The Disastrous DNC ‘Autopsy’

Summary

Ruthless Podcast: The Disastrous DNC ‘Autopsy’

Date: May 22, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Guest: Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Ruthless crew dives headfirst into the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) much-delayed and much-mocked “autopsy” of the 2024 election. The guys provide their signature irreverent, sharp-tongued analysis on the DNC’s struggles, the absurd document it finally released, and what it says about the current state of the Democratic Party. Later, they host Congressman Pat Harrigan for a thoughtful Memorial Day segment and a discussion of defense policy and the challenges facing Congress.

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The DNC Autopsy: Context and Immediate Reactions

• The episode opens with the fellas taking (tongue-in-cheek) credit for “bullying” DNC Chair Ken Martin into finally releasing the DNC’s post-election autopsy report:
  • Quote: “The first thing I did was take credit for bullying Ken Martin into releasing it.” – Duncan (00:07)
• They highlight DNC Chair Ken Martin’s sheepish disavowal of the released report:
  • Quote: "I am not proud of this product. It does not meet my standards and it won't meet your standards. I don't endorse what's in this report or what's left out of it." – C, quoting Martin (00:12; also restated at 10:55)
  • Quote: "I am the head of the DNC and the buck does not stop with me." – B (00:30)
• The crew lampoons Martin’s refusal to own the report, calling into question the DNC’s actual leadership and competence.
  • Quote: “So what do you do around here? He’s like, I am releasing this report that I promised...but I just want to make it clear I have nothing to do with this shit.” – C (11:22)

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why the Report Became Such a Fiasco

• For months, Democratic donors and politicos demanded the autopsy, but the DNC leadership stonewalled, insisting they were “using the lessons” without releasing any specifics.
• Dem insiders and media, like CNN, began cobbling together pieces of the report from leaks, prompting more “panic” within the DNC. (09:00)
  • Quote: “People familiar with the matter say Martin…seemed to panic at several points when he thought others had gotten a hold of it.” – A (08:59)
  • When finally released, the report was incomplete, written (in part) by a Clinton-era strategist, and had sections created by AI (!).
• The guys note the degree of internal party chaos, with activists, unions, environmentalists, and far-left caucuses all blaming each other or trying to seize the narrative.
  • Quote: “They're trying to sew all that together internally…which is an unenviable task.” – A (08:12)

2. A Document Embarrassment: No Conclusions, No Evidence, No Ownership

Report Anatomy and Structure

• The “autopsy” is roundly mocked for being filled with disclaimers, missing sections, and red-inked comments like “no evidence provided.”

  • Quote: “Part of this is that one of the primary critiques…was that there was nothing that was footnoted. Evidently, nobody went to college over there.” – A (15:12)
  • Quote: “Introduction: pending. National overview: pending. And then there’s disclaimers on it that say this section was not provided by the author.” – B (23:09)
  • Quote: “Conclusion. This section was not provided.” – C (36:38)

• The team highlights the circus-like internal dynamic, suggesting the DNC is more a loose coalition of mutually opposed interest groups than a party.

  • Quote: “It's less a political party and it's just a group united to loot and plunder.” – C (16:16)

Notable Absences… and Absurdities

• Major campaign failures are glossed over or ignored, with technical glitches and vague "lessons" cited as key causes rather than failed messaging, leadership, or the wildly unpopular Kamala Harris.

• The media section claims Republicans “own” the media, which the hosts deride as delusional:

  • Quote: "Democrats pay for seasonal access to the network stations, platforms and newspapers owned by Republicans...to advertise and communicate with voters.” – B reading the report (28:14)
  • Quote: “That is...LSD trip gone very bad of imagining a world...Republicans control the media.” – C (28:55)

• The document frequently presents blatant factual errors:

  • Example: Getting the sitting President wrong in a recap of the 2022 Georgia Senate race.
    • Quote: “[Rivera] forgot who the President was. And he's a Democrat and the President was Joe Biden.” – B (27:22)

Authorship and Responsibility Passing

• The report’s supposed author, Democratic strategist Paul Rivera (a Clinton advisor), is scapegoated, but his name doesn’t appear on the final product. The document opens with a sweeping disclaimer saying its findings don’t represent the DNC’s views!
  • Quote: “The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing...and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.” – A (21:19)
  • The hosts compare Rivera to a “patsy” (19:56), with the party eager to pin blame on anyone but those actually responsible for the election.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the DNC’s chaos:
  A: “They’re diffuse constituencies that do not agree on a single thing other than power…and that they want more of our taxpayer dollars. That’s it.” (16:15)

• On the report’s uselessness:
  C: “Like, this is not about collaboration. This is about retribution. Like...everything is in red ink, highlighted. This is crap. No evidence for this exists. Like, this is...insane…They must just hate each other. That's gotta be the most hostile place to be.” (24:58)

• On the “technology” and “media” complaints:
  B: “In the current media ecosystem, Republicans own and Democrats rent...With a free and fair press...Democrats have a shot.” (28:14)
  C: “This is like, LSD trip gone very bad.” (28:55)

• On the report’s lack of introspection:
  C: “They did not see how atrophied they had become because they've been coddled in this media environment where the media is straight up covering for Joe Biden.” (29:46)

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Who’s Really To Blame?

• The hosts discuss the party’s refusal to name names in the autopsy, suggesting it’s an obvious dodge to protect current leaders (Biden, Harris, Obama, Pelosi, Ken Martin).

  • Quote: “Who are the people to blame that they are scared to name?” — C (39:06)
  • They suggest multiple choice: Is it Biden? Kamala? Obama? Pelosi? Or just Ken Martin?

• The theoretical “diagnosis” is that Democrats’ refusal to face the actual issues leaves them rudderless—pointing fingers at technology, media bias, or “diverse” constituencies instead of taking responsibility for candidate and policy failures.

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Memorial Day Special: Interview with Rep. Pat Harrigan

[45:17–77:02]

• Harrigan reflects on Memorial Day’s true meaning, advocating for somber remembrance instead of commercialization.

  • Quote: “They're always going to remember, we're never going to forget the sacrifice...We have to earn their sacrifice every day.” – Harrigan (47:37)

• Hosts and Harrigan contrast the country’s nostalgic, shared civic culture of the past versus today’s fragmented politics.

  • D: “For the longest time...I think we all grew up in the best of America. Totally.” (51:06)

• Political analysis: Harrigan diagnoses the crisis in Congress as a loss of shared principles, making “principled compromise” impossible. Instead, compromises are made "devoid of principle" due to fundamentally antagonistic values between the parties.

  • Quote: “We don’t have those same values and principles and morality and ethics. It's actually very disparate right now.” – Harrigan (53:31)

• He describes the Democratic coalition as an impossible patchwork of interest groups, making coherent policy or messaging impossible.

  • Quote: "Unions are ostensibly trying to protect labor. And then you've got the open borders crowd is like, no, actually I want to allow our country to be flooded with cheap illegal, which is bad for labor." – C (55:37)

• On right-to-repair, Harrigan explains to the layman how procurement and repair policies waste billions in defense (e.g., a $6 switch on a Blackhawk helicopter costs the Army $40,000 due to contractor rules).

  • Quote: “We have 40% of our equipment that doesn’t work and we aren’t allowed to fix it...That is a shakedown of the American tax.” – Harrigan (61:57/62:46)

• On midterm prospects:

  • Quote: “If we had the election today, we'd get crushed, but...the time between now and November is an eternity in politics.” – Harrigan (67:56)

• On Democrats’ woes:

  • Harrigan: “You actually have pretty decent moderate Democrats...Every single one of those people are getting primaried by a hard left candidate…They're all screwed up. They can't tell left from right up from down.” (72:03)

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Important Timestamps

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |---------|-------------|-----------| | DNC Report Released, Disavowed | Ken Martin's statement, reaction | 00:12–01:20, 10:55–12:05 | | How the DNC Dug the Hole | Context, timeline, internal disaster | 04:19–09:00 | | Report's Absurd Structure & Missing Evidence | Walkthrough of missing sections, disclaimers | 15:12–17:00, 23:09–24:43, 36:38 | | Notable Factual Mistakes | Rivera’s errors in history | 27:22, 31:52 | | Media Ownership Delusions | The “Republicans own the media” section | 28:12–31:26 | | Party Coalition Dysfunction | Lack of shared vision among Dem constituencies | 16:16, 55:37–57:36 | | Discussion: Who's to Blame | Multiple choice of Dem leadership scapegoats | 39:01–40:12, 78:04 | | Memorial Day & Interview with Rep. Pat Harrigan | Personal reflections, right-to-repair, politics | 45:17–77:15 | | Final Thoughts/Dem Messaging Challenges | What are Dems actually offering voters? | 67:10–75:55 |

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Episode Style & Tone

True to the Ruthless brand, this episode mixes sharp political analysis, inside references, and crude humor. The hosts are openly scornful of Democratic leadership, using sarcasm, playful analogies, and running gags (“learnings”, “build to win”, “schadenfreude”) to hammer home the party’s incompetence.

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Final Segment: Question of the Day

• The hosts encourage listener engagement:
  • “Who’s to blame on the Democratic side? Obama, Biden, Kamala, Pelosi, the idiots in the bowels, Ken Martin, Paul Rivera? Let us know!” (78:04)

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In summary:
This episode of Ruthless offers a brutal, comedic takedown of the DNC’s failed 2024 autopsy, skewering the internal dysfunction and evasive leadership of the Democratic Party, while contrasting it with their own view of responsible, principle-based politics—and closing with a respectful, heartfelt segment honoring Memorial Day. Even for those who didn’t tune in, this summary provides a front-row seat to the DNC’s public self-immolation, as witnessed by the hosts and their guest.

Transcript

[A]

I can't help but feel a little bit responsible for the DNC's handling of their autopsy.

[B]

The first thing I did was take credit for bullying Ken Martin into releasing it.

[C]

The DNC finally releasing its autopsy report on the 2024 presidential election. DNC Chair Ken Martin writing, I am not proud of this product. It does not meet my standards and it won't meet your standards. I don't endorse what's in this report or what's left out of it.

[B]

I am the head of the DNC in the buck does not stop with me.

[C]

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[D]

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[C]

Today's hearing is a continuation of the

[A]

committee's larger effort to get to the root causes of why healthcare is so outrageously expensive.

[C]

Hospital prices have skyrocketed 300% in just over two decades.

[A]

A family in California was charged nearly $300,000 to treat their toddler snake bite.

[C]

Large hospital systems also manipulate the 340B drug pricing program to keep steep drug discounts for themselves. Instead of passing the savings to Low income patients even. There is evidence that hospital abuse of 340B actually directly led to increases in Obamacare premiums.

[A]

Simply put, hospitals are charging an insane amount for care. The American people are fed up with outrageous prices that seem artificially high. They're right.

[E]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[C]

This program has become one of the most influential, influential podcasts in America.

[B]

I love the personality. You guys are killing it. I just saw your number one. So congratulations.

[A]

It's an honor and a pleasure to welcome the great Sean Hannity. Guys, I love you. Congratulations on all your success.

[D]

This is why you listen to the Ruthless Podcast.

[B]

Cause nobody else would ask that question. The only political podcast worth listening to

[D]

is the Ruthless Podcast.

[A]

It's time for our main event, the Ruthless Podcast Fun Time Friday. Welcome back to the Ruthless Sobriety Program. I'm Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, Left to right across your radio dial. As absolutely always. I gotta tell you, there's been some entertaining stuff that's happened here this week, and I can't help but feel a little bit responsible for the DNC's handling of their autopsy.

[C]

You just deserve some credit for this.

[A]

It is. Well, our colleague Dunks over there has positively had full priapism.

[E]

It's a medical condition.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's. You could have a midget doing pull ups off that thing for what you've seen this week. I mean, it is. It's unbelievable how happy he is about the bullying that ultimately required the DNC to do what they did.

[B]

The Germans have a word for, for it. It's schadenfreude.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And yeah, I mean, I feel like this is the type of material we do best.

[A]

I kind of agree with you. Let's just start with where we were at, just so you get a little sense of how we first approached this. And then we'll use that as a jumping off point. This is a clip from. What is it, a week? Two weeks.

[B]

Two weeks ago. About the Dem autopsy. Yeah. And how they weren't releasing it.

[A]

Yeah. Clip one.

[B]

It's just so funny the way he has to about face on doing the one thing he said he would do after the election.

[D]

But if there's no smoking gun, why wouldn't you just release it then?

[A]

Because we want to keep the focus on the lessons. The lessons?

[D]

Yeah, we got to have the lessons.

[A]

Ah, it's the lessons. Okay.

[C]

All right, all right.

[A]

So that was making fun of the dnc. In case you haven't followed this story closely or missed that episode, the DNC, after a devastating loss in 2024, upon demands by their major donor base and everyone else, were going to conduct a full autopsy of everything that they did wr for Kamala Harris's presidential campaign and down ballot losses and come up with some findings, some important things, lessons that they would apply then to the midterms in 2026 and never allow it to ever happen again. Well, that languished for a while, and pretty soon people started asking, like, where the fuck is the autopsy? And they were like, well, we're using the lessons. We're using the lessons. Like, you don't need to see it. We're not going to release it, but we're using. Were using the lessons. And like, you know, you had a whole host of left wingers who were like, huh? Like, what are you talking about? The whole point of an autopsy is that you, like, print it so people can learn off of it. Now we are with the learnings. Remember the learnings. And they're like, no, that's not going to cut it. So you had guys like Jared Moskowitz, a Democratic representative, and clip too.

[B]

We lost the last election.

[A]

It wasn't close. Okay, but the fact that we can't even tell people why. We're too afraid to tell them the truth.

[B]

They know the truth.

[A]

They saw the debate. They saw what happened.

[E]

Right.

[A]

And they saw that we got killed in the election.

[B]

We lost every swing state, so they can write whatever document they want, but Democrats know why we lost.

[A]

So then people start speculating about, like, what is this? Did they actually do anything? And it was an open question. And it was unclear at some point if the DNC chairman who commissioned such a study did anything about it, like, if there was any words on paper. And so then you had a whole bunch of punditry that comes in behind it to say that they'd seen versions of it or that they had sort of summarized in their own words what was going on. And it was like, just a complete mess. Just. Is that a fair characteristic? Characterization dunks?

[B]

Yeah, I think so. But, like, you know, if they weren't so crazy, you'd feel bad for the Democratic base here because, you know, they've been just eating a shit sandwich from the Democratic establishment for so many years in the Trump era, you know, Biden's fine. Biden's fine. Oh, well, Biden's actually out. Kamala's in. She's great. She's going to win this election. She loses in each shit. And then we're going to hide the evidence, you know. And so like, you feel bad for some of these people who are like, all right, we want to fix the party. Just show us how we do it. And they're like, nah, we, we're good guys, we're good.

[A]

You know, because you got the unions being like, oh, it's more jobs. The enviro's being like, no, you're polluting. And then the people being like, yeah, we just hate the Jew. Well, they're trying to sew all that together internally, which is an unenviable task when you're talking about learnings of what you did wrong. And perhaps you just had a real shitty candidate. But it got boiled over to a point where this actually took over all of the conversation within Democratic politics over the last couple of weeks. Like, where's this autopsy? Like, you tell us where this whole thing is. And CNN has got just a terrific excerpt on this graphic one, if you don't mind. People familiar with the matter say Martin, that's the DNC chairman, seemed to panic at several points when he thought others had gotten a hold of it.

[C]

Amazing.

[A]

But after CNN obtained extensive details about its contents, including slides from a presentation at a donor retreat that were in part generated using an AI model, DNC officials turned what they say is the entirety of what they have on over to cnn.

[B]

It's hilarious.

[C]

Also, it's like you have really found yourself as a Dem in a bad position when CNN is going to hold you accountable because like that tells you the like left wing grassroots is.

[B]

It's also super funny to like half do your homework and then feed that through an AI generated slide making thing for your major donors. I know. Like, like what? Disrespect for people.

[E]

It's, it's been 18 months.

[A]

Right.

[E]

You know, they out three bullet points. Kamala sucked. We, our party needs to change some of our positions. We need something different. Like it could have been very simple. Nobody was like asking for 190 pages

[A]

of bullshit or just observations about, I don't know, we had a COD lock on black men. We no longer have that. Hispanic vote is falling away. Middle class is evaporated. White men are unattainable. Like, I mean, just observations.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

You could have. That would have been a decent enough autopsy. You can leave it to somebody else on how you fill in those blanks if you'd like.

[E]

You don't need AI.

[A]

You don't need AI doesn't need to tell you that.

[B]

No.

[E]

You don't even need to be like a political professional to be able to say that stuff. Any voter could have said that stuff. But it's been 18 months. We're four or five months from the next election. What the hell was this supposed to provide for them? You know, like, what. What are the donors gleaning from this in private publicate? You know, like, what are they getting?

[B]

Nothing.

[A]

You've heard us talk an awful lot about the lack of leadership, and I think this is another perfect example that they have over the Democratic Party. So how did this whole thing end up. Clip one.

[C]

The DNC finally releasing its autopsy. Autopsy report on the 2024 presidential election. DNC Chair Ken Martin writing, I am not proud of this product. It does not meet my standards, and it won't meet your standards. I don't endorse what's in this report or what's left out of it. That is. That's just such an incredible statement.

[B]

I am the head of the dnc and the buck does not stop with me.

[C]

Yeah, it's like, so. So what do you do around here? He's like, I am releasing this report that I promised I would release, but I just want to make it clear I have nothing to do with this shit. I don't want it out there. I don't know anything about it, folks.

[E]

I don't endorse what's in it or what's left out of it.

[C]

Yeah, I can neither confirm nor deny.

[A]

What the hell's his job?

[C]

That's the thing. Like, if they're trying to figure, like, how do we placate these donors? Because the DNC numbers are ugly. Ugly. They have more in debt that they owe than they actually have cash on hand. And they're trying to, like, use AI to trick their donors and be like, well, listen, you don't need to know what's in the report. I don't. I don't confirm or deny anything in the report.

[A]

It's the learning.

[C]

It's untenable situation for this party. And I think, you know, a lot of people are saying we have to be, like, worried as Republicans this midterm. The Democrats have to be worried because they don't know what they're doing. They owe more money than they have on hand, and they have a report of trying to figure out what went wrong that they're trying to ignore and hide.

[B]

Yeah, I think when this report came out, the first thing I did was take credit for bullying Ken Martin into releasing it. You deserve it. Which I think we deserve.

[A]

I think so, too.

[B]

And not just us. You too, listener and Viewer, you deserve credit. And anybody out there who bullied this guy on the Internet. But in doing so, I got a lot of outreach.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

As a result.

[A]

Well, as it turns out, the Variety program, well sourced.

[B]

Well sourced. Very many communities here, multiple Democrats in and around the universe, that is. The DNC reached out to inform me of some of the contours of this,

[A]

the internal struggle to release the report.

[B]

And what has become clear is that in the vacuum of, like, we're not going to release it. Maybe just the lessons. There are a lot of people in the Democratic Party who are uncomfortable with the way that the pro Hamas wing of the party was characterizing the reasons why they lost.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That it was all about Gaza and all this sort of stuff.

[A]

So. So, and this is all good stuff because you as a well adjusted human being listening to the Variety program and us who don't live in fantasy land, have not been exposed to conversations about how Gaza is, what the reason was that the Democrats lost to Donald Trump in 2024.

[D]

Right.

[A]

That's an interesting take.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it was source of some frustration. So it was.

[B]

Right.

[E]

It was Gaza that gave Biden dementia. I think that's fair. I think it was Gaza that turned Kamala into a blubbering idiot. I think that's fair.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

You know, so maybe there's something to it.

[B]

But what it, I think what it highlights is, you know, there is a silent struggle there in the Democrat Party where there are some normal people left who are like, all right, we got to cut the shit.

[C]

Right?

[B]

And we just got to get this thing out so that these far left lunatics don't take over the narrative here. And if you look at that statement from Ken Martin about like, I do not support this release, you know, it does not meet our standards. Wait until we show you what's inside it. You're going to understand why he wants to run a mile away from this thing.

[A]

Dude. Our next segment is going to be one of my favorites that I've seen in a long time, because when they released it, they didn't just release it as a PDF. There's highlights and then there is footnotes.

[C]

Comments are just.

[A]

And part of this is that one of the primary critiques that Ken Martin and co leveled upon the authors of the autopsy was that there was nothing that was footnoted. Evidently nobody went to college over there.

[B]

No work cited page, no work cited.

[A]

Right. They just, there's full of claims and then no evidence to support those claims. And so in many different places, they're like, no evidence.

[C]

This is beyond Bush. Like, this is just unbelievable.

[A]

But then there's so many other things in there where there's, like, plenty of evidence, but they're like, no evidence.

[B]

It cuts both ways. It cuts both ways. It allows us to make shit up and not say what's real.

[A]

Yeah, totally. So, I mean, there are many things about today's Democratic Party that we have covered here on the Variety program that entertain me endlessly, but these are the moments that I savor more than anything else because it just puts a fine point on the incompetency, on the lack of leadership, on the just dumb fuckery of which that whole party is anchored around. They're diffuse constituencies that do not agree on a single thing other than power, basically, and that they want more of our taxpayer dollars. That's it.

[C]

That's it.

[A]

That's.

[E]

That's pretty much it.

[C]

It's just. Essentially, it's just. It's less a political party and it's just a group united to loot and plunder. You know what I mean? It's how you have, like, Somali daycare operators in the same party as, you know, people who want to provide trans child care.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And hospitals. It's just people who want to find a way to where the money is and have control over it and be able to lock up anyone who disagrees. That's it.

[A]

Totally. I also think it's kind of funny, and we'll get into, you know, who wrote it and all that, but it's kind of funny in that they took it from a tactical standpoint and, like, it wasn't evident that some of their positions were wildly out of touch with the American people.

[C]

Like, they don't. Nope.

[A]

They don't touch you. This isn't a policy document. This is, like, nuts and bolts. Like, how you pull it over on the whole American people. And we didn't pull it over quite well enough, essentially. Well, nobody agrees with it. It's fantastic. So we're going to get to all of that in great detail right after this.

[E]

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[A]

Okay, so the, the autopsy, I think I saw Charlie Spearing say it was a slop. Topsy.

[D]

It's very funny.

[A]

It's pretty good, right? Yeah, pretty good. Well, anyway, the author of this operation was a Democratic strategist evidently named Paul Rivera, who was a former Clinton staffer and advisor.

[C]

Autopsy specialist.

[B]

Right.

[C]

He worked for Clinton. You may know him from such acts as Put the gun in the other hand.

[B]

Parody, parody.

[A]

We're laughing.

[B]

Parody, parody. We're laughing.

[C]

Big autopsy guy.

[A]

Or make sure to cut that camera. Yeah, no, he's, he's better at that, allegedly, than he is at putting together a document the Democrats can agree upon, so. But important to note, they've leveled all of this at the feet of this gentleman. We don't know personally whether or not this is the guy who put all the words on the paper or not, because his name does not appear anywhere in the document.

[C]

That's how you know you're proud of what you did.

[E]

That's exactly right. And, you know, this is a party full of morons. They've got idiots at the top, idiots at the bottom, and of a sudden, we're, we're expected to believe it's the fault of some guy's name we've never heard. You know what I mean? Like, I, I get it.

[A]

He's.

[E]

Maybe he was writing it. Maybe he shouldn't have been writing it. And he should have had the footnotes and done more research.

[A]

But, like, this guy volunteered for it. He's, there's some boomer. He's probably in his 70s.

[B]

I mean, he's just the patsy.

[A]

He's, like, sitting out there like Boca Raton right now, and he's like, yeah, I guess. I'll, I, I, I'll try to gather all this information. Next thing you know, he's just getting hung out.

[B]

Right.

[E]

They expect us to believe he's more to blame than Kamala Harris.

[A]

Yes, that Rivera, that son of a. I knew it.

[D]

If it wasn't for him, she would have won.

[B]

Poor guy. He's just, he's like, yeah, go over the trench. Put, put the knife in your teeth. We're coming right for you. And it's like he's just out there alone, you know, he went on a suicide mission.

[A]

Imagine what a tough week that guy's had, huh? I mean, you turn your phone off? Yeah, 100 real fast. Well, one of the funniest parts is how this whole thing begins. And the way it begins is with a disclaimer. The disclaimer in graphic 2 reads, this document reflects the views of the author, not the dnc. Let me just. Let me just pause there for a second. This is a document that was commissioned by the DNC and particularly this DNC chairman in response to the gravitational losses after the 2024 election. So important to know that the. After having people work on this thing

[B]

that the DNC is not responsible for the DNC's autopsy.

[A]

The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing. Well, it's because there was no sourcing. And we'll get to that in a second. Interviews or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented. All right, so can I just say,

[C]

can you get that graphic up after that discount? It says, title page, build to win. Built to land

[B]

a jarring job transition.

[C]

It's like none of us had anything to do with this shit. Things are. You cannot imagine how bad things are.

[B]

The disclaimer, build to win. Build to the disgrace. The disclaimer. The disclaimer is so long, the only thing it's missing is the like. This content cannot be reproduced without the written consent of the NFL.

[A]

Totally. You're right. It does read. The first part of it does read a little bit like one of those horrible contrast ads. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's just like. Okay, so in case you're doing the math on where we're at here, DNC commissioned. DNC produced. DNC hidden. DNC attested that the learnings were being incorporated. DNC being uncomfortable with the Hamas caucus, characterizing it as their issue that was driving the ultimate autopsy. DNC confused as to why everybody has an idea of what's in the autopsy, but them ultimately released findings that they don't stand by.

[C]

It's incredible, really.

[A]

First rate work out of the Democratic National Committee. So in graphic three and dunks, I kind of want to you to take the lead on this because you immersed yourself in this world.

[C]

You deserve a huge W for just. I mean, let's be honest. Duncan straight bullied the DNC into this.

[B]

So. So like after all of this buildup and it's like. That was a great summation by the way, Holmes. And so you finally open the thing and you're like, well, here it is. We got the goods. Time to roll up the sleeves and figure out who they're blaming. All right, let's start this thing. Put up the first graphic introduction, pending. National overview, pending. And then there's disclaimers on it that say this section was not provided by the author.

[A]

Also, like introduction, the first thing that you write.

[C]

Also, it's amazing. They're like straight up. What happened? Electoral review. No evidence provided.

[A]

What happened? What happened? I mean, we can. Pretty much anybody can do that. We got your asses kicked. That's what happened. But this is just incredible.

[C]

Like, if you're a donor seeing this, you're just got a lot of confidence that your money went to a good.

[B]

And if you're thinking, okay, well, maybe they were going in, they're piling all the data into the rest of the document. They're going to come up with some sort of conclusion, a thesis to the entire thing, and then they're going to fill in the introduction at the top. Like maybe this was the last part of the homework to it. They didn't get to it.

[A]

They were rushed.

[B]

You know, Ken Martin was too focused on the lesson.

[A]

Yeah, only 18 months of lag time to write an introduction. It's maybe too much to ask for your average Democrat.

[B]

No, wrong. The entire document, all 192 pages or wherever it is, is riddled with these things. Graphic 4.

[A]

Look at this.

[C]

Wow. Dude, this is incredible.

[A]

The fact that they, they get.

[B]

They cannot get through a paragraph of this thing without a red bar that says there's no evidence of this. There's no evidence.

[C]

This looks like a Google Doc for a workplace where everyone hates each other.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[C]

Like, this is not about collaboration. This is about retribution. Like, are you see, everything is in red ink, highlighted. This is crap. No evidence for this exists. Like, this is. This is insane that this is the DNC inside. They must just hate each other. That's gotta be the most hostile place to be.

[B]

It's so like, like, you know, it's one thing to not have the evidence there. Maybe you're just editorializing about the election a little bit in your own voice. Right? But like, you're gonna eventually get to like, the hard data of things and the facts of the matter.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

At what one point this author is going through a lot of the historical data, you know, because in order to learn, we must look at our history. This thing, this thing goes all the way back to Bill Clinton, by the way. And they're talking about their electoral success and the Obama coalition. All this. That is totally superfluous to the problem that actually happened in 2024. But they got themselves feel good, right? So they start way back in ancient history.

[A]

Well, that's why you commission a man like Paul Rivera.

[B]

But Mr. Rivera runs into a foggy memory. Okay, graphic number five, please.

[A]

Wait, wait, hold on. Before we get to this, can I just go back to graphic for the one that we. We said?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

The first thing on here just made me laugh out loud. Massive media investments weren't matched by equally robust organizing, lower turnout and lower support for the top of the ticket. No evidence for these clients. They spent a billion dollars. You know what I mean? It's like there's math. Like it's all there.

[E]

What do you mean?

[B]

There's no. I don't know. Right. I mean, like you could just pull up the election results and that would be the evidence.

[A]

Okay. All right. Sorry to interrupt.

[B]

We get to history three here in graphic number five. So let's put that up. And they talk about the 2022 Senate election in Georgia. You know, Raphael Warnock, the incumbent against Herschel Walker. Mr. Rivera has sort of a foggy memory here in that, you know, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell endorse Herschel Walker. And he writes, this was a blatant attempt by the Republican power base to take advantage of name recognition and tough economic conditions to push through an unqualified candidate whose job would have been little more than rubber stamping the President's agenda. Here's the problem, listener and viewer. It's 2022. Joe Biden is president.

[C]

Dude, that is incredible.

[B]

He forgot who the President was. And he's a Democrat and the President was Joe Biden and he's in charge of the autopsy.

[E]

Listen, listen. In all fairness, in 2022, the President forgot who the President was.

[A]

It was a robust condition. Oh, my God. Okay, what else do we got in here?

[B]

There's also just a hilarious upside down view of the entire world. It's just interesting to get into the mind of a professional Democrat.

[A]

Scary place.

[B]

In the way that they see the world in which they operate. And as people who are professional practitioners in politics, this is just really eye opening and hilarious. Can we go to graphic number six? This is how professional Democrats see the state of the media.

[E]

Oh, this is going to be interesting.

[B]

This is going to come as a shock to you. In the current media ecosystem, Republicans own and Democrats rent Democrats. Democrats pay for seasonal access to the network stations, platforms and newspapers owned by Republicans or right wing entities to advertise and communicate with voters. Okay, I'll skip the middle one. But at the end here with a free and fair press, this is where we would cue the Sorkin ask music from the West Wing. Democrats have a shot to make their case. When publishers and owners have a partisan point of view, it's more difficult for Democrats to break through.

[A]

You got to be kidding.

[C]

This is incredible.

[B]

It is.

[C]

This is like. This isn't even delusional. This, this is, this is like LSD trip gone very bad of imagining a world. They're like, listen, we all know Republicans control the media. The deck stack, abc, NBC, cbs, they're all in it against us Democrats after

[A]

they watch all three networks summarily violate their FCC charter at the end of this election in order to try to get broke ass Kamala Harris over the finish line. They're like, if only the media was on our side, not run by right wing zealots.

[B]

It was the intention, the media themselves that were running cover for Joe Biden when he was losing his mind in the Oval Office. They are their only reason why Joe Biden was propped up for all of those months. The reason why they lost the 2024 election in the fucking first place.

[C]

You just. That bring. That's an excellent point because it's such a lack of introspection. In all seriousness, they did not see how atrophied they had become because they've been coddled in this media environment where the media is straight up covering for Joe Biden. And that's the problem is they became so atrophied and weak because they were just spoon fed. And the media agreed to. They're like, yeah, sure, we will lie to the Americans. We'll say Joe Biden's great, we'll say that we agree in private, he's doing backflips and boy, we can't even keep up with them. And that created an environment where they had no talent, no skills, no ability to convince the American people about their agenda. That's the problem.

[E]

You're exactly right. And the atrophy took place over generations. It started when the media came together to take out a Republican president, Richard Nixon.

[C]

You're right.

[E]

Every single cycle after that, the media just got stronger and stronger and stronger as an ally for Democrats. And then all of a sudden, Democrats became incapable of delivering their own message. And the message they were delivering was like un unfathomable for a cocktail party

[A]

crowd that they had to get to write the narrative.

[E]

Right.

[A]

It wasn't Based on what the American people were interested in. I did find it interesting in that section, State of the Media and Communication, that they did slap the sourcing not provided for. Many claims in this section, like, for example, that Republicans own the media.

[B]

They're like, you know, we actually checked out a lot of the media reports, and they look pretty good to us.

[A]

Feel like we didn't get a negative word said for 90 straight days to that election.

[B]

Yeah. And so then you're thinking to yourself, okay, you know, Mr. Rivera, he had a big job. Maybe he didn't have a lot of help. Maybe he's down in Boca and he's, you know, fishing during the day. And he's just doing this out of the goodwill of his heart, generous heart. He just made one mistake. He didn't. He forgot Joe Biden was president. As you know, I often did. Graphic 7. He's now talking about the 2019, you know, election in Kentucky.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Bashir race.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And he talks about how Bashir narrowly defeated Republican Matt Brevin.

[C]

What?

[E]

He watched that one closely.

[B]

Yeah. His name's Matt Bevin, so he got that wrong as well. It really makes you wonder if you can trust any of the conclusions of old Rivera.

[A]

He's looking at. He's looking at Matt Brevin and counting on this as a very significant win because he, Bashir, that is, won this despite the 30 points that Trump carried the state by. And one key to this victory was leveraging technology. That's the conclusion. Or you can run against a sitting governor with an 18% approval rating. That helps a little bit to just narrow that partisan divide a touch. I mean, it's like there's no observation about the reality of that election in here.

[E]

It also is. Is the larger point that they're trying to make here that Democrats aren't using tech enough?

[C]

Because that was my question.

[E]

Call me crazy. I think there are an awful lot of tech people in this country who are Democrats.

[A]

Right.

[E]

I mean, maybe. Maybe I'm wrong, but the city of San Francisco sure seems like a lot of Democrats.

[C]

For the. For the longest time, like anyone who worked on Obama's campaign, if you fetched coffee.

[A]

This is so true.

[C]

At the Obama campaign headquarters one time, if you grabbed a pot of coffee and you said, anyone need a coffee? And then you went home for the next four years, every major corporation in this country would pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to be like, so tell us about the technology advantage and how we could use the Obama tech to sell Coca Cola. You know what I Mean, and they all dined out on it like, well, we are the tech geniuses.

[A]

There are like 17 books written in that era by people who claimed to have been the techno. The people who introduced Obama Big data.

[C]

Oh my God, in 2012. I was so sick of those bastards.

[E]

Sasha Eisenberg.

[B]

But to Ashbrook's point in reading the Dem autopsy, you see, they have to point to some silver linings. The whole thing reads like a compliment sandwich. And the main ingredient is, you know, it's like they have to point to a couple things printed somewhere. That quote's got so. So, so, you know, they do that. Sort of littered throughout. And the other thing, Holmes, you made a good point here before we started the segment on like, the nuts and bolts component of that. The entire thing reads. It's just bloodless.

[E]

Yes.

[B]

You know, they talk like you were saying Ashbrook, about technology and infrastructure and all this sort of stuff, but it's investments. It's entirely bloodless to like, the actual emotion of an election and the things that voters care about. This is. It's a very technocratic reading of why they lost the election, which I think is purposeful and frankly, cowardly. And they think the more that they talk about those sort of fundamental things. Yes. Then they don't have to talk about the blame people deserve.

[A]

Yeah. Every election has three components. There's a main component of what you're selling, and that is a candidate and policy that surrounds that candidate's platform. And then there is a very left brain activity that has to do with the infrastructure and how you go about supporting that candidacy. And then there's a right brain artistic component in how you paint the picture, how you narrative your way through it, how you tell the story. And in this, there's no narrative. There's a little bit of the nuts and bolts, and it doesn't hit the middle section of policy or the candidate in any meaningful way that you would come to a conclusion that maybe we should do something different. The only thing they're talking about at this point is like, the technology, the investments, the fact that the media was against us. And like, I wouldn't sign my fucking

[E]

name to this thing either.

[C]

Dude.

[E]

If this sounds familiar to you, it's because it should. It's because this is corporate pablum. This is the kind of bullshit that you get from your HR department and your company every single day. You're like, okay, I'd like to learn something about what the company's doing this year. And you get 10 pages of this kind of Bullshit. And then you watch the TikTok videos, you know, the girls who are like, Gen Z boss in a mini. This is the written version of that meme. And everyone can relate to this because you get it from your own company every single year.

[C]

Dude, that's amazing. It's true.

[A]

It is an HR report.

[E]

It is.

[C]

Can I tell you my favorite part of this whole thing? The whole purpose of this. As they were saying, our learnings and everything. And what the takeaways. Can I see graphic A conclusion. This section was not provided by Father. Nothing. All of that for nothing.

[A]

One, obviously, it's an indictment on the product, right? But two, and you really have to rewind the tape to understand why it is that we have this in the first place. It's Ken Martin and the DNC chairman and presumably Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and a whole bunch of state party chairmen out there who are, like, nervous about the whole thing, but they wanted to assure you that they had done the work and that the work was solid and they had learned meaningful lessons. And we were busily working it amongst our people so that the lessons that we've learned will never have a repeated 2024 election again. And they were more than happy to sit on top of that conclusion as long as they could until people were like, fuck you. Where's the document? And once it became totally untenable for them to continue to hold this thing, they were like, all right, we got to put it out. And it turns out it was like, the dog ate your homework for real.

[B]

Which is the most shocking thing out of all of this, because I think all of our assumption was that they were suppressing information in this report that would look bad for Kamala Harris because

[A]

she'd be the nominee. In fact, I think we said this on. This is like, she's up by 30 in a Democratic primary right now. And if your conclusion of the autopsy is that we had a real shitty candidate, that's a tough look.

[C]

That's a tough look.

[E]

Maybe that's why it wasn't provided.

[C]

And that's the thing is, so when we looked at all of this, and I wanted to tie this into what our CTA is for, this my takeaway, the fact that, like, Ashbrook said, they have this, like, bullshit about, oh, maybe there was some tech that we could have done or done better that no one is named because of. You've got, like, Kamala, who is right now their leading candidate for who they're gonna run again for president, right? Like, there's no person that they're trying to blame, which tells me there are people to blame. And that's why I wanted to CTA of who is to blame. Because when they try bullshitting you with all this made up stuff of like, oh, well, it's. The media companies are all owned by Republicans, obviously.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

Who are the people to blame that they are scared to name?

[A]

Yeah. And I think you gotta go multiple choice on it. I mean, look, Joe Biden is the first and foremost amongst them. This is somebody who is clearly unfit for office. They hid it from the American voter in large part because they could, because the media in fact was not owned by Republican entities. Is it Kamala Harris who just sat perfectly comfortable with the fact that they were presenting a ticket that couldn't do the job and then just showed up on the scene?

[C]

Is it Obama who I think always gets to hide in the background when it was him and the pod bros at his behest who stuck the knife in, they're like, go get George Clooney to finish the job. Get him out of here.

[A]

Yeah. Like Nancy Pelosi.

[B]

I know he wasn't in charge, but

[C]

it was like no primary. Pelosi was like, no primary. It's Kamala.

[B]

I know he wasn't in charge, but

[C]

I think we should all agree just

[B]

to blame Ken Martin because like, honestly, I don't know what's more embarrassing, suppressing a report or releasing one without a conclusion. You know, like, which is production, which is more disqualifying, like suppressing the information therein or not having provided any information. You've been on the job for 18 months.

[A]

You know when there are these internal. And you all who are listening to this have this at work where you are so much more focused on what it is that your little lot in the world is and what it's doing and that you are the intake of everything that you're working on seems like such a massive deal. When in reality, like nobody's really asking and nobody really cares about it. And that's kind of what happened to the DNC here in that you've got an extremely divided country.

[E]

This is such a great.

[A]

And there are like a handful of activists with proximity to the DNC who are like, give us the fucking report. And all of them have agonized over the last three months about how they're going to deal with that. What would you give to be a fly on the wall in the conference room meeting where it was decided we have to release this shitty thing? And how are we going to frame it? I'd pay anything for that. That would have been. That must have been the most sensational meeting of all time. Like, we can't put this out for all the reasons that we haven't. For 18 months, we can't put it out. And they're like, yeah, but we have to put it out. It's like, do you think we should do the conclusion? Like, should we put. No, then we own it. And, you know, for, like, 18 months, they tinkered around with, like, should we write a conclusion? Should we provide some sourcing for some of the clumps? Should we change some of this stuff? Like, surely there was multiple drafts. They didn't just get, like, Paul Rivera showing up, dropping it off in a FedEx package. Be like, there's your hot topsy. Like, surely somebody looked at this and altered it in ways that they were unsatisfied with at some level. And we're like, we can't own this because, look, it doesn't say anything about the Jews in here. So, like, Hamas caucus is going to be super pissed off.

[C]

If I can say something in Ken Morley Martin's defense. I guess he found himself in a situation where he gets all this, and he's like, what the fuck? Hillary told me that Paul Rivera gets her clean autopsies.

[B]

Parody, parody, parody. That poor guy.

[A]

I was told this man's like, dexter. No, it was not a clean autopsy. But, I mean, I would love to see that conversation then ultimately, where they landed is like. Like, just disavow the whole thing, but then put it out and then hope that everybody will give us a little bit of grace in seeing our judgment as to why we didn't release it in the first place. That's basically the best case scenario that they came up with in that conference room about why this thing.

[C]

Incredible.

[A]

Wasn't. I mean, it's hilarious.

[E]

But I think, dude, you said something about 60 seconds ago that it should be the most chilling aspect for Democrats. Nobody's really asking.

[A]

Nobody really asked. It's like you get all balled up in your own world where you're like. You know, there's like, four people be like, open your robe. Open your.

[D]

Let's see it.

[A]

And you're like, walk out. And you flash everybody, and everybody's like, why would you do that?

[B]

Nobody wanted to see that.

[A]

I feel like that's what they did.

[C]

That's it.

[A]

It's enough to make you want to drink, but if you do. But if you do, you gotta get zbiotics first. We do here on the Ruthless variety program. And it's a game changing pre alcohol product that we use before big nights out. We've tried it a lot. It is absolutely fantastic. And it does the trick. Doesn't it smoke?

[C]

That's the thing is we like it because it works. It's that simple. So many folks who think that, okay, if I'm gonna go out and have a bunch of drinks, when I get home, I'm gonna chug some Gatorade or I'm gonna have three glasses of water. And then you wake up in the morning, you still feel terrible. Because it's not about dehydration, folks. When you drink alcohol, your stomach breaks it down and there's this toxic byproduct. That's what's making you feel bad. But Zbiotics knocks it right out.

[B]

And it doesn't just work for Republicans if you're a Democrat. Hate listening to this episode. Zebiotics will work for you too. And I know after reading this autopsy, you'll want to drink.

[E]

And that is why we always say there is no tomorrow without Zebiotics today.

[A]

Absolutely right. So if you go to zebiotics.com ruthless you can learn more and get 15% off your first order. When you use Ruthless at the checkout, ZBiotics is backed by 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason at all, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. You head to zbiotics.com ruthless use the code ruthless at the checkout for 15% off. All right, so we're heading into Memorial Day weekend and we take this seriously here at the Variety Program. We love holidays, we love summer holidays. And it's sort of a kickoff to a holiday. But it's also super important to remember why it is that we're doing Memorial Day. And these are like the heroes amongst all American heroes that we're ultimately here to remember. We thought maybe the best way to do that is bring in a hero of our own, a good friend of the program. Pat Harrigan, Congressman from North Carolina. Want to welcome to the program a good friend of the program. Been on a few times before. You know him, you love him. Pat Harrigan. How are you, sir?

[D]

Fellas, I'm great. It's great to be with you.

[A]

It's really great to be with you too. Look, there's a lot going on in D.C. politics, elections, whatever. We, we've made it a little bit of a custom lately to try to get some understanding of what's going on under the dome because the news doesn't reflect any of, like, the day to day stuff that people are working on. It's all just like Iran or, you know, primary elections or whatever. And I know you've been working on a bunch of stuff, so I want to get to that. But I, but I wanted to start with Memorial Day upon us. I know that's got a special meaning for all of us, particularly for you. Just want to get some thoughts about going into this Memorial Day.

[D]

Well, first thing this morning, a bunch of us from the Hill got together and we went and actually washed the Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Wall.

[A]

Awesome.

[D]

And, you know, that's just an incredible opportunity to kind of unite the different generations that we have because we still have three active members of Congress that are actually Vietnam veterans. And so they get to kind of share their story. You know, one of them's missing an arm and, and you know, two others are just great Americans. Two Republicans, one Democrat. And just, just that act of taking time, getting up really early in the morning, getting out there to just do something selfless.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

That also shows the country that, hey, we're always going to remember, we're never going to forget the sacrifice because that these folks gave everything right and the folks around them, their families lost a piece of themselves and we can't ever forget that during this time.

[A]

Time. Yeah, no, it's really well said. And like, look, you got an up close and personal view of all that in a way that, you know, many of us have not. And when you think about your own experiences, your own life, Memorial days, I'm sure you'd take a special moment for yourself.

[D]

There's no, no question, you know, there's. I got a lot of classmates from West Point that, that aren't with us anymore. I've got folks that I serve with in the infantry and the Special Forces that, that, that aren't here anymore. And just, you know, we have to earn their sacrifice.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Every day.

[E]

Right.

[D]

They did not lay all that out on the line. They did not sacrifice all the things that we've gotten to enjoy the blessings that we have in our lives to just waste it and go about aimlessly. There's a reason, there's a purpose behind everything, and we've got to earn that.

[A]

Yeah. God, look, it's very well said, really well said. Plus, it's kind of a kickoff to summer, no doubt, and joy ahead. And I've always seen Memorial Day as not only a opportunity to honor heroes that have given us our way of Life, but it's also a kickoff to what's best about America. And you go from Memorial day to the 4th of July. This is the 250th great anniversary of our country. There's a lot to celebrate.

[D]

Yeah. There's no question about that. But I think we all should kind of take a step back and remember that Memorial Day is a day of sadness. Totally. And it should be a day of sadness. And, you know, I was. I was talking about this with one of my colleagues. You know, we were talking about Memorial Day sales. It's like, you know, if you really think about what Memorial Day should mean, don't shop at places that have Memorial Day sales.

[A]

That's a great, great.

[D]

Because we're actually cheapening what this day should be. It doesn't.

[A]

Opportunity.

[E]

Right.

[D]

And it doesn't mean that, you know, hey, we're not on the cusp of summer, and we're about to go into this great time with family. Kids are off school, and, you know, we're going to get to enjoy all the things that we worked for the rest of the year. But, you know, take. Take that day. Really understand what it means, because you get the blessing of being here to enjoy it and others don't.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

There's a great family tradition of you either watch Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers marathon because it's important for everyone to know Memorial Day is not Veterans Day. Memorial Day is honoring those who gave their lives.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

For us to have our way of life.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Totally. And I do think that gets conflated. I'm glad you mentioned that. That's. That's.

[D]

Which one do you watch?

[C]

Smug. I do the Baner Brothers marathon. I mean, that is so good. It's so good.

[A]

It's.

[C]

You know, your whole day's planned

[A]

well, now that your father. We'll see if.

[D]

Congratulations. It's awesome.

[A]

Adding to your constituency there in North Carolina.

[D]

Just want to say I. I called the gender.

[C]

He did. He said I'd have a son.

[B]

He called it.

[A]

You did, actually. That's well done. That's well done. Everything going well? How's North Carolina?

[D]

North Carolina is doing pretty well. You know, it's a great place to raise your kids. We're trying to make sure it's a great place that our kids can raise their kids.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

That's what's at stake. Right. And you talked about kind of being in the here and the now. We all talk about what's going on today, but few people are looking at what's going on five years down the road, 10 years down the road, a generation down the road. And that's what we drive matters a lot.

[A]

When you look down and look at your kids and you just start to think about, boy, I sure hope they have the same opportunities I did.

[D]

No question. You know, I grew up in San Diego, and it was a great place to grow up. Like, I was in 90s and early 2000s, you know, kid. And I mean, like, probably no better living in the history of the world, arguably.

[A]

Right? I mean, it's so true. I'm totally biased on that. But every time you see one of those, like, late 90s ads or something like that, you're like, oh, man. Dude, that was it.

[C]

We had a really good.

[B]

Didn't we?

[A]

Really good. We had it really good.

[D]

But, you know, it's like. Like, I knew that wasn't where I wanted to raise my kids because where it was going. And, like, I was right. Look at where it is today. Like, just go ask Spencer Pratt.

[A]

I know he got. We got one guy there, the least likely amongst us, who's trying to hold on and create something out of that mess.

[D]

No question. But, you know, you kind of look. You see some of the stuff that's going on on Twitter right now, where you're looking back at what high school used to be 15, 20 years ago, and you see people actually interacting because they're not buried in their phones, and you're like, you know what? I actually do things think we all grew up like the best of America. Totally.

[A]

We talk about that a lot on the show, not just in terms of, like, the culture around us and what seemed to be just a better place.

[C]

I mean, first off, I mean, you didn't have a camera phone, so you could actually, like, have a childhood and hang out and not be like, you're getting canceled because you said this or you did this. But there wasn't even that divisiveness amongst each other to begin with.

[A]

No.

[C]

Like, we had not gotten to this point, like, the wokeness which came in and tried to divide the country. We grew up where it was just like, you go out, you hang out with your friends. When the sun sets, you come home, you have dinner.

[A]

Yeah, we talk about it a lot in terms of, like, you know, I. Posters on my wall like everybody else did. Michael Jordan, Kirby Bucket, that guy in Eric Davis. Although I'll never say it in front of Ashbrook, like Daryl Strawberry. It never occurred to me that my wall was full of black athletes. Athletes. Just my heroes at the time. And then Somewhere along the way, we got to a point where wokeness and just sort of making a business out of trying to divide Americans became a thing.

[D]

Yeah. And that's, you know, one of my biggest concerns after being here for a year and four months.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Is not just how divided we are, but I've had the opportunity to think about why. Right. Why are we so log jammed in Congress? And you know, I look back, I think there's obviously great wisdom that was infused into the Constitution, the experience that our founding fathers had had that generated that absolutely incredible document. But if you look at Article 1, it clearly requires compromise in order to get anything done. And what you learn from that is that, well, what should be happening is principled compromise. And that principled compromise should be happening because we and our founding Fathers presuppose that the citizens of our country, although we would have very vast disagreements about the solutions to our problems, that we still had a common set of principles and values and ethics and morality.

[A]

We wore the same jersey on the

[D]

front or the same jersey on the front end.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And the modern phenomenon that we have, like why is everybody so dang frustrated with why can't we get anything done up here? Why do we have these 35 issues that everybody knows the answer to but we can't solve? And the reason is because we don't have those same values and principles and morality and ethics. It's actually very disparate right now. And so all that leaves you in the framework of Article 1 is it leaves you compromised, devoid of principle. It's like, look, men and women's sports, you either think that's a problem or you don't. Like, the answer is not a little bit of men in a little bit of women's sports. Like you'd get laughed out of the room.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Or you think about illegal immigration like you think illegal immigration or, you know, a unsecure non enforcement of our national sovereignty is a problem, or you don't think it's a problem. Like the solution is not what the Senate tried to come up with two years ago where we're going to let 1200 illegal aliens in a day a

[C]

daily quota right of breaking.

[D]

And that's going to make everybody happy.

[A]

Right.

[D]

I mean, it's just there's no room for that compromise. It's not principled compromise. It's compromise devoid of principle. And it's resulting from people with disparate value sets that no longer agree on the problems. That's a modern phenomenon that we have. And that's like no Joke. What keeps me up at night after being. That's a great diagnosis, you know, almost 18 months. And like, what really makes me concerned about what type of future my kids are going to inherit?

[A]

How much do you think that is? People really just not agreeing on problems or values as much as it is interests that are provoking people to take positions that are absurd. Right. Because I look at the Democratic Party in a lot of different ways and we've talked about it a lot on this show in that that is the most most bizarre conglomeration of public interests in the world. You have unions at the core of it, except environmentalists who oppose everything that unions do. And then you've got.

[C]

And then you have. I mean unions are ostensibly trying to protect labor. And then you've got the open borders crowd is like, no, actually I want to allow our country to be flooded with cheap illegal, which is bad for labor.

[A]

And the environmentalists are kind of agnostic on that. And then you've got the Hamas crowd, which

[C]

you get a more disparate group together.

[A]

You know what I mean? And then you've got like the professional lgbtq.

[C]

And it didn't used to be like Bill Clinton was not an open borders Democrat that the, the 90s Democrat Party no longer exists. It's this weird group of separate interest,

[A]

but there's power centers behind each of them is my point.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's a lot of money and activism and it seems like in Democratic politics you kind of have to figure out how to bridge that divide in some way in order to be a national figure in some ways. And so what you come up with, what you're left with is distilled down bunch of slop that doesn't make sense to anybody. I mean, what's the Democrat economic message? We understand they're upset. What is it that they are saying to anybody?

[D]

I don't think you can define it. I don't think they want it defined. Cuz if it gets defined, they can get held accountable to it.

[C]

There it is.

[A]

It's a fair point. But I don't think they have a singular view or even a broad range view on almost anything other than the sort of social rubric of socialism. And more government is better and more of your taxpayer dollars to us. So we can kind of figure it out. Like that part, I can figure it

[C]

out everything else that's even changing the whole. Bernie, socialism used to be like tax to millionaires. And then he became one of his. I text the billionaires

[D]

oligarchy.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So.

[A]

But I would be interested, from your standpoint, like, how much of that theory of the case do you think is the thing? Or do you think it's just like, people grow up in these information silos where they just don't have common experiences with you and where you grew up and your values that you have?

[D]

I think that the special interests definitely exacerbate the problem. And there's also tools like social media that, you know, are our confirmation bias on steroids in terms of what your interests are based off what the algorithms look like. So I think one problem is exacerbating the other. But I think there is a baseline shift that's happened. And I take exactly what you said, smug, which is like, Bill Clinton was a closed border Democrat. You know who else was? Nancy Pelosi. You know who else was Chuck Schumer? They're on the record on the House floor talking about how illegal immigration is a problem for our country and we have to close our southern border.

[A]

Border.

[D]

And that was all in the mid-90s. Right. That's not what they're saying today. They've made a fundamental shift left.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Hard left. And that is not necessarily just chasing a population that's actually leading a population towards a different set of values and principles, morality and ethics that.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Did not exist.

[C]

Exactly. You're describing.

[D]

Exactly. So I think we're both. Right.

[E]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And one is hastening with. With unfortunate rapidity towards the. The outcome that sends us truly into oblivion in this country where we cannot reconcile our differences. I'm very concerned about that.

[B]

I feel like those two things are kind of related, what we were talking about first and what we're talking about now. And that is in the same way we've forgotten the meaning of Memorial Day. And that is the sacrifice of the people, people who gave everything for our country and the lack of shared principles we have today in our politics.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the further we get from shared experience, the harder it becomes to solve problems. Because people forget what they're fighting for.

[A]

No, it's. It's a good point.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And to some extent, I actually think the debate ongoing right now, whether we consciously understand it or not, is the debate over what does it mean to be an American.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Because if you don't understand that, yeah, sure, open the border, let in 30 million illegal immigrants. Because in their, you know, mindset, America is just a economic zone rather than a country economic zone with. With sovereignty. Right. And so if you don't have that as your grounding principle of What America is. Sure.

[D]

Let.

[B]

Let everybody in illegally.

[E]

Right.

[B]

So, I mean, that's. I think that's an exact example of what I was talking about.

[A]

Yeah. No, look, it's well said. I want to get under the dome here for a minute because there's a bunch of things that you've been working on that are important big ticket items that nobody's talking about because it doesn't have anything to do with Trump's Ballroom, essentially. You know what I mean?

[D]

Oh, that little thing.

[A]

Isn't it unbelievable, by the way? Like, how is it that we. We're talking about that? Like, it's like, the most selfless act this president has ever.

[C]

He's never gonna get to enjoy it. He's doing it so that every president doesn't have attempted assassinations.

[D]

I mean, that's what's crazy is every time you walk off the House floor, there's some reporter sticking a microphone in your face about, like, the controversy over this thing, and I'm like, guys, how is it controversial that regardless of who our president is, Republican or Democrat, we don't want them getting assassinated?

[C]

It's a lot wild take.

[D]

Like, how is this controversial?

[A]

Like, I don't know. We've kind of had some pretty recent episodes on this.

[C]

Two weeks ago, we had an issue with this.

[A]

You would thought. Would have reset the dial in a. No, no, no. Not at all. It's crazy, but I know on Armed Services, you've. You've been locked in on this whole right to repair.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Deal.

[D]

Yep.

[A]

Can you give us a little, like, one. Just an overview for our audience who haven't had a lot of exposure into what it is that you're working on, but also kind of where that sits, because I know you've been invested in this.

[D]

Yeah. So I sit on the Armed Services Committee. We deal with the future of our nation's defense. And one of the things that has become a really pernicious drag on the ability of the department to actually get things done is the readiness of its equipment.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

What does that mean? Well, it means the stuff that it buys has to work.

[A]

It works. You can start it and drive it.

[D]

You pull the trigger, it goes bang. You started it. The tracks start turning or the rotor blades are moving. Right.

[A]

Like sort of an important thing.

[D]

It's got to work.

[A]

Other than a super expensive, like, paperweight.

[C]

Well.

[D]

And when you talk about super expensive, we're spending a trillion dollars a year on this stuff.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And we've got contractors that are falling flat on their face on their maintenance and repair accountability effectively what they're supposed to be doing in light of the contract. And we have 40% of our equipment that doesn't work and we aren't allowed to fix it.

[A]

That's unbelievable.

[D]

You know, I interviewed and took testimony from the Secretary of the army last week in committee on armed service. He told me about the Blackhawk helicopter. And we've got this avionics panel, this particular portion of it where this tiny little lever, it's a switch, it breaks four times a month. And instead of fixing the switch which they can print for $6 in a 3D printer, they have to send it back to the contractor to pull out the entire console completely replace it at the cost of $40,000 and a deadlined AIRC for months. Come on, that happens four times a month. And it has happened four times a month for the last 20 years.

[A]

Are you serious?

[D]

Dead serious. That was his testimony. And I was like, it's unbelievable, right? And he's got tons of examples like this. And here's the thing, it's not just in the army, it's in the Air Force, it's in the Navy, it's in the Marine Corps, it's now even in the Space Force. And so this is a problem that every single four star general in the military has told us, guys, please, Congress help us fix this. Right. To repair is the fix. And it basically just says if it breaks and you don't sustain it properly, we get the ability to take the intellectual property, use it with government purpose rights. Not just take it, but use it and actually solve the problem ourselves. If you can't solve it, we have to solve it because our readiness depends on it. Our troops need it.

[A]

Yeah, 40 grand for a switch.

[D]

$6 switch, which does not four times a month, times 20 years.

[C]

And this sounds like a big taxpayer win too.

[D]

That's not government contracting. That is a shakedown of the American tax.

[A]

It is, it is. You know, it's funny, the more that you hear about this stuff and obviously we shed a lot of light that with JD's good work. Like last week when he's announcing what they're doing with the fraud task force. But then, you know, the, the initiation of DOGE and everything else, you can kind of see how you get to 36 trillion in in debt, like real

[D]

39 and about to cross over 40.

[C]

Yeah, incredible.

[A]

I mean but you, but this is the, this is the thing. And everybody points to these, wow, this isn't the main driver. And it's like, yeah, but it Adds up.

[D]

Yes, it adds up. It's fraud, waste, and abuse is the single largest reason that we have a massive deficit right now.

[A]

And it's neglect.

[D]

Yes, it's neglect. It's poor contracts, it's poor management, Right? I mean, like, think about this, right? Okay, I've been up here for a year. I asked that question on the dais of the Secretary of the Army. It's been happening for 20 years. What did anybody else before me do? You're like, man, what did anybody else before this secretary Feels like a bigger

[B]

deal than the ballroom.

[A]

You know what I'm talking about?

[D]

Back and look at this from 300,000ft, and you're like, what does it really mean? What does it really say?

[A]

20 years of the ball, like, do the math on that. But I think you could pay for the ballroom several times over with the switch.

[C]

The black. And that's just one, that's just one program. Like you said, this is happening in the Air Force and the Navy, all of it. Like, this is a massive issue.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Oh, it's incredible. All right. So obviously the opposition comes from the contracting community on there because they don't want to let up on that largess that they don't like.

[C]

I'm in the 40,000 switch business. It's booming.

[B]

What do you do?

[C]

Man, I send the switches like golf and send switches.

[A]

10% rip on a switch, 40 grand a pop, four times a month.

[B]

Think about, think about, like the, Think about, like the private sector, you know, like my iPhone. Like, I got a screen cover on it. And, you know, I'll drop it every once in a while and it'll crack. The screen cover will. And I can just rip that thing off and buy another one for $12 and put it back on. I don't have to go to the Apple Store. And they replaced the whole screen for $400. Whoa, whoa.

[D]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves now. That seems way too simplistic.

[A]

It's incredible. So, so where does it sit? Like, is anybody going to do anything? I, I.

[D]

We are fixing this, right? And we're going to get right to repair across the finish line this year. We didn't get it across last year for reasons, for reasons. I'll just leave it at the deep state. Okay, we got it through the, the House, we got it through the Senate, and mysteriously it disappeared.

[A]

Amazing, right?

[D]

Disappeared.

[C]

Wow.

[D]

Right?

[A]

It's funny, everybody.

[D]

This is something the President wants. The Secretary of Defense wants it. Every single one of our service secretaries want it. We got it through the House. We got it through the Senate, and poof, it disappeared.

[C]

Crazy.

[A]

Unbelievable.

[D]

Crazy.

[A]

That is really wild. Crazy, because, I mean, look, I'm familiar with this concept, the right to repair stuff in the broader, like, consumer side of things. It's long been an auto issue and a farm issue and all kinds of different things. Things. I had no idea it was so pervasive in the armed services.

[C]

And it affects everyone because all of us, Our taxes are paying for it.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

No, it is. I'm telling you, in the military, right to repair has become a national security issue for us.

[A]

That's.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. All right, well, let's switch gears here for a second. Your view of politics at large, obviously, very big midterm coming up. Yeah. Hugely important for the direction of our country. I mean, as we said, Democrats, I don't know what they would do if they. Well, I know what they would want to do if they had power, but they certainly haven't expressed that. And that's part of the whole thing,

[C]

is that, like, they wanted that Abigail Spamberger Trojan horse.

[A]

It. It's the Abby Spamberger routine of, like, I don't know, we're fun and nice, and then they're like, give me all your shit. Yeah.

[D]

To include your 30 round magazines. No, thank you. You, Abigail.

[A]

Exactly. But, you know, I mean, politics get a little tricky in midterms when you hold all the power. Where do you. You talk to your colleagues? What do you think things set?

[D]

Well, if we had the election today, we'd get crushed. There's no question about that. But I think you have to step back. You got to look at the big picture. And the time difference between now and November is an eternity in politics.

[A]

Totally.

[D]

A lot can happen.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Redistricting is looking pretty dang good for the House around the country as it starts to kind of peter out.

[A]

Yeah. An amazing 180 on that in the last few weeks.

[D]

100%. Absolutely.

[A]

Ye.

[D]

And, you know, I think it's very difficult for the Democrats to take the Senate. I certainly don't think that they've come with any clear, coherent policy direction that they've been able to articulate to the American people, other than Trump, bad and opposite, whatever that opposite means. And so, you know, I think it becomes just incumbent upon us to follow through with the promises that we made in the 2024 election cycle and bring as many of those promises across the finish line as possible. Because when I look back at it, like, and I tried to distill this down, in my own campaign, right. What are we trying to do? What did we commit to do? Number one, secure our nation. Right. A large part of that had to do with securing our southern border, protecting our national sovereignty, and rebuilding our military. I think across the board, people would say pretty much a resounding success.

[A]

I mean, amazing, previously incomprehensible success.

[D]

Right? So in that bucket check, right? Second, unleashing of the economy, what we did during the reconciliation package, the Working Families Tax Cuts act, preventing the single largest tax hike in American history, Every single level of American taxpayer, right. Setting the conditions for businesses, particularly small businesses that rely on 199A deductions and have actually then have the plan to go be successful. Like we drew a line and said, the federal government is not reaching into your pocket any more than this with permanency. That was fantastic. So the conditions that we set for the economy to achieve success are there. We just delivered the single greatest tax return in the history of America for the middle class. The problem is, is they're throwing it right into their gas tank right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And so we've got to overcome that because we made a promise in no new wars. Where are we right now in a war? Right. All of us GWAT veterans are watching this very closely because on one hand, we certainly want to prevail and we want the best outcome possible for the United States of America strategically. But we do not want to see another endless conflict. You don't want 20 years, which is always possible when you're dealing with the Middle East. And so we got to walk that line very, very carefully. And we've got to bring it back into the things that we promised to do and deliver. If we do that, we get to that third pillar, which, in my mind is actually the most important. It's the most critical. It's also the most difficult. It's also the one that we violated the most, unfortunately, in the last year and a half, which is restore governmental integrity.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

We have to do better in that third pillar. And if we do, between now and November, we're going to get a good result.

[A]

It's almost like this guy should be on the national stage. Right. I mean, God, every time you come in here, Harrigan, I'm like, where have we been hiding you?

[D]

I gotta say, when it comes to hiding, I do have to say, like, I'm 100% in a stress position right now. It is like I'm at sear because they have had to lower me down in this, like, midget seat.

[A]

Well, it's because you're.

[D]

My knees are in my stomach. So that we all are on the same plane here.

[B]

You're being, you're being hazed.

[D]

So that's where they're hiding.

[B]

Yes, you're being hazed. You're allowed to be handsome, you're allowed to be tall, you're not allowed to be both.

[A]

That's fair enough. I didn't know we were interviewing women. No, listen, but you, I mean, look, that all just makes too much sense and you know, we do get in our own way an awful lot. But again, you look across the aisle and what is it that we're campaigning against? Exactly. You know, and I, I got to imagine, you know, may not be your best friends in the world, but you obviously have to interact with an awful lot of Democrat colleagues. How do they feel about stuff? I mean, they can't feel like they're doing their constituents work.

[D]

I actually feel for my Democratic colleagues.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And I think if you step back and I'm a big picture guy. Right. So step back. You look at the big picture. What's going on right now across the country in almost every single Democratic race is you actually have pretty decent moderate Democrats that we could say, hey, I'd like that guy to be my neighbor. I don't agree with him.

[A]

Right.

[D]

You know, on a lot of things. I disagree.

[A]

But you can grill a burger and have a beer and then 100.

[D]

Every single one of those people are getting primaried by a hard left candidate.

[C]

Totally.

[D]

Like, we're not talking about that on our side. Enough watching where the country is going.

[A]

Totally.

[D]

And I feel bad for them because they're stuck between Iraq and a hard place. Because at the end of the day, like, look, your job here as a representative, as a member of Congress, it's not an executive position.

[A]

Right.

[D]

It's a representative.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Position. You're supposed to synthesize where your constituency, how they want you to vote. It's not about what I want to do, it's about what they want me to do. They're all screwed up.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

They can't tell left from right up from down down because they got crazy blue hairs telling them all sorts of, you know, insane things that they know in their heart of hearts is like, I, I don't even know what to say to that.

[A]

Can you imagine that? They're sitting around, they're like, you think I have to say that to the staff? The staff's like, yeah, yeah.

[B]

You gotta say that sometimes the staff is the craziest among them.

[A]

Yeah. No, you're right. But then they're like, fine. Ice facilities should be concentration.

[D]

But if you want to know what they stand for. Right.

[C]

No, it's totally true.

[D]

But if you want to know what they stand for, just remember back to the State of the Union address.

[A]

Yeah, Right.

[D]

What would they stand for? What would they not stand for?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Tells you everything they need to know. What were they scared to stand up for? And the fact that they were scared to stand up for the fact that they were looking around for minutes wondering if any one of them was going to have the backbone or the spine to stand up.

[C]

Wow. That's not wrong.

[D]

That tells you how much pressure they're under, let alone it's a condemnation of how strong their spine is.

[A]

Right? Yeah.

[D]

But it tells you how much pressure they're under, too.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, they're sitting up there and totally unobjectionable American heroes being honored, and they're like, I don't know. Can we clap for that?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Can we clap for that?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, just talk about. Sign me out of that line of work. If you ever. If you know what I mean? If you ever got to a spot, they're like this.

[C]

This child has cancer, and he wants to be an officer. Not clapping for that.

[D]

So I'm gonna tell you, I'm not gonna name names, but I talked to a. One of my. One of my friends over there that's like, he's a great guy. Really great guy, honestly. He sees the world the way that we do 80% of the time, and it just feels stuck between a rock and our place. I'm like, dude, what were you thinking? Like, how could you not stand up? And he's like, I know, man. It was so bad. I mean, it was. It was just. I. I don't know. It was. It was a failure. It's like, what else do you say?

[A]

Play with my kids and have a vat of bourbon and get up tomorrow and try to forget all about it.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Oh, man.

[D]

So this bar should be a really easy one for us to climb and hurdle, Right. If not for what we do to ourselves.

[A]

Totally. I totally.

[D]

That makes sense.

[A]

Yeah, it makes it. Listen, that's the best. I think that's the best pitch we've heard.

[B]

Yeah. Don't you guys think distillation.

[A]

I think that's the best pitch we've heard because, you know, look, everybody's like, oh, we got to tell everybody what we've done. Of course that's a huge part of. Of it. But there is this you know, this trust gap that happens when you're in power and people aren't feeling everything they want to feel. And Democrats will provide nothing to fill any of that in. They're just hoping it's a referendum on what people's anxieties are, whether it's gas prices or economic opportunity or whatever. And it's our job to sort of press that and make it more of a choice election.

[D]

Right.

[C]

Where.

[A]

Okay. We're working on this stuff because we like it and we know we have to do this for you. What do they want to do?

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Mom. Donnieville. You know. Yeah, but I mean, it's giving.

[C]

They're giving us opportunity. We gotta just take it 100%.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

Listen, you're the best, bud. I hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

And. And I. I hope that this entire summer is full of success. And at some point, we're going to come down to North Carolina. We have to visit this guy's kid at some point.

[D]

Have to.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Great barbecue spots. Anytime you're in Raleigh, let's all hang.

[A]

Whoa.

[D]

That's on the eastern side of.

[A]

I know.

[D]

Real good stuff is on the west side.

[C]

I'm a vinegar guy.

[D]

Oh, smug man.

[B]

We had.

[D]

We had all the right ingredients for friendship.

[A]

Harry gives you the tip over the desk. Yeah, that's it.

[D]

I'm raising my seat back.

[A]

He's going to do it. There it is.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

See, look what you've done now.

[B]

You've made it.

[A]

Look. This is incredible.

[B]

Balance in frame. Balance in frame.

[A]

Poor wolf. Look at that.

[B]

We got the producers.

[A]

He's scrambling around trying to figure out how to. There we go. Make your huge head into the monitor. Impossible. Oh, man, you're the best. Thank you for coming by.

[D]

God bless you. Thank you.

[A]

Bless you.

[E]

I mean, what an incredible interview. This guy is a real leader in Congress, and I feel like he's got a great future ahead of him. What a special timing to have him come in right ahead of Memorial Day.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well done. Well done. Great guy. Huge future, I might add.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, North Carolina is lucky to have him. And I hope someday the US Entire, all Americans, can enjoy having him in a leadership position because he's the right people that we need in Washington.

[B]

Too tall, too handsome. Don't make his head any bigger by pumping him up. It's true.

[A]

We tried. We really tried to reduce his height and handsomeness, and it didn't work.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Ultimately, he just looks maxed us.

[B]

And he did mog. He mogged us.

[A]

He mogged and maxed.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Did all those things. All right. Remember our question of the day when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless variety program. We read all of them. Get back to the very next episode. Our question of the day. This is who's to blame on the Democratic side? Obama, Biden, Kamala Pelosi, the idiots in the bowels. Ken Martin.

[D]

Martin.

[A]

Martin. Right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Wear it, Ken.

[B]

Wear it, Ken.

[A]

Is it Paul Rivera, you son of a bitch.

[B]

What a great episode.

[A]

Oh, it's so fantastic with that, fellas. I think we did it.

[C]

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