Is This The End For Iran? + NASA's Jared Isaacman

Summary

Ruthless Podcast — Episode Summary

Episode Title: "Is This The End For Iran? + NASA's Jared Isaacman"
Date: March 5, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Featured Guest: Jared Isaacman (NASA Administrator)

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Overview

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast dives headfirst into the ongoing US-Iran conflict, offering a mix of sharp analysis and dark humor characteristic of the show. The team unpacks the military campaign’s momentum against Iran, skewers Democratic opposition messaging, recaps Texas’s dramatic primaries, and closes with a dynamic interview with NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman. The program also sprinkles in signature features, including their irreverent “King of the Hill” game, all in the context of current conservative politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. US War with Iran: Unprecedented Military Action

• [03:51]–[08:44]: The hosts begin with the US military’s recent sinking of the Iranian flagship—the first foreign adversary warship sunk by a US torpedo since WWII. Video released by the Department of War sets a tone of decisive US military action.

  • Josh Holmes: “A Navy submarine sank the Iranian flagship as it returns from Sri Lanka...when you have a warship and you are at war, it is in danger.”
  • Saagar Enjeti: “If you're in an Iranian warship, dude, get that white flag up there because it's a wrap.”

• [05:22]–[06:53]: The team emphasizes the scale of Iranian losses (20 ships lost) and recaps military briefings highlighting the “steady progress” against Iranian missile and drone capabilities.

  • US Central Command Statement Played: “Iran's missile shots fired are down 86%… drone shots are down 73%… we will now begin to expand inland.”

• [09:27]–[10:37]: John Ashbrook highlights the US’s blend of professionalism, tech, and overwhelming force in this campaign. Michael Duncan references unconfirmed—but illustrative—testimony about the devastating effect of US weaponry abroad.

  • “[American troops] were shooting with such precision and speed... every soldier was firing 300 rounds a minute... [our] weapons didn’t help at all... Then they launched something—an intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt my head was exploding from the inside.”

• [13:16]: The team sets up the conversation about Democratic messaging and opposition to the war.

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2. Democratic Messaging: Caught in Contradiction

• [13:29]–[14:31]: The hosts critique top Democrats’ muddled stance: nobody wants a nuclear Iran, but they’re against Trump’s actions to stop it.

  • Josh Holmes: “No one wants an endless war, but we certainly don’t want a nuclear Iran, that’s for sure. Okay, clear as mud, Chuck. Fantastic messaging.”
  • John Ashbrook: “Dem’s messaging is like Schrodinger's cat... certainly we cannot allow a nuclear Iran… Donald Trump is not supposed to stop it.”

• [14:49]–[16:31]: The show roasts House Democratic leadership for hypocrisy: approving Obama’s actions without Congressional sign-off, but demanding it for Trump.

  • John Ashbrook: “He went from having a defined position… At which point he had to explain the differences: Well, I wasn’t here.”

• [18:17]–[20:38]: The team spotlights Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s anti-American tweets, seeing them as emblematic of the left’s “America is bad” worldview.

  • Saagar Enjeti: “The entire messaging of the left… is ‘America is bad’... For her, this is a member of Congress saying ‘they’ to the U.S.; she’s clearly considering herself on the other side of America.”
  • Josh Holmes: “As far as I’m concerned, this is a censure minimum. I’d boot her ass right out of Congress.”

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3. Contrast: Trump’s “Clarity of Mission” vs The Past

• [29:32]–[34:26]: The hosts draw a sharp line between Trump’s approach—“Department of War” clarity, targeted and overwhelming action, avoidance of “nation building”—and the Obama/Biden era, which they characterize as weak and ineffectual.

  • John Ashbrook: “Trump has found a rational, sober third way… knows the limitations of our military but uses that power when it can.”
  • Saagar Enjeti: “He does not believe in mission creep. You know, he makes it clear: no options off the table. He'll discombobulate your ass if you make him do it.”

• [36:03]: Direct comparison to the Obama “red line” in Syria.

  • Michael Duncan: “A very clear contrast to what we saw out of Obama, when he drew that red line and [did] nothing.”

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4. The Broader Geopolitical Table: All Eyes on Realignment

• [40:13]: The hosts postulate that the broad and swift U.S. actions are not just about Iran, but about disrupting the support network between rogue states—tying in China, Venezuela, and Cuba.
  • Josh Holmes: “They operated freely with the explicit intent of disrupting American influence in the world... If there's ever a chance for a normalized relationship with Cuba... it’s now because they don’t have any fucking choices anymore.”

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5. Texas Primary Results: Major Shakeups and Media Meltdowns

• [43:48]–[50:14]: Deep-dive into Texas’s key Senate primary and surprising Democratic turnout shifts.

  • Josh Holmes: “For the first time since 2002, more Democrats voted than Republicans in the primary.”
  • On the GOP side: John Cornyn unexpectedly tops Ken Paxton; Wesley Hunt finishes lower than anticipated.
  • On the Democratic side: Establishment pick James Talarico narrowly defeats Jasmine Crockett, despite D.C. hype.

• [52:10]–[56:04]: Lively discussion of election night chaos, Dallas County voting law issues, and the media’s penchant for dramatizing vote-counting processes.

  • Josh Holmes: “The old playbook: try to get everybody in line after 7pm and then cry disenfranchisement.”

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6. King of the Hill: Bill Kristol’s “Schizophrenic” Foreign Policy

• [61:32]–[65:47]: The panel’s recurring game pits Bill Kristol against Sarah Longwell for the most outlandish take.
  • Bill Kristol is skewered for being wildly inconsistent—supporting regime change, then opposing Trump for not pursuing it aggressively enough.
  • Josh Holmes: “If you were to say, in 2026, there’s a week where America is at war with Iran… you would have chosen Bill Kristol. His whole life has led up to this moment. And now he's not even a part of it.”

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7. Interview with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman

[66:32]–[85:52]

• Mission & Mandate:
  • Jared Isaacman: “The day I was sworn in... President [Trump] signs a national space policy... Not only am I committing us back to the moon, I want us to go back to stay, build a moon base... invest in nuclear power and propulsion, build the orbital economy, transition to commercial space stations, launch more missions. I got the mandate, I got the funds... now we just got to execute.” [67:31]
• Background:
  • Serial entrepreneur, early school dropout, created a fintech giant, then defense company with a private air force, multiple trips to space.
  • “I have lived the American dream... I have a debt to this nation that I need to repay.” [69:18]
• Reality of ‘Space Race 2.0’:
  • “We have not faced a real competitor since the 1960s... Now we are months of margin against our rival and the Chinese are capable of doing this.”
• Execution Plan:
  • “We’re done with launching moon rockets every three years. We’re going to launch at least every year... and build on our success until we ultimately get to the moon before the end of President Trump's term.” [76:23]
• China’s Threat:
  • “They’re a peer. They just demonstrated their moon rocket’s in-flight abort capability… they have the potential to match us.” [78:02]
• Vision:
  • Permanent U.S. moon presence, development of lunar and orbital economies, and leadership in space as the “ultimate high ground.”
  • “This is not going to be an administration that's willing to accept second place.” [82:29]
• On Aliens:
  • “As the administrator of NASA… when the President put out his truth on this... declassify it all, I'm like, I gotta get this briefing… There is stuff at NASA I can't explain, but usually it’s programs that are over budget, behind schedule, not little green guys.” [85:14]

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8. Signature Quote Highlights

• Josh Holmes:

  • “If you're in an Iranian warship, get that white flag up there because it's a wrap.” [00:00]
  • “If they weren't such horrible people, you would almost feel bad because they're sitting on top of this conference that doesn't know shit from Shinola.” [16:19]
  • “This is a 40 year problem that has landed on Donald Trump's doorstep and he decided to do something about it. Is war good? No, but every once in a while, it is necessary.” [38:44]

• Saagar Enjeti:

  • “The entire messaging of the left… is ‘America is bad’… If it was like, Donald Trump finds a cure for cancer, they'll be like, ‘cancer did nothing wrong.’” [18:42]
  • “He’ll discombobulate your ass if you make him do it.” [35:31]

• Jared Isaacman:

  • “We’re going to return to the moon before the end of President Trump’s term… but not just to plant the flag: to stay.” [67:31]
  • “This is not going to be an administration that's willing to accept second place.” [82:29]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–02:14: Opening banter, stark intro to the Iran segment.
• 03:51–08:44: US military action in Iran—context and analysis.
• 18:17–20:38: The squad, anti-American rhetoric, and left-wing critiques.
• 29:32–34:26: Contrasting Trump’s foreign policy with recent history.
• 43:48–52:10: Texas primary results and Democratic Party problems.
• 61:32–65:47: "King of the Hill" with Bill Kristol’s contradictory takes.
• 66:32–85:52: Interview with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.

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Tone & Takeaways

• Original Language/Tone: Sarcastic, irreverent, and skeptical of liberal politics. The hosts mix humor with robust conservative analysis and a faint nostalgia for clear military objectives à la Trump.
• Engagement: The show’s banter and ruthless ribbing provide an energetic, “insider” feel for listeners hungry for unfiltered right-of-center commentary.
• Key Takeaways:
  • US military dominance and effectiveness against Iran is being played up as transformational and directly tied to Trump’s approach.
  • Democratic responses are painted as hypocritical, confused, or simply anti-American.
  • The episode’s interview with Jared Isaacman spotlights a blend of high-level expertise and visionary optimism for a new era of US space leadership.

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For New or Infrequent Listeners

This episode distills conservative skepticism of the current political establishment (especially Democrats) and underscores a deep pride in what the hosts see as a restored American military and technological dominance. The NASA segment offers a relief from partisan warfare, with genuine excitement for the nation’s future in space under accomplished leadership.

Best Bits:

• Holmes’s and Enjeti’s quotable rants on Democrats’ messaging.
• John Ashbrook’s deadpan breakdown of the Texas primaries.
• The spirited exchange with Isaacman, giving a peek into a revitalized, mission-driven NASA.

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For more episodes, expansions, or the infamous King of the Hill segment, check out the Ruthless Variety Program site and subscribe on YouTube.

Transcript

[Saagar Enjeti]

If you're in an Iranian warship, get that white flag up there because it's a wrap.

[Josh Holmes]

It is really something to hear a general describe in great detail what it is they're going to do.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And then go do it.

[John Ashbrook]

Donald Trump, I think, has found a rational, sober third way of American foreign policy that knows the limitations of what America's military can do.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

But uses that power when it can.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The entire messaging of the left of the Democrat Party now is America is bad. I will always take the other side of America in every possible opportunity. Any position to take against America, they will take it. What the left now is is just anti America.

[Michael Duncan]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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

[Michael Duncan]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left to right, across your radio dial. There's an awful lot going on this week. You know, just there is no boredom.

[Saagar Enjeti]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

In this life. I mean, just when you think things are sort of settling on in a touch, you get the primary season that starts. We're going to talk about that. Big results in Texas this week. You got a war that's going on, which we're going to show you some things. It's unbelievable what the United States is doing and incredibly good in my point of view. But we'll have a discussion about all of that. We've got an incredible guest today, Jared Isaacman. You've probably heard his name before. This is a dude. This is like one of those guys who you drop onto the planet who does all of the things. And now he's the NASA administrator.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Seems like the perfect guy for the job.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You want somebody who thinks all of the things doing that gig. And we have a great conversation with him coming and we're going to play again. It's King of the Hill day, so Thursdays we're going to have some yucks too, because there's plenty to yuck about when it comes to politics and Democrats, how they're approached. They don't know what the hell they're

[Saagar Enjeti]

doing, that's for sure.

[Josh Holmes]

They really don't know what the hell they're doing. But let's just start with the. The action, as it were, in clip six.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So for our audio listeners, you are seeing the. The US Military just torpedoing the shit out of an Iranian ship. And the, the. The Department of War put this video out there of, I believe it's the first time since World War II, since World War II, of a foreign adversary ship's been taken down by torpedo.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So a Navy submarine sank the Iranian flagship as it returns from Sri Lanka. Evidently, I read a little bit that it thought it was in international waters. I'm not clear about what the Iranians told their soldiers and their seamen about rules of engagement in a war. It turns out when you have a warship and you are at war, it is in danger.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And I look because, like, they didn't have, you know, they weren't smart enough to fly a white flag because it's over. You know what I mean? Like, if you're in an Iranian warship, dude, get that white flag up there because it's a rat. Like, you're just seeing what's happening up there. It's a stay in Sri Lanka, maybe stay. Hang on the islands. You know, you've already got like essentially a yacht. Throw all the guns in the water so no one mistakes what's happening.

[Josh Holmes]

They'd be better off taking themselves to that North Sentinel island or whatever it is where they have the dudes with the.

[Michael Duncan]

The spears.

[Josh Holmes]

The spears have killed everyone who's ever gone on there. It seems like it's a. I mean, fly the islands.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Do not go back.

[Josh Holmes]

Do not. Do not. I think I read somewhere they had 20 ships. 20 ships are now at the bottom of the sea.

[Michael Duncan]

I heard that this morning. I think they walked through that with Hegseth and Raisin. Cain, daily PRESS CONFERENCE well, speaking of

[Josh Holmes]

Raisin Cain, we got a clip of him. Clip 7. As of this morning, U.S. central Command is making steady progress. Iran's theater ballistic missile shots fired are down 86% from the first day of fighting with a 23% decrease just in the last 24 hours. And their one way attack drone shots are down 73% from the opening days. This progress has allowed CENTCOM to establish localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coast and penetrate their defenses with overwhelming precision and firepower. We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory and creating additional freedom of maneuver for US Forces.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Freedom of maneuver.

[Josh Holmes]

It's really something. Look, for those of us who've watched conflict, war over the years, it's an ugly business, no question about it. And it's, you know, dynamic in nature. It is really something to hear a general describe in great detail what it is they're going to do.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And then go do it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

It's very clinical. Right. And I obviously, and Pete Hegseth talked about this as well, is what they're doing is taking out Iran's entire missile launching capability.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[John Ashbrook]

Because you, you know, they produce a lot of missiles and they have a lot of launchers. They have a lot less launchers today than they had this weekend and less launchers than they had during the 12 day war when we bombed the nuclear facilities. So like they get rid of the launchers, they establish air superiority and then Iran can't really do anything but come to the table to negotiate. Yeah, I think that's the plan.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It seems to me that that and we're going to get into specifically what the White House has put out in terms of what their plan actually is. So you all have a better understanding. I thought Tuesday's episod episode, by the way, was absolutely terrific in giving us an overview of all that in, in some detail. But when they say air superiority, they mean it. I mean, the best you can tell after the first few days of this conflict, you could have Art Scholl flying Lum Shivaks in a biplane over Toronto. I mean, it's truly, it doesn't seem like there is resistance.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, there's a lot to be said about the American military, our service members, President Trump, Secretary Hegseth. This has just been incredible. It's truly mind blowing to see a military so powerful and accomplishing so much. Because here's the thing is the Iranian military was one of the world's largest and best armed and The American military is, has free reign essentially right now.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, for decades. It was at least inferred for those of us who are in this line of work and following all of this stuff relatively closely, it was at least inferred that Iran was not Iraq. In that in a full on war, there's no question about the outcome in terms of the United States being able to prevail in that. But it was really messy and much more than any conflict we had been in basically since Vietnam in that regard. It just doesn't. Something has happened here significantly with this Department of Defense where.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Department of War.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Now we don't worry about.

[John Ashbrook]

But it does, it combines, I think, a few things. Number one, the professionalism of the American soldier in our military broadly. I think it combines that with like clearly dominant superiority of weaponry. And then the third thing is, I think technology.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And, and our ability to use that technology for intelligence gathering. And clearly, I mean like they tried to meet just to vote for a new supreme leader lunatic.

[Josh Holmes]

And it evaporated.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I mean like, like just do zoom guys. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

But I don't know what it's going to take for some of these like belligerent countries who are opposed to America to get the message that they're not quite up to par with our men and women in uniform. I mean, if they didn't believe it after Operation Midnight Hammer.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Last summer, all they needed to do was read the eyewitness testimony of that guy in Venezuela who was trying to defend Maduro against the Americans. You guys remember this, right? You remember this? Anybody who's listening to this who is not familiar with this eyewitness testimony, let me just read you a piece.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And this is unconfirmed. To be clear, no one knows what happened here.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right. Smug's right. This is unconfirmed. However, it was passed around by the White House.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, the President answered questions related to this.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. This is the Venezuelan security guard. After drones appeared, some helicopters arrived, there were very few, I think maybe eight and very small number of men came down, maybe 20. But those men were technologically very advanced. They didn't look like anything we fought against before. And then somebody asked the battle began. He said, yeah, but it was a massacre. We were hundreds, but we had no chance. They were shooting with such precision and speed. It seemed like every soldier was fired firing 300 rounds a minute. We couldn't do anything. In your own weapons, didn't they help? No help at all. Because it wasn't just weapons. At one point they launched something. I don't know how to describe it. It was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood, and we fell to the ground, unable to move. And this is somebody describing what they were up against with American precision, professionalism. Everything you described, coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Like, why. Why would the Iranians.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I don't know. Look, I think that they have lived in their own cylinder for long enough. I think Brian Hook adequately explained their point of view well on Tuesday's show. And they didn't know obviously what they were getting themselves into. But again, this is a mission. Much like V. Venezuela was that before it happened, under President Trump's watch, there was bipartisan, bipartisan consensus that something needed to be done right. You heard everybody from Schumer on down talk about there's no way you can ever allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. We need to do something about that. He had Obama delivering pallets of cash. That obviously didn't work. All these things were consensus in the United States and in our government. Trump does something about it. And Democrats are trying to figure out how to retrofit their position on all of this in a way that is just consistent with being opposition to whatever Donald Trump does. So no matter how successful the mission is, they have to figure out a way to, like, unfuck their messaging over the last 20 years and give you a new one and just listen to some of this stuff. Like, you just. It's. It's unbelievable. Clip one. Do you think Israel, you know, forced the US's hand?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Here, box the US in on this.

[Jared Isaacman]

Look, no one wants a nuclear war.

[Josh Holmes]

No one wants a nuclear Israel. But we certainly don't want an endless war, plain and simple.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's just not plain and simple.

[Josh Holmes]

What did I say? Oh, they brought him back. Let me say that again. No one wants an endless war, but

[Jared Isaacman]

we certainly don't want a nuclear Iran, that's for sure.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, okay. Clear as mud, Chuck. Fantastic messaging.

[John Ashbrook]

What a leader.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I mean, there's a reason why AOC is going to primary his ass. There's a reason he wakes up scared every day. Like, if you want to give him a jump scare, if you pass him all to say AOC and shook like, he knows it's a rep. He knows it's. He knows it's over. He's basically just trying to cobble together a coalition of enough people to. To let him try and hold on to it's. It's so over in the dump. So over.

[John Ashbrook]

And the Demps messaging is like sort of the Schrodinger's cat on this whole situation. You know, they're like, certainly we cannot allow a nuclear Iran. We have to stop it.

[Jared Isaacman]

Yes.

[John Ashbrook]

Donald Trump is not supposed to stop it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, like, we'll show them. What the fuck are we supposed to do?

[Josh Holmes]

It makes no sense. But I mean, any casual observer would understand the direct contradiction in any one of their statements. And it's not just Chuck Schumer. It is rank and file. It is House and Senate. You want to hear from the House leader, this is going to be fantastic.

[John Ashbrook]

Clip 2 thank you, Leader Jeffries.

[Michael Duncan]

Back in 2011, Nancy Pelosi said that then President Obama didn't need congressional approval to bomb Libya. Now House Democrats say President Trump needs that approval to bomb Iran. What's the difference? Well, obviously Libya and the circumstances connected to that were very different than the circumstance that we face in Iran right now. I mean, I don't even understand the genesis or basis of that question. Not suggesting that you're not asking it in good faith. Libya went on for seven months, as I've indicated.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Bill Malujian does not, first of all,

[Michael Duncan]

was not in Congress at the time.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, so now he was dealing with

[Michael Duncan]

what we're dealing with right now, which is a catastrophic, endless war, as Donald

[Josh Holmes]

Trump has characterized it, going on for 72 hours without any justification that there

[John Ashbrook]

was going to be a preeminent assault or attack on the United States of America.

[Josh Holmes]

Do those words mean what he thinks he means?

[John Ashbrook]

I think he means preemptive.

[Josh Holmes]

I think preemptive was the word he was searching for.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Timu Obama. Timu Obama has no clue what he's saying. Bill Meluchin got his ass hard and then, you know, he got him when, when, like, like this is a schoolyard, like, fight where he's like, no, I wasn't even in Congress then. Like, what are you talking.

[Josh Holmes]

He went from having a defined position about the differences, so much so that he suggested in and of itself was bad faith because of those extreme differences. At which point he had to explain what those differences were. Well, I wasn't here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, I mean, I wasn't here. Like, dude, that is amazing that you're like, it's not my fault because I wasn't here. Why, why are you trying to make me, like, answer for the consequences of my decision making here?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, what? I mean, that's, that's basically it. So look, if they weren't such Horrible people. You would almost feel bad because they're sitting on top of this conference that doesn't know shit from Shinola on anything. Domestic, foreign, war, peace, nothing. They know absolutely nothing. But the base is absolutely certain. But when you ask them what it is they're absolutely certain about, well, they show a little bit more than perhaps the leadership would like them to put up. Graphic four, please. This is Rashida Tlaib. Remember ol Hershey, part of the squad. He comes up from time to time. She's got a retweet of some Muhammad Safa Iran money and propaganda which, which as you recall, in the early hours of the incursion into Iran, there was propaganda that came out about a school, a girl's school, which fits like every single Hamas and Hezbollah deal. It's like the most obvious thing of all time, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

If you just scroll through X, it's the funniest thing I think about. Like when you have a conflict like this, just how much disinformation is out there. Just people just lying. Just like you will scroll timeline and half the stuff will have a community note.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh yeah, no, I mean stay vigilant people.

[John Ashbrook]

Stay vigilant.

[Josh Holmes]

X has been one big community note.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

For the last 70.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Just as a quick aside is incredible. I think community note is an amazing feat. Like the amount of stupidity out there that, especially from Dems putting this stuff out there that immediately will get tagged with like a link to an actual. So it's. It's wonderful.

[Josh Holmes]

It is, it's wonderful. So, but she's going to interact with this because of course the absolutely fictional surfacing of propaganda is something that our member of United States Congress needs to weigh in on. And what she says is both the US and genocidal Israel doesn't care about the laws.

[Michael Duncan]

Great sentence structure by the way.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean that's just fantastic.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is the important part.

[Josh Holmes]

This is who they are.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So we have Rashida Taleb, who's a member of sadly of the US Congress, referring to America as they. As, as someone other than who you're a part of. It's. It's extremely telling because I think she truly let the mask slip in a moment of, of.

[Josh Holmes]

Of.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Of trying to get her propaganda out there because she just hates America. Let's all be honest here. And so this has been so infuriating to me to see over the past few days is this kind of crystallization among what the left now is, is just anti America. It doesn't matter who the United States with Donald Trump as president is. Involved in a conflict with. It doesn't matter what he opposes. The position of the left is to be like, the other thing is good. If it was like, Donald Trump finds a cure for cancer, they'll be like, cancer did nothing wrong. Like, as long as they're like, America is an evil colonial empire to stop cancer, why shouldn't cancer grow on stolen land? Anything. If there's any position to take against America, they will take it. And for her, this is a member of Congress saying they to the US she's clearly considering herself on the other side of America.

[John Ashbrook]

It's funny because it's like the sort of thing that if the member of Congress was Jewish, the anti Semites would be like dual loyalty.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Dual loyalty, yeah. Were they?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

I thought you represent us. Yeah, but it's like she's Palestinian, so she gets away with that.

[Josh Holmes]

So she gets away with it. But look, as far as I'm concerned, this is a censure minimum. I would boot her ass right out of Congress. I would take. I would hold a vote on if she wants to come down to the House floor and say that she misspoke in her tweet and doesn't mean they, she means us, then have her do that. But that at a minimum requires. Because we're just recall. It doesn't matter if you're a member of Congress or you're working in an administration or whatever, you're a staff member on Capitol Hill. The first thing you do when you get your. Your pay stub and your W2 and all that filled out is hold up your hand and swear allegiance and take an oath.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And that's. That's right to the heart of it. That's about that. That's right to the heart of it is this has sprung up this anti American left. And I remember growing up and every morning in school would start with the Pledge of Allegiance and you'd have pride for this country and you'd love this country and that they so openly. The entire messaging of the left of the Democrat party now is America's bad. I will always take the other side of America and every possible opportunity, every one of these protests you see when it's anti isil, like America is a horrible country on stolen land and it will always be wrong. I think, you know, censuring her is the moderate option. She needs to be denaturalized and deported. I've really gotten to that position of like so many of these problems. And a lot of it, as Ashbrook's pointed out, there's been terrific reporting on this, that Fox News has done. So much of this is foreign countries spending money here in America to try to divide us, to try to support these kind of like Marxist, anti American bullshit. And I'm done with it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, we need like a CBP1 app for self deportation for members of Congress.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

But I mean, for real, I think I would take this seriously, you know, and there are some things that. Look, the speaker of the House doesn't wanna have to deal with this bullshit. They got a lot of stuff going on. They're still Democrats, by the way, at this very moment have defunded the Department of Homeland Security at a time of war. We're not even talking about that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We're in a conflict with Iran, which is the number one nation on earth for state sponsor of terrorism. And the Department of Homeland Security is shut down because Democrats won't allow it to open. Think about that.

[Jared Isaacman]

Because they're upsetting people.

[John Ashbrook]

I hate saying the, like, if roles were reversed thing, but it is important to say, like, if the roles were reversed here, it would be the lead of every nightly news.

[Josh Holmes]

Every night, Jake Tapper will be like,

[Saagar Enjeti]

did you know our Department of Homeland Security is closed while we're in conflict with a terrorist country?

[Josh Holmes]

They'd be chasing people around. How in the world could you allow this to happen? You're making America more vulnerable at a time of war. Where's your patriotism? Yada, yada. Well, they'd say they, they towards America. I would take this seriously if I was the speaker of the House. I'd say, either you wanna revise and extend the remarks about who they and us are, or you're in violation of your oath of office.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Ouch.

[Josh Holmes]

It's one of the two. And we'll take an up or down vote. And I'll be honest with you, I think they win that vote. Yeah, I think they can win that vote. I really do. That's what I would do. But look, she's not alone. George Conway, a perennial contestant on King of the Hill, has decided now he's running for Congress. Remember he moved to New York and decided that, like, he's gonna try his hand at the political game.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He's America's most divorced man ever.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just like the worst midlife crisis in history.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, some people buy a BMW, some people run for Congress, some people submit

[Josh Holmes]

their entire ideological proclivities whatsoever. Stop asking for a job from the party that they've professed their loyalty.

[John Ashbrook]

He tried to work for Donald Trump

[Josh Holmes]

tried to Work for him?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

And he was rejected. He became pissed, started to become a critic. Now he's a full blown psychopath. Check out graphic six. Perhaps the terrorist state with nuclear weapons is checks, notes. Oh, that's cute, George. The United States of America.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, so, so many people tagged us on this particular tweet. They were like this, you got to play this like King of the Hill. You gotta play this like King of the Hill. This is an instant winner. But obviously that's not going to make it this week's.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we have.

[Michael Duncan]

Because you have to separate it out just to make a point. Because what he is saying is, I mean, how did, how did Democrats get to this place? I mean, you guys mentioned Trump wanted to work.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The defeat is just so brutal.

[John Ashbrook]

Usually, usually this sort of commentary is reserved for like the white guy with braids and a tie, dyed shirt and freshman quad. And he says this between bong rips.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally.

[Michael Duncan]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

With the beard who is storming the church in north Minneapolis? The woke farmer. Yeah, that guy. But this is somebody who used to be a serious attorney.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, he's a wlrk. Like, that's a good point. He was at the best law, like the dream law firm that all these people who go through the torture that is law school dream of ending up at WLRK to get paid the big bucks. He doesn't get that job and it just insta spirals, like loses his family, his marriage falls apart. Now he's nobody. I don't feel any sympathy for him. Like, look at this stuff he's saying.

[John Ashbrook]

I know.

[Josh Holmes]

No, when you go woke, you go broke. It's well established at this point, you know, and so now he's doing what he's doing. All right, so Carolyn Levitt, good friend of the program, White House press secretary, hopefully laid out a few of the objectives that the White House is trying to reiterate. The reason we feel like we need to get into this is, frankly, you're not getting it on the news, but I think it's important it builds upon what Brian Hook was talking about on Tuesday for you to just get a little bit better understanding of what it is that we're doing here. She writes in part, and this is much longer, but we're doing a little bit of a summary. On Saturday, President Trump released a statement laying out the clear objectives for the American people for Operation Epic Fury. Let me reiterate them. Destroy the Iranian regime's missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. Annihilate the Iranian regime's navy Check. Ensure the regime's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces. Stop them from making and using IEDs or roadside bombs which have gravely wounded and killed thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans. Guarantee that Iran can never obtain nuclear weapons. So that's just like point, point, point, point, point, right? Huge amount of discussion about what comes next. What do you leave behind? Does that mean that Iran is self governing at all? And what is our commitment to all of that? We're going to get into a larger discussion about all of that right after this.

[Michael Duncan]

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. 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 In America, parents call the shots for their families, not bureaucrats. But the so called App Store Accountability act puts your child at risk. This bill requires app stores to collect children's sensitive personal data while taking away power from parents over how their child's data is handled by tech companies. Parents should get to decide if their

[John Ashbrook]

child's age is shared with apps, not politicians.

[Michael Duncan]

Parents should attest to their kids ages, not turn over birth certificates to tech companies. Congress don't put kids at greater risk online and box parents out of making decisions for their families. Tell your lawmaker to put parents first.

[John Ashbrook]

There are better ways to keep kids safe.

[Michael Duncan]

NetChoice is dedicated to making the Internet safe for free expression and free enterprise. Learn [e-mail] keepappstores safe

[Josh Holmes]

okay, so look, I got a pretty good feel for things after listening to Hook on Tuesday. It is extremely unclear what the Democratic opposition to this whole mess looks like. I mean you've heard from the two leaders that were clear as mud about what the opposition is. But I do think at some level there's been a conversation from that sort of isolationist libertarian right. You know, the Tucker Carlson's of the world and folks like that who are extremely concerned about where this whole thing lands. Not heard that same, you know, other than maybe out of Rand Paul, though. I haven't heard a lot about out of Rand Paul. There's not a lot under the dome in terms of Republican lawmakers expressing that. But the glitter, you know, everybody tries to find where the rifts are. And I know you've put some thought into this Dunks.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm. I think I'm nervous like any American whenever I hear a war in the Middle East. I mean, I grew up in an era where we were in Afghanistan and Iraq and all that sort of stuff, and those were very long wars and we lost a lot in blood and treasure fighting them. And so I think you want to take people at their word and hope they're operating in good faith when they question what Donald Trump is doing in American foreign policy. But, like, it feels like the isolationist right has gotten rhetorically lazy in so much of their argument. Not everything falls under this false choice that they set up as like, isolation or forever war.

[Jared Isaacman]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Frankly, that doesn't reflect Donald Trump's first administration when he turned Soleimani into salsa, as smug always says, you know, striking the Russian jets in Syria. You know, I mean, like, that's not Donald Trump. Donald Trump, I think, has found a rational, sober third way of American foreign policy that knows the limitations of what America's military can do, but uses that power when it can. And I just think it's really simple. And I don't know, it just bothers me that I think people light their hair on fire for clicks saying everything's going to be World War Three. Now, I'm not a neocon who goes into every one of these things with rose colored glasses about, like, the greatness of democracy will now be spread to the Middle East. No, it won't.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

Frankly, their values are not our values and we should stop trying to make their values our values. I think that is a rational foreign policy and I think that's what Trump is trying to do. Yeah, I think it's as simple as that.

[Michael Duncan]

That.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really excellent breakdown. And also to couch it in, especially for folks our age, folks who a lot of our listeners are, and everyone who pretty much actually any age group who listens to us knows that extended period of time that America was at war in Iraq and in Afghanistan and the way that that Biden pulled out of there and the memory of that and of so Many of us who had friends who went over there, family went over there, friends who didn't come back.

[Josh Holmes]

Wolf, friends in these studio.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's understandable, given that experience, for so many people to have that, like Duncan described the like conflict in the Middle East. Here we go again. I know how this is. We see it again and again.

[John Ashbrook]

I guess my point on it is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, could I make my point on or you want to go on here?

[Jared Isaacman]

No, no, no.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Just one thing real quick show today, folks.

[Jared Isaacman]

No.

[John Ashbrook]

Is that the libertarians have used the specter of Iraq to I think, blackmail Americans foreign policy into never doing anything. And that's what bothers me. Yeah, go ahead.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, well, now that we've addressed your concerns, I'd like to continue. Dude. So it's understandable for so many folks to feel that kind of like instant skepticism and just the negative sentiment that especially for a lot of veterans that associates with them because of how they saw all the work they and their friends and the folks they served with put into like Afghanistan and Iraq and the outcomes that we see from that. But truly based this independently on Trump's own track record. And also, you know, when you mentioned the neocon thing, if the drastic turn, because there was that whole Colin Powell doctrine of you break it, you fix it kind of thing and it's like the purpose of a military and why I really love the name is the Department of War where it is mission.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's a clarity of mission for sure, Complete clarity.

[Saagar Enjeti]

The purpose of a military is to win, to win conflict. We do not seek conflict. But if it comes to our doors, if it's needed, it's clear that America's military is going to win that. And you're seeing it every time this military has engaged on the battlefield. It's mind blowing the level of supremacy, the gulf that now exists between America and our adversaries. I don't think since the dropping of the atomic bomb has been that wide a gulf between capabilities. And so you see Venezuela like, like it was just described by Ashbrook and you see how Iran was one of the most feared militaries on earth in terms of how much money they put towards it. All the illegal oil they'd been selling had been going towards buying all this like anti aircraft stuff from like Russia and China. And they'd invested so much into this. And you see like, you know, you see all these memes of like everyone's gangster until the pixels are missing from the sky because America's got this weaponry

[John Ashbrook]

that just, just isn't it funny. Isn't it funny, though, that that is sort of, like, rhetorically. I agree. I feel like a lot of people in foreign policy have talked about the strength of Iran and all this sort of stuff, but isn't it sort of eye opening that we are less than a week into this conflict and they've been reduced to, like, tweeting out AI videos of shit?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Like, they don't have what they claim they have.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, their navy, which they had, again, invested so much into, is just. You're seeing it getting just blown to pieces, pretty wet. It's something like. Like their navy's now essentially just like, coral reef. Like, the fish are really thrilled down there. They've got new habitats going on, courtesy of the United States. So I think that should be something that folks consider when they see, you know, the consideration of what this conflict looks like. And you have seen time and time again from President Trump. He does not believe in mission creep. You know, he likes to. He makes it clear. And he's. It's not just words when he lets our adversaries know. No options off the table. He'll discombobulate your ass if you make him do it.

[Jared Isaacman]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

You know, like, no options off the table. So when he says that I will not take any option off the table, and people are jumping like, he means boots on the ground, and I'm gonna go dynamore. First off, you're like 50 years old and you're £300. You're not gonna be sent to war. And what, you know, like, the people who are crying about this, it's like, let's be honest for a second. But that's the thing is we've seen absolute superiority from the Department of War. You've never seen President Trump engage in mission creep or nation building or all these things that Americans have. We're done with that kind of foreign policy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And it's a very clear contrast to what we saw out of Obama when he drew that red line in Syria and then the Syrians crossed it, and he didn't do anything about it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Exactly.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's the same thing that we saw with. With, you know, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris when they were talking about Iran. They had one word. Don't.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And then the Iranians did whatever the hell they wanted to do. Trump says, here, this. Here's what. Here's what's gonna happen if you guys cross me. And they crossed him. And so now.

[John Ashbrook]

And Witkoff laid that out, which I think was really important because Trump pursued peace. He wanted a deal done with this. The gall, the unmitigated gall of these Iranian negotiators to show up and be like, we have arranged uranium enriched to 60%. We could easily take it to 90 for 11 nuclear missiles. You said that to the United States. Fuck you do.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, well, fuck you do.

[Jared Isaacman]

We're gonna find out.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what I mean?

[Jared Isaacman]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And it's like, I think it tells you, to Ashbrook's point, you know how brazen some of these bad actors in the world can get when you let them.

[Michael Duncan]

They know they can take exactly right.

[John Ashbrook]

Habitual line steppers is what we would call them.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, look, they're just not very well studied in Donald Trump. I mean, I could forgive them if their breadth of history is a 20 year long history where you've got eight years of Obama and four years of Joe Biden in it, where those red lines that were drawn were quickly crossed to no real deterrent whatsoever. I mean, if people forget, Donald Trump needed to go clean up the ISIS problem when he first got into office in his first term. And that all existed in large part because of this vacuum that was left by Obama saying one thing and then not following through on any of it. And then you get Joe Biden and we're still dealing with Ukraine as a result of pulling out of Afghanistan, leading all of our stuff there, and telling the rest of the world, Iran included, we're not serious about anything. You can't really count on us as global partners. Donald Trump shows back up again and he says, don't do that. They do it. Says it to Maduro, don't do that. Look what happened. You're snatched from the dead of night. The Ayatollah Khomeini's been there for 46 years, not any longer.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And then here's the other thing is the way that you see the media try to like, portray Trump as some kind of like a hothead. You see, time and again, he always gives these opportunities. He starts with like a slap on the wrist of like, please stop. Don't make me have to do it. Like he was shooting these drug boats and he was like, we'll do it. But he's like, I have a military that is going to follow through. Don't do it. And he kept doing it. And then he gets wrapped up.

[Josh Holmes]

I totally agree.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Then we wrap up Maduro, he gets put on a helicopter.

[Josh Holmes]

Trump tried telling him, I think if I just have one takeaway from all of this and we'll see. We don't know exactly where this is gonna go. But I think you gotta give, as you were suggesting, smug Trump, the benefit of the doubt in terms of the clarity of the mission that he wants to execute. But I guess when you hear the commentators, you hear the critic. I mean, you listen to Schumer and Jeffries, whatever that fucking nonsense is, because it's big boy time. This big boy stuff, this isn't grab your microphone, pontificate what's my State Department or my think tank lines. What is a provocative thought experiment for us all to engage in. This is a 40 year problem that has landed on Donald Trump's doorstep and he decided to do something about it. Is war good? No, war is not. He'll be the first to say it. Says it every single time. Wants to avoid it at all costs. Every once in a while. It is necessary. It is the price that you pay if you want America to be the leader of the free world. That is something that I would hope all of us outside of Rashida Tlaib agree is a good thing that America is the leader of the free world. You could not say that under Joe Biden.

[John Ashbrook]

Couldn't say it.

[Josh Holmes]

Not with a straight face. Nobody listened to it. Xi and Putin meeting right after the Olympics, hanging out. Putin deciding he's gonna go just take what he wants in Ukraine, Europe, basically ignoring him in NATO and like not doing anything. Oh, come help us out, come help us out.

[John Ashbrook]

Where are she and Putin now? Because Iran texts them and they're like, new phone, who's this?

[Josh Holmes]

Yep, a hundred percent.

[John Ashbrook]

So, like, you can trust Donald Trump, also trust your eyes of like, what he's done to remake the world order here. Because. Because everybody was like, whoa, well, rising China and Russia. No.

[Michael Duncan]

Nope.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's the thing, is the lesson that's become. This is all connected. You see how China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia basically had their own network that was operating where it was like, oh, we'll send our oil here, we'll get it refined here. We're able to avoid sanctions by selling our oil here. That's how we can stay in business.

[Josh Holmes]

They operated freely with the explicit intent of disrupting American influence in the world. And they did it to no consequence whatsoever. And so why would they just not keep doing that and thinking that America was never gonna do anything about it? I wanna leave you with this because I think the Iran thing, I don't know how this ultimately ends. I do take President Trump at his word. And it is incredible to me how they have dismantled that situation in such a short amount of Time. But you have to connect, keep connecting dots here, right. Donald Trump wants to normalize relationships with China at some point, at least from an economic standpoint. He does not want to get into a military arms race with Chinese, made that very, very clear. They made it very clear as it relates to Taiwan. But there's this nexus of financing that we've talked about with Ukraine and Russia. They counted on Venezuela, they counted on Iran, the other country that's a little closer to our doorstep, Cuba. Where do you think they get their oil? Iran and Venezuela. How do you think they're going to be powering those cities to the extent

[Saagar Enjeti]

that they still those cars from the 1960s.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So look, I'm not suggesting that there's going to be guns blazing in Cuba, but if there's ever a chance, if you look at the way that this foreign policy has worked up to the point, dude, if there is a Cuba

[Saagar Enjeti]

probably comes to the table seeing this.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what I'm saying. I think that there is a chance for a normalized relationship with Cuba for the first time in six generations of America, in large part because they don't have any fucking choices anymore. And that's what effective global policy looks like. Do you want somebody who's willing to entertain nuclear weapons From America's adversaries 90 miles off our coast? Of course not. We went through that in the 1960s. But there's still just been dabbling in this marketplace of nefarious act state actors forever. And that has always been sort of a problem. Well, you can see this thing kind of unwinding a little bit. So I don't know, we're gonna, we're gonna stay on it. When we come back, we're gonna dive into politics, straight politics. We put a map together. We did a whole bunch of interviews. Well, people in Texas took advantage of, of it last night. And we will give you our thoughts on the results of that and a whole lot more right after this.

[Michael Duncan]

They closed President Trump's accounts. Now the big banks want to destroy Trump's affordability agenda by putting tolls on your data.

[Josh Holmes]

I have no higher priority than making America affordable again. That's what we're going to do.

[John Ashbrook]

The banks that went after Trump now

[Michael Duncan]

want hidden fees on every transaction, making everything more expensive.

[Saagar Enjeti]

But President Trump can stop him.

[John Ashbrook]

Tell President Trump, keep big bank fees

[Michael Duncan]

out of the open banking rule.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so Tuesday was the opening round in primary Politics and Election 2026 all started in the great state of Texas. You recall we had Senator John Cornyn on The program we had the Attorney General Ken Paxton and we had Congressman Wesley Hunt on there in what was a three way showdown for the United States Senate. There was a lot of other races that were happening there too. One of the things that we flagged was the participation that was happening in Texas. And for the first time since 2002, more Democrats voted than Republicans in the primary. Now that could be in large part because there was a very competitive, much more competitive than Democrats wanted it to be primary for Senate on their end between Talarico and our girl Jazzy Jazz Crockett, which, which was a hard fought deal. But if you look at the way that this thing panned out. Let's put up the graphic on graphic one on the Republican results first. This I just have to tell you, if I work for Senator John Cornyn, I'm doing backflips today. This is a result that basically nobody in Texas or the national punditry outside of John Cornyn's campaign itself thought was possible. Ken Paxton has a rock solid base of support in Texas, has for many, many years. He had been leading anywhere from five to 10 points in this three way matchup. And for Cornyn to come on top of Paxton, I don't think anybody saw coming. I think everybody thought that he would make it to the runoff. Recall Texas law stipulates that if the candidates running in a primary do not get to that majority 50% plus one threshold that they have to go to a mano a mano runoff. That will happen in May. That's obviously happening here. Can we toss that back up one more time? Graphic 1 so Wesley Hunt came in, I think a disappointing 13.5%. There was some indication that he was tightening that thing up. And there were some folks who speculated about maybe he was getting a whole lot of runoff from people who had basically an anti incumbent fervor but weren't comfortable with Ken Pax and that didn't come to fruition. And we all know and love Wesley for tomorrow on the program a lot. Really good guy. That campaign did not come together in the way that they wanted it to and they took a lot of, you know, incoming fire. I mean, it's not like they just ran a bad campaign. I mean they, I think both Paxton and Cordon made a concerted effort to ensure that he wasn't growing in that. But the proof is in the pudding here. And you've got Cornyn with a lead going into what is a mano a mano runoff. Fellas, what do we think about this?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I think, you know, anytime, especially in a state like Texas, anytime you're a member of Congress who represents one particular geographic area and you're running against guys who have been statewide elected time and time again, you've got a, you've just got a name ID mountain you have to climb. And it's a difficult thing to do.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's it, folks. That's, I think the best analysis anyone could give you is an actual nuts and bolts right there.

[Michael Duncan]

And the other thing I'll say is, you know, the Corny campaign is out with a memo outlining why they think they're going to win this runoff race. And I thought it was very interesting because they pointed to the, their polling and they showed they or they demonstrated significant growth that Cornyn did against Paxton over the last couple of months. And they pointed to their money advantage as a key component of that growth. And as we all know working in politics, resources matter and Cornyn has a very well capitalized organization. There's one other thing that they put in that memo that caught my attention and I'd be interested in your take on this, Duncan, because runoff elections are traditionally low turnout things. Right, Right. You just, you just don't always get the turnout. They point to the 2012 runoff where Ted Cruz beat David Dewhurst, and they say that there was a turnout in that race that was so much higher than normal simply because it was a high profile national conversation. And they think that the runoff in 2026 could have been a similar scenario.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And I have no doubt they'll be making that argument to the President of the United States here over the coming days, you know, looking to try to save a lot of money and go to the president, be like, look, if you endorse me, look, I took first place in the primary. If you endorse me, gonna save a lot of resources for a well capitalized campaign. Talarico in the general election.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

But I'm sure that the Paxton folks are going to make a different argument there, that the composition of a runoff electorate is fundamentally different than a primary. Like you said, lower turnout affairs or what have you. And the, and the profile of a voter who shows up in that runoff, they like Ken Paxton.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. So Cornyn has to make the argument that he can change the fundamentals of that runoff electorate. Maybe he can he talk. He points to his endorsements of a lot of large organizations like, like Farm Bureau and things like that that can help drive GOTV to a runoff election. And maybe that does change the composition of the electorate. And that that gives them an advantage. But it's. I mean, I don't know. Time will tell.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I wanna pop up the Democratic results here too because it's not irrelevant to the conversation that you were just having there. Graphic too. So Tal Rico, Pastor Onlyfans, shows up and does win this thing by a less comfortable margin than Democrats wanted. Recall that Jasmine Crockett ran a campaign that was, well, invisible. Other than doing a few TikTok videos and showing up on cable news, Nobody even in D.C. knew that she had a campaign manager or who that person ultimately was. You put that up against what was a highly coordinated establishment choice of James Talladrico. Putting him on all of the late night shows, putting him on the View, making sure that they marshaled all the resources to let everybody know that this was their guy that they wanted. I don't know that I would take a lot of heart in the fact that he squeaked one out here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, that's the thing is. So I'm of the opinion that because he is Tal RICO is a D.C. campaign that's all run out of Schumer's office. And I think this is a grave miscalculation. I think they have something in Talrico. They think that they've got some like, normal guy, Joe Six Pack, who every Texan can relate to. Nope. But believe me, all the elbow is

[Jared Isaacman]

going to come out.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I'm not going to put it out because Schumer's going to sue me if I do. Point blank. Point blank. I'm dying to. Some of it's getting out online. Just do searches on Talrico. There's a lot of jokes about stuff that he was saying last night about coming out on top. There's a lot of jokes on there. Do that search on Twitter. You'll find a lot of it. But I will say this is. He has. Tal Rico has. And we're going to see him in a second. There are so many negatives to this guy that when Texans see this, they will hate him.

[John Ashbrook]

I think the two biggest losers outside of Chuck Schumer with this Dem primary, Kamala Harris, who endorsed Jasmine Crockett. I don't know why.

[Jared Isaacman]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, but like she was trying to flex her muscles and stay relevant.

[Josh Holmes]

Of which she just proved she has.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. On the national scene and prove she does not. I think the other biggest loser is us.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because we. No more jazzy jazz.

[John Ashbrook]

No more jazzy jazz. So we got to enjoy the last bit of. Of Jasmine Crockett content that we get,

[Saagar Enjeti]

there's gonna be lots more. She's gonna be a contributor. They're gonna put her on like CNN or Ms. Now or whatever, that you

[Josh Holmes]

can't let that talent go to waste.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's the thing. She's gonna get what she actually wanted.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think that's probably right. But look, there is politics change. Seasons change, the discussion changes. There's one constant in American politics. It's the necessity of watching what is now Ms. Now on Democratic primary nights. I had to watch it last night because there's one thing we're going to get into with Jazzy about how she. Let's just play the clip.

[Michael Duncan]

Clip three.

[Jared Isaacman]

So, so that's my news, is that we're not going to have election results tonight, in my opinion, running that playbook on what specifically is taking place in Dallas County. Unfortunately, this is what Republicans like to do. And so they specifically targeted Dallas county, and I think we all know why. So I want you to enjoy yourselves. But I won't be back tonight because I have no idea of when we're going to get results, and I fully anticipate it won't be until tomorrow.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so what she's talking about was the only thing that Ms. Now is talking about last night, which is Dallas county, surprise, surprise, in an urban area, decided what they were going to do was try to get people to vote after the 7pm deadline. It's state statute. Polls open at 7am they close at 7pm but the old tried and true playbook of the Democratic Party is that you try to just line up a whole bunch of people whether they can ultimately cast a ballot or not. You try to get everybody in line after 7pm and then cry disenfranchisement. Right. And so there were some legal rulings that were happening where you had a local judge that was like, oh, yeah, maybe they can count them, but if they count them separately, and we'll wait for, you know, the authority of the Supreme Court as to whether these can be counted, probably the right decision, because you're not going to make the decision yourself when you know this is ultimately going to be a Supreme Court situation, state Supreme Court situation. Right away, Supreme Court is like, no, I mean, the law is on the books. Like, this is if you show up after 7, your vote's not going to count. So, of course, disenfranchisement. Disenfranchisement. I'm watching Ms. And how last night, and it is unreal, Chris Hayes is losing his mind about, as a principal Democrat, that your view Ought to be that all votes count, no matter what. I mean, he's doing the playbook of, like, the Obama administration. We now know if all votes are counted, like, it's not a good thing for Democrats. But in Dallas County, I assume it is. And the campaigns don't know how to respond. Like, Crockett's obviously, like, well, I would win if all of these things, which is nonsense. Tal Rico doesn't know how to deal with it. He's like, hey, we just did the racism in our primary. I don't want to get too far out there. And that's the thing.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He never had to be combative because the Schumer playbook for him was, he's my chosen candidate. We're gonna make sure that he gets TV bookings. We'll get him on Colbert so he can fundraise $2 million saying that big bad Republicans. Trump wants me to be censored. Trump won't let me speak, which is an absolute lie. But they got the two mil off of it, the money that he needed to get him over the top.

[Josh Holmes]

Here's the funniest part about this. So Simone Sanders, who, you know, you don't have to agree with her politics, but she's smart and she's been in this line of work for a long time, comes on the panel after they're talking about these evil Republicans doing all this to say, well, it's in statute, like what should happen here. But also, this is just a Democrat thing. So they're talking about how Ken Paxton and the Republicans had done this and his name's on the ballot. So there's something nefarious happening there. Well, it doesn't apply because it's a primary and it doesn't affect the. We're exclusively talking about the Democratic thing. There was no challenge on the Republican primary ballot, which is not a state operated thing. It's operated within the context of the political parties. So the technically, like when you're saying the Republicans are doing it, it's not the Republicans doing it, it's the Democrats just not following state law. They did not wanna hear it. They just could not hear. And she's in that uncomfortable position of being the most progressive leftist on the entire panel, being like, yeah, but the laws are the law.

[John Ashbrook]

Not to mention also a black woman.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I know.

[John Ashbrook]

They're like, shut up and be quiet.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you shut up.

[John Ashbrook]

We were making a point. Trying to blame the Republicans. Don't give us facts.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

And so, like Wallace and Maddow are trying to do Their like, you know, routine. And then what becomes very clear to me, Michael Steele, the former RNC chairman who has turned into a lunatic. I've come to the conclusion that he is the single dumbest human being that has ever been hired by a publication, news organization, cable, broadcast, or anything in the history of American politics. This is. He then hears all of this and blames Ken Paxton for the result. And the analysis honestly would make your ears bleed. I cannot believe that there's any executive over at Ms. Now who could not, who could sit and listen to what I listen to. I don't care what your partisan stripes are and not be like, what are we doing? Why, why is this guy on here

[Saagar Enjeti]

outside the people on set? New I don't know how many people are listening to Ms. Now, if we're being honest. They're like, audience numbers are now just so bad. That's why they got spun out. And NBC was like, even we want nothing to do.

[Josh Holmes]

I assume it's on election night. It's people like me who are doing

[Saagar Enjeti]

it for the cry for me, please.

[Josh Holmes]

It's absolutely fantastic stuff. So anyway, that's what happened. Crockett goes down. Tal Rico, we got to reintroduce to you a little bit. The pastor onlyfans clip 5 please.

[John Ashbrook]

God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non binary.

[Josh Holmes]

That's why we call him the Holy Father, right? Is that right?

[Saagar Enjeti]

It won't be enough to beat him in the election. He should be jailed.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's go. Clip 8 Just in case you're not done with that.

[Jared Isaacman]

But I say all this in terms

[John Ashbrook]

of, in context of abortion, because before

[Jared Isaacman]

God

[John Ashbrook]

comes over Mary and, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary's

[Jared Isaacman]

consent, which is remarkable.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, go back and read this in, in, in Luke, I mean, the, the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do. And she says, if it is God's

[Jared Isaacman]

will, let it be done.

[John Ashbrook]

Let it be. Let it happen. So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories

[Jared Isaacman]

that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create.

[John Ashbrook]

Creation is one of the most sacred

[Jared Isaacman]

acts

[John Ashbrook]

that we engage in as human beings. But that has to be done with consent.

[Jared Isaacman]

It has to be done with freedom.

[John Ashbrook]

And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus.

[Jared Isaacman]

And so that's how I come down

[John Ashbrook]

on that side of the issue.

[Michael Duncan]

Because clearly, you know, 2,000 years ago, the first thing on God's mind was, how do I Thread the needle for a Dem primary talking point in Texas,

[John Ashbrook]

I think you out of here. The religious case for abortion, using Mary's annunciation as a case for abortion feels like heresy. Like he should be excommunicated.

[Josh Holmes]

It doesn't feel like it. It pretty much is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It is.

[Michael Duncan]

It is.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's so shockingly offensive. Yeah, it is. Just.

[Josh Holmes]

But that's just the tip of the iceberg with this guy, I think. You know, look, I think Smug's right, that we're gonna get into a whole bunch more if you weren't offended by that. Boy, oh, boy, Just wait. There's more. You gotta go to our map for all these primaries, and there's a lot more coming up here over the next month. You go to ruthlesspodcast.com map and we give you the interviews for everybody that you're gonna need to cast about. Hats off to Watley, by the way, the guest on the program. His interview was up there. He won his primary, or lack thereof, really, in North Carolina, but he's now the general election candidate against Roy Cooper in what will be a highly watched North Carolina Senate race. Moving on from all of that, we have to get into a game, fellas. I believe I'm a judge, so we're going to get to it right after this, okay? It's Thursday, and you know what that means. It's our signature game here on the Ruthless Friday program. King of the Hill. Who do we have going today?

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I'm the defending champion with Bill Crystal.

[Josh Holmes]

He's got some good stuff.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, that's the thing. So I have the challenger, Sarah Longwell, But, I mean, as you know, Ashbrooke intimated earlier, we have had so many folks tagging us in tweets, especially Bill Kristol's tweets. I honestly feel like whoever's elected Ayatollah in Iran these days, where you're just waiting for the bomb to be dropped on your head. So, like, I'm going to try to play.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm going to be the judge of that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Dude, Crystals, artillery, everybody. Believe me, I'm trying. I'm trying.

[Josh Holmes]

Candidly, I'm going to be the judge of all that. I'd ask the champion to begin, but we have to go ringside first.

[Michael Duncan]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. It's time for King of the Hip. In the red corner, fighting from a different page of Pierre Omadeir's checkbook, our challenger, Sarah Long. Not well. And now in the blue corner, fighting from who knows where today, and current champion of the world, Bill War now, war forever.

[John Ashbrook]

Could Crystal.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I love it. All right. So Crystal, what do we got here?

[John Ashbrook]

I have so much.

[Josh Holmes]

I can only imagine. This has got to be a particularly tempestuous time to be Bill Crystal.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, the hardest part is choosing. Okay, I want to start with the Rubio one, exhibit seven, please. Bill Crystal writes Rubio's idiotic justification for the, quote, imminent threat. Israel was going to act and we couldn't do anything about it and we allegedly were going to be hit by Iran in response is going over like a lead balloon.

[Josh Holmes]

Who is he talking to?

[John Ashbrook]

The administration could have problems in Congress later this week. So, like, it's a couple of things. Obviously it's entirely divorced from war now, war forever Crystals. His like body of lifelong of his entire career, which is an incredible heel turn. But then I also love. He's now a congressional expert on what's going to happen, which is a lead balloon. I would also point and I'm not going to show it up on the graphic because I want to honor the game and there's been a lot of chicanery and oh, recently and you know, consternation about videos and things of that nature. But I would note that back on January 8th, Bill Kristol put up a tweet about how the Trump administration should be helping the brave people of Iran overthrew, overthrow a cruel and tarot sponsoring dictatorship.

[Josh Holmes]

The court will accept that. The court will accept that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, like, dude, Crystal for years has been like, please. But for maybe 20 years, the court's been like, please bomb my rank.

[Michael Duncan]

Your honor, counsel failed to mention. But Bill Kristol also urged Marco Rubio to run for president about 10 years ago.

[Josh Holmes]

He sure did. He sure did.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay, challenger exhibit 19, please. This is Sarah Longwell who's just mad that she's not as successful as Scott Jennings. Oh, boy. Just saying. Ah, so when Scott Jennings told all of us this weekend that Iran was planning preemptive strikes against the US he was laundering a lie for the administration. Boy, if you can't trust Scott Jennings, who can you trust? Oh my God. I mean, she's trying.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Bill Scott, Crystal during Iran getting bombed.

[Michael Duncan]

Weak,

[Saagar Enjeti]

dude.

[Josh Holmes]

I do, I do want to think about this for a second because objectively speaking, what Crystal's heel turn here is more offensive. But the idea that you take the gravity of what we're doing in Iran and then try to attack a commentator on CNN is remarkably. It just doesn't hold the gravity of the heel turn and what you've known. I just, I have to give it to Crystal.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Round one.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is like Jordan showed up to the game with a fever and you're like, oh, my God, of course he's going to go crazy. I'm just trying, folks. I'm trying. Exhibit 17, please, for round two. This is Sarah Longwell. Anyone heard from our Vice poster lately? It took him about 30 seconds to call Renee Good. A domestic terrorist. Weirdest Thumbs are taking a break right now. Now, there were photos of him in the Situation Room that were put out while the strikes were beginning. He went on like Jesse show like, lady, turn on your tv. He's probably live.

[Josh Holmes]

That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay. We've mentioned the heel turn of Bill Kristol on war. Ladies and gentlemen, he's done it yet again. Exhibit number 11, please. The people of Iran deserve to be free.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[John Ashbrook]

But it's increasingly clear the Trump administration doesn't care about that. But as they back away from regime change and since there is no real threat, what plausible or defensible case for the war remains? Now he's mad at Trump because he's not doing anything.

[Jared Isaacman]

Regime change.

[John Ashbrook]

Regime change.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, this is incredible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I didn't see this video. Hold on.

[Josh Holmes]

Can you put that back up there?

[John Ashbrook]

It's straight up schizophrenic and he's got

[Josh Holmes]

some clip that he's hitting up there.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is the most Crystal thing possible.

[Josh Holmes]

It's that they're not doing enough of the regime change. He's not clear about the commitment. It's all a mistake.

[John Ashbrook]

He's hitting him from all sides.

[Josh Holmes]

It's all a mistake. But if it isn't a mistake, it should be regime change. That's fucking bonkers. He wins. Two round knockout.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's go, let's go.

[Josh Holmes]

That's done.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That was amazing. I didn't even see that one. You gotta think what a Crystal team,

[Josh Holmes]

when we start started this game four years ago. If you were to say, in 2026, there's going to be a week where America is at war with Iran, who is going to be your play? You would have chosen Bill Crystal. Yeah, that would have been.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, he was. His whole life has led up to this moment.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And now he's not even a part of it.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. All right, so we got to get to our interview. This is the NASA administrator, a whale of an interesting guy, Jared Isaacman. One of the things that we like to do on Ruthless is provide some perspective on things that are fun.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Things that are interesting. And outside the box of the typical political thing, one way or another. And I can't imagine there is a guest that we could find that would be more well equipped to start discussing things that allow the mind to wander a touch than Jared Isaacman. He is our NASA administrator and a whale of a guy. How are you, sir?

[Jared Isaacman]

I'm well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, this is so great. All right, so this guy's into space.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. When I told my friends that we were going to have you on the show, there were a million text messages of like, first off, that's amazing because, I mean, you yourself have been to space. You've done a spacewalk, you fly fighter jets. I love people in command who have actually had experience in that field. And it makes all of us so optimistic about not just the future of NASA, but the future of America. So frequently you hear the whole thing of America's so back. This really feels like it. First, thank you for being here. What is NASA going to be up to? You guys are going back to the moon?

[Jared Isaacman]

Yeah. Well, we have a lot of exciting objectives on the horizon. Thanks to President Trump. I've got all the ingredients I need to get the job done. Literally, the day I was sworn into the job, I'm in the Oval Office as the president signs a national space policy. And that's so important, right? Because it becomes like a whole government alignment around what needs to be done. What does he say to do? He says return to the moon, which he started, really made the first positive steps after pointing this out, 35 years of President saying, because it's great to say, to have a big press conference, we're gonna return to the moon. No one took really meaningful steps in that direction until President Trump did in his first term, created the Artemis Program. Then again, day I get sworn into office, signs a space policy, says, not only am I committing us back to the moon, I want us to go back to stay, build a moon base. We're not just doing the flag in the footsteps anymore. We want to stay, realize the scientific, economic, national security benefit. And I want you to do other things in parallel so we can go beyond the moon. Let's get to Mars, plant the Stars and Stripes. So he says, invest in nuclear power and propulsion. I mean, really, the next generation stuff that's been funded to go nowhere for decades, Decades. Now we're going to actually get America underway in nuclear power and propulsion, build the orbital economy, transition to commercial space stations, launch more emissions of science and discovery. I mean, I got the Mandate. I got the funds from President Trump's one big beautiful bill. I mean, most significant plus up for exploration dollars in modern history. I mean, since really the Kennedy era of space exploration.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Jared Isaacman]

So we got all the ingredients. Now we just got to execute.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, one of those ingredients, of course, personnel. And President Trump picked the perfect guy to lead NASA at this time. I wonder if you could just give our audience a little bit about your background, because what we know is incredible, and I think they should know it, too.

[Jared Isaacman]

Yeah, well, I mean, I am certainly grateful for the opportunity. I have lived the American dream, so to, you know, I can. I believe I have a debt to this nation that I need to repay. I mean, my story began at 16 when I. I dropped out of school. I'm very sure there's no other NASA administrator who can claim they left high school early. So I didn't, you know, I didn't start off on the right track on this one, but I was able to build a company in. In fintech. It's pretty big company, public company today, you know, thousands of people and, you know, processing payments on six different continents. I mean, I think maybe a little bit more relevant to my job today. I started defense company in 2011. We actually assembled the world's largest private air force, over 100 fighter jets. So I had to travel around the world and convince countries to sell me their excess military hardware, which. Those are interesting conversations. I definitely visited some countries where I was like, not going back.

[Josh Holmes]

Stick that jet.

[Michael Duncan]

Lights up.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Because we'd like to get out of here fast.

[Jared Isaacman]

I mean, because our job is to be professional bad guys again, to use these fighter jets to basically be, you know, fighter jets as a service. If I had called it that, I would have gotten a higher valuation when I sold it to Blackstone. But basically turnkey fighter jets as a service, we were replicating Russian, Chinese, Iranian threats. But that meant when you had to procure these fighters, you're not buying American stuff because we can train against our own stuff all day long. You want to train against something dissimilar, something you haven't seen before? Yeah, we had to go to some pretty interesting countries along the way. Over 100 fighter jets.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you ever just sort of like. Like find yourself in one of those rooms and you look around, you're like, what the hell have I gotten myself into?

[Jared Isaacman]

Oh, I mean, I thought we were really close to them. Like, hold up the newspaper for the picture moment. I mean, there was some signs like, X number of kilometers away from. And you're like, Nope, not doing that seriously. But I mean you certainly learned an awful lot about how governments do business. Their motivation very different than how you know what motivates them and their incentives very different than traditional commercial type transactions. And then also an opportunity to learn how the government works, which, you know, it's very different. I can't say that a lot of my experiences in government contracting had a lot of carryover to the, to the commercial world, but maybe help prepare me a little bit for this job. And the other thing is I've been very involved in kind of early commercials, space exploration for a while. To your point, I led SpaceX's first, first really first all civilian mission to orbit called Inspiration4 in 2021, then went back to space in 2024 where went farther into space. Anyone's gone since Apollo, which thankfully we're about to break that record. With Artemis 2 coming up, we tested a new spacesuit, first one built in 40 years. Did some optical communication, bunch of science and research. So I have a background that you know, the President, you know, thought could be helpful to NASA as we especially now when we have not faced a real competitor since the 1960s. And I'll tell you then we had lots of schedule margin. I mean we got to the moon and no one's been back since. Now we are months, I mean literally we have months of margin against our rival and the Chinese are capable of doing this. So it's time that we really get an action.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So have you ever seen or heard about this show for all mankind?

[Jared Isaacman]

Of course.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So for our folks in the audience who haven't heard about it, it's kind of like an alternate universe where the Russians beat America to the moon. But the unexpected thing is it's like the space race never ended and America remained motivated to innovate and keep going bigger and bolder and establishing all these new technologies. Because so much of the technology we have, like GPS and stuff like that is based off of America being the bold country that pushes the envelope that goes up into space, that tries to learn more and do more. How do you think you are going to be able to harness in real life, not in alternate reality, that kind of spirit of discovery and innovation that powered this country for so long.

[Jared Isaacman]

Tell you, when I met with the President several times on what do we need to do at NASA, it really came down to three priorities. American leadership in the ultimate high ground of space. Return to the moon, build the moon base, prepare for the next giant leap to Mars. Number two, ignite the orbital economy for 60 years now, the space economy comes down to launch, observation and communications. That has not changed. And that's kind of concerning because when we talk about space economy, it's really more like a terrestrial economy. It's lots of people with lots of private capital, which is good, especially from some of the wealthiest people in the world making investments in space. But we actually haven't found anything that takes advantage of the unique environment of microgravity or lunar regolith or other elements where we can get more value out than we put in space tourism. And that's a problem even, even, even space tourism, to be very honest. I mean over like a, you know, 30 some odd year history, you know, you can measure it, you can count the number of like space tours into on two hands. So we actually need to crack the code in for all mankind. It was helium 3 on the moon, which we, you know, we don't have a lot of it here on Earth, but we do have some of it. There's certainly more of it on the moon, whatever it is. Almost all good sci fi shows are based on some sort of space dust or something else out there spice, where you can unlock lots of value. And that way the future we all want to see in space isn't perpetually dependent on taxpayers. We're never going to have lots of space stations and orbital outposts everywhere if it's always the taxpayers funding the bill. So to your point, the show is great because it shows a true space orbital economy and we need to ignite one here on Earth.

[Josh Holmes]

So tell me a little bit about the news here. I mean, you've touched on it. We're going to the moon. We're going to the moon soon. And this isn't a one off experience. We are trying to do things that we've never done before. Permanent presence, maybe not permanent, but presence that can be built upon. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Jared Isaacman]

Sure. So the President's given us the direction, which is, which is absolutely fantastic. The hard part now is execution and, and there's a little bit of a Houston, we have a problem here type moment.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Jared Isaacman]

Presidents for 35 years have said we should go back to the moon. Taxpayers have put almost $100 billion into it. Why hasn't it happened yet? Why do we have Artemis 1, which is the first true moon rocket, if you will, capable of sending astronauts back towards the moon, which was an uncrewed mission launching in late 2022. And here we are out to the pad three and a half years later and we still are realizing Some of the same problems from Artemis I1, we're launching our moon rockets every three and a half years. Is that a pathway to success? And then on top of the cadence. So when Artemis 2 does launch, which is approaching, and it will be the most historic human spaceflight mission in more than a half century, going around the moon, the Next one up, Artemis 3, three years later, just before the end of President Trump's term, we're supposed to land. So we're launching every three years and we're creating these massive capability leaps between mission. Does that sound anything like Apollo? I mean, we had Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. We didn't just go right to Apollo 11.

[Josh Holmes]

It was incremental.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Absolutely.

[Jared Isaacman]

It was an evolutionary approach. We're going to launch, we're going to learn, we're going to use that to inform the subsequent mission. Kind of forgot that a little bit. Why? Did we lose our history books? No, we had all these stakeholders telling NASA how to do things, and we wound up spreading ourselves in on so many different side quests. Right. All as you know, some of them are good, but this kind of detracts a little bit from the mission, the reason the agency was created in the first place. Right. I mean, industry telling us what to do, Congress telling us what to do. This has been going on for decades. Instead of doing what we are supposed to do, now we're fixing that. Right. And how did we get that alignment last week? Because what did we say last week? We said we're done with launching moon rockets every three years. We're going to launch at least every year. We're going to standardize configuration. We're not going to make our rocket a work of art every time we fly. Let's get to standardization, something that works. And we're going to create new missions so we can build on our success until we ultimately get to the moon before the end of President Trump's term. And we had like, universal support, Congress, industry. Why? Because I think people woke up and realized, you know what? I think the last X number of decades of trying to tell NASA what to do instead of letting the rocket scientists tell us what to do isn't working. And now we're months away from the Chinese potentially beating us. We got to do something different. And now we got the support to, to do it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's something I really want to touch on, is China, it feels like for the past decade, has really put the, like, pedal to the metal on space exploration and gotten very serious about that. What are their capabilities? How close are they to us? And how much of a threat are they to us with that?

[Jared Isaacman]

They're a major, major threat. For a long time we kind of fooled ourselves by referring to our great rival as a near peer. Just call it what it is. They're a peer. I mean, when it, when it comes to space, sure. They don't have the reusable technology that, you know that, that SpaceX and now Blue Origin have given us where you can launch a rocket and recover so you don't have to throw it away every time. There's still like a strong number two in terms of number of orbital launches every single year, and that's based on throwing away the rocket. I mean, they're on the cusp of reusability, in which case they will have the potential to match us in that. They just demonstrated their long March 10, which is their moon rocket, their in flight abort capability a couple weeks ago. They've shown off their lander, they've shown off their suits. I mean, like I said, they're open source public information. The United States is committed to returning astronauts to the moon before the end of President Trump's term. It's obviously end of 2028. The Chinese have said before 2030. No matter how you slice it, you're measuring it on months. That's not a good position to be in. I mean, we have NASA as the peaceful exploration of science and discovery. We have space force that looks out for our defense. It's kind of watching out for us in the ultimate high ground of space. They don't draw the distinction. It's all one channel for them. So they're looking at everything through breakthroughs in exploration, discovery for national security and the militarization of space. And that's problematic.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, what I love about President Trump's vision and Jared, what you are carrying out is my entire lifetime has been defined by like what I would call photo op space, where we did the important stuff, right, 1969, throughout the 70s. And then we got to a point where we're just kind of like putting the shoes back on and showing we can send stuff in space for a while. You retire the shuttle program, it's largely dormant until you get SpaceX and all these other new, very cool, no question about it, it. But again, it's the photo op that we're looking at. And I know there's a lot of important stuff when it comes to defense and whatever, but what you're talking about, what President Trump is talking about, is a change in terms of how we see space and whether or not we can build and whether or not we can build upon previous generations moves here. And I think it is a way to get a new generation into what it is that you're talking about on a day to day basis because it largely escaped mine, to be honest. It was like all we did is sit around and wait for a disaster that we all lament. And that's not what space was about from the very beginning. It's that new frontier component that I think you have largely, we've listened to you talk about it. You've largely captured this sort of new identity of where we go from here.

[Jared Isaacman]

Well, I think President Trump realizes that we have a great competitor, not just in the ultimate high ground of space, which is the high ground has mattered since like the beginning of human time here, but across all of the most important technological domains. And the President does not like to lose. And he's actually getting us underway, working towards winning. Now I think what some of the prior administrations failed to realize is there is a great competition underway. So we, so what happened? And I think you see this a lot in Dow as well. Like when you don't have a competitor, you can lose some of the basics. It certainly isn't help when industry completely consolidates and it's like they're developing programs to serve itself as opposed to the war fighters. That's why I love Secretary Hegseth, all the President Trump's appointees in the Department of War that are challenging the status quo, getting back to basics and delivering. We got to do the same thing at NASA. Because if you admire what SpaceX is of, capable, capable of doing, you see how much progress they've made in five years. That's China. It's the same thing when people are like, oh, two years ago they didn't know how to do this or that. That's like saying SpaceX, you know, two years ago didn't know how to do something. Everything changes, right? I mean this is a country that 25 years ago, you know, still had coal fired locomotives and now they have 25,000 miles of high speed rail. I mean like you can't snooze on these. So I think the President appreciates there is a competition right now across all the most important domains, especially in space. And this is not going to be an administration that's willing to accept second place.

[Michael Duncan]

I want to ask you if you've grown up reading about space and reading about the moon and dreaming about the possibilities, you've been told that the moon itself could be a wealth of Natural resources beyond our wildest imagination. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what's possible to collect from the Moon.

[Jared Isaacman]

Well, I would say first, getting back to the Moon is a stepping stone for a lot more broader exploration and discovery as well. So even if the Moon doesn't, you know, isn't what ultimately ignites, you know, a lunar orbital economy, it's going to help us learn for other applications, whether it's things like mining asteroids where that is, there is no question we are going to get a lot of value out of. Out of asteroids or what is probably just imperative to, you know, ultimately achieving a national or a humankind becoming a spacefaring civilization, not to mention the national prestige of, for the first time, sending astronauts to another planet.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Jared Isaacman]

You're going to use the Moon as the proving ground to do it. Now, what could be on the moon? Helium 3, for sure. We know there's more of it on the Moon than than there is here on Earth. Still going to be a process to mine it and refine it, but it has applications for quantum computing, might be a source from more efficient fusion reaction. But we do have it here on Earth, and we can make it so it's not totally dependent on lunar applications, but we got to have some sort of a technical proving ground outside of what is essentially the protection of low Earth orbit, where our space station is. Being in space is hard. Anytime you're putting enough energy to send something to orbital velocity, that's a big deal. You have no atmosphere. You know, in the vacuum of space, you've got micrometeories, you got radiation. But. But if you were going to ever put people in space, safest place to do it is in low Earth orbit. It's going to get a lot harder when you're on the Moon, and certainly a lot harder when you go on Mars. So, yes, I hope there is. I hope there's value we can extract out of the lunar regolith. If not, it'll certainly be a great proving ground for where we go next.

[Saagar Enjeti]

My last question. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask for my friend Mike Solana. Is there any reason why we can't make the moon the 51st state the

[Jared Isaacman]

outer Space Treaty, for sure.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we do have logs now.

[Jared Isaacman]

We are going to have a moon base. There's no doubt about it. And there are parts of the Moon that are of great interest to us. Where you've got ice, where if you get up on the ridges, you also have not continuous, but almost near continuous access to the sun, which is great. So tap into the fusion reactor and have ice for experimentation. That's not a big portion of the moon, it's a small portion. That's where we're going to build our moon base.

[Josh Holmes]

Isaac, man, where are we at on aliens? Are you an alien guy? Are you just like, well, show me an alien and then I'm an alien guy?

[Jared Isaacman]

You know, I'll tell you as the, you know, the administrator of NASA, where people, most people be like, this guy's gotta know.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right?

[Jared Isaacman]

And having been to space twice, when the President put out his truth on this, that said, you know, declassify it all, I'm like, I gotta get this briefing. I've said it before. Before, I was like, there is things at NASA that I've seen that I can't explain, but they're usually like, programs that are over budget, behind schedule, and not

[Josh Holmes]

a little green guy. All right, well, listen, if you encounter one in any of these missions, come on back.

[Jared Isaacman]

My kids will be the first to know. You'll be the second. I made that promise years ago, so I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, thank you so much for joining us.

[Jared Isaacman]

Thanks us for joining. Appreciate it. It's great to be here.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, this is exactly the guy that you want in charge of NASA. Obviously, he's super successful in business and he's bringing some of that common sense mindset to the government. But clearly a dude who's spent a lot of time thinking about space and what's possible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, he's been to space, he's done a spacewalk in his free time, he flies fighter jets.

[Josh Holmes]

I know, it's just, it's wild. And he's young and he's outside of the box, and he thinks about this stuff in both an effectual, like, how can you do it? Type way, but also, like, what's possible. I love that.

[John Ashbrook]

And it's the thing I love about the Trump administration writ large is it seems like every person they bring in at a high level, somebody with personal, real life experience in the thing.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, we're not talking about career bureaucrats who were in the bowels of some nameless, faceless administration has TPS reports around. Yeah. Like, these are real pros. That's what I love about it.

[Michael Duncan]

It.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. He's going to be somebody to follow here because I think we're doing some pretty exciting stuff, as he mentioned here on the program. So space is coming back. We're going to be a space country again. How about that. Listen, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we always ask you a question of the day. Our question of the day is what is Jazzy Crockett going to do? What's she going to do? She's out of Congress. She didn't win it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She's wondering the same thing.

[John Ashbrook]

They make your comments funny for Funtime Friday.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. That's our question today is what is Jazzy Jazz gonna do now? Make it funny because it's Funtime Friday. When you like and subscribe. We read all of them. Get back to the very next episode. Like subscribe. Check out some merch. This is, you know, a lot going on these days with that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Fellas.

[Josh Holmes]

I think we did it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.

[Josh Holmes]

And you.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Thank you to the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Friday. Stay ruthless, Sa.