The Gayatollah? + CNN Goes Pro-Iranian

Summary

---

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: The Gayatollah? + CNN Goes Pro-Iranian

Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Air Date: March 17, 2026
Theme:
The episode serves up the classic Ruthless blend of cutting conservative commentary and dark humor, focusing on recent headlines about Iran’s new Supreme Leader allegedly being gay (the "Gayatollah"), America’s intelligence and media response, and ongoing, often ludicrous, media bias regarding Iran. The panel moves from international intrigue to the US media and politics, while keeping the tone irreverent and fast-paced.

---

Main Episode Segments

1. "The Gayatollah" Scandal

Begins at 00:00, Main Segment Starts at 03:17

• Headline Discussion:

  • The New York Post’s report that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Majtaba Khomeini, may be gay ("the Gayatollah").
  • Hosts revel in the language (“the power behind the robes,” “the tip is solid”) and the comedic possibilities, given Iran’s extreme anti-gay policies.
  • “Iran, of all countries, might be the most homophobic and terrible.” – Josh Holmes (00:32)
  • “If there’s one country that’s tough to be a gay leader, it’s probably Iran.” – Comfortably Smug (00:38)

• Speculation & CIA Satire:

  • Hosts riff on scenarios involving MI6/Mossad spying, suggesting an unlucky “Seth” had to go undercover as a “gay honeypot.”
  • “We need you to confirm this.” – Michael Duncan (05:17)
  • “You gotta be our gay honeypot.” – Michael Duncan (05:55)

• Iran’s Policies on LGBT People:

  • Openly discuss the brutal treatment of homosexuals in Iran and the odd policy of pushing transgender reassignment instead of execution.
  • “They have accepted transgender surgeries as an alternative to execution.” – Josh Holmes (07:34)

• President Trump’s Reaction:

  • Trump reportedly “laughed out loud” when briefed on the intelligence, as did senior officials.
  • “One senior intelligence official has not stopped laughing about it for days.” – Josh Holmes (08:01)
  • The panel jokes this is rare levity in otherwise grim wartime briefings.

• Parallels with Royal Scandals:

  • Smug compares Khomeini’s predicament to the UK royals—those “not next in line” attract more rumors and leaks.
  • “If you’re not next in line, no one cares about you” logic applied to Iran and British royalty (13:29).

• Mockery as Psychological Warfare:

  • Duncan posits that ridicule is the “ultimate victory”—that mocking opponents beats bombs (14:04).
  • “The ultimate victory is mocking your opponents relentlessly.” – Michael Duncan (14:04)
  • The panel jokes about airdropping “oppo” (opposition propaganda) and copies of the New York Post in Tehran (15:09).

• Memorable Quote:

  “Can we stomp on that for a minute? The power behind the robes.” – Josh Holmes (09:21)

---

2. CNN’s Iran Coverage & Media Bias

Segment at 17:25

• CNN Critique:

  • CNN is mocked for recycling “fired” journalists and bringing in fringe left-wing commentators (Stelter, McGowan).
  • “They have to fill out the roster on that horrible show … it goes viral because of the insanity they posit.” – Josh Holmes (20:11)

• Examples of Pro-Iran Slant:

  • Clip of CNN's Lee McGowan suggesting “we started a war for no reason,” prompting hosts to parody her logic.
  • “Did you just say we’re the bad guys?” – Comfortably Smug (19:48)
  • “Every liberal when it comes to foreign policy has amnesia. When America does something, that’s when history begins.” – Michael Duncan (21:01)

• Obama/State Dept. Ties:

  • The panel critiques the Obama administration’s approach to Iran, referencing “pallets of cash,” Valerie Jarrett, and embedded Iranian influencers in the State Dept.
  • “Influencers in the sense of an op, not folks who dance on TikTok.” – Comfortably Smug (22:01)

• Hack Madness Announcement:

  • Lighthearted interlude for the annual “Hack Madness” tournament, highlighting media hacks.

• CNN Executives at Iranian Embassy:

  • Newsbusters reports that CNN’s London bureau chief and chief global affairs correspondent attended a celebration at Iran's UK embassy.
  • “CNN officials didn’t appear to be attending the event as journalists. No camera, no notepads, no credentials. Wow.” – Josh Holmes (32:15)
  • Hosts question British officials attending despite Iran’s history of expropriating British assets (BP) and recent human rights abuses.

• Joy Reid’s Hot Take:

  • Reid compares US and Iranian oppression of women, suggesting America is “marginally better” because both countries oppress women for religion.
  • “We’re doing it for Christianity, they’re doing it for Islam. …Trying to spread the belief America is the worst.” – Comfortably Smug (34:13)

• Moral Relativism:

  • “It’s the moral relativism of the American left. It knows no end.” – Michael Duncan (34:17)
  • The hosts mock the logic that “everywhere is better than here” (US).

---

3. Other Notable Segments & Quotes

Audience Comments: Democrats’ Worst Excuses

Starts ~36:33

• Comedic recounting of Democrats' excuses for misbehaviors—including NASA's Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. Eric Massa’s “tickle fight” defense (39:02).
• “Who amongst us doesn’t roll into the old schedule in the legislative department … [for] a tickle fight?” – Josh Holmes (39:13)
• Discussion of Graham Plantner, Maine Senate candidate with a Nazi tattoo, and Democrats’ dilemma (“the mummy or the Nazi?”) – (42:54)

Ninth Circuit “Swinging Dicks” Dissent

Begins at 46:07

• Panel discusses the legal battle over a Korean women-only spa forced to admit transgender women with male genitalia.
• Read directly from the dissent:

  "This is a case about swinging dicks." – Judge Van Dyke, as quoted by Josh Holmes (47:30)

• “Women don’t want to be naked around swinging dicks.” – Michael Duncan (46:54)
• Point made that laws to protect women’s spaces are needed.

Democrats’ Congressional Approval Hitting Record Lows

Begins at 50:21

• CNN’s own Harry Entnan shares Democrats in Congress have a net approval rating “lower than the Dead Sea”—down 55 points, lowest ever (50:23).
• “If everybody just got on the same page … we can beat these guys.” – Michael Duncan (51:27)

Bizarre Democrat Candidate: Jack Schlossberg

Starts at 54:04

• JFK’s grandson keeps a skeleton in his house, dressed in JFK’s robe, claims it helps him “study posture” and consult his grandfather (55:19).
• Panel calls this “psycho” and highlights that he has four trust funds, “received no earned income in 2025” (57:11).

Oscars’ Diversity Quotas

Segment from 59:34

• Panel reviews new Oscar rules: racial/LGBTQ/disability quotas for film consideration (60:11).
• “I didn’t think you could put barriers around art.” – Josh Holmes (63:29)
• Argues "art for the mind to explore" is being undermined by politics.

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Iran, of all countries … might be the most homophobic and terrible."
  – Josh Holmes [00:32]

• “We need you to confirm this.”
  – Michael Duncan [05:17]

• "The ultimate victory is mocking your opponents relentlessly."
  – Michael Duncan [14:04]

• "Did you just say we’re the bad guys?"
  – Comfortably Smug [19:48]

• "Every liberal when it comes to foreign policy has amnesia. When America does something, that’s when history begins."
  – Michael Duncan [21:01]

• "They have to wear ghost costumes in their country. Let's be real..."
  – Michael Duncan [34:24]

• "This is a case about swinging dicks."
  – Judge Van Dyke dissent, read by Josh Holmes [47:30]

• "Democrats in the minds of the American public are lower than the Dead Sea."
  – Josh Holmes (citing Harry Entnan) [50:23]

---

Memorable Moments

• The "gay honeypot" riff on Mossad operations (05:17-05:59)
• The idea of mocking Iran by airdropping New York Post headlines (14:24)
• Judge Van Dyke's explicit language in a judicial dissent (47:30)
• Joy Reid and panel’s take on media moral relativism about US vs. Iran (34:13-35:11)
• The JFK skeleton story and the oddities of modern Democratic candidates (55:19+)
• Oscars’ diversity rules discussion (59:34+)

---

Conclusion

Packed with running jokes, sharp asides, and caustic asides about the media and politics, this Ruthless episode skewers the latest Iran headlines, mocks left-leaning media coverage, and lampoons the general state of politics and culture. The show’s tone remains unapologetically snarky, with the hosts gleefully embracing the role of cultural provocateurs, making it clear that for them, ridicule (not just analysis) is a weapon in the conservative arsenal.

---

Key Timestamps for Segments

• Gayatollah Segment: 00:00-16:25
• CNN & Media Segment: 17:25-35:07
• Audience Q&A and Excuses: 36:33-43:39
• Spa Case & Legal Dissent: 46:07-49:46
• CNN/Harry Entnan Poll Data: 50:21-53:21
• Schlossberg Skeleton Segment: 54:04-57:44
• Oscars DEI Rules: 59:34-65:11

---

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

So it turns out the Gayetola.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Is a thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Breaking news.

[Josh Holmes]

The Gayetola.

[John Ashbrook]

You're telling me for the first time

[Josh Holmes]

the power behind the robes.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, when you said power and went into B, I thought you were gonna say power.

[Josh Holmes]

Bottom the sources insisted the tip is solid. What a hilarious turn of phrase that is. I mean, the tip is solid, fellas.

[John Ashbrook]

They know how to write. I don't know any other way to say it, but the New York Post knows how to write. If you want a job there, you better be.

[Josh Holmes]

Iran, of all countries on this planet, might be the most homophobic and terrible.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's like one country that's pretty tough to try to be a gay leader. It's probably Iran.

[Michael Duncan]

I have been a physician for 35 years 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 bank. I have had patients cry in my room. I have had physicians cry to me, throw up their hands in disgust and quit because of actions of our health insurance industry. You are killing people who are trying to get health care. You have put profits above patients and you have put profits above those who care for patients.

[Josh Holmes]

Learn more at americansforopengoverment.com.

[NetChoice Announcer]

In America, parents call the shots for their families, not bureaucrats. But the so called App Store Accountability act puts your child at risk. This bill requires app stores to collect children's sensitive personal data while taking away power from parents over how their child's data is handled by tech companies. Parents should get to decide if their child's age is shared with apps, not politicians. Parents should attest to their kids ages, not turn over birth certificates to tech companies. Congress don't put kids at greater risk online and box parents out of making decisions for their families. Tell your lawmaker to put parents first. There are better ways to keep kids safe. NetChoice is dedicated to making the Internet safe for free expression and free enterprise. Learn [e-mail] keepappstores safe.

[Michael Duncan]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Comfortably Smug]

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

[John Ashbrook]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the ruthless Friday program. I'm Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left to right across your radio dial. As always, you know typically On Mondays, we like to do a more serious table setter for the week. You're not going to get that today. We got some stuff. We got some good stuff. Are you guys ready to laugh?

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

We.

[Josh Holmes]

So it turns out the Gayetola.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Is a thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Breaking news.

[Josh Holmes]

The Gaya Tola.

[John Ashbrook]

You're telling me for the first time. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So this has made its rounds. And if we can toss up graphic, too. You've probably seen this headline. If you haven't, we're proud to bring it to you. Trump was briefed that Iran's new supreme Leader,

[Michael Duncan]

Majtaba. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, Majtaba Khomeini is probably gay. The President has a priceless reaction. This is so good because it goes into, like, a separate level of the allegation.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Where the New York Post is just.

[Michael Duncan]

It's artwork.

[John Ashbrook]

Every time. The word probably is probably.

[Josh Holmes]

Probably.

[Comfortably Smug]

Guy.

[Michael Duncan]

What a paper.

[Josh Holmes]

Most likely.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can I say something that just occurred to me?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

So we had previously reported.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

That he had gone to Britain for erectile dysfunction.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

What if Thyatola is like, here, I've brought you some women.

[Josh Holmes]

What do you mean?

[Comfortably Smug]

And then his son's like, oh, we got a problem here. When you brought me all these women.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, it's an impotence issue. And it turns out maybe he wasn't

[Comfortably Smug]

interested in the women.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, one or two things has happened here, clearly, because the impotence thing was the full story last week that he had been flown to the UK for treatment for an erectile dysfunction issue.

[Comfortably Smug]

And they're like, we fixed it. We got a bunch of Englishmen. We put them in a room.

[Josh Holmes]

One of two things has happened here. Either we are kind of just throwing the most difficult epithets at the wall at Iran and. And seeing how they react to this sort of thing. Or somewhere there is a Mossad agent who had the most unfortunate task of any spy in the history of brutal undercover.

[Michael Duncan]

We need you to confirm this.

[Comfortably Smug]

Who can sign that? She's like, my God.

[John Ashbrook]

Hey, rookie.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, because we've read all about, like, you know, they knew where the Ayatollah was because of a dentist or they, you know, I mean, they're like the Mossad. It's legendary at their intel within Iran and enemy countries and things like that. You imagine if this is the kind of thing that you're briefing a President of the United States about, they have some secondary source confirmation, which means to me, like, at some point, somebody's like, hey, Seth, we got a bad one for you, bud. It's for your country and Western world,

[Michael Duncan]

you got to be our gay honeypot.

[Comfortably Smug]

Shit.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, he's.

[John Ashbrook]

When he's sitting.

[Michael Duncan]

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[John Ashbrook]

And the President's sitting in the White House with a bunch of spooks, and he's like, how do you know this? How do you know this?

[Comfortably Smug]

And they turn to him.

[John Ashbrook]

They're like, well, Seth, why don't you tell him?

[Josh Holmes]

He's like, oh, man. Yeah, No, I can confirm. I don't like to talk about it, but I can definitely confirm there is a gay atolla in our midst. But anyway, so what happened was. Out of this report. According to the New York Post, President Trump was stunned to learn last week.

[Michael Duncan]

Week.

[Josh Holmes]

That the US Intelligence indicates a new Iranian Supreme Leader, Majtaba Khamenei, may be gay and that his father, the late Ayatollahi Khamenei, feared his suitability for the role of the Islamic Republic. For that reason.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, I can imagine why. If there's, like, one country that's pretty tough to try to be a gay leader, it's probably Iraq.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, remember, he wasn't the first pick, right? This might be the reason why.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Really? I didn't.

[Michael Duncan]

No, his. His son was not the first pick.

[Josh Holmes]

Remember, he aced the other.

[Michael Duncan]

He aced the heir.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, that's right.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So they had to go to the emergency qb, who apparently had some grave concerns because of his sexuality. But I find this completely hilarious for so many reasons, not the least of which is Iran, of all countries on this planet, might be the most homophobic and terrible of anything.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, they routinely, as has been reported, execute anyone who's known to be gay.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, they'll also give them transgender surgeries.

[Josh Holmes]

They have accepted transgender surgeries as a alternative to execution. So if you're like a gay man rather than being a gay, they're cool with the whole transsexual change about.

[Michael Duncan]

It's an interesting wrinkle in the system.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a loophole, Ashbrook.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, sure sounds like it.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, Trump couldn't contain his surprise. Again, this is according to the New York Post, and laughed out loud when he was briefed on the intel. According to sources, others in the room found it hilarious, enjoying the President's reaction while one senior intelligence official has, quote, not stopped laughing about it for days. I gotta imagine of all the intelligence briefings, particularly time of war, there's probably not a lot of laughter.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I mean, imagine being Trump. Oh, this man is a showman. He's A showman, but by nature of his job, he's forced to go through so many boring presentations and briefings and he gets something like this across his desk. He's gonna enjoy it.

[Josh Holmes]

He's gonna have some time with this. So. The shocking claim was described by the Post by two intelligence community officials and the third person close to the White House. All three sources say the implausible sounding allegation is viewed as credible by US spy agencies rather than false information intended to undermine Khamenei, 56, who was selected to replace his dead father's Supreme Leader on March 8. Two of the sources said intelligence indicated that Mujtaba, who earned the nickname, quote, the power behind the robes.

[Comfortably Smug]

Come on, come on.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you, New York Post, treasury of Words.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we stomp on that for a minute? The power behind the robes.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, when you said power and went into B, I thought you were gonna say power. Bottom.

[Josh Holmes]

That's unconfirmed as of yet. We need to get Seth back on.

[John Ashbrook]

We also need Always Sunny to start filming again.

[Josh Holmes]

While serving as his dad, aging dad's gatekeeper, he has a long term sexual relationship with his childhood tutor.

[Comfortably Smug]

So that made it dark.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, very, very dark.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, well, especially because he's 56. Right? So a tutor implies that they are older than that, but since his childhood, I mean, they got a lot going on in Iran, you know, very troubled area. The third source said the intelligence indicated the affair with a person who formerly worked for the Khomeini family. Mujtaba, who is believed to have been wounded in the same Feb. 28 airstrike that killed his father and other members of the family, has made an aggressive, quote, unquote aggressive sexual overtures to mention caring for him, possibly while under the influence of heavy medication.

[Comfortably Smug]

Hopefully they're not giving his medication from England. Right, but that implies the last thing he'd need.

[Josh Holmes]

But that also implies real time intelligence. It's not like they sent Seth in a couple of years ago to figure out whether or not the line of succession had some dark secrets. It's like Seth's in there now. Maybe Seth's the tutor.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, I.

[Josh Holmes]

Certainly he might be. I mean, I don't know. How else do you get this information? U.S. spy agencies do not have photographic evidence of Machaba Khomeini's alleged sexual attraction to men. But the sources insisted the tip is solid. What a hilarious turn of phrase that is.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean,

[Josh Holmes]

the tip is solid, fellas.

[John Ashbrook]

They know how to write. I don't know any other way to say it, but The New York Post knows how to write. If you want a job there, you better be good at.

[Josh Holmes]

Was derived from one of the most protected sources that the government has. Seth.

[Michael Duncan]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. He's in on it. Like, he's.

[John Ashbrook]

He.

[Michael Duncan]

He's in deep.

[Comfortably Smug]

What?

[John Ashbrook]

Ask not what your country could do for you.

[Michael Duncan]

That's patriotism right there.

[John Ashbrook]

Sure is.

[Josh Holmes]

What will you do to protect your country?

[John Ashbrook]

Right. Yeah. Seth is going all out. I mean, the guy deserves a medal.

[Josh Holmes]

The ayatollah was previously treated for impotency. They just, like, threw that in there. But you're right. I think smug. I think what happened.

[Comfortably Smug]

And as we go in here so further, it says right here that quote much. Saba was expected by his family to produce children quickly, but needed a fourth visit to the UK for medical treatment. After a stay of two months, his wife became pregnant. Dude, I just cracked the case.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I think that's what happened here. They were wondering why the plumbing wasn't working, and they figured out the plumbing had the wrong. Was connected to the wrong thing.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, it was just uninterested.

[Michael Duncan]

It's the wrong orientation of the plumbing.

[Josh Holmes]

It was disinterested in that particular flow.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I bet, you know, if we're all being honest, the way this. It's like the same way that you hear about all this, like, scandalous, crazy shit about the royal family in England. It's like, there's so much help hanging around there. There's so, like, these people, they just do all this stuff, you know, like, all this. What's the name? The one who was on Epstein Island.

[Michael Duncan]

Prince Andrew.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. You know, like, this kind of shit gets out, and it's because there's so many people surrounding them. And also for folks like that. And like, remember the little redhead bastard child of Diana.

[Josh Holmes]

What's his name?

[Comfortably Smug]

Harry. Harry.

[Josh Holmes]

Harry.

[Comfortably Smug]

The ones who are not next in line for, like, the throne, no one cares about them because they're usually a menace. And that's what all the stories come out. Because people are like, well, we can. So that's. I'm talking about, like, so this guy was like. He wasn't the chosen one to lead. You know what I mean? Just like the redheaded bastard. Just like the one who went to Peto Island. So that's why people are free to talk about them. You know what I mean? Because there's, like, nothing to lose. It's not like we're protecting the future king here. It's like, oh, this is the one who's gonna get thrown to the Side, So who cares? So that's why people are willing to talk. That's why I believe this info 100%. The same way that they were right about the little redheaded bastard, they were right about the Andrew who went to Peto Island. It's. Cause if you're not next in line, no one cares about you.

[Josh Holmes]

So it's sort of a monarchy problem.

[Comfortably Smug]

Same thing. Same thing.

[Michael Duncan]

You think it's what I love about this story. Just to elevate it for a second here away from this.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Well, it's just that, like, look, you can drop bombs on your enemies, but I think this ultimately confirms the modus operandi of the ruthless variety program, and that is the ultimate victory is mocking your opponents relentlessly.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's what I love that our intelligence services are doing right now.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can I ask a dumb question, please? Why are we not, like, airdropping leaflets over Tehran?

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, like your supreme leader's gay. Because they've been brainwashed into thinking that this guy is, like, their God.

[Josh Holmes]

But maybe there's new information that's cut off.

[John Ashbrook]

Maybe we are getting anything.

[Comfortably Smug]

We should be just non stop airplane.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I saw last week there was some leaflet dropping in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is anchored, to indicate. I think it was.

[Comfortably Smug]

That may have been like, if you're a civilian, you probably want to leave. You know what I mean? I don't imagine it was like, we

[Josh Holmes]

should be dropping oppo is what you're saying, 100%.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

All day, every day. We should be dropping starlinks and oppo. That's what needs to be dropped on Tehran.

[Josh Holmes]

Mojdaba is really interesting.

[Comfortably Smug]

We should be dropping copies of the New York Post. Bro, put this on the ground. It'll move the needle.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, whatever. It's done. It has turned the Internet into an absolute evening at the improv. Because our people are completely hilarious and totally artists with this graphic one, if you don't mind. This is from. This is from Prison. Prison Mitch, where it's entitled When Iranians Find out the New Ayatollah is Gay. And it's them throwing the cardboard cutout over the side of the building, which, as you recall the story from last week about the cardboard cutout because they couldn't actually produce the new Ayatollah.

[Comfortably Smug]

He can't show up in public.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So, but that is. I mean, look, that's a real allegation that has operated for many decades that they basically throw people off of buildings in Tehran when they find out that they're gay. Amazing. Well, anyway, when we come back, cnn, not surprisingly has distinguished itself in this Iranian conflict. And when we come back, we're going to get into the wildest pro Iranian coverage that you can ever imagine right after this.

[NetChoice Announcer]

In America, parents call the shots for their families, not bureaucrats. But the so called App Store Accountability act puts your child at risk. This bill requires app stores to collect children's sensitive personal data while taking away power from parents over how their child's data is handled by tech companies. Parents should get to decide if their child's age is shared with apps, not politicians. Parents should attest to their kids ages, not turn over birth certificates to tech companies. Congress don't put kids at greater risk online and box parents out of making decisions for their families. Tell your lawmaker to put parents first. There are better ways to keep kids safe. NetChoice is dedicated to making the Internet safe for free expression and free enterprise. Learn [e-mail] keepappstores safe.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so they've got so many commentators at CNN they seem to like despite the fact that nobody watches it that they just keep assembling crew over there. Like some of the people who were fired from Washington Post, some of the people were fired, like all the middling left wing journalists just seem to find

[Comfortably Smug]

a home and they fired Stelter and they were like, you know what, just bring him back.

[Josh Holmes]

Bring him back too. You know, there's place.

[Comfortably Smug]

And then he went right, crawling right back, Dud. I hope they cut his salary in half. He's like, fuck it, I'll still take it.

[Josh Holmes]

Which reminds me, this week, Hack madness. Get ready for it is happening. It'll be on Funtime Friday. It's the annual event. You don't want to miss it. This year in particular is going to be an absolute blast. Set your calendars well.

[Michael Duncan]

So for our new listeners who maybe don't know what that is, what hack madness is, it's a full bracket. We've got 64 teams and some playing games of the worst liberal hacks in journalism from across the spectrum. There's all sorts of people we've now opened it up to like substack and you know the people who are now just YouTube journalists.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

But it's going to be amazing. We've got like a full bracketology show on Friday you are not going to want to miss.

[Josh Holmes]

And we've spent the last couple weeks reaching out to communicators and other professionals in politics to find out like truly who's the worst at just misrepresenting the truth. And so, like, a lot of homework has been done into what we ultimately assemble here. And it operates just like March Madness. You survive in advance and you get a chance to vote on them.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the thing is they will all be on my X account, comfortably smug on X. All of them go up just the same time as actual March. This is the March Madness that really matters. It's hack madness.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And we'll have a bracket that you can fill out and submit online. We're going to have that whole thing rolled out on Friday.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So tune in Thursday to get the coordinates and then Friday we'll unveil the bracket and the voting will begin. So that's how that works. So it's a good segue into CNN. CNN commentator Lee McGowan. I don't check out the clip.

[Comfortably Smug]

So your answer is to continue to

[Michael Duncan]

let Iran back Hezbollah?

[Comfortably Smug]

No, that is not my answer. All over the.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, so someone has to take them.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, it's not a false choice.

[Josh Holmes]

We did not need to be in this. It is a real life. We did not need to be in this war. We started a war for no reason.

[Comfortably Smug]

We're the bad guys here.

[Josh Holmes]

Iran started the war.

[Comfortably Smug]

We can't go back to 1979. That was Brad Todd, right?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

How did he not just like pause and be like, okay, back up a bit. Did you just say we're the bad guys?

[Josh Holmes]

We're the bad guys here.

[Comfortably Smug]

Let them roll with that.

[Josh Holmes]

Iran.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Lee McGowan's that chick who has that, that angry podcast. Right. Or something. She's like a. She's like a Instagram or TikTok chick.

[Josh Holmes]

I assume they all have.

[Michael Duncan]

CNN has totally brought on the dregs of liberal commentary.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, they have to fill out the roster on that horrible show that they were just on, which like six people watch. But it goes viral every day online on X because of the absolute insanity that they try to posit as an opinion that they represent on their airwaves. And like, I don't know how you go on that. I really don't like. It genuinely is like if you walked into a crippling mental hospital and tried to start a fight with the inpatient crowd. Yeah, but that's what happens. And you get people like Lee McGowan who suggests, like, despite 46 years of killing Americans, killing allies in the region, funding terror, the largest terrorist operation, state based terror operation in the world for five decades, that we're the bad United States is the bad guys here.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I mean, every liberal when it comes to foreign policy has collective amnesia on everything, conveniently. Right. Like when America does something, that's when history begins. Yeah, yeah. Because that's the way that they can frame everything that happens after that fact is blowback against something that we did. Not the 46 year history of what the country has done, not the fact that they've been trying to build a nuclear weapon. Like all of that they forget and it's America's bad cuz America did something about it. Right.

[John Ashbrook]

Duncan, I worry that it's worse than collective amnesia because you remember the Obama years when they were dropping pallets of cash into Iran and you remember Valerie Jarrett who was taking the side of the Iranian regime. And you remember the stories and the investigations that were done about the Obama State Department where they were crawling with Iranian sources. I mean, just within the last couple of years there were investigative stories. Tablet magazine did one about how many Iranian influencers were inside of the State Department.

[Comfortably Smug]

Influencers in the sense of not folks who dance on TikTok. Folks who are like an op.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

They're a foreign threat operating embedded in the U.S. right.

[Michael Duncan]

Which.

[John Ashbrook]

Which makes it kind of. Kind of scary.

[Michael Duncan]

It is scary. And it's scary that some people on the right have been seduced into this ideology as well. But like that was the whole plan of Barack Obama when he was trying to get that nuke deal done with Iran is parallel to that through the State Department. They were trying to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

And those two things had to be done at the same time because what they needed is somebody in Israel who go along with this strategy where Iran gets a nuclear weapon.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they didn't want. They didn't want the counter argument.

[Michael Duncan]

Right, right. And now you've got some people on the right like basically in that same position as the Obama foreign policy.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is why.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, that's the thing to center it to this when she's saying that we are the bad guys here. To me that is a direct extension of the fundamental belief of the Obama administration. And Obama's philosophy to begin with, all his thinking was centered on what if America's the bad guy here? It was always like, we have to imagine America is this like fallen country which has such a horrible history that cannot be redeemed. And so every single form, he showed up to Cuba in front of a giant Che mural to celebrate the life of a dictator who was hell bent on nuking America. Right. Think about that. So you had his people who are still around in the State Department. Ben Rhodes. I don't think anyone is as disturbed when. When a terrorist gets bombed as Ben Rhodes.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, they named. Nicknamed him Hamas in the. In the Obama White House, which was, you know, which they thought was a credential.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, Hamas has some good ideas over here.

[Josh Holmes]

That's how you rise up the ladder in the Obama White House. You get a nickname like Hamas. Anyway, Natasha Bertrand, Deranged.

[Comfortably Smug]

She used to be a huge friend of Ashbrook's. I gotta point that out.

[John Ashbrook]

I've never met her.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yep, that's.

[Josh Holmes]

He usually cops to that, so I feel like that's probably.

[Comfortably Smug]

But she is truly deranged.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, well, she's a perennial contender in hack madness. Anyways, not to be outdone by just the America is bad, you have to also misconstrue the words of American officials. Right. So she sends out a tweet in graphic 3hegseth on the KC135 crash. Bad things can happen, unquote in war. Kain starts out with a tribute to those killed. All right, so what she's trying to do, the backstory here, obviously, there was a C135 tanker that unfortunately crashed in Iraq that was providing operation support. It's a fuel tanker, essentially. Unfortunately crash. We don't know all the details about it. But it did kill those on board, unfortunately. Very sadly. But her reaction to that is to try to take a tribute that the Secretary of War is making to note their lives. To shorthand it, to say, well, he just said bad things can happen. Well, community notes shows up. Do we have any of that? Yeah, community notes. It's fully community noted. Full quote is, war is hell. War is chaos. And we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes, all of them.

[Comfortably Smug]

Isn't it amazing? This is directly the charge that for so long has been leveled against the media of they're not trying to inform. Her intent is not to inform. She's not trying to be a journalist. Trying to ensure that the public who comes away with whatever she puts out there is better informed and can better understand what she's trying to discuss here. Her intent is to mislead. Like it's diabolical. And to use the death of American service members as a platform to try to mislead people is completely deranged.

[John Ashbrook]

Bret. She also just refers to Raisin General raising Cain as Kane, not General Kane. He's actually a general. He's actually a pretty important person in America, but he's not her kind of general. He's not the kind of military figure that was a source of hers during Trump 1.0 when she first kind of like blew onto the scene fully sourced up with the Obama type people who were pushing a certain ideology against our sitting president.

[Michael Duncan]

You're saying she was sourced up with all the Obama people during Trump's first administration?

[John Ashbrook]

That's what I'm saying.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm shocked she got Russiagate so wrong.

[Comfortably Smug]

Good reminder. She was like one of the most

[Michael Duncan]

deranged, preeminent Russiagate truth or.

[Comfortably Smug]

Who got everything wrong, who had like insane takes. Like, you know, the Russians are currently at the World War II memorial meeting with like Trump officials telling them like, she was that deranged. Yeah, she was that crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

Wasn't she involved with Biden laptop stuff too?

[John Ashbrook]

All of it. All of it. She was sourced up with exactly who you think she was sourced up. And that's why I think it's interesting that she wouldn't refer to General Kaine as General Kaine. She just calls him Kaine.

[Josh Holmes]

It was like there was a handful of people in the first Trump administration. It was her. It was like Delaney and that guy. Kendallanian news where you could tell that the entirety of their sourcing were like the Brennan's and the clappers.

[Comfortably Smug]

Delaney's charge for the longest time has been he's straight up just a puppet for the left wingers in the deep state. Like that's how he essentially made his career. Just a big deep stater.

[John Ashbrook]

I don't think Delaney and is as bad as her.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that right?

[John Ashbrook]

I don't. I think he was around. He was around before and I don't think that he is the. On the same level as her.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, every time I read his byline, it's some like. Well, people are saying.

[Comfortably Smug]

And also like we've mentioned this so many times, these journals, part of the reason they do it is because they've made so much money off of it by getting like contributorship contracts by book deals.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, that's right. Well, our allies are not, you know, particularly well placed in terms of all of this stuff. UK in particular has been very disappointing. But CNN wants to take advantage of a London bureau event. You guys aren't gonna. This is. This is wild. So NewsBusters, flag this for us. Graphic five, if you don't mind. Okay, what you're looking at there is CNN London Bureau chief Andrew Roy and CNN Chief Global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance can be seen in a meeting shaking hands with Iran's Ambassador to the uk, Syed Ali Mousavi, pictured above. He's left to right, it's Mousavi, Chance and Roy, what they're doing. And this is apparently. Well, this is like in the last. It's since the conflict started, right? Yeah, this is, this is. Okay, so according to Newsbusters, the hits just keep on coming. For CNN this week, amid criticism of the network's biased reporting from Iran, bias about the conflict and how they got access to the country, two high ranking CNN officials were caught at the Iranian embassy in London attending a celebration for the founding of the Islamic regime. Additionally, the daytime edition of CNN News Central on Thursday aired four part uninterrupted minutes of Iranian state television delivering a purported written statement from the latest Ayatollah who's in a coma.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, they rightfully got a lot of heat for that because they just straight up were like. And now Iranian propaganda. And they just played for four minutes. They gave their airwaves to just a statement which we all know is made up because the dude's in a coma. But they were essentially like, we're just gonna hand control of our station to the government of Iran for four minutes. Go for it.

[Michael Duncan]

It's wild that the British would participate in a celebration of the beginning of the Islamic Republic where the Ayatollah came into power. Because it was Britain who all of their assets and all of the investment that they'd made into Iran was seized by the government. All of the oil investments they had made.

[Josh Holmes]

A little outfit called British Patrol.

[Michael Duncan]

That's a thing? Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the most cucked behavior in history of foreign policy to be like, congratulations on taking all of our shit. You know, I say, good show.

[Comfortably Smug]

Good show, man.

[Josh Holmes]

Stole a fair and square.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

So this was. The Telegraph actually published an article, basically what you were talking about, about the unfolding scandal engulfing Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government, where his Foreign ministry attended a Feb. 12 celebration at the Iranian embassy to mark the founding of the Islamic Republic. I just can't. I mean, given the backstory, given the history of that, I mean, Everybody sees that 1979 situation as the Amer in this country, as the American hostages, of which there were. But the whole thing is sort of risen to a peak by the British, the bp, all of that being basically confiscated by a new regime in Iran. And the idea that you've got Keir Starmer showing up being like, good show, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

That entire nation is falling into.

[Comfortably Smug]

I want to point this part out. This is important. Thing to highlight, it says on the same day as the event, the US based group Human Rights Activist News Agency announced that at least 7,000 people had been killed in Iran, including two or 19 children. Anti regime campaigners previously said up to 30,000 protesters had been murdered. So, like, as those are going down.

[Josh Holmes]

They're celebrating.

[Comfortably Smug]

They're celebrating.

[Josh Holmes]

They're celebrating, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

And this is coming at the same time as the Brits are removing Winston Churchill from their currency. Did you see this? They're replacing him with forest rodents, like an array of raccoons and squirrels and stuff on their money.

[Josh Holmes]

Forest rodents.

[John Ashbrook]

Get out of here.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, if you were trying to. If you were trying to destroy England, what would you be doing differently?

[John Ashbrook]

It's a great question. If it lasts a thousand years, this certainly is not their finest hour.

[Josh Holmes]

An important side note here is the CNN officials.

[Michael Duncan]

Good reference.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I find this tower. Yeah, that is. That's smart stuff here on the Variety program, CNN officials didn't appear to be attending the event as journalists. No camera crews are visible, and neither were there any form of recording equipment. No voice recorders, no notepads, no visible credentials that would show that they were there for work at all. Wow. Wow. So you got the UK celebrating a regime that stole their shit. CNN showing up there for the party to sort of pay their respects to people who have been targeting American military personnel and allies in the region for 46 long years. I mean, just think about that. It's just a, like, what. What's going on?

[John Ashbrook]

Great question, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, how do you even process any of that? It's like, well, I don't know, maybe they'll give us a good spot in Tehran to cover what's happening as you're murdering your people. But not to be outdone, Joy Reid, one of our favorite perennial, again, a perennial contender on Hack Madness. She's lowered a profile touch and getting kicked off air, right? She's off air.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, she got kicked off of msnbc, which is now splintered into like Ms. Now because Ms. Because NBC didn't even want anything to do with them.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

When NBC is turning the page, you know you got a problem. But she's got some thoughts on this in clip 1A.

[Comfortably Smug]

Our regime has secret police. They have secret police. Our regime is oppressing women, taking away abortion rights, taking away women's rights in like 26 states. Some states where they're trying to have the death penalty for having an abortion. They also oppress women. They have the highest rate of women who are in STEM careers. We're kicking women out of the military, out of university. We're saying that DEI means women can't be hired for high positions in the sciences. So we're marginally better. And we're doing it for Christianity, they're doing it for Islam. Come on, that's on me. Like this whole. The root of it was the Obama presidency is trying to spread this belief that America is the worst.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. It's the moral relativism of the American left that it knows no end.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that's poison.

[John Ashbrook]

Poison.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, they have to wear ghost costumes in their country. Like, let's be real, okay, they gotta wear the full hijab. Not the hijab niqab.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

They have to wear that thing and

[Comfortably Smug]

they're beaten and murdered and they have no rights. The insane takes of these people to try to justify in their mind because they have to jump through so many metal hoops. Because we have it so good in America. We have it maybe too good for a lot of these folks because for them to have to trick people into believing. No, you don't get it. This is the most evil place in the world. Everywhere is better than here. You have to say outlandish, ridiculous shit. That's just straight up lies. That's how you have to do it. That's the only way.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just a lot to take. Well, I don't know. They got a new gayetola to worship over there, so maybe things will turn around a little bit.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, that's progress.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

They got a gay president before we did. Yeah, maybe she's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Allegedly.

[Michael Duncan]

Allegedly. Many people are saying, I don't think the supreme leader's gonna sue us. He's got bigger problems.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I met on our own president.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, Time magazine said Obama was the first gay president. That was the COVID of Time magazine.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, Larry Sinclair. Remember the tale of Larry Sinclair?

[Comfortably Smug]

Many people are saying.

[John Ashbrook]

Google it.

[Josh Holmes]

We didn't make it up. Larry did the original Seth. Extraordinary detail.

[Comfortably Smug]

Original Seth. The original Seth.

[Michael Duncan]

This is a great episode.

[Josh Holmes]

In a limousine, no less. As memory serves.

[John Ashbrook]

Anyway, he did a press conference at the press club.

[Josh Holmes]

He did. Tragically Uncovered, I might add. There wasn't a lot of coverage that emanated out of that particular. But it's news nevertheless. I wonder what happened. Old Larry Sinclair, I heard he passed.

[Michael Duncan]

Really?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, really? R.I.P.

[Michael Duncan]

r.I.P.

[Josh Holmes]

yeah. Anyway, question of the day. When you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we'll read all of your answers and get back to you the very next episode. The question is, what's the most outlandish media lie you've seen since this conflict started. There are many. We've covered a few here today and a lot last week, but there are others. I mean, like, literally just pick up a newspaper. I mean, they're all over the place. It's just.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's.

[Josh Holmes]

It's wild. So you get back to us with a response. We read all of them. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. And when we come back, we're gonna get your comments from last episode where we asked, what's the worst excuse you've heard from a Democrat who's been caught? Recall this was Swalwell and all these other things that popped up, and Democrats had some unsatisfactory responses as to why their hands were in a bunch of different cookie jars. And your responses are coming right after this. Okay, when you like and subscribe, we read all of your comments. When it comes to the question of the day, this question was, what's the worst excuse you've heard from a Democrat who has been caught to do that? We always start with a voice.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay. First one comes from DOO. Bellarum. No indication where D.O. is from. However, I'd like to think maybe Louisiana, just by the spelling and by the name.

[Josh Holmes]

If it's pronounced do instead of ducks, I would be with you.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, maybe we'll find out. Okay, right in do. Let us know where you're from. Bellarum starts when Sheila Jackson Lee was confronted with her ignorance about asking NASA if the Mars rover could take pictures of the flight that Neil Armstrong planted in 1969 on the Martian surface. She accused the reporter of racism.

[Michael Duncan]

It's nice. Just a quick comment on the dew ducks controversy. Here I thought that Louisiana spelling would be D, E, E, A.

[John Ashbrook]

Uh, you know what? Very, very astute point. Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I appreciate it. There's some Creole.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't help myself.

[Josh Holmes]

Some French Creole, that is. Come to the. All right, Michael, what do we got in coming too?

[Michael Duncan]

This is from Christine Claussen. Christine writes, during the harsh travel restrictions that old grinchy gretch imposed on the state of Michigan, her excuse for her husband's trip to their vacation home was he had to break the leave.

[Josh Holmes]

That's good.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, that's.

[Josh Holmes]

And some local flair there. I'm not even sure we knew that at the national level. That's really good. All right, comment three, Smuggles.

[Comfortably Smug]

Comment three is from G man. Best excuse. New York Congressman Eric Massa in 2010, when confronted with allegations of sexually harassing male staff Members claimed the incidents were actually just a, quote, tickle fight, man.

[Michael Duncan]

That's legendary, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

I remember the tickle fight. We were just in a tickle fight, and it was like, with congressional staff.

[Comfortably Smug]

They're like, now you absolutely are gay. Like, there's no doubt. What? It just made it so much worse.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they're like, wow, these are serious allegations. He was like, no, this is a tickle fight, guys.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, who does? Who amongst us doesn't roll into the old schedule in the legislative department?

[Comfortably Smug]

He's like, absolutely straight. Tickle fight with the guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Hey, guys, how about a tickle fight this afternoon? What do you think?

[Michael Duncan]

Just hanging with the boys. Tickle fighting.

[John Ashbrook]

Just horrific.

[Josh Holmes]

Hey, I'm gonna wrap these meetings by 3. How about a tickle fight? We good? Oh, oops, my pants are off. All right, Speaking of just crazy excuses. So we've covered this. What's this cat? Graham Plantner.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's him.

[Josh Holmes]

So, memory of the Nazi tattoo. We covered it in some detail several months ago because he actually, as a guy who's running for Senate, it was revealed that he had a Nazi tattoo. And as all Democrats do, rather than take responsibility for such a thing, he just got the thing stenciled off or lasered off of him.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, he covered it with then a Fenrir tattoo. He was like, no, it's actually Nordic

[Michael Duncan]

mythology, which is closely related.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, right. So the Daily Mail is all over this. And Bernie Sanders backed Senate hopeful backtracks on apology for Nazi skull tattoo, insisting it's eminently reasonable. Skull and crossbones. And that's.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's. We'll get into this. We'll get into it.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, just check out graphic six. Just a reminder.

[Comfortably Smug]

It is not like the pirate skull. This is the most. It's like a direct copy paste from the Nazi SS is the totenacle.

[Michael Duncan]

It was like they'd wear it on their lapels and on their hat.

[John Ashbrook]

Let me tell you, this is one point in the program where you'll be happy if you're audio only and not seeing that picture that just went up. Yeah, yeah, that's because only the new ayatollah would appreciate that one.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not even sure the Ayatollah. I mean, I feel like maybe he's got higher stand. I mean, he's the Ayatollah, for crying out loud. Anyway, what happened was this Democrat who's running against Susan Collins, previously apologized for a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, is now defending it. It's nothing more than a skull and crossbones. Yeah, because he fricking changed it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right. Well, he changed it to Fenro, but he's like, it was always. He was like, even before it was fine because it's just a normal skull and crossbones. It's. Dude, everybody knows it was not a normal skull and crossbones. Everyone knows.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So he's since altered it to resemble some kind of an animal. We actually put a fine point on that in a previous. It was the Nordic.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Fenrir. The Wenrir.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. At first, Plantner apologized, saying he didn't realize the symbol was associated with Nazism. Them, and promised that he'd get it removed. But in an interview this week with the blog Zatteo, I can only imagine the mainstream content that they have on this bad boy. Anyway, he's on it and he says it's a skull and crossbones. Merely skull and crossbones. Eminently reasonable thing. And during the interview, he also recommended the war movie Come and See, which prominently refers to. Repeatedly shows, the totem.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In many places. So it's not like he's unfamiliar with the symbolism.

[Comfortably Smug]

Everybody should watch. Come and see. He said, that's the thing is, like, it is the most obvious thing. He knows what he's doing is the thing here. And to me, the funny thing is, behind the scenes of what's going on is Bernie Sanders is backing this guy. Oh, yeah, right. He's one of these lunatics. And Chuck Schumer is trying his hardest to get the establishment pick that they have in the primary.

[John Ashbrook]

Janet Mills, the governor, who's like 900

[Josh Holmes]

years old, just an old battle axe.

[Comfortably Smug]

So that's the problem, that they're like, do we go with the mummy or the Nazi?

[Michael Duncan]

Right, right.

[Comfortably Smug]

And seems like in polling, it's like neck and neck between those two.

[Josh Holmes]

In Maine, among Democrats, the Nazi at this point has a slight edge.

[Comfortably Smug]

And that's the thing is like, they're like, okay, Bernie and all these progressives are backing this guy. Platinum are like, okay, we kind of nipped that controversy. And then he just, like, jumps out and he's like, no, I actually don't apologize. It's just a normal skull and bones. Also, you see this Nazi movie that shows the skull and bones a bunch. It's a great movie.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I mean, given the discourse in our country right now, the Nazi vote in the Democratic primary might get him over the top.

[Josh Holmes]

A burgeoning and growing piece of the electorate that started as a Michigan problem has now come.

[Comfortably Smug]

And that's why it's no Coincidence that this was on that zateo, which is Mehdi Hasan's outfit.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, is that what it is?

[Comfortably Smug]

You might remember him from being there. The victory night for Zoram Hamdani, where he's there with Hasan, who said that America deserves 9 11. There's a group of people who are 100% anti America and extremely anti Semitic. And the reason that they all hang out isn't just a coincidence.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

I was wondering how you would go in and try to revise and extend your remarks on your apology that you, like, changed your tattoo. But Mehdi Hassan, he's probably like, don't apologize.

[Comfortably Smug]

Exactly. It was a good tattoo, actually, bro.

[Josh Holmes]

It was a good tattoo.

[Michael Duncan]

He's like, bring it back.

[Comfortably Smug]

Get more.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, there's an interesting new piece of information. An unidentified former acquaintance of Platner told the Jewish Insider last week that he called the tattoo a Totenkov during a 2012 conversation at the D.C. bar. Tune in. Which is a hilarious place for him to do that. He said, oh, this is my Totenkoff. A source told the news site. He said it in a cutesy little way. So he's well aware of all this.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's wild.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, of course he's well aware. I mean, look, who gets a tattoo and doesn't know what it is?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, yeah, no, no. I mean, we all knew that, but I think we made fun of him because he was like, oh, I didn't understand. And I just. I changed it once I did understand, and now he's like, no, I own it. And in this apparently acquaintance is confirmed. Yeah, like, yeah, no, he knew exactly what it was.

[John Ashbrook]

What is. Okay, I understand that my movie consumption habits are limited.

[Comfortably Smug]

The talk.

[John Ashbrook]

People's eyes.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, the talkies are Michael Bay.

[John Ashbrook]

What is Everybody should watch Come and what is come and see. What is that? I've never heard of that.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think it wasn't coming. See, I might be wrong. It was that video. Who's the guy who played Gandalf? What's Ian McKellen? Right. Yeah. I think I may be wrong. But was that the one where, like, he is, like, a former Nazi guy in hiding and he's trying to convince, like, a young kid in the neighborhood to become a Nazi?

[Michael Duncan]

No, I don't.

[Comfortably Smug]

I don't call that I may be wrong. I may be wrong. I think that's the one.

[Michael Duncan]

I haven't seen it.

[John Ashbrook]

The reason I ask, to a point that Holmes was making earlier. There are other movies where Nazi symbols are prominently featured. For example.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Saving Private Ryan. Would be one of them.

[John Ashbrook]

Lots of not Nazi symbols and Saving Private Ryan. But they were treated exactly how they should be treated in that movie.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. America was the good guy.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Which has now become like a radical fucking.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like a through line here on all of these lefties. Whether you're a journal or a politician, America's the bad guy in all of this. You stand with the gay Atollah. Anyway, this is another little piece of news that you guys are gonna Absolutely love. Woke 9th Circuit decides Korean spies have to let biological men swing their gear in front of women and children. So, okay, so what happened was there is a. Duncan. I think you know the backstory of this.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. It was the spa. This, this all female spa.

[Josh Holmes]

Olympus Spa.

[Michael Duncan]

Right, right. And you know, they're in court because they were basically sued for not allowing a transgendered woman.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

With a penis. Into their spa. Turns out, you know, women don't want to be naked around swinging dicks.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And of course, this is happening in the ninth Circuit, which is an insane O. Left wing circuit.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And you know, the swinging dick wins the case. And so this is the dissent. And you. You will think we are paraphrasing, but this is actually from the dissent, which is amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

And just in case you thought our friend Michael was being crass or lewd. Swinging dicks is actually a judicial term by learned scholars. Yeah. Man of the robe.

[John Ashbrook]

Senate confirmed.

[Josh Holmes]

Senate confirmed. The ninth Circuit.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's a term among what.

[Josh Holmes]

Just wait till you hear books. The ninth Circuit denied rehearing in banc. Olympus Spa versus Armstrong. Judge Van Dyke wrote the lead dissent which begins this way. This is a case about swinging dicks.

[John Ashbrook]

And the record.

[Josh Holmes]

The Christian owners of Olympus Spa, a traditional Korean women only nude spa, understandably don't want them in their spa. Their female employees and female clients don't want them in their spa either. But a Washington state insists on them and now so does the ninth Circuit. You may think that swinging dicks shouldn't appear in a judicial opinion. You are not wrong. But as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion, I hope that we can all agree that is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa, some as young as 13 to be visually assaulted by the real thing.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what poetry that is? I mean, that's. That's well written.

[Josh Holmes]

Well written and fasus on the right. Solilable.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, I mean, everything is just. But That's a real thing that's actually happening.

[Michael Duncan]

It's unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like there is a circuit court that were like, no, you gotta let the penises in to the women's spa.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, at some point it becomes apparent that laws need to be passed to protect women and let them have their spaces and men. That's what we call folks with penises. Folks like this may be shocking to a lot of lefties, don't belong in those areas. The Save America act is a great first step for it. I know lots of folks in the Senate listen to us. I think that'd be a great way

[Josh Holmes]

to start to do with the judicial

[Comfortably Smug]

dissent because part of Save America act is removing men from women's, which is still happening across this country.

[Josh Holmes]

It's actually an amendment that's going to be brought up by Eric Schmidt. The House passed Ball bill did not include that, but President Trump wanted it and Eric Schmidt is offering it on the Senate floor this very week. Hell yeah, we're going to find.

[Comfortably Smug]

Hell yeah, Senator.

[Josh Holmes]

We're going to find out exactly where the votes lie on all of that. And I imagine there's going to be some culpability by some Senate Democrats who have tried to ignore this particular thing, what their constituents want anyway. Harry Entnan, one of our absolute favorites in terms of pollsters, ironically at cnn. But like they figured out not how to muzzle him evidently, because every once in a while he shows up with some poll analysis and it's never good for the court constituency of cnn. But he can't help himself. Look at clip two.

[Comfortably Smug]

How are voters feeling about Democrats right now?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, Democrats in the minds of the American public are lower than the Dead Sea. What are we talking about here?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, let's take a look.

[Josh Holmes]

The net approval rating for Democrats in Congress. You said it, Kate Baldwin, the lowest ever.

[Michael Duncan]

Look at this.

[Josh Holmes]

Overall, they are 55 points underwater. Their approval rating is south of 20%. It's even worse when you look at independents.

[Michael Duncan]

Look at this negative 61 points. That means that their approval rating is 61 points lower than their disapproval rating. Quinnipia has been polling this question for the better part of the 21st century.

[Josh Holmes]

They have never found Democrats, at least

[John Ashbrook]

those in Congress, in worse shape than

[Michael Duncan]

they are right now. Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Never.

[John Ashbrook]

You know what that tells me is that Republican ad makers who are forever looking for creative ways in these House races to define their opponents, they simply need to just say, we're running against a Democrat. Yep, several times in the ads and people will respond accordingly.

[Comfortably Smug]

And also, it's no coincidence that you're seeing these wolves in clothing like Abigail Spamberger doing everything they can to gerrymander the shit out of their state.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, the only thing that is sort of disheartening about this is Democrats find themselves in the worst position for a midterm in this century, and Republicans are all shooting inside the tent right now. If everybody just got on the same page and had a singular message that we could drive. We can beat these guys. Totally, dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's golden. That's a hun. Everyone listening to this. That was very important. He's 100% right. The circular firing squad shit is not needed when your opponent is like, what was 60 points underwater? Let's just get their asses.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, also, like, look, you have every single Republican that has voted to open up the Department of Homeland Security at a time of war repeatedly over the last 28, 30 days. Every single Democrat has decided to put your life at risk because they are continuing to protest immigration policy that they don't like. So, like, terrorism be damned, war be damned. A war against the largest proxy and terrorist state in this world be damned. Like, they don't care about it. That's the kind of thing that you ought to talk about.

[Comfortably Smug]

And also the fact that these are Democrats in Congress who are keeping DHS from being funded. That's their approach to the immigration policy they want, which is they dream of going back to the open border that Joe Biden gave them. Right. They're not saying, I have co sponsored a bill called Amnesty for all because they know they would get slaughtered at the polls. They don't want to put their name on what they really want. They want to be like, maybe if we can just defund dhs, ICE can't catch these rapists and these murderers who are in our communities who are here illegally and who need to go back. Maybe we can turn them into voters and that's what they're trying to do.

[Josh Holmes]

That's exactly right. CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships. Instead, it's shorthand for customer rage machine. Your CRM can't explain why a customer's package took five detours. Reboot your inner peace and scream into a pillow.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's okay.

[Josh Holmes]

On the ServiceNow AI platform, CRM stands for something better. AI agents don't just track issues. They resolve them, transforming the entire customer experience. So breathe in and breathe out. Bad CRM was then. This is ServiceNow. Meanwhile, we got a little variety here. These are the kind of candidates that Democrats are Exactly. Fielding. And we've talked about this guy before when he did that weird, just anti Semitic thing from. Which is ironic coming from Schlossberg. But this is his latest installation. This is a. He's a congressional candidate. Right. And he is a. What is he, a grandfather or.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's a grandson of jfk.

[Josh Holmes]

Of jfk. Yeah. So he reveals that he has his skeleton clad in his grandfather JFK's clothes and has a bizarre reason for it. This is graphic seven.

[Michael Duncan]

Those are actually JFK's clothes.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

This is so weird.

[Josh Holmes]

And this is. According to the New York Post, Jack Schlossberg has a skeleton clad.

[Michael Duncan]

There's blood on it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I think it's one of those, like actual clinical skeletons, not like, you know, a plastic one.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I don't know what it is, but it's a skeleton clad in clothes from his slain presidential grandfather, John F. Kennedy, in his home. And a bizarre reason for keeping the macabre display. I had a back injury, quote, and had to kind of relearn how to walk and stand up straight. The 33 year old Kennedy scion told CBS News in a recent interview about his run for Congress. So at the time, I wanted to study and visualize posture. Bones, Schlossberg said, gesturing to the skeleton, which wore a dressing robe and hat in his home. And then I was given a robe, a hand me down from my grandpa. And then I kind of put the robe on him and realized, oh my God, now I can ask him questions and we can talk.

[John Ashbrook]

He said, this cat is weird.

[Josh Holmes]

This cat is.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, do you know he's endorsed by Nancy Pelosi, by the way? Yeah, Nancy Pelosi endorsed him.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you kidding me?

[Michael Duncan]

Psycho.

[Comfortably Smug]

Typically in New York elections, I want the most insane psychopath to win. Because, like with Mamdani, you're hearing all this stuff of how like Mamdani wants to essentially seize the assets of the middle class. 50% when they die. Have you seen this?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's proposed now they will take 50% of all your assets when you die. If you have over 700k in assets, which if you live in New York City and you own a house, they're just gonna take that shit. Yeah, take half of it. And I root for stuff like that because I want New York to be punished for the choices that they make. You've had your years to leave. I left everyone who could leave. I don't care if you gotta get on a bus, you could have left. Now you get Mamdani. And usually I would Support. I want the nuttiest guy because he's running for a fat man seat on the west side of Manhattan.

[Michael Duncan]

Nadler.

[John Ashbrook]

Nadler C. No, he is not smart.

[Comfortably Smug]

But the problem is on the federal level, you don't want the nutty Democrats because I don't want him to be part of the Democrats in Congress which then have policy that can affect all of us. So that's the shame of it. When Duncan brings up that Pelosi's endorsed this guy, that tells you how batshit that party is.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, totally.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, the other thing that struck me about this in reading his, you know, well studied responses and question, you know, how he's framing the thing. This feels like the sort of thing the campaign itself might have pitched because they know it's in their. They have a skeleton in their closet, pun intended.

[Josh Holmes]

Remember JFK's Garrett grandson?

[Michael Duncan]

Like so he could put his own spin on it to hopefully minimize the impact of this, you know, cuz it feels too well thought out and totally fake.

[Josh Holmes]

You want to get ahead of that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. It's also very, very weird. And if you're wondering to yourself what type of person puts a skeleton in their house and puts clothes on that skeleton, consider this from our friends at the Washington Free Beacon who wrote about this guy Schlossberg recently. They said that he has received no earned income in 2025. So he doesn't have a job, but holds millions of dollars worth of assets in four different trust funds. So this is the type of person who puts a skeleton in their house and clothes on it to look at

[Comfortably Smug]

when one trust fund is not enough.

[Josh Holmes]

Four different trust funds, you believe that? Must be nice. Must be nice.

[John Ashbrook]

Out of touch.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, there are none of you that watched the Oscars, I am absolutely certain. But it was a thing that captivates the media and so you've undoubtedly seen something about it in news. In passing.

[Comfortably Smug]

Before we get to this, can I ask a question of everyone here. When's the last movie and when is the last time you went to the theater and saw a movie in the theater?

[Josh Holmes]

It's Top Gun too.

[John Ashbrook]

It's probably me too. I know. The new Jurassic Park.

[Michael Duncan]

Nice.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, we went to see the new one.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, I went and saw that. That's the last one I saw.

[John Ashbrook]

Might have been last summer.

[Comfortably Smug]

What was that? That was a year ago. And before that Top Gun. Top Gun was. What was that, 2023?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think so. It's been years.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think mine is Top Gun too.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't go to the theater. Very often I will say I watch a lot of movies, though. I do like movies. But you're always confused every year as to how it is that Hollywood sorts out what they deem as the best movies because they're totally unrelatable, often foreign, and the concepts behind them are like nothing you've ever experienced in your entire life. Like, there's no relatability to it. Far cry from the Forrest Gumps of the world. You know, the whole 90s version.

[Comfortably Smug]

So, dude, that's a perfect example is the movies I've been watching lately is like, release date before, like 2010. And there is just like a gold mine of films. But the whole theater thing of, like, I saw images of the actual Oscars and the crowd, dude, the seated audience in the theater where they did the Oscars. It was like 200 people. Like, it's not like it used to be. Remember, it would fill out the stands, you see balconies. Oh, yeah, dude, no, not even. They can't even fill a theater out anymore. Oh, my gosh.

[Josh Holmes]

Let alone the movies can kind of understand. So if you've been confused about this, we've stumbled upon the rules that are dictating who is eligible to win an Oscar. And it explains everything. It basically breaks down into three categories. The first is lead or significant supporting actors from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups. And then it goes on to list who they deem acceptable as a underrepresented ethnic group.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, it's a wild.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a wild.

[Comfortably Smug]

So racial quotas.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, Racial quotas. And it's not like they've got everybody on there. They just, you know, they're going through who they see. And we've got the guy graphic up on the screen. The second is general ensemble cast. At least 30% of all actors not submitted for an Oscar consideration are from at least. This episode is brought to you by Cologuard. Do you know what's really scary? Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45. The cologuard test is non invasive, requires no special prep or time off work, and ships right to your door in just three simple steps. Cologuard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening. If you're 45 or older and at average risk. Ask your healthcare provider about the Cologuard test. Cologuard is available by prescription only. Learn more or request a prescription [e-mail] screen two underrepresented groups, which may include. And they throw women in there. Women, racial or ethnic group LGBTQ people with cognitive or physical disabilities who are deaf or hard of hearing. And then the third category is main storyline subject matter. The main storyline, theme or narrative of a film is centered on the underrepresented group. And again, they go through and dictate exactly what that underrepresented group that they've previously identified in the first criteria. I mean, dude, this is exactly. Now I get it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the first time I've ever seen this. But I've sat and like, I haven't watched the Oscars in years. But, you know, when they see, like, what wins and whatever, and you're like kind of scratching your head and like, maybe you'll pop it on for five minutes, you're like, boy, this is horrible. And it's just. It's confounding what they think is like a great acting role or whatever. Now I get it.

[Comfortably Smug]

And so this is. This came out, like, I want to say a couple of years ago that the Oscars were going to put this kind of. This what is. This is dei, just dei, in practice on what films are going to be able to get an Oscar. And you look at this list and then you think about some of the greatest films you've ever seen. So Paul Thomas Anderson won last night for one battle after another. I didn't even see it because I'd already heard such horrific. Essentially just like open border, whatever.

[Josh Holmes]

I did watch it on a plane.

[Comfortably Smug]

Did you?

[Josh Holmes]

No. It's about a far left violent militia that attacks the American government.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the one that. That's the movie that want.

[Comfortably Smug]

And so here's the thing. It's just like. Let's just take the context of Paul Tom Sanderson, who I think is one of the greatest living directors. It's sad that. I mean, whatever. I've heard lots of commentary about the film. Anyways, he also made There Will Be Blood, which is probably the best film made since the year 2000.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, great film.

[Comfortably Smug]

Would not be eligible for Oscars.

[John Ashbrook]

Right?

[Comfortably Smug]

Would not. I thought I got robbed. The year that no country for Old Men won, no country wouldn't be up for an Oscar.

[Josh Holmes]

No. No.

[Michael Duncan]

Maybe because of Javier Bardem. Maybe that qualifies the 30% of all actors. Yeah, not 30%. I just do think it's funny that Hollywood, which complains about the, you know, Joseph McCarthy era and HUAC and all that stuff, just basically did the liberal version of that they do, dictating to Hollywood what they can have in their movies and what sort of themes and storyline and Subject matter they're allowed to have.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly.

[Michael Duncan]

How is this not the exact inverse of that?

[Josh Holmes]

I didn't think you could put barriers around art. Yeah, I thought art was for the mind to explore. Not in Hollywood.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what's interesting, I've learned a little bit about this is almost every country in the world has programs that. For tax deductions and that kind of thing for film studios to come and film and deduct the expenses like you would for appreciation to all kinds of businesses in the United States, but we don't have that. But a key criteria to what these countries do is something different than this and that the film has to represent some benefit or public, like a narrative or. Or something that represents their country well.

[Comfortably Smug]

Really?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

That doesn't sound good.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, we don't. We don't have any of it, though. And it goes the other way.

[Comfortably Smug]

So, like, if you shoot the movie, let's say like in. In. In. In China, right? Like, I think Disney shot that was the Mulan movie, like, near Xinjiang where they had all the Uyghur camps. So, like, if you did that, you, like, you'd have to have some pro China shit.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, yeah. Well, you saw them strip everything out of the Top Gun movie when it was released and like all of the arm watches and stuff, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the exact opposite. In America, most of the films that rise to the top are the most anti American things or. Or anti humanity things that exist. I mean, one of the ones that was up for best picture that I did see was Begonia. This is the one with Emma Stone in it. The alien. Is she an alien? Is she not an alien? The whole spoiler alert. The whole thing ends with everyone on Earth dying.

[Comfortably Smug]

No way.

[Josh Holmes]

And.

[John Ashbrook]

And uplifting.

[Michael Duncan]

And the tone is that we kind of deserve it.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, we have it coming.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Just like rank nihilism, you know, it. I don't know. It was an okay film.

[Comfortably Smug]

Is it an A24?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, of course, dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

Do you watch any?

[John Ashbrook]

Nine.

[Josh Holmes]

He does love.

[Michael Duncan]

I do love it.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like. Like Ashbrook loves explosions.

[Comfortably Smug]

See, I support Ashbrook. That's just cinema.

[Josh Holmes]

He likes explosions.

[Michael Duncan]

I also saw Frankenstein. I recommend Frankenstein. Oh, you like that one, dude, it was really well. Really, really well done.

[Comfortably Smug]

Who was it? Who's the director? It was.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't remember.

[Comfortably Smug]

Remember the guy who did Pan's Labyrinth, Right? What's his name? Guillermo del Toro.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really.

[Comfortably Smug]

I heard good things.

[Michael Duncan]

It won a lot for, like, set design and things like that. It's beautifully shot.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Highly recommend it, huh?

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

All right.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, good to know. Well, anyway, remember when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Friday program, we answer all the questions for the question of the day and we get back to the very next episode. Our question today is what's the most outlandish media lie you've seen since the Iran conflict started? Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. And when you do that, we get back to you, fellas. It's been a banger of a Tuesday episode, a little bit more fun than we typically have at the beginning of the week. I appreciate it. I think we did it.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. John, remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that. Subscribe because it's more fun and video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you on Thursday. Stay ruthless.