Mugged By Reality: Mamdani Is Already In Trouble + Todd Ricketts Joins The Progrum

Summary

Ruthless Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Mugged By Reality: Mamdani Is Already In Trouble + Todd Ricketts Joins The Progrum
Date: February 20, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Special Guest: Todd Ricketts (Owner, Chicago Cubs)

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Episode Overview

This “Fun Time Friday” episode of Ruthless is a classic blend of sharp conservative analysis and irreverent humor as the hosts break down the latest headlines, skewer progressive politics, and chat with Chicago Cubs owner Todd Ricketts. The show kicks off with a deeper look at New York City’s budget woes and progressive governance (“Mamdani is already in trouble”), pivots to the spectacle of Democratic politics, does a comedic review of Eric Swalwell’s “erotic poetry,” and closes with an insightful yet light-hearted interview about sports, media, and culture with Ricketts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mugged by Reality: Mamdani, New York, and the Progressive Trap

[00:00 – 18:25]

• Host analysis:
  The discussion opens with sharp criticism of New York City’s new progressive leadership—specifically referencing councilman Zohran Mamdani—and a satirical breakdown of the consequences of aggressive social spending and “budget extortion.”

  Key points:

  • Mamdani’s proposed city budget ($127 billion for 8.4 million, bigger than Florida’s $117 billion for 23.4 million) is mocked as unsustainable and a prime example of progressive fiscal irresponsibility.
  • “This is like some jokerfied thing. He’s like, I’m going to burn this pile of money while all of you watch.” – Smug [00:26]
  • The “moderate Democrat” myth is dismantled using Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger as an example; even so-called moderates are chasing business out and trying to ensure one-party rule via redistricting.
  • Hosts argue that for Democrats, it’s all about “power,” not policy—encapsulating a broader skepticism of government growth and left-wing motivations.
  • “What these libs want is power. The only thing Spamberger wants is power, Mom. Donnie, all he wants is power. They trick people into choosing them so they can get the power.” – Holmes [05:34]

  Notable moment:

  • Comparisons between the U.S. teachers unions and Japanese education funding highlight the alleged waste and corruption in Democrat-controlled cities.

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2. The Incremental Playbook and the Expanding Overton Window

[18:25 – 20:43]

• Trendspotting:
  Hosts argue that New York’s troubles are a preview for what progressives will bring everywhere, referencing Minnesota, Virginia, and the purported dynamic where Democratic “moderates” simply follow the activists’ lead.

  • “If you thought the left had really shifted the Overton window and gone out to the extremes, they haven’t gotten started yet.” – Smug [16:29]
  • The rhetoric about “taxing the rich” is challenged as targeting W2 earners and entrepreneurs, not true billionaires.
  • “What they always settle on in ‘tax the millionaires’ is like the W2 worker.” – Duncan [18:37]

  Populist critique:

  • The hypocrisy of progressive elites is again a major theme, especially their immunity from the policies they promote (defund the police, higher taxes).

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3. Comedic Relief: Swalwell’s Erotic Poetry

[23:04 – 30:19]

• Segment highlight:
  The hosts do a dramatic reading and over-the-top roast of Eric Swalwell’s college-era “erotic poem.”
  • “[Atop my hotel she stopped, I left for cloth and tan, My anxious arm she bit. My scar is beautiful.] What? What? … Is this a crime scene?” – Ashbrook / Smug [26:06]
  • The bit is a blend of cringe comedy and political mockery with the consensus being that its pretentiousness is indicative of a larger “pain or deficiency” in progressive leaders.

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4. Trump’s Political Standup

[31:52 – 41:40]

• Standup Politician:
  A montage of Trump’s recent and vintage remarks demonstrates what the hosts see as his unique, authentic, irreverent style that connects with audiences beyond policy.
  • “One of the highest compliments Trump can pay somebody is that you did such a good job, people are saying, why can’t Trump do it? Yeah, don’t show me. That is an incredible compliment.” – Smug [35:02]
  • “Women, I like. Men? I have any interest. Good. That’s right. That’s right.” – Donald Trump riffing to an audience [36:18]
  • The hosts contrast Trump’s “one-of-one” comedic political delivery with other politicians’ sterile or inauthentic messaging, noting this is why “people are gonna vote for that – it’s funny, it’s real.” – Holmes [35:53]

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5. Parenting Group Chat Drama: When Activism Infects Everyday Life

[47:52 – 61:56]

• Cultural analysis:
  The panel reviews a Washington Post story about a D.C. “parenting WhatsApp group” that devolved into bitter political schisms over Gaza and ICE.
  • “You signed up, you’re in a mom’s group chat. You want to know when to sign up for the baseball team. Next thing you know, you’re talking about fucking Gaza.” – Duncan [53:00]
  • They explore how “activist fervor” takes over community groups, making cultural and ideological signaling more important than the supposed purpose (parenting/kids).
  • “It is a disease, but that’s what we’re finding out.” – Duncan [61:57]
  • Satirical jabs highlight the disconnect between performative activism and real community concerns.

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6. Interview: Todd Ricketts on Baseball, Business, and Media (Owner, Chicago Cubs)

[63:25 – 90:58]

Baseball & Ownership

• MLB’s future: Ricketts discusses the need for a salary cap/floor to increase league competitiveness, referencing the upcoming CBA talks (67:28).
• “We need to make some structural changes in baseball to kind of level that playing field and make the teams competitive.” – Ricketts [66:35]
• Wry discussion of NL Central’s tradition and rivalry, and background stories about the Cubs and Wrigley Field.

Real Estate, Stadium Economics & Fan Culture

• Stadiums and development: Modern ownership means investing in not just the stadium but transforming the surrounding area for fan experience and economic viability.
• “If I’m going to put my own capital in the stadium, I’m going to have some ownership.” – Ricketts [71:34]
• Anecdotes about Wrigleyville landmarks and development projects.

New Media Ventures: FreeSpoke Search Engine

• Balanced information: Ricketts introduces FreeSpoke, an AI-powered search engine designed in response to perceived liberal bias in Google/search and social.
• “We try to meta tag everything the best we can and surface things kind of equally and in a balanced way.” – Ricketts [77:20]
• Technical talk about how FreeSpoke built its own Internet index, not just scraping Google/Bing.

Personal Q&A (rapid fire)

• Last meal? Pizza (“I like pizza more than I like being skinny.”) [84:35]
• Hidden talent? Would love to be a singer, but is “the worst singer on the planet.” [86:06]
• Motivation? Hates losing. “You gotta taste it in your throat when you lose.” [88:37]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On progressive budgeting:
  “It’s like some jokerfied thing. He’s like, I’m going to burn this pile of money while all of you watch.” – Smug [00:26]

• On the myth of the moderate Democrat:
  “There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat to begin with.” – Smug [04:18]

• On taxes and socialists:
  “The only difference … is that Mamdani is actually telling you in the campaign, ‘No, I really want Red China here.’” – Duncan [05:06]

• Union critique:
  “Don’t confuse teachers unions for teachers.” – Holmes [09:11]

• Swalwell poetry roast:
  “She exploded. Blood rolling down our chin.” – Ashbrook [25:52]
  “Is this a crime scene?” – Smug [25:55]

• On Trump’s authenticity:
  “You want to be entertained…It’s the same reason you buy a Shane Gillis ticket or a Dave Chappelle ticket. You want to look like life is difficult enough.” – Duncan [40:08]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – 10:01: Mamdani, NYC budget, teachers unions
• 10:01 – 18:25: Eric Adams’s “leverage,” extorting taxpayers
• 18:25 – 20:43: The myth of moderate Democrats, tax the rich
• 23:04 – 30:19: Swalwell's poetry gets roasted
• 31:52 – 41:40: Trump humor, political authenticity
• 47:52 – 61:56: DC parenting group chat civil war
• 63:25 – 90:58: Interview: Todd Ricketts (Cubs, stadiums, FreeSpoke)
• 84:06 – 89:56: Todd Ricketts personal Q&A

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Tone & Language

True to the Ruthless brand, this episode blends sarcastic wit, outright mockery, inside-baseball political takes, and some brash but playful bravado. There’s a genuine affection for irreverence, a willingness to critique both foes and friends, and a sense of camaraderie built on shared cultural and political grievances.

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Takeaway

A high-energy episode that perfectly mixes conservative skepticism, biting humor, and political analysis–with a side of baseball and a dash of new-media entrepreneurship. If you want to understand the intersection of conservative culture, political activism, and how the Right thinks about self-mockery versus the Left’s self-seriousness, this is the show for you.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Mamdani, all he wants is power.

[Michael Duncan]

So, anyway, Mamdani's gotta figure out a way to pay for a budget that is larger. Larger than the state of Florida with three times more of the population.

[John Ashbrook]

The rich people that I deem to be rich pay more or everybody else pays more. I have not investigated whether the government should maybe get less. I'm going to extort the governor.

[Smug]

This is like some jokerfied thing. He's like, I'm going to burn this pile of money while all of you watch.

[Congressman Greg Murphy]

I have been a physician for 35

[Michael Duncan]

years, Congressman Greg Murphy.

[Congressman Greg Murphy]

And sadly, I've had a front seat to witness the decay and decline of the health insurance industry. There has been systematic denial and delay of care. There's been abuse with the Medicare Advantage plans, deceiving and extorting taxpayer dollars. You guys own PBMs, you own pharmacies, you own health agencies, physician groups. Good God, you own a. You have put profits above patients, and you put profits above those who care for patients. You are killing people who are trying to get health care. I am glad that we have a president in the office who is willing to confront what I believe is unethical, unscrupulous, and unprincipled behavior of the American health insurance industry. President Trump has said he's going to do it. I believe he's going to do it.

[Josh Holmes]

And.

[Congressman Greg Murphy]

And it is long overdue.

[John Ashbrook]

Paid for by Americans for Open Government.

[Announcer]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

[Smug]

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

[Josh Holmes]

It's time for our main event,

[Michael Duncan]

Fun Time Friday. I hope you all are ready to have a good time, because I know we are here through this Friday program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, left right across your radio dial. As you all know, we've saved some of our most fun stuff for Fridays. Kind of like a weekly recap of just the shit that's going on in the country that we haven't had a chance to talk about in the other two episodes. We like to do some serious stuff here and there, but we gotta laugh while we're doing. Occurred to me in watching what's happening in New York. There's a lot of coverage, Fox in particular, talking about mom, Donnie. And there's like, a fantastic situation where libs are like, oh, he actually does want to socialize our city, you know, and, like, the guy shows up and, like, quadruples his city budget and wants to tax everybody through the fricking moon. And. And the libs are like, no, I didn't know that.

[John Ashbrook]

You're telling me for the first time, you know, like, there's something great about a New Yorker being mugged by reality.

[Michael Duncan]

Totally. And I think you brought this up, Duncan, like a couple episodes ago, where it's like this childlike sort of finding out obvious realities that have been existing since the beginning of time. Like socialism in and of itself has been tried in every corner of this globe since the beginning of time. It has failed miserably, terribly, ironically, under tyrannical rule in most places. And yet we keep trying. The progressive left keeps trying. And they're like, no, this time is going to be different. So Mamdani shows up. And the reason why we're leading with this is because it is indicative of the entirety of the Democratic Party. Right. Remember we were talking about Mamdani is the future. And every Democrat, every time we were on TV or anything else, every Democrat was like, no, no, no, no, no. It's Abigail Spanberger. She's the new face of the Democratic Party. It's not Mom Downey. That's a very unique set of circumstances. A progressive city. That's very unique. And then she's in office, I don't know, all of about six minutes. And endorses things that are like. Mumdani's like, I'm not sure we can get away with that. I mean, it's all off the left hand side of the map.

[Smug]

And that's the thing, is they were trying to convince you that. No, we have moderate Abigail Spamberger. As we've said on the show, there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat to begin with. If you look at what their, quote, moderate has already accomplished is they're forcing through a redistricting to essentially remove any possibility that any Republican will ever be able to represent the state of Virginia. Right. Where they've. They're over 10% of the population. No chance they want any Republicans represented. Boeing has announced they're moving their headquarters the hell out of it.

[Josh Holmes]

I saw that.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Smug]

So she's chasing away jobs. They're moderate. They're moderate. Is already chasing away jobs, trying to disenfranchise essentially half the state's population. And that's their moderate. So Mamdani's like, wait a minute. Yeah, wait a minute. I'm not gonna let some moderate get the headlines. It's time for full contact.

[John Ashbrook]

Time to go full mask off.

[Michael Duncan]

The only difference. I'll let you speak in a sec, but I just wanna frame this for a second. The only difference between Abigail Spamberger and what Chuck Schumer wants you to believe and Mom, Donnie, is that he's actually telling you in the course of the campaign, no, I really want Red China here.

[Smug]

And they're like.

[Michael Duncan]

They're pretending as though, like, oh, that's crazy stuff. I don't want anything like that. I work for the CIA, for crying out loud. And then they're in office for a cup of coffee, and it's like, no, I want exactly the same thing.

[Josh Holmes]

The only thing I was going to say is that I feel like the childlike ones are the conservatives here, because we assume that everybody thinks like us and that everybody wants the best for America. And what these libs want is power. The only thing Spamberger wants is power, Mom. Donnie, all he wants is power. They trick people into choosing them so that they can get the power. And then they can just further, like, ensconce themselves in this system that will continue their power.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And I. I was always like, why are they doing that? Why are they doing this trans stuff? Why are they doing all this? And it was smug, very early on in this show who was like, dude, they're doing this because they want power. And I think that is the driving force of the left to just lord over the rest of us.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. They give shits about only the things that get them into a governing coalition where they can do all kinds of horrible things in order to just maintain the power. And, of course, the larger the government grows, the more the people are beholden upon it, the more that they're sitting on top of it, the more they get reelected because you don't have any choice.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

There is nothing else.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, if you block out the sun, and you are the arbiter of where the sun shines, they gotta go through you. And so therefore, it's an incumbent retention program. No question about it. But this Mamdani thing is interesting. I'm switch up the order a little bit, so keep on your toes back there. Adp. I want to put this up first because it shows what Mamdani is up to. So this guy's in office six weeks, shows up in New York City, and he releases a budget. Graphic 2. Here's the budget of New York City. $127 billion for a population of 8.4 million people in New York City. Okay? The state of Florida is only $117 billion for 23.4 million people.

[Smug]

That's it. So, like, New York City's budget is greater than a state with three times the population of New York City. Like, think about that.

[Michael Duncan]

Think about that, right? And, like, we just went through the last eight weeks of discussion about fraud, about waste, about abuse, about anything that the government ultimately gets their hands on, their inability to actually execute upon those things, and it all ends up in, like, the leering centers.

[Smug]

And one thing that Ashbrook brought up that I think is very important for this context, specifically in Mamdani's budget, he is marking down $50 billion for New York City public schools. And Democrats for so long have tried to be like, but don't you want our children? They're the best investment. Don't you want to go to our children? So where it goes when you spend 50 billion on schools in New York City is to the teachers unions. It goes into their pockets.

[Michael Duncan]

It's not for the children.

[Smug]

And that's one of the most frustrating parts of elections in New York City is every school is closed on election day because every teacher's out there at Pulse sites campaigning for every Democrat because the teachers union knows that the more we elect these Democrats, the more they enrich us. The point isn't to educate the kids. And Palmer Luckey pointed this point out. The specific number of the 50 billion that Mamdani has earmarked for education is more than the entire country of Japan spends on education. Dude, something tells me that they're doing a better job.

[Michael Duncan]

How are we matching up? Yeah, how we matching up on that?

[Josh Holmes]

And also, don't confuse teachers unions for teachers. They still will not pay teachers more money than they've been paid.

[Michael Duncan]

That's a fact.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, since we've been growing up, when we were kids, that everybody said, oh, teachers aren't paid enough. You send billions and billions of dollars to the unions, and after the money is transferred, people will still say teachers aren't paid enough. Why? Because the money doesn't go to the teachers. The money goes to the woman who's

[Michael Duncan]

the fat lesbian, who's the head of the.

[Josh Holmes]

Randy Weingart.

[Smug]

That's right. The one who, like, I saw a press conference she was holding where it was in front of her private jet. And so then I quote, retweeted, and I was like, why is the head of the teachers union have private jets? And that got me blocked. And she deleted that tweet. She was like, good point. I can't be that obvious about it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, we're just gonna do it in secret.

[Smug]

Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

Get away with it.

[Michael Duncan]

And they get away with. It's like the old loophole that we talk about here on the program. So anyway, Mom, Donnie's gotta figure out a way to pay for a budget that is larger than the state of Florida with three times more. More of the population. So he's got some ideas. Clip 7.

[Eric Adams]

For those who have watched budget after budget, it is tempting to assume that we are engaging in the same dance as our predecessors. Let me assure you, nothing about this is typical.

[Smug]

Whoa.

[Eric Adams]

That's why our solutions won't be either. There are two paths to bridge this gap. The first is the most sustainable and the fairest path. This is the path of ending the drain on our city and raising taxes on the richest New Yorkers and the most profitable corporations. The onus for resolving this crisis should not be placed on the backs of working and middle class New Yorkers. It should not, however, fix this structural imbalance. However, do not heed the calls of New Yorkers to raise taxes on the wealthy. This crisis will not disappear. It will simply return year after year, forcing harder and harsher choices each time. And if we do not go down the first path, the city will be forced down a second, more harmful path, which is. Faced with no other choice, the city would have to exercise the only revenue lever fully within our. We would have to raise property taxes.

[Congressman Greg Murphy]

Oh.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, it's a le. Hold on, hold on. There's leverage. Yeah, can we get that one more time? Just leverage, leverage. And it's a lever that he's talking about. It's almost like he's not from this country anyway. What he's talking about is a way to pay for what it is that he's trying to do. What's not negotiable here is the tens of billions of dollars that is going to fraud, waste and abuse teachers unions, all kinds of nonsensical, leering center bullshit. But what is negotiable is how we pay for that. So what he's saying to the state of New York and Governor Kathy Hoch is no dream boat herself, is unless you raise taxes on the quote, unquote wealthy, which, you know, definition unknown, by the way. If you live in New York, that's you. I don't care if you have an iPhone. He's talking about you. Or I have to. If you don't do that, it's a failure of leadership. So I can blame you. And then secondarily, I'm just going to have to raise property taxes by 10 fricking percent.

[John Ashbrook]

So that's the funniest thing to me is like, all right, the government has investigated this situation of this budget crisis. We've Identified two options. The rich people that I deem to be rich pay more or everybody else pays more. I have not investigated whether the government should maybe get less. I have just decided that that is 100% good spending and everybody should have to pay more.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, it is so good.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like a dumber version.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like.

[John Ashbrook]

It's a dumber version of that, like, famous Jimmy Carter crisis of confidence speech, you know, with the put on a sweater. Put on a sweater.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, it's like, dude, it totally is. They're like, we have a budget crisis. Turns out I want to spend all of your money, and I ran out of it, so I'm going to need more of your money. And that's the crisis. It's not about whether or not the government is actually providing the services that we've promised you. It's that we. You need to probably pony up a little bit more for us to have 40% overhead.

[John Ashbrook]

And on top of that, I'm gonna extort the governor for this thing I want, and I'm gonna use your property taxes as my leverage.

[Smug]

And that. So that's the thing is when. When Mamdani was running, and we know folks in New York who are like, oh, man, isn't this a terrible thing? And I was like, no, no, no. I want all New Yorkers.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I remember you were very consistent about that.

[Smug]

That's the thing is they all thought. They're like, you don't know. He can't be that bad. Like, he's straight up saying, this is extortion. This is like some joker fight. He's like, I'm gonna burn this pile of money while all of you watch. I want to make sure we all understand what's happening here, right? He's, like, gone full joker fied.

[John Ashbrook]

It's so cool.

[Smug]

All the New Yorkers were telling us. No, you don't understand. It's not like, what's he gonna do? Something crazy. You're seeing it right now. The fact, like, when I saw that statistic, that he's wanting more money. $50 billion than the entire country of Japan spends on education. And notoriously, the public school system in New York City is horrible, horrendous. Like every parent there. Listen, why is anyone in New Yorker now at this point, after all that's been done to that city, after it hasn't come back from COVID Well, just examining the levers. What's it going to take?

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, I think. I think this is unfair. Okay, first of all, Japanese students are notoriously undereducated, so we can't begin to compare ourselves to them. But you have to take yourself back to Mamdani's childhood. He saw something similar in Uganda and in his mind it worked there. So he just wants to apply it to New York City now.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's where he learned the art of the leverage, which again, I mean, that's something that now has taken hold in the Democratic Party.

[John Ashbrook]

Some would say that's where he leared. That's where he leered.

[Michael Duncan]

He learned.

[John Ashbrook]

He learned it.

[Smug]

Leverage.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what it's important when you're thinking of leverage. You need to lear it in a very significant way. And the only way to leer it is to throw billions of dollars of hard working taxpayer dollars at it in order to fully comprehend what it is that you can leave her. And he's done that now.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right.

[Michael Duncan]

Wonderful. And the reason that we, we raise this again, you may think, yep, this is New York City.

[Smug]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

It's not, folks. It's not. Just look at your hometowns. I've had a fucking education in my hometown over the last eight weeks that you have delighted in, by the way. You bastards.

[Smug]

Well, so that, I mean, that's, I think, the most critical part of this. This isn't a, oh, look at Mamdani and these crazy New Yorker story. This is a. If you thought the left had really shifted the Overton window and gone out to the extremes, they haven't gotten started yet.

[Michael Duncan]

No, no, they don't even.

[Smug]

So what you see here, this is what they bring everywhere. This is going to be coming to Minneapolis, it's going to be coming to Minnesota. This is going to be happening in Virginia. Like, you don't think Spamberger is seeing how much it can get away with?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, she's doing it right now.

[Smug]

Exactly.

[Michael Duncan]

She's doing it.

[Smug]

The quote, moderates, Democrats are all seeing this and like, I guess that's the playbook. I guess that's how I get, you know, some juice in this party. I guess the next time I see Alex Soros and he got that photo with Mumdani and everyone was giving him attention, I want to get some, yeah, I want to get some attention from Alex Soros. I better do some nutty shit too.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no, I mean, look, you're entirely right. I mean, that is the way that this whole thing has gone down. So that's why we raise it. Is that like, dude, it's everywhere. And when we're talking about this in the context of the midterms There's a whole bunch of people who are like, oh, I'm disappointed by this. Oh, whatever. I don't think you really have taken hold of what it is that these people want to do to our country. Like, you need to grapple with that at some level. Like, this is not one of those, well meaning, different approaches to solving the same problem type campaign. This is like jail your enemies and steal from you. And when they say rich, they don't mean rich. Good example. Right? I mean, we've had like tax discussions over the last 15 years. How many times when they say tax the rich, do they talk about like investment income or they talk about, you know, any sort of.

[Smug]

Well, they've had to move the goalposts constantly because Bernie Sanders keeps making more money. And he used to be like, don't forget the millionaires are doing this to us. Then he became a millionaire. He was like, the billionaires. Yeah, it's gotta be the billionaires who are doing this to us.

[Michael Duncan]

So, like, what they always settle on and tax the millionaires is like the W2 worker. Which.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, no, this is such a good point.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is of course the person who pays the highest tax. Tax rate. But it also happens to be the entrepreneur who's least likely to be a progressive Democrat because they've actually had to bootstrap the thing and put together their

[Josh Holmes]

business playing by the rules the whole way.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly. And all they're doing, and they're a part of their community, they're volunteering, they're donating their kids, they're doing all the right things, but they're the millionaire that they're talking about.

[Smug]

Exactly. And it boils down to. Because at their heart, the modern day Democrat party is a bunch of Marxists, which is why they go after property taxes. They don't want anyone to benefit from private ownership or private enterprise. No, they want to make sure that they're allotting this money so they decide who gets it and who gets it. You better be working for me. You better be with the teachers union if you want to get your handouts.

[Michael Duncan]

What an amazing privilege it must be to be Alex Soros, to sit there and promote a party and a message within that party of tax the rich. Knowing that everything because you've prescribed it

[John Ashbrook]

for them,

[Michael Duncan]

knowing that whatever it is that they're going to do is never going to come in contact with your way of life or your business or your beneficiary. Like, that's what they do. And if you have any question about that, like, just do Some homework on it. Just Google around, look around.

[Smug]

And it's again, it's the core tenets of the modern progressive Democrat party where they said things like, defund the police. Because that doesn't affect me. You know, if you're one of these Mamdani supporters who are in the higher income parts of New York City with their condo, they're like, I got private security. Exactly. I have a doorman. I have security. What do I care about if in Harlem they take cops away and things get bad? They don't care.

[Michael Duncan]

I got three guys surrounding my car when I get out and a doorman greet me at the front door.

[Smug]

Exactly.

[Michael Duncan]

So, yeah, let's talk about it. Defund that police. Let's make sure that we raise taxes on the rich.

[Smug]

Yeah. I mean, all they get is they're hoping someone likes their Instagram story. Meanwhile, people are actually suffering because police have lost funding and now there's murders going up.

[Michael Duncan]

That's really well said. All right, so I want to transition out to this because we have a swell. Well thing and we do this. Well on the Variety program, remember, we were real early in the Fang Fang thing. Real early. I mean, it was one of our earliest episodes.

[Smug]

We were probably one of the first on.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, we jumped on that thing. Well, he's got some. He's running for governor. So it's not like we're just attacking a private citizen here. He's a congressman who's a shitbag and he's running for governor. And, well, it turns out he's got an author's touch. He's a real creative, this guy. It's really. It's important. But I want to just reintroduce you to him to begin with and then we'll jump off from there. Clip 8 thank you, Iowa.

[Josh Holmes]

Congratulations to tonight's honorees and welcome to

[Todd Ricketts]

my fellow candidates whom I consider we

[John Ashbrook]

are all a part of being the Avengers. But I will always be real with you.

[Smug]

Everyone just groans like, oh, gosh, I will be bold.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah. Without the bold. Be so bold. I'll be the bold without so bold.

[John Ashbrook]

Man, it's a shocker. He didn't catch fire.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't believe that didn't work. He wasn't elected president. That's incredible. So anyway, it turns out, despite the fact that he ran for president, by the way, and like, generally speaking, when you run for president, even if you have no chance of winning the nomination, like, we sort through some things and you can kind of get a good sense of who those people are. Not the case with Swalwell.

[John Ashbrook]

If I can be honest with you, until we did this segment, I forgot he ran for president. Oh, yeah, it was totally forgotten.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah.

[Donald Trump]

No, no.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm sure many people watching and listening to this forget.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, he used himself, along with Adam Schiff, as being the tip of the spear in Russiagate. Yeah, right. He was the guy who was gonna speak truth to power about Russia infiltrating America. And we all found out that that was complete bullshit. Tried to parlay it into a presidential election. By then, the Mueller report and all that was out, and he was like, eh, I'm just. Who makes a speech like that? Which is not terribly.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not like he was running against a murderer's row of nominee potential. He was running against a guy declining in his basement. Joe Biden couldn't do a single thing and yet ran circles around him. I mean, how does that not demoralize you to the point where you're like, maybe this isn't.

[Michael Duncan]

He doesn't have a sense of shame. Obviously, if you did the fang fang thing alone, you'd never show up and never put your face in public again. But he did that, and he showed up. Back up, but. So now some of his opponents are surfacing some of these other issues, and I think it's that. What's that cow. What's her name?

[Josh Holmes]

Katie Porter.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah. Katie Porter. That just absolute contemptible cow Batman that she's. That he's running against.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't think Wolf has the Batman photo to load up into the system, but if you can just throw that in there right now, Wolf, so people can see it for themselves.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I mean, but she. I mean, look, she's a. She is a horrible human being, but she. She's a. A tough political opponent. And so they're surfacing some things about this guy. And it turns out is. Is it New York Post secret erotic poetry? California governor candidate Eric Swalwell revealed flurry of limbs and nails is the explanation for this. So I just want to get into this a little bit. Duncan, do you want to do a dramatic reading or should we just. Just roll through this? Like. I mean, we can Peter Jennings this thing and just roll through the specifics. Or you can put a little panache on it. Yeah, put some panache on it.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, so before I get into the sum and substance of this poetry, which I think is extremely embarrassing, I want to briefly touch on the thing I think is more embarrassing. 19 years old, doing some erotic poetry. Okay. The title of the poem hungover from Burgundy.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, Burgundy.

[John Ashbrook]

Burgundy.

[Michael Duncan]

Burgundy.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, wine. 19 years old. Yeah, like, when I was 19 years old, I was drinking Mad Dog 2020.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, it was Natty Light all

[John Ashbrook]

day in Natty Light. Or some cures. And maybe like. Maybe like an aristocrat vodka. McCormick's vodka. Terrible.

[Michael Duncan]

Remember the Milwaukee's Best, too. They had a 12 pack that was like 4.99.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, but like, to be writing poetry about some sexual encounter and you're 19 years old talking about how hungry you are from Burgundy is some of the most fart sniffing behavior possible. Right. Am I wrong?

[Josh Holmes]

No, no, no, no.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, in this poem, he talks about kissing till veins implode. She exploded.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait, what?

[John Ashbrook]

Blood rolling down our chin.

[Smug]

That's the thing. So this is like when I saw this on the document. This is like. Is this a crime scene? He's like, blood's rolling down our chin. Well, is this, like some vampiric demonic.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I think there's something sort of psychosexual and violent in all of this. But it also could just be the Burgundy.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, maybe a sadomasochistic type situation.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it's like a super erotic interview with a vampire. Let's continue. Formulas. Formless and magnificent.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, my.

[John Ashbrook]

Says of the sex. Flurry of limbs and nails.

[Michael Duncan]

Come on.

[John Ashbrook]

So there's a little.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, flurry.

[John Ashbrook]

While I screamed, she bent her lips to mine.

[Michael Duncan]

That's.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Did we fact check this? Are we sure this isn't Walt Whitman?

[Michael Duncan]

The orders of our day. Unquestionably well scripted.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, I gotta read one more part of this.

[Michael Duncan]

Please do. Please.

[Smug]

Hold on now.

[Michael Duncan]

I've been waiting for this.

[John Ashbrook]

Atop my hotel she stopped, I left for cloth and tan My anxious arm she bit. My scar is beautiful.

[Michael Duncan]

What? What? But it also, like, dude.

[Smug]

So this is. I think Duncan nailed it. How pretentious and stupid it is. But I have to read this one part. She chased and I ran. I chased and she ran. This is just like he's stealing from Flock of Seagulls or something.

[Michael Duncan]

I ran so far away.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, man.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude. I apologize to the listener because it's taken us a while to, like, wrap our minds around this, but I. What bothers me here is not that there's something embarrassing that a 19 year old has done, because Lord knows.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah.

[Smug]

And it's not the normal kind of like, a 19 year old made some dumb decisions kind of embarrassing. It's like he's like, Duncan said, he's talking about, like, drinking burgundy. Like, dude, who are you, dude?

[Josh Holmes]

But.

[Michael Duncan]

But not talking about but not only that, but his entire conception of sexuality at that particular point in time involves biting and blood and flurry of limbs and nails. Like, I'll be honest, man, I look at the risk of revealing too much, I just wanted to get laid. Who was 19 years old.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I wasn't doing like 50 shades of gray.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I mean, this was not like the handcuffs. I mean, come on, Would you have done it?

[Announcer]

Sure.

[Michael Duncan]

But somebody else has to ask.

[Smug]

It took him a while to realize that, like, what he actually really enjoys is, like, speaking in Mandarin and being asked about, like, what's the climb rate of an F35? You know, like, that's what really does it for him.

[Congressman Greg Murphy]

Yeah,

[John Ashbrook]

the climb rate of the F35.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, it's just weird, right?

[John Ashbrook]

Old fang fang.

[Michael Duncan]

But it's just weird.

[Josh Holmes]

It's very weird.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just. That's the thing that I find the most consistent with the progressive left is not necessarily that they're just like, dumb. They're not. There's like, we've covered this with AOC and everybody else. There is an element of dumb, no question about it. But there. But it's. It's. There's this deficiency somewhere. There's some pain, some. Some problem, some. I don't know what gave rise to this, but if you're 19 years old.

[John Ashbrook]

Pretentious loser. That's what gave rise to.

[Smug]

That's it.

[John Ashbrook]

Pretentious, do you think?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't think it's that simple.

[Smug]

I think Duncan's right.

[Michael Duncan]

I've known a lot of pretentious losers. I don't know a lot of people who want to be fucking choked out and bitten and bleeding upon a sexual partner when they're 19 years old. That seems fucked up.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

It doesn't seem like pretentious to me.

[John Ashbrook]

It's California.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I guess maybe that's right. Well, the Burgundy does things.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

People are leaving that state for a reason.

[Smug]

I love that.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the summation of the Cincinnati guy.

[Michael Duncan]

This is it. Well, I'd get out of there too.

[Josh Holmes]

I would. If I knew that's who I was living next to.

[Michael Duncan]

I'd go sit down next to a bowl of red water on top of noodles.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, whatever it takes, okay? You find out this guy's your next door neighbor, you're like, give me the hell out of here.

[Michael Duncan]

No, it's not good. It's not good. All right. So coming up is Trump readies for the midterms. He much is the board of peace in classic Trump style. We got Some clips. It's been a while since we've done some Trump. Just humor.

[Josh Holmes]

Always entertaining.

[Michael Duncan]

And like you, it's really good. We'll get to it after this.

[Announcer]

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

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. It's been a little bit since. We've just enjoyed the President because nobody does his foray in public like he does. And it doesn't really matter what the topic is. It's just, it's funny, it's engaging. It's the thing that the left never really understood. Right. It kind of doesn't matter what it is that we're arguing about. The guy just is engaging. He's funny. And there's a few clips from this week that have gone totally unnoticed, like, the media's not reported. Like, I think if you're in the media, you basically don't know that he showed up this week. Well, that's basically Nancy Guthrie.

[Smug]

Or that's the thing is it's a problem for them. And at first they try to act like, oh, this is uncouth, that Trump is being funny. He needs to be serious all the time. And they realize that the American public loved it. So they're like, well, let's not talk about that. Because every time we have a clip of Trump being funny, it helps him. So they're doing everything they can not to get funny, but he gets to

[John Ashbrook]

do what we do with Funtime Friday. And that's where he becomes commentator Trump, where he, like, does callbacks to stuff like the Rubio Munich speech, and he can give his thoughts on the speech in, like, a totally riffing comedian sort of thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, you have late night comedy shows that are hosting Pastor Onlyfans, which, by the way, by the way, did you know that Colbert put Ossoff on the Very next show.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you kidding?

[Michael Duncan]

Of course, show. He's like, fire me, fire me, fire me, Fire me, fire me. Make an issue of this. Fire me. Like, he's trying to get run. Because I think he wants to launch a political career. He's trying to get run and he's like, I'm going to do the most offensive thing possible.

[Josh Holmes]

I bet. I don't want to slow us down. I bet that Colbert is offended by the prospect that everybody is saying, yes, Stephen A. Smith would be a great candidate for Democrats and he'd probably sweep the field in a way that nobody's talking about. Colbert's like, you should be talking about me like that.

[Smug]

Smart.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm smart.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm just as good as Stephen A. Smith.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, you should talk about me.

[John Ashbrook]

I can see that. I could see that.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, anyway, I mean, if you contrast what you see out of that nonsense with Osnoff or whatever with something like this, what's funnier? Clip 4.

[Donald Trump]

Marco Does it with a velvet love, but it's a kill. The result is the same. They do it very differently. And Marco, you really did yourself proud. 2 days ago in Munich, in fact, so proud that I almost terminated his employee because they were saying, why can't Trump do this? I do, but I say it differently. But Marco, don't do any better than your dead place. You're out of here. But no, I want my guys to do great. And the acclaim he's gotten and the acclaim JD Gets is great. We have smart people, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, it's fucking funny. It's funny, it's hilarious, it's reverent, it's self, you know, he's got like.

[Smug]

That's the thing is like one of the highest compliments Trump can pay somebody is that you did such a good job, people are saying, why can't Trump do it? Yeah, don't show me. That is an incredible compliment.

[John Ashbrook]

I don't like that.

[Smug]

I don't like that.

[Michael Duncan]

But it's like self aware and funny in a way that, like, none of that shit.

[Smug]

And I mean, truly, that Rubio speech was like one for the age. I mean, that was just phenomenal.

[John Ashbrook]

There's just nobody in the history of politics that's understood how it's valuable to wink at the audience and break the fourth wall about the thing, right? And be like, hey, guys, I know you. I know you know that I like the stage. And here's a guy who did a great job, maybe too good. That's funny.

[Michael Duncan]

It is. It's funny. It's Irreverent, it's self critical. It's all of the things it's like, that's what you want. That's today's politics.

[John Ashbrook]

It's authentic.

[Michael Duncan]

It's authentic. Can you have 70% that are disappointed or pissed off about a whole range of policies? Certainly. But when you see that and you put him up against somebody, people are gonna vote for that. It's funny. It's real. Anyway, he's not done. I missed one. I don't know how to characterize it, but we'll maybe do it afterwards.

[Donald Trump]

Clip 5 President Pena of Paraguay is here. President. President. Thank you very much. Young, handsome guy. It's always nice to be young and handsome. Doesn't mean we have to like you. I don't like young, handsome men. Women, I like men have any interest. Good. That's right. That's right. Thank you very much. You're doing a great job too.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing.

[Smug]

That's amazing, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm just gonna say it. It really is, dude. It really is. It's like no homo.

[Smug]

Yeah, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

Basically, he's like young and handsome and smart and he's all. I don't, I don't care for that particularly. It's very funny.

[John Ashbrook]

It's very funny.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just real, it's culturally relevant. It's the stuff that like normal humans, well adjusted men, and that's women.

[Smug]

And that's another theme is that like he talks like actual people talk and joke with each other and riff and how they have a sense of humor. And that's part of the reason why the left has been getting smoked is they turned into this army of like, no, no, no, that's offensive. Oh, don't you see? That's a bigotry kind of a thing to say. Like they turned into the most boring scolds and people are done with that.

[Michael Duncan]

But it's also kind of a lesson to the right. And we're in primary season. We're gonna do a very difficult midterm election. If you think that Donald Trump's draw is like a prescriptive policy lesson that like, you just adopt the positions of Donald Trump, sell that to the electorate, that you're gonna have the same reaction from an electorate that he does, you're insane. You can't do that. You can't. I don't care if you're the most talented candidate anywhere in the country right now. I don't care who you are. And we know some, they're talented, they've been in here, they can't do that. They can't do that. But that's the secret. That's the thing you can't force. It needs to be authentic, needs to be a real conversation, needs to be kind of the thing that you do at the bar with your buds, which is what Donald Trump does in real time in front of millions of people and acts as. Like there's no camera in the room at all. Same conversation, you know, like, you need to just. You either have that or you don't, you know, And I think, look, that's important. He's not done. Clip 6.

[Donald Trump]

So I want to thank the many leaders and dignitaries who had traveled great distances and lengths for the important gathering that we're at right now. This building was built for peace and nobody knew what to name it. And then Marco named it after me. I had nothing to do with it.

[Michael Duncan]

I swear I didn't.

[Donald Trump]

I swear I had no idea. They said there's a surprise coming. I didn't know that surprise. I thought they were going to give me a lot of money or something. It was. Used some extra cash. But I came and they stopped the beautiful beast. I got out very safely, I'm sure, and looked up and there it said, that is J. Trump on the building.

[Josh Holmes]

And what a legend. There will never be another one like him.

[Smug]

And that's why there's always a packed house, is rallies.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Smug]

That's why every single time I've been to one, it's been better than any standup routine. And he has an endless amount of energy. And why it's great that he's already said that he's going to be out there on the road in the midterms is because the reason there's always a line to get in and every seat is packed is because you get that.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Smug]

Funny, genuine guy who can just joke and riff for 90 minutes straight off the back of his hand.

[Michael Duncan]

It's the same reason you buy a Shane Gillis ticket or a Dave Chappelle ticket. You want to be entertained. You want to look like life is difficult enough.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

We have a whole bunch of things that we grapple with in our own lives. And of course, like, you care about these existential political things, but, like, it's kind of somebody else's problem at some level. He fuses the two together to a point where you're, like, just having a good time with it. And, like, I. I'm not sure that everybody in our party has understood that. Like, I think people who are smart and understand media and the way that information is consumed are Obviously aware that he is a one of one talent. But I don't really think because I watch a whole bunch of people who are like, well now I'm an isolationist, sort of like populist Republican because Trump is. And I'm gonna have a whole bunch of things that are gonna. Republicans will vote for me, Democrats will vote for me. They won't. You know why? Cuz you're not fucking funny. You're not funny, you're not irreverent, you're not making the voter understand you in a way that those three clips just did of Donald Trump. Like you get him, you understand him. You know what it like 15 minutes off screen after he walks off that stage, you can understand what that conversation is going to be like. You know why? Because he just showed you what it is that goes on behind the veil. It's a big thing.

[Josh Holmes]

He's a living breathing retribution to the holier than thou media that has lorded over us for a generation. And it is such a breath of fresh air. I don't want it to end, I really don't. I want him to be making speeches like this and giving, you know, comments like this for a very long time.

[John Ashbrook]

This is third term John Adler.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, I've made myself very clear. I wanted a third term in November of 2024. Of course he says he's not going to do it, but I also don't want him to stop talking.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I mean listen, I can sympathize and understand with an awful lot of that. So it leads to us our question of the day. When you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we read absolutely every single one of your comments and we get back to you with the best of the best. The very next episode in this case it's going to be on Tuesday. Our question is what's your favorite Trump standup moment? Boy oh boy, has there been lots.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, only 10 years worth.

[Michael Duncan]

There's been so many. I mean those 16 debates in and of themselves, I think you could probably pick three or four from each. In fact I think maybe our opener we did, remember we did that opener for the debate when we covered it in Milwaukee where we smashed together like four or five of them. Like Rand's hair and stuff like that. It's funny, you know, like the Jeb Dunking or whatever. It's just funny. What's your favorite Trump stand up moment? I love the stage like and subscribe. We'll get right back to you. But while we do. Well it's the weekend is upon us, fellas. And when the weekend's upon us, you want to have a good time. When you want to have a good time. Boy, oh boy, you better pack some Zbiotics.

[Smug]

That's right. So we love Zebiotics. Can we get a shot of it right there? Zebiotics is the pre alcohol drink that you should take before you have your big night out. So the thing is, you think, oh, you know, if I chug a bunch of Gatorade or if I drink three glasses of water when I get home, I'm gonna be perfect. Because it's about being dehydrated. And as we all know, that does not work. What ends up happening, actually is when you have alcohol, your stomach breaks it down and there's toxic byproducts, and that's what's making you feel terrible the day after Zebiotics knocks all that right out.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, if Eric's walw wanted to put together some better poetry, again, the title Hungover from Burgundy.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

If he'd only had a zebiotic, he would have been clear headed to know that what he was putting on pen to paper was terrible.

[Michael Duncan]

You think he could have steered clear from the auto eroto asphyxiation? I don't know. Well, either way, you ought to have Zebiotics because as we have done many

[Josh Holmes]

times, we know very well there's no tomorrow without Zbiotics today. That's right.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly right. So if you go to zebiotics.com ruthless you can learn more and get 15% off your first order. Thank you. By the way, for everybody on X who's tagging us and putting the picture of them buying the zebiotics. There is yet to be a single person who has come back to us and been, like, dissatisfied. Everybody's like, yep, you're right.

[Todd Ricketts]

It works.

[Michael Duncan]

We are right. It does work. Zebiotics is backed by 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason at all, to refund your money, no questions asked, head to zbiotics.com ruthless and use the code ruthless at the checkout for 15% off. You guys ready for some comments?

[John Ashbrook]

Always.

[Michael Duncan]

So last episode we talked about Colbert. Will CBS finally fire Colbert? And they fired him already, but they're letting him go through his contract. And like, I don't know, your. Your thoughts on this are super good. And to do that, we always start with the boys.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. This first one comes from an average American and he writes, colbert is a perfect example of why you fire someone. You get them out of office. He will have no problem burning down the business.

[John Ashbrook]

I agree. They should have taken his cell phone and handed him a banker's box. But this is what happens when you let the guy who's going to leave stay around the building.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep, that's exactly right. Dunks, runks.

[John Ashbrook]

This is from Jeremy Kincaid. Colbert should be careful. Rumor has it CBS has hired the firm of Clinton and Clinton, experts in dealing with troubled employees.

[Smug]

Amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

Hilarious. You got to be careful with that sort of expertise.

[Michael Duncan]

Left handed or right handed. All right, smug. What do we got?

[Smug]

Comment 3 is from LMB. They write FCCU. He has 27 writers.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the thing.

[Smug]

Oh my God. That was the worst joke. When I was like one of your guys. Kids could come up with a way better joke. This guy's got 27 writers. I love pathetic.

[Michael Duncan]

The brevity of that comment is so fantastic. Like lmb, whoever you are, you're brilliant. You think the same way we do. FCCU was the joke that he made on the frickin show. And he has 27 writers.

[Smug]

It's unbelievable.

[Michael Duncan]

27 people came up with that as a punchline.

[John Ashbrook]

Whoa, body bag.

[Michael Duncan]

Rough, rough stuff. I just want to make note. I noticed because we read all the comments, a lot of people in there, by the way, critiquing. I think my probably primary misunderstanding that he torched. When we were talking about the llama story, remember the llamas? And somebody ran out with a torch. And I was like, they ran out with a torch. They're saying that in the UK a torch is a flashlight.

[John Ashbrook]

Don't you dare apologize. We are Americans.

[Josh Holmes]

We won a war.

[Michael Duncan]

I was just gonna say my thought was that 250 years ago we solved this problem for me not to have to worry about what the fuck a Brit says about how they.

[John Ashbrook]

What is a kilometer? I refuse to learn.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I refuse.

[John Ashbrook]

But we appreciate. We do appreciate it nonetheless.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, we appreciate the comments. I just don't care for it.

[Josh Holmes]

Best audience in the business.

[Michael Duncan]

So there we are. This is a story, folks. You're going to want to buckle your seatbelt and put on a. I would say some kind of a helmet because it body embodies everything that we're about here in the ruthless variety program. It has been procured by Michael Duncan and it was in the Washington Post. Frankly, we're just happy that they have people to put pen to paper over there anymore. But they've decided to discuss a local community issue.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that's right. I think this falls in that Venn diagram of politics and lifestyle and culture that is custom made for the ruthless variety program. And that is this WhatsApp group that was formed in Petworth, which is a neighborhood here in Washington, D.C. your nation's capital.

[Michael Duncan]

The kind of place that before Donald J. Trump was president and the National Guard descended upon us to try to make us safe, there was a real roll of the dice whether or not you wanted to walk around your block after dark.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. And if you have, you know, children, you've probably experienced some version of this, a much lighter version of this in some point in your life where you got to work with other people in parenting groups that have different political opinions than yourself. This is that On Steroids, the title when politics Comes for the parenting Group chat.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, it's so good.

[Smug]

And it.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, what's the name of the app again? It's.

[John Ashbrook]

It's WhatsApp.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a WhatsApp chat. But you all know, like those neighborhood group chats. And like so many moms who are listening to this, you're on them whether you want to be or not. This is for you.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. The subhead being a parents group trying to establish boundaries for discussion on their WhatsApp chat. It led to a schism. Okay, just let me, let me just. I'll just going to go off on reading some of the excerpts of this thing because it's fascinating. These days, the proverbial village, the one it takes to raise a child, is often facilitated via group chat. Pet Worth Peanuts and its affiliated WhatsApp chats started in 2020 as a group of 15 moms with newborns. This is so classic DC by the way. This, this next part started in 2020 as a group of fifteen moms with newborns. But it became so popular that it was eventually formulized as a 501C3. Why wait? Are you kidding? A legal entity? Why?

[Michael Duncan]

We ought to monetize this?

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, so you're thinking like, oh, well, we're gonna, you know, organize, you know, for kids events and, and what the neighborhood's doing and all the sort of stuff, the sort of normal stuff you would.

[Michael Duncan]

What sports do you sign up for? When did the buses come, the sign

[John Ashbrook]

up, all this sort of stuff. Just the logistical parts of being a young parent.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[John Ashbrook]

Of course, they couldn't leave it there. The conflict was about politics, but it was also about boundaries. Some parents believed that the political circumstances in D.C. meant the group should engage in more activism and community organizing. Others felt it would be better for members interested in activism. These are the people who are well Adjusted to join community groups already doing that work. And let the group stick to its intended purpose. Parenting support and kids events, not know your rights trainings and resistance.

[Michael Duncan]

All right, so you're like sitting in the middle of Topeka and you got the suburban moms group and everybody knows that you've got, you know, one of these digital things and there's always three or four people. I don't care where you. The reddest of red states, you're always going to have these situations where there's like two or three troublemakers where they're like, they want to get you involved in something you had not signed up for. It's like, yeah, I just wanted to know when I signed up for football and now all of a sudden I'm involved in like, well, I saw somebody lurking around the corner like, can we set up a thing? Or whatever. And, and, but in D.C. in particular, because it's a political group, it's gotta be activism.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I mean, it's the entire problem with committees in the first place, and that is people are busy, right? So the best ideas aren't the thing that wins. It's just the person who cares the most.

[Michael Duncan]

You got me loud.

[John Ashbrook]

If you're loud and mean, you get your way. Because most people suffer in silence and they're like, I'm just gonna ignore this. I'm just gonna ignore this and move on with my life. Cause I'm a busy person who has real things that I care about and, and those people in that vacuum in fact win. So of course this, this becomes like a big deal in that there's a schism here in this WhatsApp group. A little bit more here about Petworth. Petworth is a gentrified neighborhood in D.C. its residents include plenty of highly educated, dual career, type A folks who work in government, advocacy or law, people whose lives revolve around politics. In the last presidential election, Pet Worth was one of the bluest neighborhoods and one of the bluest cities in America. So the parents all seem to agree for the most part on what those politics were. M Dash until Gaza.

[Michael Duncan]

Gaza, Gaza. I mean, that's just an amazing. You went to this joint, you signed up, you're in a mom's group chat. You want to know when to sign up for the baseball team. Next thing you know, you're talking about fucking Gaza.

[John Ashbrook]

Can you imagine? Like, how does sleep training work? Like, what is your kid's eating schedule? And somebody posts in the group. What is the best way to respond to the coming elections in the US to support Palestine.

[Michael Duncan]

My God, how do you. In a place that's 97% blue. Yeah, like there's no chance they can sway anything anyway politically one way or another, but they just have to. Just can't help themselves.

[Josh Holmes]

Not a normal person to be found.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, so this schism starts to happen and people trying to be both respectful but also keep this focused on what they intended to do. Respectfully, no politics please. One of the people says, feel free to create an unaffiliated breakaway chat. Let's keep the thing. The thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Feel like that's asking for a kick in the teeth.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. This is not our thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Some of the peanuts did they create.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[John Ashbrook]

Peanuts? Because it's pet worth.

[Smug]

Peanuts.

[Michael Duncan]

Peanuts are about some of the peanut. Young kids.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

They created a. They called it free range, a separate group to discuss political actions to support Palestinians.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh my God, just rock hard.

[John Ashbrook]

It became clear that respectfully, no politics please wasn't going to cut it. The board published a WhatsApp conduct policy writing that the chat must remain nonpartisan, respectful and welcoming to all.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, this is leftism in.

[Josh Holmes]

This is insane.

[John Ashbrook]

This is how they destroy themselves. It's almost like maybe if we just like all like didn't talk, they could all just self immolate.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Though political organizing was prohibited, not all political topics were off limits. Quote, informational posts that are relevant to parenting in Pet Worth are acceptable, like posting a verified ice sighting in the neighborhood. Those who want to organize around political topics they wrote are welcome to join the free reign chat.

[Michael Duncan]

You showed up because he wanted a deal on baby formula, and next thing you know you're behind the wheel trying to run over an ICE agent.

[John Ashbrook]

Where can we play little league? And if you'd like a struggle session, we got another chat.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I got another thing for you.

[John Ashbrook]

So yeah, so I mean, this thing goes on and on. I could read the entire thing and I won't. But literally there's pages and pages and pages of this.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just such a perfect commentary.

[Josh Holmes]

It is of where we're at.

[Michael Duncan]

Because, you know, like, look, we live in blue. It smug doesn't. He's got his nice little red enclave, but like, we live in blue areas and you've seen these parent chats devolve. But even if you don't live in a blue area, like you live in a, you know, a suburban area, rural area, there's always one or two people that care more than anybody else and they're going to just foist their political opinion upon you. And act as though not only everybody subscribes to what it is that you're saying, but that you have an obligation to do something about it, it poisons the well for everyone.

[Smug]

And I mean, this is also a microcosm of an idea that a lot of conservatives online have been discussing, is that historically, when you have a conflict between two groups, one who says, just leave me alone, and one who has an ideological bent and a fervor throughout history, the one with the fervor wins. Which is why it's important to draw a line in the sand. If you ever see this. I know the easiest way is to be like, kind of leave me alone. And plus, you have to worry, like, can these people be nutty? Am I going to have to worry about one of these nutjobs throwing a Molotov through my window? Sure. But, like, whenever there's a conflict between one side that doesn't care, that says just leave me alone, and one side that does care, the side that cares always dominates the other.

[John Ashbrook]

To illustrate Smug's point here, I'll give you the end of the article. And that is the Free Rangers group that became this sidecar to the main chat that wanted to be political.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You're like, well, okay.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, yeah, I care about my kid, but not that much.

[John Ashbrook]

They. They first renamed the group Parenting in Community, which feels like passive aggressive to the people in the other chat to be like, you're not doing enough.

[Michael Duncan]

No, Like, I'm parenting, but I'm also concerned about my community.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm doing more than you are. They were.

[Smug]

They.

[John Ashbrook]

The description was, we are anti racist, anti fascist, and pro liberation. So to Smug's whole point, it's like, not enough that, like, we want to discuss politics. They're going to be as outrageous as humanly possible. They also organized a vigil.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like, by the way, like, it. Would you be surprised if there was like a. A subhead to all that? Be like, by the way, no Jews.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, that's.

[Michael Duncan]

You know what I mean? It's the direction it's headed right here. Just can't say it.

[John Ashbrook]

Here's the final part, which I think sort of explains, like, how hysterical the rhetoric had become. They organized a vigil for that good woman who was shot in. In. Tragically in. In Minneapolis because she tried to run over the ice.

[Michael Duncan]

Vigil going, and this is the Rangers.

[Eric Adams]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Well, now they're parenting in community because Rangers wasn't passive aggressive enough. They want to make the other parents feel bad in Community. We're doing more in the community than you are. And by parenting, I'm better than you.

[Michael Duncan]

And by parenting, what I will make sure that I'm talking about is political activism 3,000 miles away.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes. And here's the visual in which leaders from movie and Miento Migrante DC DC spoke. They used the phrases like stain, sanctioned violence, Comrades in Minneapolis, comrades, comrades, parenting. And the paramilitary Gestapo of ice. Here's the thing, and this is why

[Michael Duncan]

you show up in a parenting thing, and all of a sudden the Gestapo of ICE is. Is like a part. Hey, join the chat. You see that one jump up on your email. You're like, whoa.

[John Ashbrook]

But the. The end of this article. The end of this article and why I really wanted to cover in the first place, because the. The writer of this, I can't remember. I think her name's Maura Jukis or something. Fantastic writing here.

[Michael Duncan]

Not also that. Like a tip of the cat to the insanity, which you don't need to say. You can show.

[John Ashbrook]

Here's her showing it right at the end. Here's the final paragraph. Children said, this is that the vigil children sat in the circle with their parents, some playing with the battery operated miniature candles that had been set out for the vigil. Some were too young to understand what was going on, but others, hearing perhaps for the first time about a mom who is killed on her way to school drop off, may have some anxious questions for their parents that night about whether the same thing could happen after their school drop offs. And it's like the subtext there is, you are fucking traumatizing these children. What are you doing?

[Michael Duncan]

You're introducing topics that toddlers have no business in the middle of.

[John Ashbrook]

It's just great, dude. What an incredible piece.

[Michael Duncan]

It's incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it strikes me that it's the great irony here is this is a parenting group and it seems like the kids are an afterthought.

[Smug]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

That's like, how much time are you spending on kids? If you're texting to everybody about how, you know, like, how strong you are with the movement?

[Smug]

This has nothing to do with the kids. It honestly has nothing to do with the community. It has to do with these people. And their E goes, yeah, it's so

[Michael Duncan]

sad, but it's happening everywhere.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, it's got to be. And like, my response to all that is just like, fuck it all. You know, you just withdraw from all that stuff and you get your own little enclave. But it's like doing brain damage to people. You move To a community. You want to fit in. You want your kids to have friends, you want, you know, say you didn't grow up there. And then the mom's chat is like, hey, if you want to be a part of our group, you're going to have to go out and protest for the woman who try to run over an ICE officer. And you're like a tough bunch of choices there.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, I just wanted to go to pta.

[Michael Duncan]

Like that's rough. It's got to be a better way to like. I'm not saying that you just segregate out like, but well adjusted humans have the ability of doing this kind of thing. And if you are in a group where there aren't well adjusted humans, you should probably just stop interacting with the people who are not well adjusted human. Rather than changing your whole thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Come back down to earth.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Just be a.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like you kids, you could stay back there while mom argues about from the river to the sea because that is so much more important. Okay, we're not talking about a two state solution here. Okay? We need free Palestine and we need. We don't like Jews. I mean, what I really meant to say was you kids don't talk anymore. Mom has to talk.

[Michael Duncan]

Would you mind giving my child a bottle while I talk about the sexual exploits of Brett Kavanaugh?

[Smug]

Right, right.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, it's like, what the hell are you talking about?

[Josh Holmes]

It's a disease.

[Michael Duncan]

It is a disease, but that's what we're finding out. Like the base of all of this stuff. And I know like we all have Democrat friends, we disagree about things and we do that in, in like a well adjusted human, but this is not that. And like increasingly we're getting to a point where we don't have a lot of crossover in any community because how do you deal with something like that? You want to deal on diapers and you're now all of a sudden have to be with the resistance. It's tough deal.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, I think the silver lining in all of this is in a place like Pet Worth or they all vote for Democrats, they're doing it to themselves. Yeah, they're for that reason I like to laugh.

[Michael Duncan]

Well said, old man. Well said. Good procured piece of content for the variety program. We gotta get to an interview. So as you all know, we're sports fans, we're baseball fans, we're huge fans of the Ricketts family, who. Todd Ricketts, the owner of the Chicago Cubs has joined us. He's got a lot to say about a whole bunch of issues but baseball. Look, you're going to get some answers and probably some news in here on that front. On the. Well, we're right at the precipice of baseball season. Well, we like to keep you guessing here on the ruthless Friday program on who it is that we're bringing in here. This is one of the all time great Americans this guy you got. I can't wait for you all to get to know him. Todd Ricketts. How are you, sir?

[Todd Ricketts]

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me here today.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, this is so fun you're in town. I'm sure you got a lot of business stuff going on. For people who are unaware. Owner of the Cubs.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

One of America's great professional sports franchises.

[Todd Ricketts]

An icon.

[Michael Duncan]

And we're here on the precipice of baseball season. Exciting time.

[Todd Ricketts]

It is a super exciting time. It's good to have the players back at spring training and games start Friday and you know, we're looking forward to having another good season and getting back in the playoffs. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

What do you think? I mean, you're playoff team.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, we're a playoff team. You know, I think the, the Cardinals are not going to be as good as they have been for the last hundred years and the brewers aren't going to be as good as they were last year.

[Donald Trump]

Right, right.

[Todd Ricketts]

And so I think our team got a little better. So, you know, our rotation solid. We got, we got a good, good bats in our lineup. So yeah, I feel good about it now.

[Josh Holmes]

The one team you didn't mention from the NL Central in that lineup as a Cincinnati.

[John Ashbrook]

He's gonna do this.

[Josh Holmes]

I'd be remiss if I could at least mention it that they have. You know, we got a new manager, second year. He's a lot of people like him.

[Michael Duncan]

This is unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I can't not.

[Michael Duncan]

He turns every one of our shows into a Cincinnati.

[Todd Ricketts]

Cincinnati Reds. Well, then you will surely remember how we rolled over for four games last August to put the Reds into the playoffs and take the Mets out of the playoffs. And so you're welcome.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you very much. Nobody likes the Mets.

[Todd Ricketts]

Nobody likes the Mets.

[Michael Duncan]

We might be able to agree on that.

[Josh Holmes]

The NL Central is a preeminent division for all of baseball.

[Todd Ricketts]

That's right. Just real people.

[Michael Duncan]

This is literally. We just talked to him about this. We're like, please don't do this.

[Todd Ricketts]

Don't talk about the Reds.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, just make it a Reds podcast.

[Todd Ricketts]

The Reds are an easy team to root for great history.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you. Thank you. You know, it's a great history for the Chicago Cubs in what people do not realize is what kind of history and what the NL Central actually means to baseball.

[Todd Ricketts]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

There's so many changes being talked about. There's so many different things everybody's talking about for the 26, 27 season.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Can we talk about that for a second before we get into the serious stuff?

[John Ashbrook]

Sure.

[Michael Duncan]

Look, it's. Everybody knows MLB is going to be going through what they do periodically renegotiating with players unions and all these kind of things. For those of us who are from small market teams, Midwestern teams, it hasn't been out of our awareness that you've got the Dodgers basically and the Yankees paying everybody. And I know you guys do.

[Todd Ricketts]

Don't leave the Phillies and the Mets out of that.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah. Phillies and the Mets. Phillies and the Mets.

[Todd Ricketts]

Padres maybe a little bit too.

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So there's an awful lot of conversation nationwide about baseball and whether or not it can get to anything close to where the NFL is, for example, in terms of an understanding of a salary cap, a salary basement, a meteorites deal. And I know this is going to be a big part. I don't want to put you in a bad spot, but I imagine you guys have given this some thought.

[Todd Ricketts]

No. And I think it's out there. The commissioner has been talking about it. We need to make some structural changes in baseball to kind of level that playing field and make the teams competitive. Again, like you mentioned, some teams that are spending a lot of money, a hard cap. In baseball, we do have a luxury tax, but some teams have shown their willingness to pay that as well. Right. And so we have a collective bargaining agreement coming up at the end of the season, and I think it's going to be a good opportunity for us to make the changes that we need to make to baseball to bring it up to modern day to get with the NFL and the NBA and the NHL and that. Really like having a hard cap in. Having a hard floor in rethinking our TV rights altogether and. And thinking about how we can make the league competitive and make sure the players are getting paid and also make sure the teams aren't losing money.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I mean, look, it's refreshing to hear that because you get kind of despondent about the gap that exists, at least in this year's play. But that's a discussion that's going to have to happen. It seems like it can be better for both the owner and the player. If you structure it correctly.

[Todd Ricketts]

That's right. And I think where we'll land right now, players get about 48% of revenues. And if we can kind of come up with a deal that I just described that it's even somewhat close to that. I think what will happen is the players will get a slightly larger percent of the revenues, but the deals will look a little bit different. Maybe you won't get the gigantic deals with some free agents, but the younger guys or the smaller contracts will be

[Michael Duncan]

a bit bigger, getting a better deal. Well, we're all excited about that because it means more competitive baseball and things like the Twins can compete.

[Todd Ricketts]

The Twins. Yeah. Get to get them in there. But I mean, I gotta say, you know, like, in the 90s, the Twins. The Twins were winning games in the 90s. And, you know, the Yankees have always been the team that spent the most money, but they don't win the World Series every year. So there isn't a direct correlation between, you know, payroll spend and World Series rings, but it's. It's strong.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you guys are the people who beat the Curse of the Billy Goat, which is. I mean, that's no small feat.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, I don't think there was ever really a curse. I don't know if it is that.

[Michael Duncan]

You're gonna. Okay. Well, I don't.

[Todd Ricketts]

You know, it looks like some cursing. It looks like some cursing. I can't speak to how the Wrigley family managed the team up until, you know, the early 80s, but when the Tribune Company bought it, you know, they owned WGN, and really they looked at the Cubs as content versus a competitive baseball team. So they were like, they're filling our afternoon TV slot, and that's where they liked it. So the money was flowing to wgn, but not necessarily to the Cubs. Got it right. So they were very happy to have that. And their viewership was pretty good, whether the team was good or not. And so they never made that big effort to make it, you know, to put a competitive team on the field. Although they did get lucky a little bit with Sandberg Dawson. Yeah. Greg Maddox, you know, Mark Grace. There were a lot of great players through that era. And even, like a little bit later was, like, Sosa and so on. But the focus was never about winning. It was all about good content for wgn.

[Josh Holmes]

It's very interesting to hear, especially for guys like us, who, in the summer, you know, you spend your afternoon, you come in and you're just watching wgn, because that's where the Cubs are playing. And you know, you got buddies, Minnesota, Cincinnati. You get buddies who are from Chicago who are all in on the Chicago Cubs. You can't be from the Midwest and not have friends who are all in on the Cubs.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[John Ashbrook]

And I'm from Indiana.

[Todd Ricketts]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

There's big news on the Chicago front in Indiana right now and that is. Oh yeah, I saw the announcement that the Bears looks like they could be moving to Indiana.

[Todd Ricketts]

Wouldn't that be great?

[John Ashbrook]

What are your thoughts on that? Because I know that there was just a lot of back and forth about like, you know, what the city was going to do for the Bears and the tax implications, all these sorts of things with the new stadium development and everything. So explain that to.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, well, the first thing that I know is that the Bears definitely need a new stadium.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Todd Ricketts]

The Soldier Field has been around for 20 years. It had some gaps in its design from the get go. And so they really need to get a new stadium. And right now it's just that kind of like tug and pull about which way it's going to land and who's going to pay for what. I was saying a little bit earlier when we were chatting before, you know, in the 70s and the 60s, 70s, 80s and even into the 90s, all these stadiums were being built by municipalities or counties or states and team owners were just happy to have cheap rent, right. They were like a good tenant. They were happy to have cheap rent. And that sort of changed as we got into the new century as cities were a little less willing to build the full on stadium and were demanding that the owners bring some of their own capital to it. So it becomes this hybrid model where the owners are putting their own capital to work to build a stadium. And really that's changed their thinking, which is, well, if I'm going to put my own capital in the stadium, I'm going to have some ownership. I also want to have some say about what's going on around the stadium. Also, with the onset, there's a lot of institutional money coming into sports, a lot more professional management coming into sports. So everybody has this different mindset of how do we not only control our venue, but control the area around our venue to a improve the fan experience. So we have every fan coming here, their experience starts a few blocks away from the ballpark or the stadium or whatever it is, and then also participate in those economics. If we're going to put capital up here, let's make sure that we're getting all the revenues and all the economics that we can out of it.

[John Ashbrook]

My fan experience at Wrigley was going to Wieners Circle. Yeah. Where for listeners and viewers who don't know, like, the whole selling point of the place is they insult you.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You know. Have you ever done that?

[Todd Ricketts]

I've been there. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Do they insult you or is that.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, I don't think anybody recognizes me when I go there, but that's good. But, yeah, like I say, I get insulted just like everybody else. But the reader Circle's. It's a. It's a classic. It's a little bit outside of our footprint. So that. So it's still there. We weren't able to kind of gussy that up with some of the stuff we've done around Wrigley, which is. We built a hotel.

[John Ashbrook]

It's incredible, dude. That's the charm of the whole thing.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah.

[Smug]

Yeah.

[Todd Ricketts]

We put some nicer restaurants. So it's just a better experience altogether. And then once you get outside our footprint, you can go to Wiener Circle.

[Michael Duncan]

It's also pretty funny. It's like, well, somebody with the capacity of owning a team in major leagues, they probably know a little bit about development in one way or another. Like, it only makes sense that this is a part of. Of everything you talk about now.

[Todd Ricketts]

Well, interesting that you say that, though, because so many teams, you know, the owners, they only do it once. They only build one stadium. And so a lot of these guys are really kind of looking around like, okay, I've never done this before and obviously been successful in other parts of their life, but I've never built a stadium, never developed real estate. And so we actually have a whole real estate development group that when we renovated Wrigley over those four years, we had all these people that we had hired to help us do that.

[Smug]

Right.

[Todd Ricketts]

Because we were like, we don't know anything. And so we brought in all this expertise, and then when we were done, these guys started giving tours. Like, every. Every team, whether it be NBA or NFL or baseball, wanted to come see what we had done in Gallagher way. And we kind of just said to the guys, like, well, if you can. If you can go generate business, like, you can keep working here. And so since then, you know, that's 10 years now, we have. We have a lot of business coming towards the group.

[Michael Duncan]

And so an ancillary benefit to those.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Todd Ricketts]

So we're working with the spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder. We've helped the MLS team in Cincinnati with their development around. And really what we're talking about is not the venues themselves. But the real estate around it. Yeah. So we're talking with the Titans, which is a fascinating.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, Nashville has got to be a ripe opportunity for a whole bunch of people.

[Todd Ricketts]

It's an amazing one. If you think about Nashville, I think, is like, the most exciting one of them all. And we're there as advisors. We're not developers. So I can say I'm not an investor necessarily in this, but, you know, Nashville's gonna double the size of its downtown without adding any sprawl.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Todd Ricketts]

Like, all this industrial stuff that's on the east side of the river there is gonna get turned into condos and restaurants and maybe a baseball stadium, too. Obviously, Nashville, you breaking news on that.

[John Ashbrook]

Maybe.

[Todd Ricketts]

I don't think it's news that Nashville wants a major League baseball team. But we'll see. But we'll see fast.

[John Ashbrook]

Maybe I can take the one from Cincinnati.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe they can take the one from Indianapolis. So it's a Triple A team.

[John Ashbrook]

Hey, Victory Field is a great field. Nice little ballpark right there on the mono.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm just going to duck and cover

[Todd Ricketts]

Nashville the White Sox many times.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm going to duck and cover on the Minnesota Twins. So it turns out you brought us something.

[Todd Ricketts]

Well, you know, it's winter, and it's a little bit chilly outside, so I wanted to make sure you guys. Guys keep your heads warm because you have. You guys have, like, regular baseball caps here. Yeah, but these are special edition hats that. That I had made actually for myself.

[John Ashbrook]

No way.

[Todd Ricketts]

And so they're. They're cashmere and lined. Keep your head warm.

[Michael Duncan]

Look at this.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, this is a winter ball cap.

[Todd Ricketts]

It is a October ball cap, as we call it.

[Michael Duncan]

An October. Yeah, that's that. That's the dream.

[John Ashbrook]

Now you gotta make the playoffs.

[Michael Duncan]

Now you gotta make the playoffs. Well, if you make the playoffs, we'll be there with these caps. No question. Thank you very much.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah. Well, the true story on these hats is we had these done up for when we played the Dodgers in Japan because it was a little chilly. And they said Chicago Cubs on the front in Japanese writing. And I liked it so much, and then I was wearing it at the gym, and there's a young trainer at our gym who's Cardinals fan, and I'm like, I'll get you one. So I had some made up with the cherry C. And I'm like, look, I got you the hat that you like so much. Now you have to wear it. He's like, do I have to wear it. And I'm like, yeah,

[John Ashbrook]

there's trouble.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, now that's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I love it.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you very much.

[Todd Ricketts]

So keep your head warm. Cheer for the Cubs.

[Michael Duncan]

I love it. All right, so listen, you're interested as people in your echelon with the success that you've had in a variety of places in life and a whole bunch of different things, finance chairman for the president, all kinds of different stuff. But you also, news and information flow plays a role in that and you wanted to get involved in this and it's now come to fruition.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, that's right. A few years ago I was doing my normal search on Google and I was noticing that every time I would search for something I was getting answers that I didn't expect and generally kind of like left leaning with a little bit of bias, especially when you think of topics like climate change. Right. And for me, climate change is not a settled science yet. And so there's a lot we don't know. But we do know that Google was suppressing information that was anybody that was saying anything counter to the narrative on climate change. So the UN has talked about it, the unity, like Director of Climate Change talks about how they work with Google to suppress things. And also if you take it another level, like if you look on social media, everything that you see on social media is fed there to get you to keep coming back. So they're going to show you things that you like algorithmic. Admittedly, I'm a Republican and so when I go on Instagram I get all these Republicans talking about conservative ideas. And it just dawned on me that my liberal neighbors don't see the same thing I see. Right. And so we created Free Spoke as a AI agentic AI search engine that really we tried to take all the bias out, we try to meta tag everything the best we can and surface things kind of equally and in a balanced way. And so if you go there and you search on news topics, it pulls from left leaning sources and right leaning sources. And then our AI actually builds the. It gives you like the consensus view on things like where that Venn diagram overlaps a little bit and it gives you perspectives on what's being said from both sides.

[Michael Duncan]

I find so fascinating. Right? I mean, you're unapologetic about your political allegiances, but you're an observer of information flow and what you decided to do wasn't the right version. You're just like, can we get information that is unbiased in nature, which in and of itself, look, it's Surprising in this day and age that you've got. What you just want to provide with this project is real information without a bias.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, that's right. I have a lot of faith in the American people that if you give them information, that's just the facts, ma', am. That they can make up their own mind. And that might be a Democrat or Republican, but it really is just trying to make sure that we bridge that divide between the social media divide that's being created by tech companies.

[Michael Duncan]

It's interesting. I mean, so listen, you've launched it. We looked at it a little bit last night. Fascinating to me, and that it seems like you've got a fully formed product at this point.

[Todd Ricketts]

We really do. And we've got a few million users. And so really this is the year where we were like, we feel like our product is solid enough that we want to go out and tell everybody about it and spread the word.

[Michael Duncan]

So it's free spoke.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, freespoke.com and you can download the app.

[Michael Duncan]

And you can just go in and download the app. And it functions largely, I was seeing last night. It's like a Google for sure. It's got AI components to it. It's a search engine. I'm assuming that you've done some things like we talked about last night. I mean, no porn on this.

[Todd Ricketts]

There's no porn. We protect your privacy. And if I can get a little bit like on the technical side of things, everybody that has any sort of search, it's either falling. It's falling back on either Google or Bing at some point. Like DuckDuckGo uses Bing and basically just scrubs your zip code off of it and then they go to Bing and give you the result. Yeah, that's basically what they do to protect your privacy.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Todd Ricketts]

But they didn't build their own search engine. They just layered on top of Bing.

[Josh Holmes]

That's interesting.

[Todd Ricketts]

And so what we did and what took us so long to get our product out there is that we went out and built our own entire index of the Internet. So we've been crawling for five years, you know, tagging everything we find, and then obviously new stuff's being added every day. And so that's really what took a long time to get our product to where it is today. But we're not leaning on Google, we're not leaning on Bing, where we have our own index on the back end. Even everything that you see, like the chatgpts and the perplexities, they're leaning on one of those two indexes. So we built our own index, and then we built our own AI layering on top of it to give you that presentation and that user interface.

[John Ashbrook]

What I love about it, and I used to tell people, he's our Internet guy.

[Todd Ricketts]

Okay, good, good.

[John Ashbrook]

I used to tell people this in politics all the time when I was explaining digital media to people was like, what's way more powerful for a voter or, you know, a person? Seeking information isn't the thing you're telling them, it's the process of discovery where they think they're finding information for themselves. Yeah, right. And so if there is an algorithm or a company or the liberal media or somebody putting their thumb on the scale to the information, which you will find, you will put more credence in that thing because you think you found it.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Psychologically, Right. And so that's what I love about this project is it's like if we just took the thumb off the scale of the thing and let people come to their own conclusion, they'd come to better outcomes. Because right now you may think you know things that you found yourself, but in reality, somebody else wanted to make

[Todd Ricketts]

sure you found that's right. And so, yeah, part of our whole thing is we always come back to this. Just the fact that, ma', am, we're not trying to lead anybody down a particular direction. We're not trying to create our own narrative. We're trying to help people form that own narrative in their head. And really, I kind of come back to this thing. When it comes to social media, talking about what you see and what your neighbors see, it kind of comes back to you used to be able to have beers with your neighbors all the time, and you probably never got that deep in politics. And so if you disagreed, it didn't really matter. Today, if your neighbor thinks that birds are robot drones before you didn't know that so you could have beers and not think any less of him. But today, now, you know that, right? You can't get away from knowing that.

[John Ashbrook]

Isn't that the funniest thing about our Internet age is this paradox where we have access to way more information but agree on less and our common experience is less. You know what I mean?

[Michael Duncan]

It is a paradox.

[Todd Ricketts]

And so, I mean, that's what it is. So, like Free Spoke, part of its design was to help bridge that divide and kind of bring people back together when they been so far divided by what they see and what they believe.

[Michael Duncan]

I find it fascinating. I mean, do you need another job? Good Lord, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

What do you do?

[Michael Duncan]

You're like, inventing Internet stuff. You're owning the Cubs. I mean, Lord.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah. Luckily, I don't do any of the programming. We've got a great team of guys that put together Free Spoken. And if I had to do it, I'm kind of technologically challenged myself. In fact, my computer just died the other day, and I was talking to the guys and I was like, like, yeah. Like, what sort of PC would you recommend? And they're like, we're all Mac, so, like, you got to get into the century, so we can't help you.

[Michael Duncan]

You're looking at you like you're a crazy person. I love it. All right, so I always ask everybody who comes on the first time on the program three questions.

[Todd Ricketts]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Fascinating for you.

[Todd Ricketts]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

If you could plan your last meal on Earth, you got time to think about it. You can slide in sideways because it's your last meal.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

What do you think it's going to be?

[Todd Ricketts]

Well, I mean, it's tough because my actual. My Instagram handle is just Todd eats everything, so I eat a little bit of everything. And then I was posting things, I'm like, God, you know, I eat way too much. So I stopped posting and stopped eating as much. Just trying to cut back on.

[Michael Duncan]

I was conscious about it a little bit.

[Todd Ricketts]

A little bit. You know what I've discovered is that I like pizza more than I like being skinny.

[Michael Duncan]

It resonates.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Todd Ricketts]

So it'd probably be a pizza, but I don't know which pizza place I'd go to. You know, I have a favorite. A favorite spot in every town.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it's tough in Chicago to try to pick amongst.

[Todd Ricketts]

There's a bunch in Chicago, and I grew up in Nebraska as well, and so there's some good pizza places in Nebraska. I guess I'd probably have pizza. What's that about?

[Michael Duncan]

What toppings are we talking about here? Gosh, you know, are you loading that thing up or are you keeping it easy with cheese?

[Todd Ricketts]

You know, I'm a little bit of a sausage and pepperoni and maybe throw some peppers and onions in there.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, that's probably gonna be it.

[Michael Duncan]

A supreme guy.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that makes sense. I love that. Probably like a glass of wine or something.

[Todd Ricketts]

I mean, if you want. Of course. Chianti Classico.

[Michael Duncan]

That's like.

[Todd Ricketts]

I'm an Italian at heart. I identify as Italian. I'm transitioning my family's dream, German, French, and British. But I'm Italian.

[Michael Duncan]

I love that.

[Donald Trump]

It's so good.

[Michael Duncan]

All right, so second question. Listen, you have Accomplished so much in your life, and you've done so many different things. We think that almost everybody, no matter where your lot in life is, you think about something. You were interested young in life, and then you've grown skills over a period of time. You're like, man, I would have been really good at that. That's one thing that I really had. I had another life to live. This is the thing that I would have done. Do you have one of those things?

[Todd Ricketts]

You know what? This is gonna sound a little crazy because all I really like to do is sing. Oh, and you're kidding. I am the worst singer on the planet. So, I mean, this was God's joke on me. Like, when I was born, God's like, I'm gonna give you this desire to sing in front of people and make you so terrible that you have to hide it and keep it in your shower.

[Michael Duncan]

That's so great.

[Todd Ricketts]

But literally the worst singer on the planet. Until I met my wife and discovered she was a little bit worse than me. And I'm like, okay, I'm the second worst singer. But together, we were like, really just awful, awful, awful singers.

[Michael Duncan]

Careful when you invite Ricketts to a karaoke party, right?

[Todd Ricketts]

Oh, my gosh. And we do do karaoke. We have karaoke machines. Yeah. Like, really?

[Michael Duncan]

We.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah. Hurt people's ears. We let it fly.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Yeah, we do that.

[Michael Duncan]

All right. So the third question. Our view is that almost every successful person on this planet is motivated by one of two things that makes them ultimately successful. It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it is not that anyone doesn't like to win or that anybody enjoys losing. That never is the case. It's about what gets you up in the morning to make you try a little bit harder and get you motivated to go do the thing. And, like, the ultimate agony of defeat person is Michael Jordan.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, right.

[Michael Duncan]

He's the guy who's, like, inventing slights in order to take his game to the next level. We've always said Phil Mickelson is our. Our thrill of victory person, where you're like, you know, you need two shots to win. He's got 280 over water, and he grabs the three iron. You're like, phil, why don't we lay up? Why don't we just try to pitch this sucker in? But he's like, no, I hit that shot. I'm going to do it again. That's the two poles. Where do you think you find yourself on that spectrum?

[Todd Ricketts]

Well, it's pretty easy. But I'm going to start with a little bit of a story, talking to my European friends about Olympics, okay? And we were talking about different sports, and an American gets a silver or bronze medal. And they're like, why are you guys not happy when you get a silver or bronze medal? And I said, what you don't understand is, like, in America, there is no second place. You win or you don't. And so we're all about gold medals. But coming back to this idea of Viking winning or hating losing, it's so easy. Hate losing. You have to hate losing.

[Michael Duncan]

I was gonna call you.

[Todd Ricketts]

So simple.

[Michael Duncan]

I was gonna call you out. If you try to go the other way, you would be surprised because we all know politicians on here, they kind of like, you know, they try to make it up as they go along.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah. No, you got to taste it in your throat when you lose. Like, you got to hate it that much.

[Michael Duncan]

I can just. I've. I don't know you all that well, but I know you well enough to know that you're. You're an agony guy. This is an agony guy. You look at that roster that just doesn't make the cut, and you think about that far more than you do the one that does.

[Todd Ricketts]

My real life agony story, if going back to the 2015, when we were playing the Mets in the playoffs. They swept us. They kicked us out. Like, it was terrible. The weather was in the 30s. We had a Cuban right fielder. He looked like he was gonna go snowmobiling. He couldn't take the cold there at Citi Field. It was really. You just knew it. You could see it in the demeanor. Like, it was just. Everything was going wrong for us. And that season ended. And the next morning, I woke up, I sat down at my desk and I cried for 20 minutes. Oh, yeah, I hated it so much, but I think our whole organization did at that same moment. We cried together separately. We came out of that, and we were like, we're gonna win in 16. And from, like, November 1, 2015, we were like, we're winning the World Series next year. There's gonna be nothing getting in our way.

[Michael Duncan]

That's an agony. That's an agony.

[Josh Holmes]

Purely agony.

[Michael Duncan]

I love it. Before I let you go, how's your brother Pete? We're gonna have him in here in a couple of weeks. He's doing terrific work in the United States Senate.

[Todd Ricketts]

He's doing great. It was obvious. For reelection for a Senate seat in Nebraska this year. He has a strong opponent on the Democrat side. But I think everybody knows this about Pete by now, but he is a hustler, and his favorite thing to do is campaign for office. He may like being in D.C. and being part of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the Ag Committee, and he does enjoy that kind of the minutiae of that work. But the thing that makes him the happiest is campaigning out in Nebraska and talking to people and having those conversations. And so I really just don't see a scenario where he could lose because he works so hard and really, he just gets it done.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. He's a good man, as you all are. Thank you for everything you've done. We didn't even touch on the fact that he was a finance chairman for the President of the United States.

[Todd Ricketts]

And we didn't get to clear the air about our upbringing. Like, Pete got to talk about last time he was here.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Todd Ricketts]

I just want to clear the. Some of these lies.

[Michael Duncan]

Do you have anything you'd like to add? Should we throw shots his way?

[Todd Ricketts]

No, no, no. I. We'll save it for next time. We'll save it for next time.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's. Yeah, let's create a family drama. Let's make Thanksgiving really uncomfortable.

[Todd Ricketts]

Yeah, that's exactly it.

[Michael Duncan]

Todd Ricketts, everybody. Quick choose a meal deal with McValue. The $5 Mc chicken meal deal, the $6 McDouble meal deal, or the new $7 Daily Double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink, and Four Piece McN.

[Congressman Greg Murphy]

No rush.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only.

[Todd Ricketts]

Person participation may vary. Not Belgium.

[John Ashbrook]

MCD delivery.

[Josh Holmes]

Perfect timing for a conversation with a guy who knows so much about our nation's great pastime. And I mean, what a great conversation. What an absolute 10 of 10 guy. I can't think of a better way to start baseball than such a good dude, you know?

[Michael Duncan]

And like, look, there's a temptation because he's been involved in politics. His brother is a senator, obviously, but he's been in the highest levels of Trump stuff. I mean, he was the finance chairman for the president's reelection, but you get the impression he's got so much other stuff that I wanted to know about. Like, we have a hundred people that come in and out of here. Tell us about politics. I want to know a baseball. I want to know about, like, the motivation, how he got into the whole information flow thing with his new search engine. Like, that's interesting stuff.

[John Ashbrook]

It is.

[Josh Holmes]

And, you know, I didn't know DuckDuckGo was built on Bing I had no idea. I would bet nobody listening to this knows it was built on somebody else's search engine. So very interesting that he started his own thing to build a brand new way to crawl the web and pull information.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm glad he stopped by. Good friend of the program. We'll have him back here at some point. Remember our question of the day? What's your favorite Trump stand up moment? I want you to get creative on this and go like way back. Like let's get to a point where I see something that is just a reminder because we read all these things and I just want to laugh because I know I will go to our YouTube like subscribe. Leave your comment. Check out some merch items while you're there. We're going to work on all of that. We got a big announcement next week about a new like thing that we're providing based on the content that we're doing with all these candidates around the country. I think you're going to love it. I think it's like exactly what you've been asking for. You got to tune in Tuesday to find out with that. Fellows, I think we did it.

[Smug]

I think so. So banger of a show. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Todd Ricks, and thank you to the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you on Tuesday. Stay ruthless.