, do they make it stronger?

[Michael Duncan]

And I love that because I think, you know, I'm not trying to be a jerk about Minnesota again.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes, you are.

[Michael Duncan]

But Minnesota Nice. Has been particularly preyed upon because of this. They took advantage of a community that was known for being kind and welcoming, and they weaponized that empathy.

[Josh Holmes]

They did.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what they did, is Democrats took people's empathy and they turned it against them, and they ruined communities for their own political power.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's why, and I said this on the previous episode, that I think this is the largest failure in liberal governance since the Great Society.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

And lbj. And remember the war on poverty? And we were gonna get all these people off drugs and they were gonna stop being homeless, and they made it worse, and we were gonna reduce poverty and all this, and it made it worse. And it entirely woke up an entire generation of Americans that ushered in the Reagan revolution. That is what happened. And that's what we're seeing now. Because of course, that guy who says, certainly it's made it stronger wants to make the argument.

[Josh Holmes]

Certainly.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, of course, you know, there's been Somali immigrants, and then there's second generation and third generation. And what Brandon Gill has, the numbers. It goes from 81% on welfare to 78. Now, I'm sorry, but that is a systemic failure of liberal governance if multi generations are still taking the exact same dole as the ones before. And the reason why they are is the other thing I said in the last episode. It is a welfare industrial complex, and it entirely controls the Democratic Party.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally does. I mean, wouldn't you love to have everybody else cede the time to him to get to the next level of that conversation? So you said that they certainly make it stronger. We've already established that from a financial standpoint that it's certainly not the case. Why don't you illustrate to everybody how it is that you feel like they've made it stronger and just see what the answer is to that. It's gonna be. Well, diversity is important in this house.

[Michael Duncan]

We believe it's gonna be all slogans.

[Josh Holmes]

It's all Pottery Barn slogans.

[Michael Duncan]

It's all gonna be slogans. It's nothing that actually makes sense on a database level.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, when do we get off As a society of people contribute, you take care of your neighbor, you make your community stronger. Your next generation, you prepare your kids, you educate them. Like, when things get in the way of that, they've always been problems.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's the thing is because.

[Josh Holmes]

And no, it's no longer a problem to these people.

[Michael Duncan]

The American spirit is rugged individualism. And that's the last thing a Democrat wants to see in a supporter.

[Josh Holmes]

I hate that.

[Michael Duncan]

Because if you. If you don't depend on the Democrats for your next paycheck, they can't control your vote.

[John Ashbrook]

It's what Mamdani said in his inauguration speech. You know, we're gonna get rid of individualism and the warm embrace of collectivism.

[Michael Duncan]

That's it.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what they want.

[Michael Duncan]

He said it straight up.

[Josh Holmes]

In every country around the world since the beginning of time has been an utter failure. And there's nobody that can tell you any different. There's never been an argument for it.

[Smug]

Right, right.

[Josh Holmes]

They just keep coming back to the well, time after time, you wonder, like that lawyer guy, he seemed like a. Probably Harvard. You know, he says, former DOJ guy sitting up there and like, imagine just the brain scrubbing that has to go on in that guy's mind over the course of his career to get a brain smooth enough to provide an answer like that.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's how you get those. If you're a Dem, you have to say those. Especially if you're like a white guy. Do you know what kind of shit you have to say? Cocktail parties. Oh, yes, of course. I'm the problem here.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

All right. Give him a shot at this job. Yeah, he's a promotion. He sounds like he knows exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

And then secretly they go around the corner. They're most racist people in the room. Yeah, 100%. That's 100% where they are. All right. A couple of variety items.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

There is a Disney.

[Smug]

Oh, boy.

[Josh Holmes]

You gotta see the clip. Clip time.

[Michael Duncan]

This is what one of the riskiest stunts is supposed to look like.

[Josh Holmes]

But Tuesday, look over there, Ray.

[Michael Duncan]

The audience fans watched as the boulder rolled off its track towards the audience.

[Smug]

Oh, no. Oh, no.

[Michael Duncan]

It's coming for us. Member jumping in.

[Josh Holmes]

400 pound prop acting as a human.

[Michael Duncan]

Shield to the in the amphitheater show video shows the cast member's head bleeding. Now calling the cast member a hero, saying his quick thinking saved those in the crowd.

[John Ashbrook]

He literally saved their lives, that guy.

[Smug]

He did save their lives. That guy is a hero.

[John Ashbrook]

What a stud. Well, so that is the Indiana Jones, like, live show I guess at Disney.

[Josh Holmes]

And the rolling boulder went off the tracks.

[Michael Duncan]

So the media is willing to accept that this, like, foam boulder is a threat to life, but not a SUV moving at high speed. Incredible takeaway.

[Josh Holmes]

There you go. You wrapped it all together.

[Michael Duncan]

I ruined the moment. 11. I know, I know.

[Josh Holmes]

Supposed to have some.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, he just got rushed.

[John Ashbrook]

I imagine that sort of feels the same as, like, taking a charge from Shaquille o' Neal probably. You know, that's tough.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that's a failure to understand physics. That guy thought it would just, like, bounce or something.

[John Ashbrook]

I think he knew he had to.

[Smug]

Take one for the team.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, those are Disney adults. They take it themselves.

[John Ashbrook]

What do you think is, if I'm.

[Michael Duncan]

On the sideline, I dive away. What do you people signed up for this? You came to Disney. You knew there's gonna be a problem.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I assume at, like, the Disney amusement parks that there's, like, an employee of the month award. Obviously, this probably falls in the category of a higher honor.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

I wonder in the Disney world, like, what is that? Like, what is. What is the congressional, you know, medal of honor for a Disney employee?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I actually. They have one.

[John Ashbrook]

Really?

[Josh Holmes]

No, I'm serious. I've. I've seen they take care of these people. It's very, very fun.

[Michael Duncan]

There's a Disney purple Heart.

[Josh Holmes]

No, for real. Like, I mean, they have, like, a huge veteran for valor, and they serious. They. They treat these people like. I bet that guy that was like, he's going to the top.

[Michael Duncan]

They probably let him have one of their $20 slushies. Isn't that how much they're running these days? Here you go. You're good to go, buddy.

[Josh Holmes]

They got to deal with all those Disney.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, you don't want to file any workers comp friend. Who?

[Josh Holmes]

The fat people that show up at that thing. What are they called?

[John Ashbrook]

Plus size. Plus size park hoppers.

[Josh Holmes]

You got to reward people.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what I'm saying is let the one of the plus size park hoppers take the ball, dude. Movable object versus unstoppable force.

[Josh Holmes]

That ball would have gone right back up in the hole. Okay, I got a cold variety issue. Listen, we're embarking upon playoff season. Everybody knows that this is NFL football.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait, are we embarking in playoffs or. I know my team is getting to that.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm going to get to that. Everybody knows that this is near and dear to our heart. We start with the ruthless parlay, which of course, the Broncos, cold Colts, Bengals, and Vikings. We put Our bets in every week as a parlay. And it usually hits once or twice a season, pays for the rest of the bets. It hit week one.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This year it didn't hit again.

[John Ashbrook]

Not again.

[Michael Duncan]

Not a single time.

[John Ashbrook]

Not one time.

[Josh Holmes]

It was a tough, tough season for three of our four teams. You are advancing in with very high seed ready to, you know, hopefully bring one home for the ruthless variety program in some ways. But all of the rest of us are doing the, like, navel gazing. What went wrong? You know, I think we're the only three teams that didn't make the playoffs. We didn't fire the coach.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, everybody.

[Michael Duncan]

That's an amazing stat.

[Josh Holmes]

Everybody else's coach is long gone. So you want to hear, as a sports fan, you just. You want to hear from ownership, like, what is going to be different next year? Give me some hope. Give me something to work with. So, naturally, there's a new ownership group in Indianapolis that has decided that they are going to take the Bulls.

[John Ashbrook]

Wait, so this is an attack on me?

[Josh Holmes]

Let's play the clip. Clip 11. So thank you guys all for being here. To our fans, my sisters and I want to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your loyalty and support as always, but particularly this season. You're right to be frustrated with how.

[Michael Duncan]

The latter part of our season went.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm pissed. We are all pissed. Every season is unique, and this season really was a tale of two seasons in one.

[Michael Duncan]

We are all.

[Josh Holmes]

We were all encouraged by our first half. We experienced a lot of progress, which gives us optimism for the future and the direction we are heading as a team. Then adversity struck. But no matter what the circumstances are, we have to be able to find a way to win and finish games, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

God. I mean. All right, so.

[Smug]

Well, Michael, can I just. Before you go.

[John Ashbrook]

No, I mean, at some point. Do I get the floor?

[Smug]

No, no, no, no, no, no. First, everyone else, I would just like to officially welcome you to Cincinnati.

[John Ashbrook]

Things are not that dire.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, she could even complete this. She couldn't even complete the pass for the pencil. Like, even fumble that. Dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Nothing but confidence in Indy, huh?

[John Ashbrook]

Well, look, honestly, it was a fun season. Cause it felt like found money. I mean, the whole thing was riding on the Achilles tendon of Daniel Jones. But it was a fun run. Cause I mean, my expectations were just in the basement to begin with. So I enjoyed it for what it is. Here's my complaint with the whole thing is Carly Irsay, you know, got a lot of plaudits, I think, from sports media over the course of the season because she had the headphones on. She was, you know, listening to the play call. She's down on the field evaluating his talent.

[Josh Holmes]

It was just a derivation of Yas Queen women.

[Michael Duncan]

Yas Queen and her outfits were a bit much on the sidelines. Have you noticed? Did you notice it was a little bit much?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, there's a woman. So she has to be the best. Let's talk about her.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. He's gonna do the Yas Queen thing, isn't he? Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

No, it's.

[Michael Duncan]

Just let him do it.

[John Ashbrook]

What's funny is like all of that, it turns out, is entirely performative because here she has done the due diligence and the investigation into the team and what went wrong and what went right and who's doing their good job proud to announce the coach and the GM are coming back.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, and it's like, so what. What all.

[Smug]

What was that for?

[John Ashbrook]

What was that for?

[Josh Holmes]

I spared you that component. It was. It was a good 15 minute monologue the first like 45 seconds. I think you got a good sense of where that was. The fumbling of the pencil into the cliches.

[John Ashbrook]

I just want to know when is Chris Ballard, the gm, going to be held accountable for. For the fact that the team is in ruins and he drafted Anthony Richardson, who spent, you know, the last season trying to get subbed out of the game while he was quarterback and this season took an electric or a workout band and hit himself in the eye and broke his eye socket so he couldn't even play after Daniel Jones went down. So like, who exactly is supposed to be held accountable for this thing? You wore the headset the entire year. You're going to be ahead of the team. And now it's just. We're just going to run it back again.

[Michael Duncan]

She's. She's the daughter of the.

[Josh Holmes]

Jim or Jim or say the son of Robert.

[Michael Duncan]

Robert and Jim or say was the billionaire owner who recently passed away. Right. And wasn't cause of death something like possible drug orvidor.

[John Ashbrook]

He had. He had a lot of issues over the years. He was a real tortured soul. But you know, what was the.

[Michael Duncan]

It was the. What drug? What were they saying? Ketamine. Right. It's like.

[John Ashbrook]

I think so.

[Michael Duncan]

So apparently he was a billionaire guy. Right. And like I always wonder. Cause you always hear about team. Well, you always hear about these like billionaires doing ketamine. Right? And it's like I'm always curious about it because these billionaires, you could have anything in the world, right? You could. You could. If you want, you could go to Vegas, you could bet on black $100,000. You could do that endlessly. You could do it for hours a day. But ketamine's more entertaining than that. This must be some wild shit.

[John Ashbrook]

Is this like a pro ketamine argument?

[Michael Duncan]

Is that what you're saying? No, it's just like. It's just a crazy thing that, like this guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Welcome to the Ruthless, brought to you by Ketamine.

[Michael Duncan]

No, it's just amazing that, like, this guy's a billionaire, you own a team in the NFL and then you kill yourself with ketamine. That's a wild way to go.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, look, I mean.

[Michael Duncan]

And then you're left with your daughter who's wearing these, like, kind of over the top outfits on the sideline. Like, this is what you've done. This is what it was all for. And that's the Colts in a nutshell. Just a mess.

[Josh Holmes]

Alas, it's not nearly as bad as Cincinnati.

[John Ashbrook]

Aaron Rodgers.

[Michael Duncan]

Cincinnati's like, no, dude, we got a.

[Smug]

Rough situation just two hours away.

[Michael Duncan]

But in Cincinnati, you expect life to be terrible. You know, they're like, acclimated to it. In Indianapolis, you still have hope. You know, there's no light at the end of the tunnel. In Cincy, they're like, oh, well, more shitty spaghetti.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm glad we've had a chance to explore all this. Remember our question of the day? What's the most absurd fake narrative Democrats have ever come up with? It's so good. Let your mind wander when you liken them. Subscribe to the Ruthless variety program. We read all of them and get back to the very next episode. Thanks for joining us this week. It's been a wild one. Check out some merch while you're out there. And we're gonna see you on Tuesday. I think we did it.

[Michael Duncan]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much to the Minions. And remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube hit that subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, Minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the lids. We'll see on Tuesday. Stay ruthless.