Massive California Fraud Exposed + Chevron CEO Mike Wirth

Summary

Ruthless Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Massive California Fraud Exposed + Chevron CEO Mike Wirth
Date: March 12, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Main Guests: Mike Wirth (Chevron CEO), Brent Gardner (AFP)

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Overview

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast takes aim at recent revelations of massive hospice fraud in California—a microcosm, the hosts argue, of widespread governmental mismanagement and corruption particularly under Democratic leadership. The panel dissects the media’s coverage (or lack thereof), federal and local government accountability, the politicization of national security (notably Homeland Security), and ongoing gerrymandering battles in Virginia—with pointed criticism leveled at Barack Obama’s post-presidency activities. Special interviews include Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, who illuminates the role and challenges of American energy in times of global crisis, and Brent Gardner from AFP, discussing the continued shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

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Key Segments and Discussion Points

1. California Hospice Fraud – Systemic Failure, Media Apathy, and Political Accountability

Timestamp: 00:00–24:42 & 52:08–53:11

• Scale and Audacity of Fraud:

  • California is “ground zero” for hospice fraud, with “hundreds of millions” of taxpayer dollars stolen via fake hospice companies (12:38–14:09).
  • Over 700 of LA’s ~1800 hospices trigger fraud red flags; “89 hospice companies in one building” (13:18–14:09).
  • Exploitation includes registering healthy people as terminally ill, billing Medicare for their “care,” and over-billing for nonexistent patients (12:22–14:25).

• Government & Media Negligence:

  • The state auditor “sounded the alarm three years ago” about a 1,500% increase in hospice companies, but “they did fucking nothing” (14:50–15:07).
  • Fraud persists because “the media wasn’t talking about it...until Nick Shirley did the thing” (15:09).
  • Hosts praise recent CBS coverage as a rare example of “real journalism” and slam mainstream outlets for generally avoiding stories that damage Democrats (11:51–22:22).

• Implications & Reactions:

  • The fraud is positioned as a symptom of a wider cultural and political problem—“$36 trillion in debt” goes ignored due to American’s “inability to focus,” exploited by the Obama and Biden years (16:32–17:58).
  • The hosts repeatedly demand “accountability,” vent frustration over the lack of outrage, and draw comparisons to fraudulent coffee shops (“If half the coffee shops are fraudulent, it’s a scandal... But it’s hospices, and your money’s being stolen from you”) (24:10–24:42).

• Notable Quotes:

  • Smug: “89 hospice care centers in one building... Not even a skyscraper would you have enough space for 89 hospice centers. And it’s just mind-blowing” (14:09).
  • Josh Holmes: “If you have one fucking mayor who’s left of center, this is what you’ve got” (18:24).
  • Duncan: “You would have to actively and willfully ignore the fraud” (15:57).

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2. Partisan Gridlock & DHS Shutdown: Security in Jeopardy

Timestamp: 03:43–10:53, 52:53–54:08, 93:34–105:06

• Homeland Security as a Political Football:

  • Panel lambasts Democrats for keeping DHS “shut down for 27 days” during global conflict—calling it “The dumbest fucking time in American history” (05:37).
  • Criticism broadens into accusations that some Democrats value “Anti-America” positions and refuse to “support not just the president, but the troops overseas” (03:43–04:08, 07:22).
  • The hosts highlight the contemporary “war against Iran” and apparent lack of national unity compared to post-9/11 (04:08–07:02).

• Guest Interview: Brent Gardner (AFP) on DHS Shutdown

  • Raises fears of heightened risk due to missing security staff (94:14), claims the Democrats are “holding America hostage” for political reasons (95:57).
  • Emphasizes AFP’s efforts to pressure centrist Democrats and activate grassroots engagement (97:23–99:22).

• Notable Quotes:

  • Ashbrook: “We’re all old enough to remember why the Department of Homeland Security was open...yet here we are, Democrats continuing to shut it down” (93:42).
  • Duncan: “The challenge that they face today is that they think the answer is shutting down the American government.” (95:57).

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3. Media Accountability, Spin, and Journalistic Decline

Timestamp: 11:51–24:42, 43:13–51:04

• Positive Press Shout-Outs:

  • Rare praise for CBS for exposing hospice fraud (“something that hasn’t been done at CBS since the days of Andy Rooney and Mike Wallace...”) (11:51).

• Ongoing Critique of Media Malfeasance:

  • Hosts ridicule CNN’s spin on NY terror attack coverage (“Two Republicans say Muslims don’t belong here… and Mike Johnson says nothing to condemn those comments”—played as real-life satire) (45:22–46:42).
  • Accuse media of enabling national decline: “[CNN is] building a Golden Gate Bridge to national destruction and they don’t get so much as a detention” (47:52).

• Notable Quotes:

  • Smug: “You can't do that from your apartment in Brooklyn, which is essentially what every journo thinks their job is—ordering Doordash, sitting with their cat…” (22:02).
  • Ashbrook: “There’s no recourse. There’s no accountability for that.” (47:52).

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4. Virginia Redistricting Battle – Gerrymandering, Political Cynicism, and Obama’s Involvement

Timestamp: 27:18–43:13

• Democratic Gerrymandering Tactics:

  • Outrage at Virginia’s proposed “temporary” constitutional amendment for redistricting: “turn it into a 10:1 Democratic majority” (29:05).
  • Ballot question accused of being blatant propaganda: “...restoring fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia’s standard process resumes after 2030” (30:11).

• Obama & Holder’s Role:

  • Lambast Obama’s endorsement as “classless” and “debased,” linking it to Eric Holder’s involvement and the broader Democratic industrial complex (35:51–37:28).
  • Host characterizes Obama as “the most classless, simple, base, partisan, nonsensical national figure” (35:17).

• Notable Quotes:

  • Smug: “The whole election of Trump broke Democrats so deeply…there is no level of dishonesty…no option that is off the table. They feel emboldened to do anything because they say ‘but Trump’” (33:19).
  • Josh Holmes: “If he did nothing at all, [Obama] would be on a rushmore of presidents just by simply existing. But everything he does post-presidency is debasing…” (36:18).

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5. Interview: Chevron CEO Mike Wirth – Energy, Security, and American Infrastructure

Timestamp: 53:11–78:46

Discussion Highlights

• Global Crisis in the Middle East:

  • Safety is first priority—hundreds of expats evacuated from Chevron operations; some production reduced or shut down due to conflict and market volatility (54:08–55:54).
  • Applauds strategic petroleum reserve release as a stabilizing market signal (55:55).
  • Wirth: “We pray for human life to be spared and the conflict to end in a way that minimizes the impact” (56:00).

• Energy Dominance and Independence:

  • U.S. is now world leader in oil, gas, biofuels, nuclear and near-top in renewables (56:42).
  • Warns permitting delays and infrastructure bottlenecks threaten dominance; emphasizes bipartisan need for infrastructure investment (58:01–59:58, 64:58–65:47).
  • “There’s absolutely a pathway to develop data centers, create jobs, and invest in energy to support it… It can be done, and it is being done in some parts of our country” (61:00–62:15).

• Jobs and Workforce:

  • Stresses urgent need for skilled trades; laments hollowing out of building/construction trades as parents push kids to four-year degrees (62:45–64:30).
  • “You create a future with good employment...there’s a lot there to be said for those kinds of jobs” (63:34).

• Venezuela and U.S. Interests:

  • Discusses Chevron’s long history in Venezuela, optimism about recent reforms, and America’s strategic interest in the region (68:18–71:16).

• Personality and Culture:

  • Fun, candid Q&A: Wirth chooses a wagyu ribeye as his last meal, would love to drive a Zamboni at the Olympics, and is deeply motivated by “agony of defeat”—recalls painful high school basketball memory (71:38–76:14).

• Notable Quotes:

  • Wirth: “The U.S. is #1... in oil, natural gas, biofuels, nuclear... We've got an abundance of energy resources that should be developed for the economic benefit and security of our country” (56:42).
  • “If we see the kind of infrastructure build-out it would take to meet the aspirations of these companies, we’re going to need a lot of people that can do that. That’s one of the big constraints right now: energy, gas turbines... and people to build these plants” (63:34).
  • “I think there’s a whole bright future this enables if we seize it and if we lead in it” (67:15).

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6. Signature Segment: King of the Hill – Neocon Showdown

Timestamp: 80:05–92:33

• Contest: Panel pits notorious neoconservative pundits Max Boot and Bill Kristol against each other, judging which can deliver the most outrageous, hypocritical, or deluded takes on U.S. policy, particularly regarding Iran and national security.
• Outcome: Fun, combative banter and riffing on their shifting positions; Max Boot returns to “glory” as the winner after years of ridicule.

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Memorable and Notable Quotes

• Josh Holmes (03:43): “This is the dumbest fucking time in American history. And it’s not just because of the misinformation that you’re getting. I mean, the misinformation was probably apexed at the George Floyd moment in American history... In terms of information flow, this is as bad as it could possibly get.”
• Smug (14:09): “89 hospice care centers in one building. Not even like a skyscraper would you have enough space... Democrats would always be like, ‘It’s less than 1/10 of 1%! We have big fish to fry.’ It’s almost like they have an entrenched interest in protecting this.”
• Duncan (15:07): On California’s audit: “Nothing. They did fucking nothing.”
• Josh Holmes (35:17): “He [Obama] is the most classless, simple, base, partisan, nonsensical national figure.”
• Mike Wirth (56:42): “The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of oil, largest producer of natural gas... We’ve got an abundance of energy resources that should be developed for the economic benefit of our country, for the security of our country...”
• Duncan (47:05): “This is truly art in liberal journalism. The turn of ‘Mike Johnson refuses to denounce this thing I made up.’”

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Structured Timeline (Highlights & Timestamps)

| Time | Segment | Key Points | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–24:42 | Hospice fraud, government/media complicity | CA, LA County fraud; political fallout; CBS reporting | | 24:42–27:18 | Ads/Transition | - | | 27:18–43:13 | Virginia redistricting/gerrymandering, Obama’s role | Ballot controversy, partisan redistricting, Obama critique | | 43:13–52:53 | Media critique, headlines, CNN parody analysis | Misinformation and false narratives in national media | | 52:53–78:46 | Chevron CEO Mike Wirth interview | Energy markets, US dominance, workforce skills, Venezuela| | 80:05–92:33 | King of the Hill: Max Boot vs Bill Kristol | Neocon hypocrisy, satire, friendly debate | | 93:34–105:06 | DHS shutdown, Brent Gardner (AFP) interview | National security impact, grassroots accountability | | 105:06–end | Wrap, listener Q&A, outro | Reflections, QOTD: “What do you think of Barack Obama?” |

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Tone and Language

• Informal, irreverent, acerbic: Frequent profanity, sarcasm (“the dumbest fucking time in American history”), playful ribbing, and pop-culture references.
• Aggressively partisan/conservative: Unvarnished criticism of Democratic policies and officials; skepticism and at times, ridicule, towards mainstream journalists and media coverage.
• Conversational: Quick transitions, overlaps, dry wit; banter both among hosts and with guests.

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Final Thoughts

This episode mixes biting political commentary, exasperated concern about institutional failures and fraud, media criticism, and interviews with experts—delivering both laughs and insight in the distinctive “Ruthless” style. Listeners walk away with a sense of urgency about government waste, the importance of media scrutiny, and the intertwined nature of national security, energy, and American prosperity.

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Listener QOTD:

What do you think of Barack Obama?
(Hosts invite all listeners to weigh in, promising to read all comments in the next episode.)

Transcript

[Smug]

It's just mind blowing. The level of fraud for years, this has been decades. This has been a problem.

[Duncan]

I mean, they know it's going on. They've known for years that it's been going on because California's own state auditor sounded the alarm three years ago.

[Ashbrook]

And you'd like to think that your government is full of people who are looking through numbers and saying that doesn't look right. We're going to claw some of this money back or we're going to prosecute the people who stole it and see if we can return some of that to the taxpayer in some way.

[Smug]

You think that would be like a national scandal? Oh, my God. Half the coffee shops are fraudulent. People will be like, what the hell's going on here? But it's hospices. It's your money being stolen from you.

[Ashbrook]

Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet. Now they're messing with your credit card. Your credit card and the security it offers are under attack. The Durbin Marshall credit card bill would change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Wall Street, Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. That means higher risk of fraud, greater chance of stolen personal data, and the loss of rewards programs just so corporate megastores can pocket billions of dollars in higher profits. Tell Congress to guard your card. Visit guardyourcard.com to take action and learn more. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Smug]

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

[Ashbrook]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Thursday to you. I'm Josh Holmes along with comfort smug, Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, left to right, across your radio dial. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. Listen, I think if you're subjected to anything, whether it is in the media or whether it is online or whether it is just a discussion amongst friends, you've probably been subjected to some of the dumbest shit that you would ever hear anywhere in America. You have what has been a systematic fraud perpetrated across this country for a series of decades by a Democratic establishment in municipalities, local government, state government, all the way to the federal government under Obama, the worst president in American history, and Joe Biden. That can't be beaten. It simply can't be beaten. Nobody will tell this story. Nobody will do anything about it. You assemble things like DOGE to try to look into it, and they basically throw you out. They throw you out. They say, you know, these are the anarchists, these are the crazy people. Because you just went and you looked and saw fraud people signing up for federal government programs that don't do the thing that the federal government program is for. And if you blow the whistle and say, hey, that guy's not doing the thing, like, you're the problem, right? That, that's, that's, you've got America at war. Something that I think the vast majority of us who are well adjusted human beings would look at. And that's when you put the red, white and blue on. That's where you root for your country, Right? That's where you just don't start asking, what is it that we're not doing? How good is the ayatollah? What did the terrorists want to do?

[Smug]

I was on Hugh Hewitt earlier and he brought the point. For the first time in his entire life, he can't remember the President of the United States taking military action. And within the first 10 days, Democrats attacking the President, like, if there is any time to circle the wagons and support not just the president, but the troops overseas. And Democrats can't even bring themselves to do that.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And then you've got things that happened post 9, 11, for those of you who are alive. Pretty seminal moment in our country's history. The largest terrorist attack in American. There was a couple of recommendations coming out of that. One was the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. And the reason for that was because you wanted a department that looked after, well, cases of terrorism that had infiltrated our borders one way or another. And then you have a Democratic Party in lockstep under Chuck Schumer's direction that decides that at a time of war against an enemy that is known for nothing more than being capable of attacking their enemies through proxies and sleeper cells, that now is a good time to shut that whole thing down because they're pretty upset that the administration is trying to enforce immigration law. Meanwhile, you have Kirsty Noem, who's gotten fired for, I don't know, all kinds of different things. Take your pick. Take your pick for why that lady got fired. I mean, I can think of like a dozen myself for why she got fired. But she got fired by Donald Trump. And when she did, you would think that that would be a scalp the Democrats would be okay with. Hey, the person running the thing we hate got fired. From the time that we decided to make This a federal case until now? No change?

[Ashbrook]

Nope.

[Josh Holmes]

Mark Wayne Mullen, one of their colleagues in the United States Senate, was nominated to replace her. Somebody that Democrats have spoken extremely favorably about in terms of his willingness and openness to talk across party lines and be willing to solve problems that don't necessarily fall on partisan lines. Nope. Chuck Schumer says, we're not going to provide a single vote for that guy. We're still not opening the Department of Homeland Security. This is the dumbest fucking time in American history. And it's not just because of the misinformation that you're getting. I mean, the misinformation was probably apexed at the George Floyd moment in American history. All of the worst moments in American history, in my view, have come in the last couple years. I mean, it's incredible, this death spiral that we're in in terms of all of the horrible news and information that people are getting. Obviously, we've got tons of horrible moments and great moments in this country's past that pale in comparison, but in terms of information flow, this is as bad as it could possibly get. Nobody's focused on the thing, like, the things that matter. Like, should you have a Department of Homeland Security? I think now would be a pretty good time. Pretty good time to have something like that.

[Ashbrook]

I mean, there were ISIS guys throwing bombs in Manhattan.

[Smug]

Think about that.

[Ashbrook]

Seems like a good time to have a Department of Homeland Security in the

[Josh Holmes]

state that the guy who runs the joint is from. Didn't move him an inch. Didn't move him an inch. Doesn't give a shit. And, like, at some point you gotta start asking yourself whether the Democratic Party is on the side of the Ayatollah. I mean, for real. I know that that's, like, hyperbolic to say, but, I mean, what's the difference, really?

[Smug]

The defining feature of the Democrat Party as it exists right now is Anti America. Anything that America does is bad. It's a colonial power. Anything other than Anti America must be good. That's why you've seen them take the side of. Well, you don't understand. The reporting which came out about these terrorists in the attack in New York has been stunning and shows that the press is going lockstep with anyone opposing America and American values.

[Duncan]

And if that bomb went off, I can guarantee what the Democratic response would be. They would blame Donald Trump and they'd say, we deserve it.

[Ashbrook]

It.

[Smug]

Yep.

[Duncan]

I mean, it's as simple as that. If you want to get real cynical, we can go to a real dark place.

[Smug]

Holmes.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, Totally. But I mean, look, we went through six, seven weeks of Minnesota, where started with the fraud, then the ice, then the protests, the law enforcement action with the protests, the, you know, interaction there, the deaths of two people. And like the story is all the process. It's never about the $8 billion that you got stolen out of your wallet in a state with relatively small amounts of federal dollars in comparison to everywhere else. And yet that's not the conversation that anybody's having. You talk about Iran. I mean, this is a 46 year problem, one that Ronald Reagan got his hands around in 1980, right after he was elected by delivering the American hostages back. A real good moment for the United States of America. But ever since that day, everybody's been trying to figure out how to depose the Ayatollah. Everybody. Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump. Every single president along the way has had the exact same interaction as they have bombed the Khobar Towers, the embassy, the barracks, the USS Cole, the immense amount of terror that they have.

[Smug]

Throughout the entire Iraq war, Iran was singularly focused on killing as many Americans

[Josh Holmes]

as possible, and still are to this day. And yet the first question out of the American media is, well, how quickly can this be over? How quickly can this be over? Well, tell that to the couple thousand people that lost their lives, American people that have lost their lives, or the hundreds of thousands of people that have lost their lives at the hands of the Ayatollah over the last 46 years. You can't just, not every mission is a six hour in and out Delta Force, depose the leader, put him in a jail in Manhattan. Sometimes you got to do more than that. And this is a very sophisticated country. And yet our whole conversation, our media conversation, everything else, it's like everything happens in a thimble full of knowledge. Nobody takes any time to actually evaluate anything. And it's just extremely frustrating. So one of the things we want to start, we have a couple of great interviews that'll both provide some knowledge and texture to some big issues that we're dealing with today. One is Mike Wirth, he's the CEO of Chevron. Well, here's a guy who is the CEO of one of the most successful energy companies in the world, who's operated across the globe code couple of places, Middle east and Venezuela. He probably knows a little bit about all that and the import in which energy is to this conversation. So we thought we'd give you a little taste of something that's useful in this fucking program that's novel.

[Smug]

Can I brag about that a little bit? I mean, while everyone else is offering a lot of it, just clearly uninformed comments, and they're weighing in on foreign policy and they're like, what's your source on this? Well, I've been on Twitter for three years.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, great.

[Smug]

The CEO Chevron is making himself available for our audience to give his thoughts. Someone who actually knows about this. What a great value add, I'd say.

[Josh Holmes]

Huge value. And he's a great guy and he's doing a great job and he provides a lot of stuff. And then Brent Gardner comes in to talk specifically about the Homeland Security thing. What he's hearing across the country and on Capitol Hill about what the end game looks like on that. And that's an interesting interview, too. It's Thursday, so we play a game. So we'll lighten it up a little bit with some game. And you've got the reigning champion.

[Duncan]

We've got Bill Crystal, we got Bill Kristol during a war in Iran. I'm going to be very tough to beat. I feel like I'm cheating.

[Josh Holmes]

So a lot of you have been very, very skeptical about whether or not CBS can change its stripes. And I think that the die is not cast on that one way or another. But there are signs that real journalism is being done, at least in component parts, something that hasn't been done at CBS since the days of Andy Rooney and Mike Wallace and morally safer. But now there are some things, and this is one of them. If we can play Clip one.

[Duncan]

The government thinks this woman is dying in hospice care. But she just humiliated me, schooled me

[Josh Holmes]

on the pickleball accord.

[Duncan]

She's definitely not dying. She is a victim, though, of hospice fraud.

[Josh Holmes]

So hospice fraud costs taxpayers hundreds of

[Duncan]

millions of dollars every year. California is ground zero. So basically, people steal Medicare numbers, they

[Josh Holmes]

enroll them in hospices, and then bill for tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Duncan]

A lot of these companies are just fronts. So over 700 of the roughly 1800

[Josh Holmes]

hospices in LA county trigger multiple red

[Brent Gardner]

flags for possible fraud.

[Josh Holmes]

So we went door to door and

[Duncan]

what we found was empty office spaces, piled up mail, and not a single

[Brent Gardner]

healthcare worker in site.

[Josh Holmes]

There's even a stretch in LA with

[Duncan]

500 registered hospice companies within just three

[Josh Holmes]

miles of each other. In fact, there's even a single building

[Duncan]

with 89 registered hospice companies.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, it's one cylinder. It's one cylinder.

[Duncan]

Yeah, we're talking about hospice, just hospice care.

[Josh Holmes]

We're not talking about Medicare. We're not talking about Medicaid. We're not talking about learning centers. We're not talking about autistic care. We're not talking about all the things that we've been talking about. We're talking about hospice care and the monsters across this country that in one state, CBS has found has absolutely fleeced the federal government in the state of California to the point where they're just registering random people and saying they provide hospice here. 89 different places in one place that doesn't do any.

[Smug]

89 hospice care centers in one building. Not even like a skyscraper would you have enough space for 89 hospice centers? And it's just mind blowing. The level of fraud. When Nick Shirley first went to Minnesota, when everyone started talking about, like, so what am I paying taxes for? For years? This has been decades. This has been a problem. This has been known that, well, there's gotta be some kind of fraud. And Democrats would always be like, oh, no, no, no, listen, it's less than 1/10 of 1%. We have big fish to fry. It's almost like they have an entrenched interest in protecting this.

[Duncan]

I mean, they know it's going on. They've known for years that it's been going on. Because California's own state auditor sounded the alarm three years ago that they were seeing a 1,500% increase in hospice companies since 2010.

[Josh Holmes]

Michael, what did they do about it?

[Duncan]

Nothing. They did fucking nothing.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you know why they did nothing about it? Because the media wasn't talking about it. They were disinterested in it until Nick Shirley did the thing and people started talking about it nationwide. And so everybody was like, oh, let's take a look at this kind of thing. The hhs, by the way, the Health and Human Services open sourced the data for all the grant recipients across the board of everything that is that they do. And within the first hour, some of our resident autists decided to get aborted.

[Duncan]

God bless.

[Josh Holmes]

God bless them, God bless them. And just go through it and use AI and spit out a whole bunch of. This guy in Maine that I saw within like two hours was like, well, here's 800 billion. This is right here. I can show you all of this stuff of a whole bunch of places that don't really exist.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I gotta give CBS News a shout out. In the article itself. I highly recommend people check it out because they use this, like, parallax scrolling effect where they zoomed in on streets and locations with like a heat map and little dots of like. And you would look on like one road within three miles, a number of dots that you would think were like every gas station, McDonald's and fast food restaurant. Like the density of these hospice centers is something you would have to actively and willfully ignore the fraud. You would have to be like, oh, I guess I just never noticed that.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I just wrote the check of your money because I love signing checks of your money, which is basically who these people are. I guess the larger point that I was trying to make at the beginning is focus on the thing. You're $36 trillion in debt. As a country, we've gotten to a point where everybody just ignores that fact. What is it? Fifteen years ago everybody got super excited about it because you saw what an economic calamity would look like with 2008 debt and broken markets and all those kind of things. And so we got sensitive to it for like 36 months. And now we've just totally lost sight of all of that and its impact on you potentially and your kids and grandkids and how your economy can completely collapse if you don't pay attention to this kind of shit. So for the last 15 years you've had a Democratic party started with Obama that has decided to just take advantage of your collective lack of attention span that you can't possibly focus any attention on a problem for longer than 10 minutes to vote accordingly. And so what they did is get a whole bunch of people that administered grants, state and local funding. They called it state and local fund. Real problem during COVID Boy, if those state and locals don't get what was

[Duncan]

it at the time, they're going to go bankrupt, remember? Yeah, drop dead is what the media wrote when Republicans were like, I'm not so sure this is a good idea.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, the state of California's gonna have to file bankruptcy. I remember that, yeah. Oh really? Well, it looks like they should have. It looks like they should have because maybe some of the creditors would get a little money back.

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Cuz it's certainly not the taxpayers. I mean it's unbelievable this reporting. And I give CBS an awful lot of credit. Auditors estimated that LA County Hospices overbilled Medicare by $105 million in a single year.

[Smug]

Think about that.

[Josh Holmes]

The report called out notable red flags. Key warning signs of fraud, multiple hospices in one building, geographic clustering, low patient counts, of which they found that some of the patients that were low in their count weren't patients at all. High rates of terminally ill patients later discharged alive and well and apparently playing Pickleball, excessive billing, shared staff across multiple companies. I mean, we talked about this when we were dealing with the Minnesota issue in that it's easy to put a finger on it. It's like the Somali population in Minneapolis, because what they did is reprehensible, horrible, but it's very specific and easy to target. This is happening in every state in the country where you have any locality that is being run by a Democrat. It doesn't matter if it's the reddest state in the union. If you have one fucking mayor who's left of center, this is what you've got.

[Ashbrook]

You know, it's one of the reasons why I was glad to hear Todd Blanche say that he opened up a brand new division at DOJ to prosecute this kind of thing. And I got to imagine the person who is charged with this responsibility walked into an office full of paperwork stacked to the ceiling. I hope to God that was the case. And I hope to God they're hiring people to work through that paperwork by the ones. And not just on these high profile situations like Minnesota, like California. What CBS is talking about, you know that in every single state this exists.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

It's the only reason we know about the two is because somebody did some reporting.

[Ashbrook]

And you'd like to think that your government is full of people who are looking through numbers and saying, that doesn't look right. We're gonna claw some of this money back or we're gonna prosecute the people who stole it and see if we can return some of that to the taxpayer in some way. And until Todd Blanche said on this show that he's launching a new division, I haven't heard anything but rhetoric.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah.

[Smug]

On the journalism thing, I want to say for a specific reason, I never congratulate or on the side of any journalist.

[Josh Holmes]

No, that's clear.

[Smug]

But I think one great thing here is, if nothing else, CBS came to the extremely sane realization that one of the things that helps a media company is clicks. So instead of writing an article about how like, you know, flying the flag is white supremacy that no one's gonna read, no one cares about, and all the woke idiot journos are providing zero value. They saw that Nick Shirley investigation. Like, this guy gets like millions of views in a day. What are we doing here? This guy gets more clicks than our entire news operation coast to coast. How many people do we have? And this is a dude with an iPhone and he's. He's getting more clicks than we are. What are we doing here? Recognizing the fact that guess what gets clicks? Journalism. Impactful news.

[Ashbrook]

It's a great point. And I remember a time, and you guys give me a hard time because I'm the one who's sticking up for the journos routinely. I remember a time during the Obama stimulus when ABC News reported every single instance of fraud out of the Obama stimulus and they were the highest rated program in broadcast.

[Smug]

I remember.

[Ashbrook]

Yeah, they went after Obama. And I don't know what happened in the intervening years, but the lesson is true today, as it was then, that if you are getting to the bottom of problems that affect the people watching your show, they're interested to find out about it because they want to do something.

[Smug]

And also, you can't write this story. What that guy did for cbs, knocking on those doors, being like, every one of these buildings is empty. You can't do that from your apartment in Brooklyn, which is essentially what every journal thinks their job is ordering doordash sitting with their cat in Brooklyn and dropping takes about how everything's white supremacy.

[Duncan]

I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I guess the whole point of the run up on this is you got to focus on the shit that matters. You're not going to get information very easily. Like, thank God CBS is providing a little bit of it here, but it takes a little bit of sleuthing around. There sure as fuck isn't going to be an influencer based thing. You're gonna get led down a rabbit hole. You're gonna believe all kinds of shit that's just frankly not true. What is true is being involved in understanding what's going on in your community and then staying on it. I mean, if you listen to the discussion on the Iran front, I mean, you got a day after we do this epic takedown on Tuesday of four different media companies and their headlines about how they have covered the New York terrorist attack. You get Abby Phillips over at CNN who introduces the segment, basically saying that Mamdani, heroic Mamdani, is the target of a terrorist attack. And everybody's there is like, he screamed Alu Akbar and threw it at the people who are protesting Mamdani. But like, that's just the way they roll at cnn. And then they throw out a tweet and it's like all the same, 12 hours later, they have to retract the damn. It gets you in the mentality of where it is that they can even conceive of that reality, a reality that we showed on Tuesday. And so look at the shit that matters. If you're concerned about Iran, be concerned about Iran based on the historical fact pattern. If you're concerned about fraud, waste, debt, taxes, things like that, on the domestic front, look at where we've gone, look at where we are. You've got LA county alone. Roughly half of the hospices trigger multiple

[Smug]

red flags that I just listed.700 of the roughly 1800. It's like half of these are triggering red flags. Like that's an insane demand.

[Josh Holmes]

Accountability.

[Smug]

If half of any businesses in any geographic location were throwing red flags for fraud, you would think that would be like a national scandal. Oh my God. Half the coffee shops are fraudulent. People will be like, what the hell's going on here? But it's hospices. It's your money being stolen from you. Where's the outrage on that?

[Josh Holmes]

You gotta do something about it. So pay attention to this stuff. When we come back, another thing that's been happening is this redistricting fight, which, you know, look, admittedly I think Republicans started in the great state of Texas, but Democrats, as they always do, go a step further. They've been gerrymandering like crazy people since the beginning of gerrymandering. Literally, it's named for them, what they were doing. But what they're doing in Virginia has brought in a familiar face. The worst president in American history. And you're not going to believe all of this when we come back.

[Ashbrook]

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. What America builds today will help secure a more affordable, more reliable future. With enough energy to go around for generations to come. Our country can't wait. We must pass permitting reform now to help secure American energy dominance. Because when America builds, America wins. America's oil and natural gas paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

[Duncan]

In America, parents call the shots for their families, not bureaucrats. But the so called App Store Accountability

[Mike Wirth]

act puts your child at risk.

[Duncan]

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 child's age is shared with apps, not politicians. Parents should attest to their kids ages,

[Ashbrook]

not turn over birth certificates to tech companies.

[Duncan]

Congress don't put kids at greater risk

[Ashbrook]

online and box parents out of making

[Josh Holmes]

decisions for their families.

[Duncan]

Tell your lawmaker to put parents first. There are better ways to keep kids safe. NetChoice is dedicated to making the Internet safe for free expression and free enterprise. Learn [e-mail] keepappstores safe.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so Democrats have been all over retribution on the redistricting fight, which of course controls the House of Representatives in what they hope is a midterm election that overturns a House Republican majority so they can impeach President Trump for a third time. We know what it is. Let's just cut to the chase on it. This could happen. This could happen. This can. Well, no, they're just going to impeach Trump again. I mean, that's what.

[Smug]

That's their whole purpose for wanting the House.

[Josh Holmes]

The whole purpose.

[Ashbrook]

Productive use of time.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And power, the seeking of power. That's basically. They stand for absolutely nothing. If you can get behind defunding Homeland Security at a time of war with Iran, of all places, you can believe in anything. And so that's where they're at. And you saw what they did in California and threw like 100 some odd million dollars at a referendum that got through that allowed them to basically redistrict out Republicans of the state of California. Well, in Virginia, which is a much more purple state.

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

5146. Kamala Trump in the last election.

[Josh Holmes]

5146, of course, recall of the previous governor, Governor Youngkin, Republican. You only get four year terms there. So he's out. And you got Spamberger and you've heard us talk about her. Democrat now in. But the legislature has decided that now they have uniform control of state government in Virginia. They're going to get into this fight. And what they've decided to do is take a 6, 5 breakdown in terms of Republicans and Democrats and turn it into a 10:1 Democratic majority.

[Smug]

Think about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Now, you gotta be a creative artist to draw districts in Virginia that get to a 10:1 Democratic majority.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I believe they've drawn five districts that run through Fairfax and Northern Virginia and then stretch out over the western part of the state. So you got people in congressional districts who like, you'd have to drive three hours to get to the other. The other side.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And it just carves enough, enough registered Democrats to offset any rural voters one way or another. Well, it's not so easy in that they also need a referendum. And so they're campaigning in what will be An April deadline on that. An election day, so to speak. But I mean, it's all like, right,

[Ashbrook]

the voting's already started.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just you vote all year long in Virginia and it doesn't really matter if you're registered or if you have a driver's license, but if you.

[Ashbrook]

They count until Democrats win.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. And so that's what's happening right now. And let me read you the ballot question.

[Duncan]

This is where this segment gets really fun. Because it's one thing for Democrats to do what we know Democrats do, which is whatever they can to achieve power, but the means by which they do it is endlessly hilarious.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean. All right, so the battle question is, should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General assembly, controlled entirely by Democrats, to temporarily. Temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness. Restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?

[Smug]

Yeah, that's insane.

[Josh Holmes]

So all they're really doing here, fellas, is restoring fairness.

[Smug]

Can't say that this is so emblematic of Abigail Spamberger and why the Democrats love her so much because this is the most cold blooded Trojan horse lie to your face snake shit ever. Where they like told everyone, Abigail Spamberger, she's a moderate.

[Josh Holmes]

You don't understand.

[Smug]

She stands for all Virginians. She's just a moderate. She's not like a Mamdani. And then she gets in and day one mom Donnie's like, you're going way too far, lady.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Smug]

She's like, okay, first thing we're going to do is get rid of every Republican district. We're going to do a temporary restore fairness. That's how they, that's how they word this.

[Duncan]

Like, how, how is it possible? Because, you know, having seen how these ballot issues work generally, it takes a very long time to get to language everyone can agree is correct for a ballot initiative. The idea that they were able to get, basically, we've seen the ads we live in in Virginia. So we've seen the initial ads. They did this production spot. The ballot language is basically the Democrats ad on supporting this measure. The fact that they were able to get that into ballot language is preposterous. Like, imagine being a Virginia voter and you're going into votants about initiatives and it's like, yes or no on the bond, you know, for public schools, or how much money for libraries or like, you know, parks. And then you read this and you're like, I don't Know, man, this doesn't seem like they're telling me the truth.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's, it's ridiculous on its face. In the first round of ads that they did, even my kids were like, that guy seems like a liar, a complete liar. You know, because they're like, well, it's temporary, but it's to restore fairness. It's just gonna restore fairness. Oh, I was unaware that the Virginia congressional districts were unfair. Well, it's not really about that.

[Ashbrook]

We've all.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not about our state.

[Ashbrook]

Everybody sitting here has written questions for a political poll. Yeah, okay. And there are polls where you wanna get the real answer from the voters, and there are push polls where you want to get the answer that you are seeking. I can't imagine submitting this question to a pollster for a push pull and having him say anything other than, I don't know, man, that's too much. They're going to see right through it.

[Duncan]

They're not even going to respond.

[Smug]

I think that's the thing is you couldn't, you couldn't.

[Duncan]

You can't straight face that bullshit.

[Smug]

The whole election of Trump broke Democrats so deeply to their core that they essentially feel there is no level of dishonesty, there's nothing, no option that is off the table. They feel they are emboldened to do anything because they say, but Trump. But Trump. Our base is so deranged. We can say, but Trump, that this is. It's hard to think of any action taken in recent US history so committed to disenfranchising voters. You hear Democrats lie about like, well, you see, if you require a license, that's kind of tough for illegal immigrants to be able to vote. That's disenfranchising. Vote no when you. Can we get. Can we get that graphic too?

[Ashbrook]

Up on the map?

[Smug]

Graphic 2 is the current map of Virginia's congressional districts. This is the proposed one. Notice anything close to pink district that would represent any amount of Republicans is erased. They want just one that is just pure disenfranchising.

[Josh Holmes]

Look at how they drew that bad boy.

[Smug]

Insane. Like, they're basically like, how can we stretch the Northern Virginia libs across the entire state?

[Duncan]

And I love how the one Republican district gets like this hanging chad on top.

[Smug]

They're like, don't let them out. Put them all in one.

[Duncan]

But I mean, I totally agree with you. Smug. The one thing I would say, and maybe I'm just being hopeful, I don't have a lot of hope for Republican politics in Virginia at the moment, but it feels like this shit stinks so bad they can't even sell it to Democrats in the state.

[Ashbrook]

Clearly. Otherwise they would have written it differently.

[Duncan]

Which is like, I think the reason that I noticed they made a traffic change in their creative on all the TV ads.

[Josh Holmes]

They sure did.

[Duncan]

And they brought in the worst president in American history, Barack Obama. Because when an idea is truly fucking terrible, you gotta bring in the biggest bullshitter in democratic politics.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, 100%. So according to Fox News, Obama endorses Virginia redistricting plan, constitutional amendment that could help Dems gain four more seats. So listen, that is what happens. But it further underscores the fact that this is the most classless, simple, base, partisan, nonsensical national figure that we've had in my lifetime.

[Smug]

Can I be even more cynical?

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah.

[Smug]

It's because his bag man, Eric Holder.

[Ashbrook]

This is Obama Inc. Eric Holder's been working on this.

[Smug]

He's not Obama. The, you know, it's just Obama. I'm just a nice little president with a. The ugliest library in history. It's Eric Holder's bringing in the bacon. Obama Inc. Is that working?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but okay, I agree. And that is probably so him and

[Smug]

Michelle just want that Netflix money. They want that beach house and they're like, Eric, go get us some cash.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen. I think that's probably right, but that only underscores my point. This is a classless. Yep. Like we've never had a president who is so devoid of any sort of like decency, decency or presence where he's honestly reduced to redistricting fights over congressional districts in an otherwise blue state. Like this is where he's the two term president of the United States, the first black American president. This guy, if he did nothing at all, would be on a rushmore of presidents just by simply existing. But everything he does post presidency is debasing everything that he ultimately ran on in the first place. Like he was a horrible president. I think he's worse. But since then, he can't help himself. He'll get involved in the fucking dog catchers race.

[Brent Gardner]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

If the guy's gonna provide abortions and chop cocks off kids, he's all in it.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I mean, it's ridiculous.

[Smug]

Hold on, hold on. Are you saying that like Obama fundamentally is not principled? Like he doesn't have like beliefs that he'll hold on to?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh no, he believes on him. He believes real hard.

[Smug]

But then the wire hits and he's like, well, can I get clipped 2A

[Ashbrook]

please,

[Mike Wirth]

we have to change the system

[Duncan]

to reflect our better selves. I think we've got to end the

[Josh Holmes]

practice of drawing our congressional districts so

[Mike Wirth]

that politicians can pick their voters and

[Ashbrook]

not the other way around.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait a minute.

[Smug]

And then Eric showed up at the beach house with the cash and he was like, okay, let's be honest here.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, well, let's see what he's doing now. Let's throw up the other one.

[Duncan]

Virginia, we are counting on you directly. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and

[Mike Wirth]

wield unchecked power for two more years.

[Duncan]

But you can stop them by voting

[Josh Holmes]

yes by April 21st.

[Duncan]

Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide, not politicians.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the responsible thing to do. Help us charge a better path forward.

[Mike Wirth]

Virginia, vote yes by April 21st.

[Duncan]

Help us. Help us chart a better path forward. Is the sort of like soft headed pablum of the eight years of Barack Obama. Words that mean fudgeing nothing of a politician worth nothing.

[Smug]

That's it. Did. You're 100% that. And I don't want to black pill. Never black pill, folks. But they brought Obama in on this because they don't give a talking shit, dude. And, and, and I'm gonna go the next step. I want Indiana Republicans to be held accountable for this shit. Because there is. Let the lesson be there is no line Democrats will not cross. I don't care if you're like, you know what? Trump hurt my feelings. He was a little mean. I'm an Indiana Republican. I'm a sensitive guy. I'm willing to let the Democrats do whatever they want because I think Trump, Trump was a bit mean to me. All those Indiana Republicans. I hope you're happy. This is what you get. This is what you get. You were put on the spot. There was a moment you could step up and you didn't. And you have to fight fire with fire because the other side, look at this. Abigail Spamberger, the whole moderate, she's the one who put this forward. She cut ice out day one. Her first thing was like, we are going to get ice out of the state. We're gonna let illegals run amok. Number two, we're gonna gerrymander it. And those two ideas are completely tied because the more illegals you have in your state, they get countered towards the census that gives you more congressional seats. And this is what Democrats do. And we knew that we're gonna do it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's 100% right?

[Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

It's 100%. Right. You think Trump's too tough? We're gonna get tougher than this. Yep, we gotta get tougher than this. Like, you can't look at what this guy's doing. I mean, first of all, like, I think about like George W. Bush, whatever you thought about his presidency, when he went away, he was like, look, it's beneath the dignity of the office of president to comment on day to day politics because I'm not getting the same info flow and it's just undignified.

[Mike Wirth]

Yep, right.

[Smug]

And he's manifested that. Whereas he had like Jimmy Carter chirping constantly and he was like, you know what I feel as a former president, you focus on like charity and you let presidents be presidents, but it's not. I mean, Obama Inc. Man.

[Ashbrook]

And now, yeah, now he has emerged to say that I think that Southern Virginia farmers are only best represented by Northern Virginia NGO consultants, NGOs and lobbyists.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right. And that is a stand I will take for the best interest of your communities. And believe me, I'm Barack Obama. I mean, it's just so pathetic and ridiculous. So our question of the day. When you like and subscribe to the Reality Ruthless Variety program, reread all of them and get back to the very next episode. My question is simple. What do you think of Barack Obama? What do you think? Yeah, I want some answers on this. You've heard ours. But what do you think? Should he be involved in this kind of thing?

[Duncan]

It's just fun to sort of take a trip down memory lane, cuz everybody forgets how terrible he was.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you know, it's true, because I think everybody got obsessed about Biden, obviously. Disappointing situation with 2020 and then you have four years of disaster under Joe Biden. But it kind of blotted out of the sun in how Joe Biden got here in the first place, which is that guy.

[Smug]

All our problems, all of our problems reside from Obama. The dreamers, all this nonsense. The NGOs running this country, essentially stealing all this. All that is under Obama. Iran giving him pallets of cash.

[Duncan]

Pallets of cash.

[Smug]

We are still digging our way out of this.

[Josh Holmes]

Venezuela, I mean, the fraud.

[Duncan]

Cuba, Cuba.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, you remember when he went down there.

[Duncan]

It's so embarrassing, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just also the class, race warfare, all of the division, all of the stuff that he see, he's like, oh, we should rise above all this. The reason he says that, because he's literally the perpetrator. We didn't have this when I was growing up again. Like I've always said, it was Republicans and Democrats who had two different ways of tackling the same agreed upon problems. It all changed with Barack Obama. And now you're seeing in full transparency how that has manifested itself and the damage that is done to this country and that he's still involved and he's trying to pretend like the same rhetoric in 2000. It's time to come together. It's time to do all this stuff, except in a way that's 10:1 and we disenfranchise all the people who don't vote for us.

[Smug]

Time to come together and make sure Republicans don't have any votes.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just unbelievable. So get back to us on all of that when we come back. We have got your comments from last episode and our question was give us your best Lib journo headline about the attack in nyc. There was a lot to choose from right after this. Okay, your comments when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Friday program, we get to absolutely all of them. Your question from Tuesday was give us your best lib giorno headline about the attack in New York City. To do that, we always start with a voice.

[Ashbrook]

And remember, I think Josh already said it, but like and subscribe. Like and subscribe if you wish to opine.

[Josh Holmes]

You came up with that, right?

[Ashbrook]

We did. Right here on the Ruthless Variety program. First comment comes from Craig, one of the great listeners of the Variety program. Craig says honestly surprised that this wasn't a headline because it has just enough facts to have a passing resemblance to the truth. In order to avoid litigation, here's what he says. Mamdani expected to survive attempted bombing during radical far right protest in front of Gracie Mansion.

[Duncan]

That's so good. That's great.

[Ashbrook]

Get that guy a job at the Associated Press.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my gosh. That's fantastic. It would avoid litigation because it does have a passing reference and obscuring all fact patterns.

[Ashbrook]

Yep. Craig, I'm glad you didn't supply your number because your phone would be ringing.

[Smug]

Yeah, AP's hiring them.

[Ashbrook]

They'd be hiring you right now.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's get that talent dunks rocks.

[Duncan]

This one from Mary Crouch. And I got to say, Mary, when I went to go on to YouTube and I clicked on the episode, this was the first comment I saw and I got a big chuckle. Okay, question of the day. Here's the headline. Boy Scouts from PA Donate recycled glass and metal to Big Apple neighborhood.

[Smug]

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

[Josh Holmes]

We have the best audience.

[Ashbrook]

Ruthless Variety program has the best Audience in the entire world.

[Josh Holmes]

Mary, that's fantastic. All right, comment three Smuggles.

[Smug]

Sometimes I feel reality can. Can outdo any joke you could come up with. Can we get clip 3?

[Josh Holmes]

2 Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York's Mayor Zoran Mandani. And the House Speaker Mike Johnson says nothing really to condemn those.

[Smug]

Dude,

[Duncan]

that cnn, she might be the worst on television.

[Josh Holmes]

Hold on, can you just replay it again? Can you just replay it? Two Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York's Mayor Zoran Mamdani. And the House Speaker Mike Johnson says nothing really to condemn those comments.

[Smug]

I mean, dude, that's real.

[Duncan]

I love the turn in it too. This is truly art in liberal journalism. The turn of Mike Johnson refuses to denounce this thing I made up

[Josh Holmes]

like it's pure art. Hold on, I want a third time because I want to look at the earnestness by which it's delivered. Two Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York State Mayor Zoran Mamdani. And the House Speaker Mike Johnson says nothing really to condemn.

[Smug]

It's really, it's really unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean it's hard.

[Duncan]

It's hard, it's hard. How are we gonna have a functioning country with that going on?

[Josh Holmes]

But that's what I mean, I guess

[Smug]

that's what we have to put them in jail. I've been calling to jail the journals for years. My cries go unanswered.

[Josh Holmes]

But this is what gets me fired up. I mean, look, I know as a well adjusted American, you're sitting at home, you get information flow from a lot of different places. You listen to us so you can have a good time and get educated on what's actually happening and a little under the hood and all these things. So we take that responsibility extremely seriously. But occasionally on days like today, it really gets frustrating from our standpoint because you look at shit like that and there's not really any accountability for it. Like it just is what it is, right? We read you all the Tuesday stuff on the terror attack, right? This is all of a sudden Mamdani is being bombed and Speaker Johnson's okay with it. You know what I mean? Like what the fuck? Like that never happened. Like none of that happened.

[Ashbrook]

You have a major cable network building a Golden Gate bridge to national destruction and they don't get so much as a detention. People just change the channel. I guess that's the one thing you can do is change the Channel. Yeah, but there's. There's no recourse. There's no accountability for that.

[Josh Holmes]

There's no accountability. And then it's like it's on to the next for. And our side is not doing the job of just staying focused on shit like Iran is extremely important. I'm just telling you, because we spent 20 years in the business. Iran has always been a problem. It kills Americans. They want to kill Americans. Whether or not you agree with any sort of international footprint for the United States military or not, I can tell you it's a very serious problem. It's not just a national security problem. It's an economic problem. And it's also a problem as it relates to all of America's enemies. Where do you think China gets its resources? Where do you think Russia gets its resources?

[Ashbrook]

Where.

[Josh Holmes]

Why do you think Venezuela and Iran were having shipping containers going back and forth all the way through? Where does Cuba fall into that? All of it's interconnected. Your economy, your GDP growth, your wage growth, your. Everything is interconnected here in a very significant way. And then all of a sudden you get, while you're watching a gold medal hockey game, it's like, well, the earth doesn't continue to spin if we don't pass the fucking Save Act. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, that stuff's important. But don't lose sight of the fact that somebody's currently in your wallet stealing 50% of your fucking paycheck and paying some Somali refugee to send it back to a terrorist haven in Somalia or Sudan or wherever to attack you. And by the way, the rest of this interview connected global conflict that we're all in right now matters a lot. Even if you're not enlisted in the military or if you don't have family, who's enlisted, if it does, I guarantee you paying a lot more attention to that than you are in stupid. Like fucking standing filibusters or sitting filibusters. Of all those things, we gotta refocus here. And if I have one quibble with the Trump administration, who's doing exactly the right thing in arguing for election integrity and doing exactly the right thing with Iran, did exactly the right thing with Venezuela, did exactly the right thing in putting our economy on stable footing with the big beauty and all the regulatory relief last year? 5, one quibble. Focus the shit on the big shit. We can't talk about something different every day. Can't do it because people lose focus and then the influencers take over and you get onto Stuff that doesn't really matter. Did anybody know that 10 of the 11 states that are up for the United States Senate that literally determine whether or not this president has a cabinet in the second two years of his term already have done all the save ACT stuff? Anybody know that? Does anybody talk about that? No, of course not.

[Ashbrook]

Nobody talks about that.

[Josh Holmes]

No. But it's become a thing where it's the only thing that we talk about. And believe me, I'm all for it. I mean, my home state of Minnesota is probably the A1 a example of people being able to register to vote without any proof of registry of American citizenship. They can get driver's license without any proof of registering. They don't have to use this driver's license. If they do at the polls, it's voting, no questions asked. Do I have any questions about whether illegal immigrants have voted in Minnesota elections? No question. Am I absolutely certain that there are more conservative leaning Minnesotans than are represented in elections time after time after the last 20 years? No question about it. Should we do something about it at a national level? No question about it. But don't let it blot out the sun. Don't be the black pill. It's not the only thing. The rest of this stuff is super fricking important. Like, you gotta pay attention to it. If somebody is registering 1500 things, they don't even live in your state, but they're stealing taxpayers out of your dollars, out of your pocket. Do something.

[Ashbrook]

Right. No, that's exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

Talk about it.

[Ashbrook]

That's exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't focus it inward. The President's trying to do the right thing. Like Republicans are largely. I mean, there are some examples of people who are not but largely trying to do the right thing. Your common enemy here is a Democratic Party that has decided they are perfectly comfortable with a terrorist attack on American soil because the progressive base is more comfortable with Hamas living in their communities than they are keeping you safe.

[Ashbrook]

That's exactly right.

[Duncan]

Well said.

[Josh Holmes]

It's true.

[Mike Wirth]

It's true.

[Josh Holmes]

So anyway, that is what it is. Listen, you're gonna get some serious education. And this guy is fantastic. He's CEO from Chevron. He's gonna be the real, real. It's nice to get somebody who's like a highbrow deal around here.

[Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

Class the joint up a little bit.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

Mike Worth,

[Josh Holmes]

very excited about this interview. He has been a friend of the program in a lot of ways, but it's the first time you've been in here. The Chevron CEO, Mike Worth. How are you, sir.

[Mike Wirth]

I'm doing very well today. Glad to be here.

[Josh Holmes]

A lot going on in your world?

[Mike Wirth]

A little bit.

[Josh Holmes]

I've always said to every CEO, it doesn't matter the industry is that when DC starts talking about your stuff, it's always a little uncomfortable.

[Mike Wirth]

Rather not be at the center of attention here in D.C. it was like

[Josh Holmes]

when the finance people, when Michael Lewis writes a book about you, you know, you've got a problem in D.C. but listen, we are huge fans of everything that you guys have done for years and years and years. And obviously, American energy, key to national security, key to economic growth, American prosperity and all of that. Just quick takeaways from the last 10 days. Huge conflict, obviously, with Iran and the Middle East. We saw this big spike in oil prices. Now come back down a touch. What's your sense of any of this?

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah, so we have people on the ground. So my first sense is the highest priorities for us is taking care of our people, keeping them safe, keeping our operations safe. We operate in half a dozen different countries in that region. We've evacuated hundreds of expatriates and expatriate families. We've got still thousands of national employees on the ground that are at risk. And so focusing on their safety in a time like that is job number one for us. Our operations have been impacted in. In some countries, we've had to slow down production in chemical facilities, in oil and gas production. And so we're subject to the kinds of things you're reading about, where tanks are filling up, there's no place to move some of the production. And so we're having to slow down or shut in operations. Markets are really hard to predict. And when we do crisis management exercises, which in our business are a normal thing, the big one has always been something in the Middle east that shuts the Strait of Hormuz because there's so much of the world's energy flows through there every day. And as we've seen now, with just 10 days or so of that effectively being closed, markets are very uncomfortable, uncertain, volatile and unpredictable. And so the situation on the ground seems to evolve every day. You know, in terms of the military operations, and we're seeing actions now. Today there was an announcement about a big release of strategic reserves, the biggest release that's ever been. Ever been done. I think that's a good move. It sends a signal to markets that we're going to bring production into the market that doesn't have to flow through the straits. And this is what these reserves were set up for. They've been used for a lot of other things over the years, but they

[Josh Holmes]

were actually government at one point, we know.

[Mike Wirth]

So you know how that works all

[Josh Holmes]

the time, the nonsense that it's been used for in the past.

[Mike Wirth]

But yeah, so. Yeah. So, you know, always in a situation like this, you, you, you pray for, you know, human life to be spared and in the conflict to end in a way that minimizes the impact. And certainly, you know, that's how we're approaching this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Smug]

It feels like one thing that always comes to mind whenever there is a conflict abroad or a situation abroad is just the necessity of America to maintain not just energy independence, but dominance. It feels like we're in a better place now, especially with this administration. Do you feel the same way, that it's looking better for America to be allowed to harvest our own natural resources?

[Mike Wirth]

Oh, 100%. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of oil, largest producer of natural gas. Number one in natural gas liquids, number one in lng, number one in biofuels, number one in nuclear, number two in renewables, number four in hydro. We've got an abundance of energy resources that should be developed for the economic benefit of our country, for the security of our country. And we've got great industries across the board, including in wind and solar, but also in oil and gas and nuclear. We truly should encourage all of the above. There's no one that's perfect in every solution. But we're blessed with an abundance of energy resources in this country. And I think the administration sees that and wants to encourage development because it knows what it means for our economy, our competitiveness and our security. Yeah.

[Duncan]

You look at a situation like the Strait of Hormuz, and I think for a lot of people, they don't like energy doesn't come to top of mind necessarily when they're thinking about the economy in so many ways. The economy is dependent on energy.

[Smug]

Everything is.

[Duncan]

And, and, you know, for a company like Chevron and everybody in the oil and gas industry, we look at opportunities here in the future, AI data centers, and the demand that it's going to require to fulfill the needs there from the energy sector. Can you talk a little bit about all of that for our audience?

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah. I mean, energy is what keeps the lights on. It keeps the trains running, it keeps the Amazon packages showing up. It's the, literally the, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, all of it depends on it. You know, you saw during COVID when the whole global economy basically shut down, oil product, oil demand dropped by about 10% during a complete shutdown of, of the global economy. So we need oil and gas and energy for every aspect of our lives. And now that we've got the ability to turn energy into knowledge, right into intelligence, the demand for that is only going up. We're working with all the big technology companies to try to help meet their energy needs. And every one of them is constrained by what they call compute, which really means not enough of these GPUs, not enough data centers. But fundamentally, the constraint on development in the US Is energy. We haven't seen power demand or electricity demand in this country grow much at all for the last 20 years. In China, it's been going almost straight up. And so in this country, the permitting processes, development processes are constraining the ability to grow this. And it's a real problem. I mean, there's a competition between our country and China to take the leadership in this technology. And so actually, earlier today, I was at a conference here in Washington where a lot of people talking about that, including Cabinet secretaries who are talking about how we streamline permitting, how do we encourage development, tech companies who are saying, how do we bring these data centers online and not increase electricity prices to consumers? Because that's becoming a political issue. And so it is. It's just another illustration of how vital energy is to our economy and affordable and reliable energy. And for a while, the west, certainly you can look at Europe, who still may be stuck there, became so obsessed with just one aspect of it, which is the environmental dimension of energy, that affordability and reliability were really kind of forgotten.

[Duncan]

Turns out that's pretty important until the

[Mike Wirth]

tap gets shut off, and then all of a sudden the prices go up and you're not sure you're even going to have it?

[Josh Holmes]

And now they have an affordability debate.

[Mike Wirth]

Now they got an affordability debate and, and a reliability debate. And so. So our country is blessed with, I think, policies now that we see that encourage investment and really do benefit our economy. And I think it'd be wise for us to stay on that path.

[Josh Holmes]

Let me just tap into that whole AI data center, energy production component, because you're right. I mean, they've made it an affordability argument in an awful lot of ways, which clearly that's a component of it. But you've been around not only our domestic energy production, but overseas, everything that you're doing to harvest energy. Are you convinced from just a supply side that this is something that our energy industry writ large is prepared to deal with in a way that American consumers can Innovate, but also not have their bills skyrocket.

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah, I am. I mean, if you look around the U.S. the states that have actually seen some of the highest levels of development of data centers at AI are the ones who have added a lot of power to the system. I live in Texas now, and I was just talking to somebody today who runs a power business in Florida. If you go back 20 years ago, prices in Florida and California were electricity prices about the same. Today, California is twice as expensive.

[Josh Holmes]

I wonder why that is. You might have some more insight into why you live in Texas.

[Mike Wirth]

And so it can be done, and it is being done in some parts of our country, not all parts of our country. But yeah, there's. There's absolutely a pathway to develop data centers to create the jobs that go with that, the economic benefit that goes with that, and the investment in the energy to support it. So that in fact, the big tech companies, there were two of them this morning that we're speaking, both of whom were committed to and have signed a pledge with the president to say, look, we're going to find ways not only to bring our own power, but to bring more power than we need for our operations to help make sure that we're alleviating the impact on others. And I think that's. I think that's a responsible way for them to think about this and to approach it. And we're trying to work with them to accomplish that.

[Smug]

You touched on one of the things that I think is critical. I've been reading a lot lately about, if you look at the job market and the jobs of the future, there's now so much demand for folks in construction to build out these data centers and in energy to provide for it. And you yourself were, by training, you're a chemical engineer, right? Where do you see the jobs for parents who are watching, who are thinking about what are my kids thinking about going into? Where do you see that specifically with this massive growth in energy jobs that we're going to be seeing?

[Mike Wirth]

Well, I'll tell you, one of the things that I hope people are taking a hard look at again are the building trades and the construction trades we have in this country. And we rely on tradespeople to do an awful lot of our project work. But what's happened, if you look at the demographics of it, the people that do this work are my age and they're graying out of the workforce, they're retiring. And we don't have young people. Young people are all told, you need to go to college. You need to get a four year degree. That's not for everybody, and I'm not putting a value judgment on it, but there are some people that would really rather work with their hands than work outside. They like to build things. And we've got a great system in this country. Community colleges, trade schools, programs, apprenticeships that can bring people into the trades as pipe fitters, welders, electricians, instrument techs. You can make a six figure income, you can get a good health plan in retirement in those kinds of jobs. And if we see the kind of infrastructure build out that it would take to meet the aspirations of these companies, we're going to need a lot of people that can do that. That's one of the big constraints right now are energy, gas turbines to generate the energy and people to build these plants. And so I think again this morning at the conference I was at, there was an announcement made of a big new training program. The head of the building trades was there. We had cabinet officials there. They get it and they want to see people go into these jobs. And particularly you read about, and you guys see this kind of young males in our society that don't feel like they've got a future. They're disaffected, they're in the basement playing video games. We've got issues with drug problems and all this other stuff. You create a future with good employment, the chance to have a good life, take care of your family. I think there's a lot there to be said for, you know, those kinds of jobs.

[Josh Holmes]

I take a lot of credence into what you're talking about because it's one of the few industries globally that has insight into almost every sector of the economy. Right. So you're seeing the growth opportunities in real time because of a demand on what it is that you do for a living.

[Mike Wirth]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And that, that is a, We've talked about this for an awful lot of years, but it seems like that in particular with the rise of AI and everything else is a real opportunity out there.

[Mike Wirth]

There, there is. And, and it's, it's, it's beyond AI, right? We're talking about bringing chip fabrication back to this country. We're talking about, we're building LNG export facilities. There's all kind, I mean, infrastructure is one of the things that at least rhetorically seems to get bipartisan support in this town. Right. Everybody likes infrastructure now. They like their own kind of infrastructure more than somebody else's, I guess. But, but you know what made this country great was in the 1800s building the railroads, and then the middle of the 1900s, building the interstate highway system and laying the fiber that has been laid and building ports and airports. And we need to invest in pipelines and power transmission and fiber and infrastructure. And that's driven our country's economy for 150 years.

[Duncan]

There's something just super exciting about the idea that we can build the next frontier here in America. All of this is just very exciting stuff. It's just like so cool to hear that in this whole debate, you know, there's, with AI and everything that people always think of, like the negatives of where there might be job losses in the economy as we sort of gain efficiencies in technology. But from what I'm hearing, from what you're saying is it also opens the door for so many people to come into a technology that is growing and it's going to power the economy of the future in ways we have not even thought of yet.

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah, I mean, I do think these, you know, there are real fears out there. And I won't quote the numbers right, but I was talking to somebody a few months ago that said in the 1900 census in the United States, it's like 60% of the people filled out that their job was related to agriculture in some form or fashion in the census. 100 years later, it's like 2% of the people are involved in agriculture. Population of the country has expanded 10x, the food supply has expanded more than 10x, and yet we're doing it with a fraction of the percentage of the workforce. And I think it's hard when these shifts come to see where the new jobs, where are the new opportunities. It's maybe easier to feel the fear of something. But I'm with you. I think there's a whole bright future that this enables if we seize it and if we lead in it.

[Josh Holmes]

And the mainstay throughout is energy, access to energy. It's a good line of work you got yourself.

[Mike Wirth]

It's funny, a few weeks ago, when the stock market started to, the tech companies lost a little bit of their halo and you saw money move into other sectors, including ours. A reporter from one of the news agencies texted me and said, hey, it must be nice to be in a business that makes a real product that people really need as opposed to just write software that people could decide they don't really want anymore. And I texted back to the reporter, I said, you know, about two years ago, everybody was telling me they didn't need our product anymore and we were going out of business and our assets were all going to be stranded. So I guess maybe, maybe we're going to be around, around for a little while.

[Josh Holmes]

One area of the world that's been in the news an awful lot, but your company is a great deal of experience there is Venezuela. Give me your thoughts on Venezuela. Opportunities, energy production, stability, all that.

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah. So we've been in Venezuela for most of the last hundred years, and Venezuela's been through some ups and downs over that period of time. And our company's been through some ups and downs with, with them. You go back to the 1990s, 1980s. There's a point in that period of time where Venezuela's GDP per capita was the fourth highest in the world. It's higher than Japan's.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's wild.

[Mike Wirth]

And so it was a country of tremendous promise, tremendous prosperity. They had a great education system, they had a vibrant economy. It was kind of the jewel of Latin America. And of course, over the last period of time, it's seen a very different political leadership.

[Josh Holmes]

Mike, you mean communism doesn't work

[Duncan]

and

[Mike Wirth]

yet we play the long game, Right? Venezuela's got more oil resource than any country on the planet, including Saudi Arabia. It's right in America's backyard. It should be a priority for America. And it's been a subject of sanctions under both the first Trump administration, then the Biden administration, again under this administration until very recently when there was a different tact taken. And at least in the early days, right now, I've seen positive signs they've reformed their hydrocarbon law, which makes it more attractive for investment. The interim president has taken meetings with Secretary Wright. Secretary Bergen was down there last week. As I've spoken to them, they've been very encouraged by the discussions. I think they're, they recognize there's more to be done. Food prices have come down. There's more food on the shelves. The flow of funds into the economy is now being influenced by the rules that the US has set up, which is resulting in less pressure on inflation. I think the average person in Venezuela, and we've got a lot of Venezuelan national employees that work for us are seeing signs of improvement. And, you know, we, we certainly, there's, there's more to be done. And you don't get into a situation like this overnight. You don't get out of it overnight either. But, you know, we're pleased to be on the ground. We want to be part of building a better future for the people there. And just over, you know, you know, a few blocks away, from here, having some discussions about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I imagine your. Your leadership. Anyway, look, you've been there a long time. You probably know a lot more than almost any American about.

[Mike Wirth]

You know, for a while, there were no other American businesses in the country. We were the only one. The embassy has been shut down and, you know, since 2019. So it's going to take some time, I think, to re establish the kind of diplomatic presence there, the kind of business presence there that we once had. But that's certainly the administration's objective. And I've talked to people in the business community that are encouraged by that, that are seriously looking at going down there. I know the administration now has some people on the ground in Caracas and intends to grow that footprint. And so, you know, things are moving in a, you know, in a very interesting direction.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, speaking of encouraging, it's pretty encouraging that we have any administration that's actually leaning on people who have done stuff.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In a particular novel concept and asking questions, you know. It is a novel concept. Oh, I appreciate it. So listen, everybody who comes in here, they get three questions.

[Mike Wirth]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

And these are the ones that everybody pays attention to.

[Mike Wirth]

All right?

[Josh Holmes]

Our first one is if you can plan your last meal on earth, what would it be?

[Mike Wirth]

Oh, boy. I really, really like a big, thick wagyu ribeye steak.

[Josh Holmes]

There you go. There you go. I love that. That's good. Are we doing sides with this? Are we throwing some potatoes in?

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah, we'll throw some potatoes on the side. Maybe some. I've been getting into broccolini lately, you know, to be asparagus, but maybe some charred broccolini.

[Josh Holmes]

There you go.

[Mike Wirth]

Red wine. Yeah, yeah. My last meal. Yeah, I haven't been thinking about that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you could slide in sideways, too. It's the last meal, you know, I mean, nobody has to worry about cholesterol in the morning when you got that going on.

[Mike Wirth]

All right, I'll take two scoops of ice cream for dessert.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. All right, so our second question is, look, very successful guy, obviously, huge career. You've seen a lot of different types of industries. Our view is that almost everybody goes through the course of life that rises to the levels that you have, has found something along the way that they were really good at and really interested in, but they just didn't have enough life to just pursue that one thing because they're doing all the other things that has led them to where they are. Is there some kind of vocation, job, anything that you would have loved to have pursued if you had a Second lifetime.

[Smug]

And it can be as far fetched as possible. Ted Cruz said he'd be an NBA player, so.

[Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which nobody believes.

[Smug]

Practical choice,

[Mike Wirth]

100%. I. When I was a kid, I would go to hockey games and I was fascinated by the Zamboni.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Wirth]

You know, the machine that comes out to resurface the ice. And the guy who drove that Zamboni and made the ice so perfect. And it was just the geometry of it and the. The way he made the turns. So if I could do anything, I would be the Zamboni driver at the Winter Olympic Games this year for both the men's victory over Canada and women's team victories over Canada. That would be the pinnacle. I would retire as the most contented Zamboni driver in the history of ice.

[Josh Holmes]

Such a good answer. I mean, we ask these because they're revealing.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But he's talking about the geometry of the. Of the ice cleaning. I get it. All of a sudden, I feel like. I know.

[Mike Wirth]

It's a beautiful thing.

[Josh Holmes]

It is a beautiful thing.

[Duncan]

It's fun to watch. You know, you can kind of. It's kind of like when somebody. When somebody does a really great job cutting their lawn.

[Smug]

Oh, yeah. You can see the lines.

[Duncan]

You're like, I respect the art, the craft, you know, 100%. Yeah.

[Brent Gardner]

I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so our third question is almost every successful person in life is motivated by one of two things. The thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it's not that anybody doesn't like winning or they enjoy losing. It's what motivates you to take the next step in your career. Either get more education, spend some more time just hitting your head against the brick wall, trying to break through, get up a little earlier, work a little harder. And the prototypical agony of defeat person is Michael Jordan.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

This is a guy who invented slights upon himself in order to take his game to that level. We always say, Phil Mickelson is kind of our thrill of victory, where he's up three shots, but he's got a 280 yard shot over water. And he's like, well, I think I can.

[Mike Wirth]

I could do this. Give me the driver off the deck. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's what motivates the person to just spend more time trying to perfect their craft. If you look at that compendium, where do you think you find yourself?

[Mike Wirth]

Agony of the feet.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mike Wirth]

You learn a lot more when things don't go well and you never want to be comfortable with that. You want to be uncomfortable with that. And you want to look and say, okay, what is it that I do now to get better? How do I make sure this doesn't happen again? And so I grew up playing sports, and I had great coaches and a fair amount of success. But I'll tell you, the lessons I learned. The deepest that stay with me today are the ones that I learned from the losses where it didn't work out the way you wanted to and you had to sit down.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like, the big win. This is such a perfect explanation. The big win. You're like, oh, yeah, no, I guess that did happen last week. And the one really bad thing you remember for 30 years.

[Mike Wirth]

Always. Always a lot longer than that. I mean, I can remember high school basketball games going back a lot longer than that.

[Duncan]

What's the worst loss that you remember?

[Mike Wirth]

My senior year against Wheat Ridge High School. We got bounced out of the playoffs by a single point. I missed two free throws in that game.

[Duncan]

No.

[Mike Wirth]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you've thought about this a lot.

[Mike Wirth]

I still wake. I still wake up. I still wake up standing there on the free throw line and watching the ball climb off the rim. It's like. Oh, it's like a nightmare that won't go away.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's an agony guy, if there ever was one. I understand your. Your wife is like a scratch golfer.

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah, she's maybe a two or three, not a scratch, but she. My wife was a. Is a good athlete, and she was. She's an all American tennis player in college.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, got it. Okay.

[Mike Wirth]

And then we had four kids and moved around the world and. And she had a knee replaced and decided she'd pick up golf. Just pick that up and just picked it up. She's. She's played in the U.S. senior Open. The U.S. senior? Yeah. She's qualified for some serious events with, you know, former professional players, former college players. So she's. She pretty well kicks my ass on the golf course every time.

[Josh Holmes]

And she's got you on the bag?

[Mike Wirth]

I do. When she plays in the AT&T Pro Am, I take a week off work. I carry the bag.

[Josh Holmes]

At Pebble?

[Mike Wirth]

Yeah, at Pebble.

[Josh Holmes]

That's pretty.

[Duncan]

How does that go down? You guys fight on the course or. Well, just trying to picture me and my wife playing golf together, and I can't picture it.

[Mike Wirth]

I don't know how much time you guys got left. I can give you one good story that'll illustrate it all.

[Josh Holmes]

Please, Please. Do you want to?

[Mike Wirth]

Okay, so we're. So we're at pebble beach on the seventh hole, which is a short downhill par three, the wind's blowing in, it's a cold, windy day, and we're playing with another CEO who's a big guy as the am. So the two pros tee off, the other amateur tees off. And I'm listening to him and his caddy talk and they're talking these slug clubs and it's two clubs. So he takes a mighty swing. He hits the ball, goes up in the air and lands in the front bunker. And so my wife steps up there and she's looking at the wind and she goes, this feels like two clubs. I go, no, no, no, no, that's three clubs. She goes, no, I think it's two clubs. And I go, no, trust me, it's three clubs. Okay? So she goes up three clubs and she pierce it right in the center of the face and it's right on the flag and it keeps going, oh, no, oh no. Into the big water hazard, find the green, turns, and she looks at me and she goes, it was two effing clubs. I don't know what I can say on Ruthless, so I won't tell you. And she didn't talk to me for the next six holes.

[Josh Holmes]

At that point you just.

[Mike Wirth]

So that's how it goes on the bank.

[Duncan]

That's exactly how I pictured it.

[Josh Holmes]

That is exactly how I picture it.

[Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, man, what a. Well, thank you so much for joining us and giving us a little insight into a whole bunch of topics that honestly everybody's thinking about these days. But I know you guys are doing incredible work at Chevron and thanks for coming in, Mike.

[Mike Wirth]

Well, thanks for all that you guys do. I. I've become a fan of the show. I'm a fan of a bunch of your guests. So maybe I'll come back one day.

[Ashbrook]

Please do. Love that. Thanks so much.

[Mike Wirth]

Great seeing you.

[Ashbrook]

You know, one of the things we love on the Ruthless Variety program are issue area experts. And this guy knows more about the oil gas industry than almost anybody you would ever meet on a day to day basis. And it is just a pleasure to have somebody like him answering questions and being candid about the things that he's dealing with on a day to day basis.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I mean, obviously there are few people on the planet who have more knowledge about supply chains when it comes to the energy sector and the global economy. And all these things relate, you know, the strait of Hormuzzi, Venezuela than him. And so like, what a great honor to have him on the show. And also he's A golfer. And he brought us tequila. Oh, yeah, he's good in our book.

[Josh Holmes]

He brought us tequila. You might have noticed that bottle sitting in front of us there. We've already deleted it. Just kidding. Not yet, but we will shortly.

[Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, we come back and we're going to play our Thursday special, King of the Hill, right after this. Okay. It is Thursday. It's time to play our signature game here on the ruthless variety program, King of the Hill. I'm gonna. I've taken notice.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That Bill Crystal, our reigning champion with you, Duncan.

[Mike Wirth]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Is a formidable opponent in this particular time as we're at war with Iran.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because of his past. And I thought the only way to try to fight fire with fire is to find the only neocon more Neo Connie, I mean real Neo Connie, than Crystal himself. And so I. A blast from the past. Somebody we played at the beginning of this show that I don't think we've played in years. Max Boot.

[Mike Wirth]

Wow.

[Smug]

It's the boot.

[Duncan]

The boot is back. Wait, so who's judge today?

[Mike Wirth]

Is it you?

[Smug]

Ashbrook.

[Duncan]

Ashbrook's judge. And you're bailiff. Fantastic. Let's go ringside.

[Ashbrook]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for King of the Hip. In the red corner, fighting between the debits and credits of of his next book deal, Maximum Boots. And now in the blue corner, fighting still from Pierre Omad's checkbook and current champion of the world, Bill War Now War forever.

[Duncan]

Crystal

[Smug]

and Maximum. But a classic.

[Duncan]

Fantastic.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a classic neocon showdown.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I mean, we were joking in the production meeting as you. You were trying to figure out your champion to bring to this game. It feels like playing against Bill Crystal during a war with Iran is like playing against Barry Bonds when he's had the cream in the clear.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he got the cream in the clear and he's ready to go.

[Duncan]

I'm a little embarrassed by it, but obviously I go first, so let me just pull up these exhibits. Okay. We're going to start first with a song. Exhibit number eight, please.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, God.

[Duncan]

This song may.

[Smug]

He wrote a song.

[Duncan]

This may be familiar. This is the grand old Duke of York. If your kids, when they're growing up, listen to like little Baby Bum or anything, you know, this is one of those English children's songs. He's repurposed it for Donald Trump. He writes our war president. Oh, grand old Donald Trump. He had many thousand men he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again when. When they Were up, they were up. When they were down, they were down. When they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down.

[Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Smug]

He has such an unfounded high opinion.

[Duncan]

It's such a high opinion of himself. Now, this is a children's song.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

And it's about like, sort of like the. The pointlessness of. Of war, you know, refers to a Duke of York. He's repurposing it for Donald Trump. I think it's some of his finest artistry. Usually he's very ham handed with his stuff. And I thought this was very unique.

[Josh Holmes]

It's unique. No question about it. If I could ask to indulge the court just for one moment, because Bill Crystal is a household name. I just want one sentence, just as a reminder of Max Boot and what his credentials are.

[Ashbrook]

It's allowed.

[Duncan]

I'll allow it to my opposing counsel. I think that's fair. We haven't played him in so long.

[Josh Holmes]

It's been so long. And he hasn't been a part of the public discussion.

[Duncan]

But I'm gonna limit you to 60 seconds.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. One of the preeminent.

[Ashbrook]

Wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Smug]

Oh, God.

[Ashbrook]

You are not limited to 60 seconds.

[Josh Holmes]

I appreciate that, but I can abide by explanation.

[Ashbrook]

Hey.

[Duncan]

Okay.

[Ashbrook]

I'm worried. Be quiet. I like it. Song boy.

[Duncan]

Smug. You know the story.

[Josh Holmes]

So he was one of the preeminent pro wars voices of Iraq war, war on terror, whatever. In 2009, at, you know, a precarious position for the Iraq war in Afghanistan, he wrote in an op ed, military action against Iran's nuclear program. And the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

[Duncan]

Okay.

[Smug]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Just so you have a sense of what this gentleman's predisposition was on this

[Duncan]

moment in time all those years ago.

[Josh Holmes]

All those years ago. Now I'd like to put up exhibit 14, if you don't mind. Like I said, the winners of the US Iran war are likely to be China and Russia.

[Smug]

Amazing. And it's a link to Washington Post.

[Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Wall Street Journal piece.

[Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Duncan]

Not a full song. He didn't write a full song.

[Ashbrook]

Okay, you know what? I. That. That Max Boot take is so ridiculous. And the full switcheroo from Max Boot is something that I think should be noted. But let's put that Crystal song back up one more time just so that we can fully appreciate his creativity here, which I think is grand in hope, not necessarily grand in follow through, because he has an interesting idea here.

[Smug]

That's the thing conceived in lunacy. It didn't feel like he cleared any sort of bar. He just, like, replaced a word and thought he'd done something.

[Josh Holmes]

It just feels like a lot of reading.

[Ashbrook]

Exactly. It's conceived in lunacy. The second stanza, he mailed it in. Max Boot wins round one.

[Smug]

That's fair. I gotta be real.

[Josh Holmes]

That's fair.

[Duncan]

I think that's fair. I think that's fair.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so in Exhibit 17, the preeminent war with Iran columnist now writes, if you don't want the price of oil to spike, don't start a major war with Iran.

[Ashbrook]

What's the summary of what he's quote, tweeting there?

[Josh Holmes]

It's Donald Trump and he has a tweet, basically talking about the Strait of Hormuz and oil and how if they didn't do basically what they were doing, that that was going to become worse over a period of time.

[Ashbrook]

Okay, okay.

[Duncan]

Well, so last week, we played two tweets from Bill Kristol that were diametrically opposed to Donald Trump's attack on Iran. There was one about, you know, he shouldn't be doing this. There's another about, is he going far enough in doing regime change? He's sort of having a schizophrenic moment on the thing where he can't decide how to oppose Donald Trump because actually he believes in this war as well. He just can't do that now because he's paid by Democrats. He's now found a third angle.

[Smug]

Amazing.

[Duncan]

On the war in Iran. Exhibit 20, please. Bill Kristol is, quote, tweeting comments from a journalist about how Donald Trump. Trump is talking about how the war will probably end soon.

[Ashbrook]

Right.

[Duncan]

I just want to. I don't want to read the whole thing. I'll just sort of summarize it. This upsets Bill Kristol. Trump beginning to taco on the Iran war, as suggested a few days ago, linked to the Bulwark.

[Josh Holmes]

So now, now it's Taco.

[Duncan]

So now he's mad at Trump because Taco, obviously, you know, we've talked about this on the show numerous times. That is, you know, the acronym means Trump always chickens out. Now Bill Kristol is mad at Donald Trump because he might end the war.

[Ashbrook]

Can we put that Max Boot tweet up one more time? I just want to see it.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we haven't.

[Ashbrook]

I want to see the avatar. Yeah, you

[Smug]

started wrong.

[Josh Holmes]

But I feel like it's got. It needs more context than just the.

[Ashbrook]

Well, you pop the back home.

[Duncan]

Who's the judge here?

[Josh Holmes]

I just wanted if you wanted to more context, I could more fulsome summarize,

[Ashbrook]

pop it back up.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's hear Donald Trump's argument here, which is basically talking about that $120 spike that we saw last Sunday in the price of oil. And he was basically taking the position that them controlling what we have going on in terms of oil prices is not a good outcome. This will stay.

[Ashbrook]

So, Eddie, if you could put that back up again. I just want to take a note of that avatar where his hat is cocked to the side as it was when he was supportive of taking out the Ayatollah years and years ago. Of course, now he's against it because Donald Trump is the president. And I think this is just another example of ridiculous turnabout from Max Boot. What Bill Kristol said about Trump is chickening out now on Iran, I'm going to agree. Takes that round. And I think round two goes to Crystal.

[Josh Holmes]

I agree. That was. I didn't see that coming.

[Duncan]

It was a complete nuke. I had to save the nuke.

[Josh Holmes]

You did.

[Duncan]

You know, you never know how the songs are going to be taken by the judge. Okay, we're going to change topics now to DHS exhibit number seven, please. This again from the founder of the Standard and. And titan of neoconservativism. Defund ice straight up.

[Smug]

Amazing.

[Duncan]

The conversion that ICE is attempting from warehouse to human storage is not a renovation so much as a statement about what this administration believes immigrants are. It's linked to somebody's substack, which.

[Ashbrook]

Embarrassing. Could council just please confirm that that statement was provided with quotation marks?

[Duncan]

I believe it's. It's an excerpt from the article that he is linking to.

[Smug]

But Defund ICE straight up is him.

[Duncan]

He's just saying defund ICE on top of it.

[Ashbrook]

That's not his quote. He's quoting somebody else.

[Smug]

Correct.

[Duncan]

Okay.

[Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

All right. So one of my favorite parts of Kristol and Boot is that they have to summarily elect themselves the smartest amongst this in order to get into the conversation. Right. And make everybody else seem like lemmings and dumb and everything else. So in Exhibit 15, there is a tweet that was put out by Senate Republicans that said 94% approve of operation Epic Fury. Of course, that's the operation going on in Iran. What Max is commentary is Trump could name Comrade Kamala in quotes as his successor and 94% of MAGA Republicans would approve.

[Smug]

I love the spiraling nature of it. The ironic thing is it feels like such giving it to failure, that he's like, what can we do? No matter what, Trump's gonna win. You know what I mean? Like, the heart of it is the realization that you're so defeated, because he is. Max Boot is probably among the most defeated living people. Like, everything he believed in is now in tatters. He's gotten owned so terribly, and he's like, there's nothing we could do. He could do anything in 94% of people. Like, he's like a cell phone.

[Ashbrook]

He's also, quote, tweeting an account from Senate Republicans on something that a lot of Republicans do support, which is the American military carrying out an effort against.

[Duncan]

It's something Bill Kristol and Max Boot used to support.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, there is great to do a little review on this. I was looking at some of the Crystal and Boot stuff on the way in, and the arguments that they made against the Obama administration in the Iran deal were hyperbolic. I mean, they were like 10 of 10, both of them, in terms of only intervention, only regime change, only all the. You can't possibly negotiate with the Iranians now. Both of them are just like, no, this is the worst thing in the world. I can't believe Trump would do this,

[Ashbrook]

look as ridiculous as Defundy says. From the former publisher of the Weekly Standard, who fronted cartoon pictures about immigration on his magazine.

[Smug]

No way.

[Duncan]

Holmes is winning in Ashbrook's court. You're telling me for the first time.

[Smug]

Amazing. Wow.

[Ashbrook]

Max Boot wins.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I'm shocked. Maximum Boot returns to glory for the first time in years here in the court of King of the Hill. And I couldn't be prouder of him.

[Duncan]

I think Ashbrook should be permanent judge.

[Smug]

I think he should never be judged. He's a terrible judge of permanent.

[Ashbrook]

You heard it here, folks.

[Duncan]

Permanent judge. Then you have to play every week.

[Smug]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

No, thank you. I appreciate that. I think that is denigrating to the honor.

[Duncan]

I don't care.

[Josh Holmes]

I didn't think you did, but that's why you keep losing. All right, you want a little knowledge about some of the dumbest stuff going on Capitol Hill is the DHS thing that we're talking about. Brent Gardner, a good friend from afp, is going to give us some insight. Well, this is a topic that we're going to start with, with our next guest that we. I don't feel like I've talked about enough in the fact that Democrats have defunded Homeland Security at a time of war, but when we need a little insight that, frankly, just doesn't make any Sense to us. We turn to our good friends at AFP and our good friend Brent Garner. How are you, sir?

[Brent Gardner]

I'm doing great. I'm not sure I can make any more sense out of it than you have, but we can talk about it.

[Ashbrook]

It's terrifying. I mean, it's absolutely terrifying. It's been shut down now for 27 days. And, and we're all old enough to remember why the Department of Homeland Security was open to begin with in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history designed to prevent that sort of unthinkable thing from happening again. Yet here we are, Democrats continuing to shut it down. They just objected last night to a two week extension. I mean, who could object to two weeks at a time of war? I mean, Brent, I know you're hearing things at the doors. You guys are talking to people all the time.

[Duncan]

What.

[Ashbrook]

But what are you guys hearing? Sure, people are terrified.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah. I mean, look, it's an unconscionable decision to make and ultimately the reasoning that they're putting forward for it doesn't even make sense either. But, you know, just last year we had the longest government shutdown in our nation's history. How is it possible that we're pursuing a similar strategy at a time where following strikes in Iran, the nation and the world is less safe than ever? And one of the agencies tasked with trying to protect Americans every day is shut down because Democrats have chosen to make this the Hill that they stand on. And I think ultimately it's Americans that will pay the price if they don't make the decision quickly to reverse course.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not sure how they get out from underneath this, because, look, we understand Democrats were extremely concerned about us enforcing the law, and they certainly didn't like any of the ICE action. Minneapolis gave them something very specific to object to, which they extrapolated out to shutting down the Department of Homeland Security. But in the intervening weeks, as everything has been shut down, I mean, the. The gnome's been fired.

[Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what I mean? Like, there has been some change. You've seen the administration out talking about how they want to emphasize and re. Emphasize the deportation of the most violent criminals who have been convicted over time. I mean, if their goal was to try to change what it is that the focus of Homeland Security was, congratulations, mission accomplished. But now you're at a time of war where there are threats. I just don't understand. If this doesn't do the trick, how do they get the yes here?

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah, I don't know the answer to that either. But I think at the end of the day, what hasn't changed is that ICE is and was funded. Yeah, I think that, you know, the issue here is what we've defunded is departments charged with securing Americans in places like the nation's airlines. You know, and I think, you know, if we look at where you are, you know, regardless of where you are in any of those positions, the challenge that they face today is that they think the answer is shutting down the American government. You know, and I think, realistically, what do they have to do? They have to reverse course on this. They have to reopen the government. And we need to look and have Americans look at the type of elected officials who would say that the right solution here is to hold America hostage. And the way to do that is not to just end this government shutdown, but even look at policies that end government shutdowns forever. This is not a good strategy for us to utilize to try and achieve our ends and our goals. And so I think it's easy. Democrats need to reverse course on this. They need to come to the table. They need to reopen the government, and they need to look for some of the solutions that Americans want. And that's not continuing to shut down essential services, in particular security services, at a time where our nation is finding itself in greater, greater danger.

[Duncan]

Are there reasonable, I hate to use the term, it feels oxymoronic. Are there reasonable Democrats there on Capitol Hill that might come to their senses and all of this and break the logjam when it comes to DHS funding? And what can people do? What can AFP do to help move that along?

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah, I think that's a great question. And so we've actually launched some new ads today that are calling on Democrats who are not there today to do that to step forward. And we're starting to air those in specific districts and nationwide as well. So we're doing that. We're having conversations at the driveways and doorsteps. Listen, we're a grassroots organization. Whether we go to the door to have that conversation or not, this is in the minds of the American people. And so these are the conversations that we're hearing and that we're having. And so holding folks accountable, I think, is a first step in that. But I think, yeah, absolutely, there should be guys like John Fetterman are doing it. And I think there's opportunities for more Democrats to show the kind of leadership that Americans are looking for, step forward and say, let's move past this bad decision, get back to reopening the government and then try and solve some challenges.

[Josh Holmes]

One of the things I've appreciated most about your organization over the years is that you focus on the things that are ultimately the big thing that matters. I mean, they fundamentally change what it is that we're dealing with. Everyone, you get online culture, you get what I view is a real lack of specificity from Republicans across the board about this. Like, this is the only thing anybody should be talking about, frankly.

[Mike Wirth]

It is.

[Josh Holmes]

And it feels like no one is talking about it, but you guys are.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah, look, there's big challenges out there all over the place. We got a lot of news stories coming around, but this is one of those places where everyone should agree, like having a bunch of TSA agents unable to get paid at a time where we're in this situation. This is the no brainer. This is the opportunity for people to come together. And the challenge that we have is as long as we're having unserious conversations and there are serious challenges out there, we can't get to the serious solutions to the bigger challenges. We have to knock these things off. We have to get to a position where our government is out there advocating important things that people care about. And we can't have these symbolic discussions that ultimately don't advance American interests.

[Josh Holmes]

I wonder if some of this is like the utmost cynical political point of view in that if you're a party out of power and you just throw nothing but problems into the gears of government and everything else, people who actually care about their government and their country get frustrated. Have they got a tune out? Right. I mean, they have to, because you can't live your life just constantly screaming at a television set. And they hope at some level, people lose interest in midterms and lose interest

[Duncan]

in politics because the demoralization campaign.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right. I mean, I wonder about that. But, you know, you guys are on the ground. What is that you're seeing out there?

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah, I mean, look, Americans are upset. They don't think their government's doing the work of what they care about. And there's a couple of ways they think about this. One, they become disengaged, or two, they start to look for alternatives. And I think the alternative to what Democrats are offering exists out there and people can look for it. But to your point, it's not being talked about enough. And so I think it's the kind of thing where we really have to focus on exposing people to what the reality is of this situation. People know it, they feel it Today. And that's the conversations that we're having. There's a real emotional connection to the challenge they have when they feel like the government that they support, that they've helped to elect isn't out there representing them and they recognize where there's alternatives to that. And so what we're going to do is we're going to point out the folks who are stopping this. We're going to let folks know who is out there supporting good decisions and who are opposing them. And then at the end of the day, there's a lot of ways they can do it. One, in the meantime, they can advocate certainly for their elected officials that are in the, the seats today to go out there and do the right thing, reopen the government. And sure, we don't use government shutdowns as a method for trying to prove political points. Assume that, you know, ultimately either they're going to do the right thing or the wrong thing and then hold them accountable. November's coming. It's a long mantra that people have had and ultimately we know that people are going to have an opportunity to make a choice of who leads us in the future.

[Ashbrook]

Yeah, I'm really glad you're doing it because, you know, political cynicism is one thing, but shutting down the Department of Homeland Security when there are ISIS inspired bombers in Manhattan and there's a guy last weekend who shot up a bar full of people, the terrorists. There's a bomb threat on a Southwest flight and now the FBI is warning cops on the west coast of Iranian drones maybe coming into American airspace. And it's terrifying. And the last thing any normal person wants to hear after the unthinkable happens is, well, I was upset by what I saw on television in Minnesota. You know, they expect to be protected by what they're paying for to protect them. And exposing this sort of like politics in the worst. I mean, we've been in this business for 20 years. We've never seen anything this bad. I don't think we've ever seen anything this bad. And the threat, I don't care if you're a Republican or you're a Democrat. These are your neighbors. You don't want bad things to happen in America. You shut down the Department of Homeland Security. It's quite possible. And I'm just glad that you're calling these people to the carpet.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah, look, I think the solution's clear. Ultimately, if you want to have a discussion around the issues that you care about, make sure that the actions actually result in the kind of Things that you're worried about. Don't hold the American people hostage over their security to have that conversation. We can have that conversation if you want to, but in the meantime, don't do it at the risk of the American people. And I think that's all we're saying here.

[Josh Holmes]

Another thing that we've really enjoyed a partnership with you all on was that event that we went to at the end of January, America 250. And I know the entire AFP family is celebrating our nation's 250th birthday. You're going to be doing it all year long. How's it going?

[Brent Gardner]

It's going great. What an exciting time for us to really have an opportunity, you know, even with all these challenging things happen, to recognize what made this the greatest country on earth. And for Americans to be able to look back at our principled leaders that helped form this country and, and really all the trials and tribulations that we've had to still be here, as strong as we are today, I think is a really exciting thing. And you're right, we've had some amazing events. We've have one this evening in Nashville that's going to be really exciting with Laura Trump. And actually, this is a chance for all of Americans to do something, to try and help reflect on how great a country this is, how exciting it is to be part of it and to take one small step, which is actually one of the campaigns that we have where Americans can really reconnect to the greatness of the founding principles, to our founders, and what an incredible experience it is to grow up in America.

[Josh Holmes]

You guys created a handy dandy one stop shop for people to share their one small step. Yeah. Which is, you know, look, we love it because I think there's an awful lot of people out there who have their own stories, their own interesting components to the American dream and everything else. But you've now allowed them to do that with your own toolkit.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah, we've got a toolkit up on the website that allows Americans to do it. I know that we've got a custom link that's connected with you guys at Ruthless. You know, we're excited to help give Americans the tools to be able to recognize, you know, how we got to being the country that we are so important.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Brent Gardner]

Give them an opportunity to celebrate it as we all should here in America's 250th year.

[Josh Holmes]

You've been doing this a while.

[Brent Gardner]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Feel inspired?

[Brent Gardner]

I do. You know, I mean, look, we. We face real challenges with real solutions. And I think the thing that gives us the most energy as a grassroots organization is literally talking to people all across this country who, despite the challenges that we have, recognize that the American system and what we have here is so special that it must endure. And they put their energy, their time, their talent and their treasure to making sure that it remains that way and that those opportunities exist for the next generation. Those people are incredibly inspiring to work with. They're living their American dream, and so are we.

[Josh Holmes]

Ah, it's fantastic. So this is www.a250toolkit.com ruthless, where you can get through us, access to all of that, share your stories, become a part of the movement.

[Brent Gardner]

Absolutely. No, it's an exciting time. I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be a patriotic American. I think that the future is bright and bold and the reason for that are going to be people who take a look at what got us here and ensure that those kinds of opportunities exist into the future.

[Josh Holmes]

And they're reminding everyone out there what it is that you ought to be concerned about and the people who are stopping all of that progress, heroes and villains.

[Duncan]

Absolutely.

[Smug]

I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

Frank Gardner, thank you so much for joining us.

[Brent Gardner]

Thank you.

[Mike Wirth]

Appreciate it.

[Brent Gardner]

Guys,

[Ashbrook]

look, I think all of us here and all of us listen, everybody listening thinks this DHS thing is a very, very dangerous situation. Democrats are playing with fire. And I for one, am very happy that AFP is going to the mat to try to convince them to change their mind.

[Josh Holmes]

Staying focused on the real thing. Yep. Nope. I like it. It's good. Well, remember, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless variety program, we ask you a question of the day. And when you type in your response, we read absolutely all of them. And get back to the very next episode. And our question is, what do you think of Barack Obama? Just what do you think?

[Smug]

Straight up. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

What do you think? The post presidency. The presidency. Just give us your.

[Duncan]

And it's going to be Funtime Friday. So make them fun.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, make them fun. Make them fun. So when you get to that and you like and subscribe, we read absolutely all of them. Get back to the very next episode on Funtime Friday with that. Fellas, I think we did it.

[Smug]

Banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Chevron CEO Mike Worth. And thank you to AFP's Brent Gardner and to you, the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that subscribe button 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.