The Truth about “No Kings” + DHS Asst Sec Tricia McLaughlin Joins the Progrum

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Ruthless Podcast
Episode: The Truth about “No Kings” + DHS Asst Sec Tricia McLaughlin Joins the Progrum
Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Special Guest: DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin

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Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast delves into the recent “No Kings” anti-Trump protests across the country, deconstructing their organization, intent, participants, and media coverage with the hosts' signature mix of sharp satire and political critique. The latter part of the episode features an in-depth discussion with DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, providing a behind-the-scenes look at current immigration enforcement, government shutdown impacts, and public narrative battles.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dissecting the “No Kings” Protests

Timestamp: 00:36 – 42:26

a. Weekend Protests and Their Organizers

• The hosts lampoon liberal protestors, drawing a contrast between “normal” Americans enjoying a beautiful October weekend and protestors (“every loser in the country… going to use this Saturday to whine about politics.” – Josh Holmes, 03:17).
• Discussion on the phenomenon of “protesting as lib boomer Viagra” (Comfortably Smug, 02:25), and the performative nature of modern liberal activism.

b. Liberal Figures as Protest Leaders

• Criticism of Senator Cory Booker’s performative activism: “He did like a 24-hour filibuster about something. Yeah. And nobody even remembers, but it was…” (Josh Holmes, 05:53).
• George Conway’s transformation from Republican lawyer to “lib famous” protestor, noted for showing up in “I am antifa” T-shirts and “chartreuse” neckerchiefs (09:22).
  • “He spiraled… Now he’s claiming to be antifa. This guy was a corporate attorney… And now this dude’s out here saying he’s antifa.” – Michael Duncan, 10:13

c. Protest Behavior and Media Disconnection

• Critique of protest signs and behaviors, notably a teacher making a gun gesture to mimic assassination (“An individual like that shouldn’t be around kids.” – Michael Duncan, 17:46).
• Noted disconnect between the protestors’ extreme rhetoric (calling Republicans Nazis, sporting violent slogans) and mainstream media coverage, which describes the events as “peaceful protesting with song and dance…displays of optimism, hope, and whimsy…” (NPR quote, 19:19).

d. Funding and Organization: “Grassroots” Exposed

• The hosts break news: the “No Kings” protest is heavily funded by left-wing “dark money” outlets, especially the Open Society Foundations led by George Soros; $7.61 million in grants to their organizers (“It’s a family business” – Michael Duncan, 28:56). (Full breakdown: 25:00–30:54)
• Commentary on how these foundations “are just making people deranged… They’re creating a dangerous environment for all of us in America.” – Michael Duncan, 31:48

e. Political Timing Behind Protests

• Detailed analysis of electoral motivations behind the protest timing—using government shutdowns and agitation to drive turnout in key states (Virginia, New Jersey) where early or mail-in voting is critical (33:06–37:11).
• “They are in droves and they're going to sing that narrative and you're going to hear it in your ear and you'll have another opportunity in 26 to try to reverse that. But you're going to for the next 12 months hear about how every one of your ideas is all of a sudden unpopular.” – Josh Holmes, 42:05

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2. Listener Mailbag: The Fetterman Question

Timestamp: 43:23–46:45

• Entertaining and speculative listeners’ takes about Senator Fetterman’s political future—including ideas like him being primaried or split drama with his spouse, with the hosts riffing on internal Democratic chaos (“That's deep lore.” – John Ashbrook, 45:56).

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3. Variety Segment: The Louvre Heist and Combat Sports

Timestamp: 46:57–56:13

a. Louvre Robbery

• Coverage of a dramatic heist at the Louvre: “a gang of thieves robbed the Louvre museum… with France’s most famous crown jewels” (Josh Holmes, 46:59).
• Commentary on French inadequacy for protection (“All the jewels in the Louvre should be brought to America for safety. Trump should have them all brought.” – Michael Duncan, 50:17).
• Discussion of the tragedy of historical artifacts being “melted down” and lost to history.

b. Monkey Bar Combat Sport

• Hilarious spotlight on Japanese “monkey bar kicking fights” as (tongue-in-cheek) programming superior to lower-tier college sports (“This is a tremendous sport… legit combat sport.” – Michael Duncan, 54:37).

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4. Feature Interview: DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin

Timestamp: 56:19–78:27

a. Current State of Immigration Enforcement

• McLaughlin emphasizes major shifts since the Biden administration—“closing the border,” nearly 500,000 arrests, and a focus on encouraging self-deportation (“It's a lot less expensive… about 70% less if you self deport than if we have to forcibly remove you.” – Tricia McLaughlin, 58:50).
• Ongoing focus on removing the “worst of the worst”—criminal aliens, MS-13 gang members, known or suspected terrorists.

b. Challenges & Political Headwinds

• On media attacks: “I relish the fight a little bit… these men and women are enforcing the rule of law, the law on the books of Congress… assault [on agents] is up 1000%.” – Tricia McLaughlin, 60:29
• Government shutdown: No current slowdown for ICE/CBP, but looming resource concerns if the shutdown drags on. Initial period saw agents working unpaid.

c. Policy Changes & Vetting

• Reforms on legal immigration and visa programs to prevent terrorists and criminals from slipping through (“Underscores horrendous vetting, considering it was online and on social media that this individual, what he did, the terrorist attacks he conducted.” – Tricia McLaughlin, 67:13).
• International agreements for better intelligence sharing; 700 known or suspected terrorist arrests in 250 days.

d. Public Affairs and Narrative Warfare

• “It is PR warfare. It really is, because the American people have to know who we're actually getting out of this country and who was in this country we talked earlier about." – Tricia McLaughlin, 77:00
• Mission to counter media disinformation and keep a clear narrative on ICE’s focused, legal, and safety-oriented mission.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Protesting is like lib boomer Viagra. They can’t get enough of it.” – Comfortably Smug (02:25)
• “If you find yourself on a beautiful October day standing next to Cory Booker, something’s gone very wrong.” – Josh Holmes (08:04)
• “He spiraled… Now he’s claiming to be antifa. This guy was a corporate attorney…” – Michael Duncan (10:13)
• “There are more people currently listening to this in the world than there are people who know who George Conway is.” – Josh Holmes (13:58)
• “All these, all the jewels in the Louvre should be brought to America for safety.” – Michael Duncan (50:17)
• “It is PR warfare.” – Tricia McLaughlin (77:00)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Dissecting Protests and Liberal Figureheads: 00:36 – 15:30
• Media Coverage and Violence at Protests: 15:30 – 21:07
• Follow the Money / Soros Funding: 25:00 – 30:54
• Political Motives for Protest Timing: 33:06 – 41:00
• Key Listener Comments (Fetterman): 43:23 – 46:45
• Louvre Heist Discussion: 46:57 – 54:04
• Monkey Bar Combat Review: 54:04 – 56:13
• Tricia McLaughlin Interview (Immigration, Enforcement, Shutdown): 56:19 – 78:27

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Tone, Style, and Flow

The hosts maintain their comedic, caustic, and conversational tone throughout, blending political analysis with sharp humor, pop culture references, and irreverent observations. They move briskly between satirical takedown, pointed critique, and genuine investigative curiosity, especially when discussing protest funding and electoral strategy. The guest interview adopts a more serious and informative vibe, but still aligns with the show’s candid, direct style.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode offers an acerbic yet insightful look into current left-wing protest culture, national media distortion, and the multimillion-dollar organizational backbone driving grassroots optics. The discussion with McLaughlin provides clarity on actual immigration enforcement versus public perception, making this a pivotal listen for those looking to understand both the cultural and operational sides of the present US political landscape.

Transcript

[John Ashbrook]

You might ask yourself, why did they choose a weekend in late October to push all of these people out and about what was it about the states of Virginia, in New Jersey?

[Michael Duncan]

Really good question.

[John Ashbrook]

What all of these left wing organizations wanted to do.

[Josh Holmes]

The same people who are sitting there doing this, shooting a fake finger gun into their neck at people from Charlie who are riding in a Charlie Kirk car are the people who are controlling the agenda that Chuck Schumer is setting. That is a fact.

[Michael Duncan]

The left has essentially lost touch with Americans. MSNBC, CNN, they've got an audience of 5,000 people that they talk to all day long. And those people are completely siloed away from what the real world is like.

[Josh Holmes]

Our nation is standing up for American workers, restoring the pride of making products here at home.

[John Ashbrook]

That's what we do every day.

[Josh Holmes]

We're America' beverage companies. Making American products with American workers in America's hometowns. Delivering brands that have been enjoyed for generations. Creating good paying jobs, the kind that require only a strong work ethic.

[Comfortably Smug]

Because we believe in the promise of.

[John Ashbrook]

America and the people who make it great. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Michael Duncan]

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 Variety Program. I am Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Left to right across your radio dial. As always, we couldn't help but notice that there was a bit of a lib rally over the weekend. And I know you've seen a lot about it. So we're not breaking news that this existed because the media can't get enough of it. Of course, this is something that they'd like to depict as a major uprising that is, you know, people on their feet, speaking truth to power. It's not that. And we're gonna get into some yucks right off the top, so you got nothing to wait for. But then we're gonna explain what you don't know. The truth about the new kings in this very episode. Fellas, this is gonna be a good one.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's gonna be fun. Protesting in the is like lib boomer Viagra. They can't get enough of it. Yeah, it's their sole motivation in life is pretending to be oppressed.

[Josh Holmes]

I totally agree with that. It also helped from my standpoint. First of all, unusually nice weather across the country.

[Comfortably Smug]

Delightful.

[Josh Holmes]

Just an incredible fall October. Saturday and Sunday in many places throughout this country. And for those of us who are normal like you kind of do one of two things. You either have Stuff going on with the kids, or you got your folks, you're outside, you're enjoying this nice, unseasonably perfect weather a short amount of time, or you're watching football.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And it was such a hilarious juxtaposition, particularly on Saturday, as you're watching these killer Saturday college football games up and down all day long and outside and grilling meats and all those kind of things. And then you have a full depiction, a pictorial, if you will, of every loser in the country, all scattered throughout, who are like, no, I'm going to use this Saturday to just whine about politics.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. That's exactly. It was a perfect Saturday. I mean, all across the weather was great, and every single normal person was at a baseball game, a football game, volleyball, basketball practice. Anything other than hanging out with their.

[Josh Holmes]

Their friends and having a. Like a cookout, a grill of some kind.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. I remember I was driving to go watch football with my son, and I saw these two lib boomers, must have been in their 70s, carrying signs that had giant dildos on them.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, are you kidding me?

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

That feels. This is what we're talking about.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's just weird, sicko people. And it, like the sign said, like, he's not a dictator, he's just a dick.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And it was like, this is your Saturday.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Congratulations.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's so weird. Congratulations on being furloughed, I guess, from the federal government.

[John Ashbrook]

Maladjusted.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's just maladjusted. Totally weirdo people.

[Josh Holmes]

Really weird folks. But it extends. You get the picture as to how it is that these people have gotten to where they are. When you look at some of the people who are leading them in that direction. One of our favorites in terms of just beclowning themselves when it comes to stuff like this, because Cory Booker is an individual who, as mayor of Trenton and then ultimately as a senator, I think reasonable people saw that he was like a normal, relatively normal individual at one point. So he understands the difference between clinical and insanity that the Democratic Party has now begun to represent and what ordinarily people just want out of their government. And yet this dude, every single time, whether it's Kavanaugh hearing with the Spartacus thing, every single. Just sort of milquetoast representation of liberal angst, he has to get to the front of the parade.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, he did like that fake filibuster thing earlier in the year over what?

[Josh Holmes]

I don't even remember what it was about.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's just performative narcissism.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he did like a 24 hour filibuster about something. Yeah. And nobody even remembers, but it was.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, oh, I gotta set in records.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like a really bad, like a.

[John Ashbrook]

C level actor, theater kid.

[Josh Holmes]

But it is a theater kid. But he's trying to represent that. He is sort of on the cutting edges.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

With these clinically diagnosable insane human beings. So anyway, clip one. Let's start with that. This is what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Do a smattering of applause.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is. So if you are at a protest with a US Senator right there trying to lead the chant and no one's even into it, are you really fighting the power? Are you a freedom fighter when you've got a US Senator there? What is exactly happening here? Are you thinking that I'm a leader of. Of the resistance? This is an uprising of the. Here's a US Senator filming us for his TikTok.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I know.

[Michael Duncan]

At what point do you realize that this is all just like, you guys gotta go home, go see your family. They might not miss you, but you should probably spend time with them.

[Josh Holmes]

It's so true. It's like you look over and it's the United States Senator, multiple terms. He's been a politician like his entire life. He's like, this is what you say, don't do it.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, that is.

[Josh Holmes]

And then he like looks over at the crowd, they're like, this is what democracy looks like. And then, and then. And it's. It's just.

[Michael Duncan]

You're not crossing the Delaware. You're not fighting for democracy. You've just watched way too much NBC and you've put yourself in a silo where like everyone in your life who tried to care about you and would tell you that, like, I don't know, man, maybe you should, like, calm down. You're not non binary. You just need a hobby. But you stop listening to those people and you've cut yourself off from them. And this is. Now you're with Cory Booker. You're in the bad place.

[Josh Holmes]

All of a sudden you're standing next to Cory Booker. Yeah, that's a good. If you find yourself on a beautiful October day standing next to Cory Booker, something's gone very wrong. Yeah, something's gone very wrong. There's one possible worse place to be. George Conway. You know, a week in, week out contender on King of the Hill. This guy has been just 10 of 10 stuff. But he's one of those boomers who don't actually understand their whole place in the world. Like at some point he became, I guess like lib famous, which is different than famous famous and it's different than political famous. Lib famous exists in one cylinder where it's just like a handful of psychopaths that like know who he is. But he, because that's his only cylinder that he resides in, thinks he's a famous human being. So of course, what an opportunity. Here at no Kings out here in graphic one, he shows up wearing a I am antifa T shirt with a lovely little neck neckerchief. What do we. Is that a neckerchief? Is that. We call it like a fluorescent. Maybe a chartreuse.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, it's a fluorescent. Like a highlighter yellow.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, chartreuse.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, chartreuse.

[Comfortably Smug]

I thought chartreuse is like a red.

[John Ashbrook]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Josh Holmes]

Chartreuse is a yellow chartreuse. I know that from my jig heads back in my Minnesota. Chartreuse. That's what that.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, it's the McLean folks, they call it chartreuse. But me and you, Duncan, we call highlighter yellow.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's what they say.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, there he is, clean shaven and on the market.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So he's ready. He shows up at this soccer.

[Comfortably Smug]

I just love it because I've been told reliably for like the last five years. Antifa is an idea.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's not a thing. It's not.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, on his very network it wasn't. It doesn't exist. It's something that's made up by Donald Trump.

[Comfortably Smug]

He just shows up at this thing with the neckerchief and the I am antifa shirt, like he's some sort of lib Che Guevara, you know, it's so funny. The idea this guy was a Republican a decade ago is just hilarious.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, he applied for a job in the first Trump administration, was denied. And that's why he is antifa.

[Michael Duncan]

He spiraled. Like, that's the thing is when you know his like villainous origin story of where his like, wife tried to get him a job, he didn't get it and he just spiraled off of it. Now he's claiming to be antifa. This guy was a corporate attorney for wlrk. That's like the most respect mergers and acquisition law firm. And now this dude's out here saying he's antifa.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's a revolutionary vanguard.

[Michael Duncan]

What are you doing, dude?

[Josh Holmes]

This is what has become of the Democratic Party. This is what they're listening to. This guy couldn't get a job as a line lawyer at the Department of Justice when his wife ran the campaign of the sitting President of the United States. And, like, that was pretty embarrassing. So he found out at some level that if he went on CN and shit talked the whole situation, that there was a constituency for that. And now he showed. Can we put it up one more time? Just look at him. Just look at him. And the best part is if you look at his face and he thinks he's saying something profound.

[John Ashbrook]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

Right. He's about to impart some wisdom on these people. So that apparently didn't take. And so he needs to turn it up a notch, like Cory Booker. Right. Because he's leading these people.

[John Ashbrook]

I can't wait for the.

[Josh Holmes]

These are his people now. So let's go to clip three, if you don't mind. Hey, Donald J.

[Michael Duncan]

How many kids did you start today?

[Josh Holmes]

Hey, hey, Donald J. How many kids did you start today?

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Hey.

[Josh Holmes]

Hey. Okay, that's like, how many kids?

[Comfortably Smug]

Not. What is that.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, the dog even wanted to leave him. Did you see that? The dog was embarrassed. He was like, wait, hold on. You're so embarrassing. Your dog leaves, you run that back, dude, watch the dog. You gotta watch it again. How many kids did you saw today?

[Josh Holmes]

Hey, hey, Donald J. How many kids.

[Michael Duncan]

Look, the dog looks around, he's like, oh, man, I gotta get out of here. He's on a leash. He's like, ah, top scene.

[Josh Holmes]

Can't believe I hitched my wagon to this bastard.

[John Ashbrook]

That scarf definitely is chartreuse.

[Josh Holmes]

It is a chartreuse scarf, but.

[John Ashbrook]

But again, throw that on his son.

[Josh Holmes]

He's starting. I don't even know what he was saying.

[Michael Duncan]

Hey. He said, hey, Trump, how many kids are gonna slaughter today? The guy just made water.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is like, you know, you don't have any basis for what you're talking about. When Trump just got back from announcing a peace deal, like, he's saving lives around the world. And this guy's like, hey, how many did you slaughter today? And the dog's like, I know, he's embarrassing, actually, I'm getting out of this.

[Comfortably Smug]

Hey, also, this is why people need to play sports, you know, because if you're going to make a chant, it's got to make sense. It's got to be pithy, it's got to be short. It's got to be easy for people to understand.

[Josh Holmes]

You certainly can't have that last section have multiple syllables.

[John Ashbrook]

Doesn't work.

[Josh Holmes]

It doesn't. Has to be more catchy than that. Yeah, that. That just. I mean, but it's Humil. The first time I saw that, I swear to God, I, like, I had to click off of it. I was, like, embarrassed for him and everyone around him. One more time. One more time. Look at the people around him that, like, don't know what he's saying. See if you can catch your face. There was an organizer that just went out there. Okay, okay.

[John Ashbrook]

Every single person there is there to get revved up about Trump.

[Michael Duncan]

But.

[John Ashbrook]

But.

[Comfortably Smug]

But are they, though? Because what I saw in there was just people holding up cameras or other people with bullhorns. It seems like it was. It was all other, like, leaders and organizers. Like, there wasn't actually a crowd of real people who are interested in what he had to say. I saw, like, four other bullhorns in that photo.

[Josh Holmes]

There are more people currently listening to this in the world than there are people who know who George Conway is.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's funny.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Aw.

[Josh Holmes]

And yet, poor George.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't feel bad for him. Dude, get, get, get. Get your life together. You got kids, dude. Like, get your life together. Apologize to your wife, put on a suit, and go do what you. You're a corporate lawyer, dude. That's why your chance suck it'. You're not an organizer. Go help an M and a transaction. That's what you do. Go home, dude. Apologize to your wife.

[Josh Holmes]

So there's a whole bunch of darker components to this thing. And we have talked and laughed a lot about how anytime you get a lib gathering where, you know, somebody's like, oh, it's Immigration. And they're like, yeah, no immigra. We let them all in and no ice. And then somebody else is like, yeah, crime's fine. And they were like, yeah, crime. And then someone else is like, yeah, we should have no oil. And everybody's like, yeah, all right. Like, I guess that's fine. Then someone's like, no Jews. And you're like, oh, but I guess.

[Comfortably Smug]

They'Re part of the coalition, assassinated our political opponents.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the perfect depiction.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

This picture is the perfect depiction of what we talk about on the Ruthless Friday program. Graphic 2. On the left hand, it said, this isn't about politics. It's about humanity. The sign right next to it is Free Luigi.

[Michael Duncan]

That's it.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, it's about humanity. Okay. Unless you murder a young father, in which case, humanity indeed.

[John Ashbrook]

Can we put that back up again? Because I noticed something about the Free Luigi sign that's a little Bit disturbing. Multicolor. It looks like it belongs on a bulletin board in an elementary school.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And an alarming number of these lunatics are teachers.

[John Ashbrook]

It's incredible, dude. This guy murdered a father of two sons in cold blood.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, I mean, it's really well said because it segues pretty well into the next thing that we wanted to talk about in clip 3A. Hey, you ever heard of those segments, you fat ass?

[Comfortably Smug]

What an Ozempic blast.

[Michael Duncan]

By the way, we got a lot.

[Josh Holmes]

Going on there and we're gonna have to play it for you again. Hey, Trevor.

[Michael Duncan]

And for the folks who are audio only, there's a very large obese woman who's gesturing at a gun, shooting in the neck. And I guess the car that was driving past them that she's gesturing this at had a pro Charlie sign on it. And so that. That was this person's reaction. Now the question is, who was this person?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, so this was highlighted by libs of TikTok and allegedly. And we haven't been able to independently completely verify it. I think we've gotten maybe halfway home. But we're just gonna say allegedly at this point. It was a Chicago public school teacher that made this grotesque gesture. Now, just imagine you're at this peace loving, democracy saving no kings rally and somebody comes by with a different political opinion of you than you who happens to support somebody who was assassinated a month ago. And your initial reaction is to try to mock the method of assassination like. Like shot in the neck and gesturing shot in the neck to the people who were driving by. That's not that there's nothing peace loving, no fun loving.

[Michael Duncan]

An individual like that shouldn't be around kids.

[Josh Holmes]

They should not. And I will say that, like, I don't know if this person is that I imagine we're the Internet. We'll find out and we'll report back to you when we do find out. But if that is a Chicago public school teacher, that person should be out of there immediately.

[John Ashbrook]

But this individual was not the only violent one. Every single one of these protests had people holding signs that said Republicans or Nazis. Everything that we were told you can't say over the past however many months. And yet they continue to push this sort of violent rhetoric. And it makes you wonder, how does the mainstream media cover this sort of event? Do they talk about the lady who was making fun of Charlie Kirk's assassination? Do they talk about the people with signs saying Republicans are Nazis? Well, I checked to see what NPR wrote about it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And so what's Interesting. NPR had an article titled NPR's Three Takeaways from the Rally.

[Comfortably Smug]

I can't believe.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, three. There's three big ones. Well, that's why you tune into NPR. It's all those big brains. Amazing they'd be able to retain all of that without the public funding.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, we gotta make sure we fund this.

[John Ashbrook]

That's exactly right. And takeaway number three, fellas, I'd like to read that to you. Peaceful protesting with song and dance. Despite the many criticisms that anti Trump protesters came to preach, there were displays of optimism, hope, and whimsy in several cities.

[Josh Holmes]

Whimsy.

[John Ashbrook]

Whimsy. That's what we saw from that lady.

[Josh Holmes]

I guess, guys, you know what we did overlook? Whimsy.

[John Ashbrook]

Whimsy.

[Josh Holmes]

The whimsy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, it's a production of Wicked on Broadway.

[Josh Holmes]

No, that's where they're trying to make an frank trans.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, yeah, I saw that.

[Josh Holmes]

That's. That's where they're doing that. I saw that review, by the way.

[Michael Duncan]

But.

[Josh Holmes]

But this is whimsy. Just whimsy. Bunch of whimsy stuff going on.

[John Ashbrook]

Thanks, npr.

[Josh Holmes]

It's. It's incredible. But I mean, look, you. You look at all of the newspapers, and I. Did you know how they covered this, whatever it was all about, like, in protest of Trump. And it was very like what the framing of an organizer would want you to do to cover it, like, if you spent a second doing it. And I saw a comedian, by the way, whose thing is, like, to go in and just ironically go up to people and be like, you know, just act like the biggest lib of all time and say, like, yeah, we should shoot whoever. And they were, like, agreeing and being.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, was it that no cap on guy?

[Josh Holmes]

It might be.

[Michael Duncan]

That dude is awesome. It's very funny.

[Josh Holmes]

It's very funny. Right. Except, like, he, like, does more journalism.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In ferreting out what it is that is the sentiment of this rally than all of the publications across the country combined. You would say it's whimsy. Nothing whimsy about joking about assassinations. There were people talking about how they wished the Butler bullet was a couple.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, there were lots of signs. You saw, like, lots of people were saying, like, I'm with Comey8647. And there were people who were wearing shirts depicting the assassination of Donald Trump at these events.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what's happening here also. Again, back to the, like, initial framework of what we were talking about. These are people who used a perfect October day Not to watch football, not to hang out with their family outside, not to enjoy the beautiful weather, go to a pumpkin patch or pick an apple or watch their kids game. To go cry about Donald Trump in the middle of, like, nothing in particular other than the fact that their party that they claim to represent has shut down the government. That's the same week there was a fricking international peace deal the likes of which we haven't seen in 3,000 fucking years. Like, that's just how out of touch these people are. And like, I get a little worked up about it because if I it is okay, I'm fine with the protest thing. Go do whatever it is that you want. But don't pretend as though you're making a sane argument. And that's fine if the leadership of the Democratic Party would take it for what it is. Like a, we disagree with the. They disagree with the policies. But, you know, here's what's responsible for us to do in terms of making sure that, like, I don't know, frontline troops get paid or anything to do with the federal government is actually just like the lights on at the Capitol. But they don't. They're subservient to it. They're downstream of all of this. So the same people who are sitting there doing this, shooting a fake finger gun into their neck at people from Charlie who are riding in a Charlie Kirk car are the people who are controlling the agenda that Chuck Schumer is setting. That is a fact. It just is. And, like, I'm not being hyperbolic, am I?

[John Ashbrook]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that's what's happening here.

[John Ashbrook]

No, that's exactly what's happening. We saw it all weekend long and we saw how Democrats have responded not only to the shutdown, but. But they were at these rallies. We saw what's his face from New Jersey in our clip earlier. And I know that we have a little bit more to talk about.

[Josh Holmes]

We do.

[John Ashbrook]

In terms of how they're using it to their benefit. Coming up.

[Josh Holmes]

So when we come back, we're going to get to how it's not an organic move and who's funding this thing, where it's coming from. We've got the answers right after this.

[John Ashbrook]

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[Trisha McLaughlin]

Alzheimer's doesn't start when the memory fades. It can begin decades earlier, quietly, in the brain. Science is advancing to better fight this disease. New tools can help doctors detect Alzheimer's early when we have the best chance to slow it down. Early detection means more time, more birthdays, more anniversaries, more moments that matter. Let's act sooner, not later. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the Partnership.

[Josh Holmes]

To Fight Chronic Disease. Okay, so we did a little research into this and our good friends over at Fox News did a fair amount more research into it and they wrote an article. Soros Foundation's helping to fund anti Trump no Kings Protest Nationwide Surprise.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh so surprising.

[Josh Holmes]

Surprise.

[Comfortably Smug]

I thought this was grassroots from the bottom up.

[Michael Duncan]

Like this is what democracy looks like. A grant from the Tides foundation via the Soros Open World Foundation.

[Josh Holmes]

This is what so Anyway, according to FoxNews.com, george Soros foundations are funding the New Kings protests that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and tens of thousands of protesters will be participating. They did participate on Saturday. Soros, a billionaire investor and notorious Open Democrat Party donor, is the founder of the Open society foundations. In 2023, the foundation, through the Open Society Action fund, issued a two year grant of $3 million to the Indivisible organization.

[John Ashbrook]

And what I'd like to point out here is that I'm assuming that they mentioned 2023 because that's when the most recent 990 is available. I cannot wait to see.

[Josh Holmes]

You're exactly right. And you don't want to get in the details of this, but you have to file it. It's like a two year lag on the 990s for nonprofits you don't understand and can't see what they're doing until two years later it's going to be much worse. Anyway, there were two they gave the grant, by the way, to support the grantees social welfare activities. According to the Open Societies foundation, social welfare is what that is. So apparently that's George Conway making a fucking ass clown out of himself. That seems. Social welfare Y Indivisibles Managing data and communications with participants for this particular no King's protest. They'll be taking place. It did take place across the country. Per the Open Society Foundation's website, Soros has, quote, giving away more than $32 billion of his fortune to the foundations. His son Alex serves as chairman of the board. This is the guy who collects Democratic politicians like playing cards and takes pictures of them all in the beautiful backdrop of what appears to be. It's either an office or some kind of a.

[Michael Duncan]

No, that's his penthouse that he has in downtown New York. It's where he parades them, where he's like, look, dad gave me so much money and all these Democrats want it and I bring them. It's like a humiliation ritual.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And he'll like, post a photo. And he's got Huma, who is married to Wiener, who.

[Josh Holmes]

They're forgetting that he did that.

[Michael Duncan]

So he's. I mean, like, this is such a weird, crude.

[Comfortably Smug]

When I think of no Kings in America, I think of the Soros family.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly. I mean, that's the thing is like, it is. This is all left wing, dark money and the cycle. It's like a closed circle of where he shows up, has Schumer show up to his penthouse. He takes a photo, he posts it online of like, look, I can make Schumer come here and have to pose with me for a photo. Then his daddy's foundation sends the money to this no Kings Foundation. And then Schumer puts a video up of being like, here I am at the no Kings protest. This is totally grassroots and normal.

[Josh Holmes]

Everybody, I just have to read this as an aside before we get into the meat of this, that the. According to the organization's website, Ezra Levin is the executive co director behind the group. Leah Greenberg, Levin's wife, serves as the other executive co director.

[Michael Duncan]

Family business.

[Josh Holmes]

It is a family business for one. Also, it's interesting that there's so much anti Israel coming out of that. These are the same outfits that were funding all of the pro Palestinian, like Gays for Gaza and all that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Shutting down college campuses.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Shutting down highways so people can't get to work. Blocking ambulances.

[Josh Holmes]

Interesting, right? I mean, just an incredible coincidence that they've got that going on. But anyway, now they're involved here. An Indivisible received a $350,000 grant from the Tides Advocacy, a group affiliated with the Tides Network that. I mean, this is just such.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's just passing paper.

[Josh Holmes]

Ugly, ugly, ugly mess. The Tides Foundation, a foundation affiliated with the Tides Network, has been accused of Funding anti Israel campus riots. And that's kind of where I was going on that. But that's.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, look, you know what, what caught my attention, buddy? This line. In total, the Open Society foundation have awarded $7.61 million in grants to the group behind no Kings.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, that.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a big.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a big. It's a big donation.

[John Ashbrook]

That's a lot of money.

[Josh Holmes]

And remember, this is like a grassroots protest. Like, at most, what you're doing is from an organizational standpoint, getting permits and doing the requisite work that would take to gather people legally in public spaces, which is not nothing. But it is. It's not $7.61 million. It's a whole bunch of promotion.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And a whole bunch of paying people.

[Michael Duncan]

To show up, walk around money.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Little street money. Make sure you get your people out there, maybe just a couple of sacks of cash to make sure that you come out and support the cause.

[Michael Duncan]

It's so pathetic. It's. I mean, that's the thing is. It actually is pretty sad because, you know, I was seeing these. These photos that people would post on acts of like these. You know, you'd see people showing up in the Denver protest that had the T shirt which was displaying what would have happened if Donald Trump hadn't turned his head. Hoping that they were hoping that had happened. Right. And the girl next to her had an 86, 47 shirt on, like these foundations. What they've done in trying to build this kind of like a movement up is they're just. They're making people deranged. They're making people dangerous. They're creating a dangerous environment for all of us in America. But don't you think.

[Josh Holmes]

Smug. They're also taking advantage of real mental health problems in the first place.

[Michael Duncan]

Totally. Totally. I mean, they have got these people. I mean, we've been talking for a while about how. I mean, we saw the election results. The left has essentially lost touch with Americans. MSNBC, CNN. They've got an audience of 5,000 people that they talk to all day long. And those people are completely siloed away from what the real world is like. It's why they lost the popular vote. It's why they lost the electoral vote. It's. They have this group that they're essentially just radicalizing. They have them sit in a stew of insanity that they show up to these protests and then they listen to their MSNBC and they're like, gee, I'm worried that Donald Trump is going to become a king. And Then if they were actually to talk to one of their neighbors, they're like, I just went to my kids soccer game. You know, egg prices are down 90%. Like egg prices are down 90% since the start of the year. Like normal people aren't doing this stuff. And these foundations, that's left wing dark money is enabling it. It's splitting up families, it's making people deranged, it's making people dangerous.

[John Ashbrook]

All of that is insane. But again, you might ask yourself, why did they choose a weekend in late October to push all of these people out and about what was it about the states of Virginia in New Jersey?

[Michael Duncan]

Really good question.

[John Ashbrook]

All of these left wing organizations wanted to do. Josh, I don't know if you have an idea on this.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I think you flagged this initially.

[Michael Duncan]

And this is a good point.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, is a part of running campaigns and particularly when you're running campaigns that are in oppositional in nature against a president, against a party that's in power, your whole goal is to try to harness as much anxiety as you possibly can. Big part of that is making sure that people vote because everybody is sort of used to the four year cycle where you vote for president. We have a pretty good turnout rate as a country when it comes to presidential election voting, particularly in recent years, midterms are a step back off your elections. Terrible. It's really terrible. And so the whole goal for an oppositional party is to make sure that you over index on that. How better to do that, gathering everybody in one place. And this was your observation? Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And in the state of New Jersey, early vote doesn't start until later this week. However, mail in vote is already happening and Jack Ciatorelli, the Republican candidate for governor, has run a great race. His opponent, the Democrat Mikey Shirell, has run a terrible race. She's lying about him toward the end. And that has led to a much closer race than Democrats ever could have envisioned in the state of New Jersey where they have an 850,000 vote registration advantage. So you have a close race. You have Democrats trying to get out the vote in the state of New Jersey. The same holds in the state of Virginia where you have Northern Virginia, which is overly represented by federal employees who are now not working because Democrats have shut them out of work and blamed Trump for the situation. And so you have people walking around these no kings crowds among federal employees in Northern Virginia all weekend long saying you need to go and you need to early vote for Abigail Spamberger, the lib who's running for Governor or Jay Jones, the guy who texted about shooting some Republican and his kids. Like, they, they know that they're down, specially in that AG race. We had Miaris on our own show. They know that they're fighting from behind in that race. So they pull out all the stops to make sure that they can get as much activity a couple weeks out from the election as they can get. And there was a result. So I think we. Yeah, go ahead.

[Josh Holmes]

No, no, no. I was going to say you can put that graphic up and then we can talk about this a little bit more.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, so. So this is, this is reporting from Prince William County. This is just outside of the D.C. metro area. Right on the. Sort of an excerpt. And it is not principally a left leaning county. It's like 60, 40, probably, right, Michael?

[Comfortably Smug]

Like that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. So they had, on Sunday, the day after the no Kings rally, they had 4,300 people who turned out and cast a ballot on that Sunday in Prince William County. This is Herndon. These are areas where a lot of federal employees live, people who are upset with the government, people who are probably Democrats who may not have been as agitated and may be like activated to cast that vote for a lunatic like Jay Jones when they otherwise wouldn't have been. I want to report to you first here on the Variety program, a number from Fairfax county, which is notoriously Liberal. Okay. In 2021, on this date Monday when we're recording this, they had 21,000 early votes cast. Okay. In 2024. This is a presidential election this year, in 2025, 71,000 early votes cast in Fairfax County. So the reason, the reason why they held the no Kings rally at the time they did, and I would argue the reason why Democrats in the Senate kept the shutdown going as long as they did was because they wanted to use the anger of the feds to turn them out to vote in Fairfax county in that Virginia election.

[Josh Holmes]

It makes a lot of sense. And look, I mean, you're stringing things together here at this point. But, but that's.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I think that's, that's compelling. No, that's, that is 100% what's happening.

[Josh Holmes]

It's extremely compelling. I will say, like, from a Republican standpoint, you look at that and you would say, like, you know, why does a Senate minority leader give a shit about the AG race in Virginia? We have to understand is Republicans live in a dynamic atmosphere where we understand a whole bunch of inputs. Day to day guys like Chuck Schumer still operate with a 2005 mentality every. If you want to know every word that comes out of his mouth, you go back in time to 2005, and whatever that environment looked like, that's what he says and that's what he does. Right. And in 2005, the whole political environment was about, let's show, Democrats took devastating losses, 55 Senate, Republican Senate seats. President Bush was reelected straight up. You had incredible amounts of Republican gains in the House, like what was seen to be generationally impossible to overcome majorities. And what they said is, it all comes back to Virginia and New Jersey in these next year's elections. And so we're going to use that as sort of a catapult to try to convince the mainstream media and everything else that is a harbinger of things to come. Knowing that they have the base of government, voters in Northern Virginia, that they can work off of that if they can turn them all out, you can overwhelm a population that has a sentiment that doesn't agree with what it is that they're trying to do in the rest of country. The. The state doesn't work in presidential elections. Off your elections, you go from like a 80, 75 to 80% in a, in a presidential down to like a 57, 55, maybe even worse.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Turnout.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, turnout ratio. And so they see this as the whole catalog that they go back to the media and the American people being like, these guys have run out of Runway with the American people, and we're now the new voice. And the media has always used that as a springboard to talk about midterm elections where they've said, well, I don't know, look at New Jersey, look at Virginia. Now, it didn't work for him in 09 because Obama came in and destroyed everything. And all of a sudden you had Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell and it went the other way. But again, that was kind of a harbinger at that stage. But this is what his mentality is. So it is not at all out of the realm of possibilities that they shut this government down, not just because Chuck Schumer had an AOC problem and a leadership problem, but that they saw this in punishing people of Northern Virginia, making sure they don't have paychecks in order to advance their electoral prospects.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, because if you look at the downstate, the rural parts of Virginia in terms of their early vote, the early vote for rural Virginia is actually up at this point. It's up. I mean, before the no Kings weekend, it was up much higher than Northern Virginia. So it was Mayday territory. You combine that with the J. Jones lunacy and Democrats, they'll never admit it publicly. They're worried about it slid side, it slid sideways. It really did. And so they, they are like, we have to hold this rally. We have to have a huge presence and we have to have maximum impact in Northern Virginia where the most people are going to vote for Democrats so that we have a shot to win this race. And you know, it might work well.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's our question, that's our question of the day is will the Dems no kings shut down strategy work? You know there's a lot, there's a lot to suggest it might. You read those numbers alarming if you're a Republican. And the problem that we've had on the Republican side in off year and midterm elections in the Trump era is that we don't get the kind of turnout that is the base of the Republican Party to show up in presidential elections. They haven't shown up frankly at any time. 2018, 2022. Now here we are in 2025. This is the chance to overcome that. And if you're listening to this and you're in Virginia or New Jersey, like dude, put it on, grab your neighbor, like go out and vote. Because honestly they are in droves and they're going to sing that narrative and you're going to hear it in your ear and you'll have another opportunity in 26 to try to reverse that. But you're going to for the next 12 months hear about how every one of your ideas is all of a sudden unpopular.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, they have the momentum and as.

[Josh Holmes]

A contagion effect because you know what, middle of the road voters, they just like a winner. They like momentum. They operate on mutual consensus. And if mutual consensus in the media and amongst their wine mom friends and everybody else is that like, well everybody's done with this Trump administration. Republicans like it becomes problematic. It really does. So you gotta pay attention. So that's our question of the day. When we come back, we're gonna get to your comments from the last question of the day is what will happen to Fetterman? Guy had the audacity to speak a little bit of truth as a Democrat and boy oh boy, they didn't care for that. What will happen to him? Your comments right after this.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress. Chicago politician Dick Durbin.

[Josh Holmes]

Now Durbin has a new scheme.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

He's doing the dirty work to benefit corporate megastores. Durbin's bill could Cut corners on your credit card security, putting your personal data at risk. Big chain retailers and warehouse stores want to inflate their profits and liberal Dick Durbin would help them do it. Tell senators, say no to the megastores and Dick Durbin paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. When you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we ask you a question of the day. Leave your answers, and we read every single one of them. We summarize and get back to the very next episode. To do that, we always start with a voice first.

[John Ashbrook]

Comment comes from hcg. HCG writes Fetterman absolutely gets primaried because the current Democratic Party is indistinguishable from North Korea, where anyone who steps out of line gets an anti aircraft cannon to the face. My God. Where the challenge probably comes from the left. Don't rule out Josh Shapiro. Once he realizes the jihadi caucus will never let him on the ticket in 28. That's good. While Shapiro bills himself as a, quote, moderate, his record shows that he is a party apparatchik who will bring Fetterman's 96% compliance up to the full 100% that the Dems demand and expect.

[Michael Duncan]

That's good.

[John Ashbrook]

Great analysis.

[Josh Holmes]

Was the guy I read. This is amazing Democratic politics. Remember the guy Conor Lamb?

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So he ran in a suburban district of Pittsburgh and won as a moderate Democrat, like a legit. That's how he ran as a congressman. And then he decided he was running for Senate and recruited by Schumer. And everybody's like, no, this guy can win Pennsylvania. This is great. And then they didn't want Fetterman to run because he was like a left wing psychopath at the time. Fetterman lays waste to him as an invalid. Like, remember he had a stroke, he couldn't speak and he still just absolutely crushed Conor Lamb. Well, Connor Lamb in the last three months has showed up and being like, how dare Fetterman? And he's like way to the left of him, all of a sud. And like, I think they're recruiting him, dude.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is Democrats always take the lesson from any action, whether they win or lose. We haven't gone far left enough. Yeah, every time.

[Josh Holmes]

It's true.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's like the Beto o' Rourke of Pennsylvania.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. He's like, I don't care what I have to say as long as I can get my name on that ballot, baby. What a psycho. All right. Comment 2 Dunks, Runks.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is from Eric Peterson. Eric writes, put me down For Devil Wife.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's go.

[Comfortably Smug]

I forgot. Smug said that the episode separates from Fetterman and then primaries him.

[Michael Duncan]

That's a twist.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wins the primary, loses the election, and goes back to Fetterman as if nothing happened.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, this is a great storyline.

[Comfortably Smug]

John takes her back because he stayed. She stayed with him after his stroke. John then runs for state office and wins easily.

[John Ashbrook]

This is.

[Michael Duncan]

This is gonna be the next 12 months. That's deep lore. That's deep lore.

[Josh Holmes]

That is deep lore.

[John Ashbrook]

I love that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, Smug, what do we got?

[Michael Duncan]

Comment 3 is from Ron Swanson's alter ego. They write federen will be harder for the Dems of PA to kill than Frankenstein's monster. It will take more than pitchforks and fire. He's pretty popular in PA along with Governor Shapiro, whom I believe will have a say in any dam primary of the sitting senator. If they primary him, he will win the primary and break the party in Pennsylvania in the process. So please, please, please primary him.

[John Ashbrook]

I love that.

[Michael Duncan]

Chaos there.

[Josh Holmes]

That's chaos. That is. That's good. It's a good theory. It's one that would be a happy ending, which we've been involved in politics long enough to know that that's unlikely.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But I love the idea. It's fantastic. Listen, we got some variety after this, fellas. Brazen daytime robbery going on at one of the world's most, I would say, sought after museums. We're going to get to that, along with some combat sports.

[John Ashbrook]

Love the combat sports.

[Josh Holmes]

Right after this. Okay, fellas, so a real brazen robbery. It's kind of like almost like an Ocean's Eleven type situation that they've got going on here. Fox News reports the brazen Louvre thieves made targeted heist treasures could be melted down, according to an expert. So what happened was a gang of thieves robbed the Louvre museum on Sunday and they made off with some of France's most famous crown jewels that might end up in a melting of their loot. That's according to an FBI expert. And first of all, how is this possible in this day and age? You have thieves going into the Louvre and stealing something.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it's pathetic. So I follow this because it did seem like a movie. Like, oh, you know, breaking into a museum, steal. Because these were. These weren't like, you know, small, small pieces. This was serious, serious stuff. Like I saw Kill Mead on Fox and Friends doing. The breakdown is like, this necklace had like a thousand diamonds and 300 emeralds on it. And then this necklace had like 1900 diamonds on it.

[Josh Holmes]

And they're a necklace that is in the Louvre.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This isn't on somebody's neck.

[Michael Duncan]

And then they had the, like, time frame. So like, the museum opened at 9am and that's right when the thieves. I guess they used like a people move. What were those things called? Like a. Not crane, but, like, they used it to levitate up to, like, the second floor. They hopped over, like one of those.

[Comfortably Smug]

Scissor elevator sort of things. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And so they hopped over. Over into it. This is right when the museums opened.

[Comfortably Smug]

And they're dressed as construction workers, I understand.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And they just used saws and they cut open the cases, they took the jewels and they were on scooters and left all within 7 minutes. 7 minutes.

[John Ashbrook]

Scooters are one of the worst things for society.

[Josh Holmes]

So, I mean, this is well planned.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, clearly. So the thing is, for so long, the reason would be like, oh, the reason this museum in Paris or in London keeps these is because they'd be safe. Like, you saw like in Afghanistan, they had those massive Buddha statues that the Taliban detonated. And whenever there's wars in third world countries, someone will loot the museum. Like it happened in Iraq. But what's the case now? France should feel ashamed that this happened.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, you can get away with something like that.

[Michael Duncan]

This is ridiculous. Just four dudes in construction outfits, like, they go to a Halloween city and now they've made off with, like, they don't even put a dollar amount. No.

[Josh Holmes]

It's priceless.

[John Ashbrook]

But let's be honest, man, the French can't defend anything. I mean, look what's happened to their country.

[Josh Holmes]

Look what happened.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, let's not. We don't need to go all the way back to World War I when they had the Maginot Line that the Germans just rolled over like it was nothing. The French can't defend a single thing. And these are their national. These are Europeans, Europe's grandest treasures.

[Michael Duncan]

All these, all the jewels in the Louvre should be brought to America for safety. Trump should have them all brought. Demand at the World Presidential Library.

[Josh Holmes]

Demand at the world.

[Michael Duncan]

He knows how to keep things under control. Bring them here. You had your chance, France. Now you're another one of these third world countries that like, oh, someone might loot your museum at any moment. You know, it's pathetic.

[John Ashbrook]

That's exactly right.

[Michael Duncan]

This is what you get.

[Josh Holmes]

Melting him down is a different thing, though, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's it. So, like, Kilmeat again. Kill me's always on top of this stuff. Man, he's got the facts.

[Josh Holmes]

He was like, hardest working man in show business.

[Michael Duncan]

Because you can't roll up to be like, listen, how much can I get for Napoleon's, you know, crown here? Because everyone's gonna be like, I'm not. You know, you can't move that. You can't touch that. But what they do is they would pull all the diamonds out, melt down the gold, because you can. Then they're like, you can take it to a black market. They'll like, recut the diamonds so that they can flip them. And then the goal is just. It's melted gold. Right. Because the thing is, is that that is what makes it extra tragic is because, like, this could be some, like, you know, jewelry that was in the wedding of a king. And now it's gonna end up as just like an Antwerp being sold as loose diamonds. I mean, I thought, pathetic. Francis should be ashamed. It's. It's pathetic.

[Josh Holmes]

I've thought about it. Because the melting thing bothered. I mean, you're destroying it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, they're destroying it stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

And I've thought about it, and you're right that it is tough to move on an open market, being like, yeah, this was in the Louvre and I stole it.

[Michael Duncan]

France should just be like, no questions asked. 100 million euros if you bring them. That's it. No questions asked if they want them back. Because that country is clearly out of control. They don't know what they're doing. They can't keep their citizens safe. You know, you look at the streets of Paris, it's a nightmare every day. But, you know, there's no shame in it because those are gonna be melted down. They're gonna be gone. What, you think the French police are gonna catch them?

[Josh Holmes]

No, I got an idea. I got an idea on a buyer, I think the Tides Foundation.

[Comfortably Smug]

There we go.

[Josh Holmes]

They seem like they've got a bottomless space.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, no kings. We will buy the crowns of previous kings to prove a point.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. It seems to me it's a limitless pot.

[Michael Duncan]

That's hilarious.

[Josh Holmes]

And, like, this would be something that would go well with his collection of playing cards of democratic, you know, Alex.

[Michael Duncan]

Source could wear on his wedding.

[John Ashbrook]

And, you know, it's. In some ways, it's the spoils of their larger efforts.

[Josh Holmes]

Could work. You never know. In sports. Last week, we brought to you that hockey fight situation, which.

[Michael Duncan]

Awesome.

[Josh Holmes]

It prompted a terrible take from Smuggler, but it did get us into this larger discussion about sports that are not a part of your day to day Sports consumption that probably should be.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, Think of it like espn the Ocho Combat sports.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Instead we get like, you know, an eighth rate college basketball, women's basketball game or whatever, you know, like, you know what comes on when you flip, like you watch ESPN Countdown or whatever. And then all of a sudden it flips over and you get some horrible action. What if you got this? Clip four.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, so this is like a. A monkey bar fight. A monkey bar fight.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh.

[Michael Duncan]

Ooh.

[John Ashbrook]

Guys are kicking each other, holding on to the monkey bars.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, look at that.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, bro, it's just so aggressive.

[John Ashbrook]

It might be best two out of three.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, are you like.

[Josh Holmes]

Watch this.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh. See, that's tactical. That's tactical.

[Josh Holmes]

No, takes a heel right to the nose.

[John Ashbrook]

You really gotta watch this on YouTube.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So if you're an audio only listener, what we were just listening to was a Japanese game show that features monkey bar kicking fights. And what they do is they have a square.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Four people hanging on there.

[Josh Holmes]

Like they raise them above. It looks like at least 15ft. It looks like a fall. And they're holding onto the monkey bar. And the whole point is to use your feet to try to kick these people off. This thing gets super aggressive and it's so.

[Michael Duncan]

It's amazing to watch because like these people are kicking each other like in the face. But if you watch, the most effective thing is to like kick someone in the wrist so they have to let go.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, that is insane.

[Michael Duncan]

He's just like on top of him, stomping him.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

This is, this is a tremendous sport. Tremendous sport. Because there's so much. I mean, there's like that mental aspect of I'm going to try to go for like a wrist kick instead of a face kick. But it's just, it's a legit combat sport because it's like you cannot block from getting kicked in the face. What? You can try to like move out of the way, but like, nothing you can do.

[Josh Holmes]

You gotta take it to the face. You gotta figure it out.

[Michael Duncan]

Wonderful face, wonderful sport, Highly endorsed.

[John Ashbrook]

I think, I think the old man would be very good at this.

[Comfortably Smug]

I don't know, man. I mean, that is a violent. It's a violent sport and it requires full body strength, core strength, leg strength, arm strength.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And plus an ability to take a few shots in the face from a heel.

[Michael Duncan]

Those are legit kicks. I'm surprised we didn't see any bleeding, like broken noses.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sure you got that in the bottom. We didn't see the bottom when they Fell.

[Michael Duncan]

I want to see, like, I want to see the blood. Like, this is legit, legit fighting.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a real test of athletics because there's no blocking.

[Michael Duncan]

It's so serious.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I don't know. It might be something worth taking a second look.

[Michael Duncan]

People will die.

[Josh Holmes]

But we tried to find out if there was some kind of a league, unlike the hockey league, which, by the way, like, tweeted us and appreciated the shout out. Yeah. Did tune into that situation because they were great.

[John Ashbrook]

Gonna be good.

[Josh Holmes]

We couldn't find these people. I don't know if it's gone underground.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think it's a more underground thing, like the sort of place you melt down. You know, the.

[Michael Duncan]

The jewels of Napoleon. While you're waiting for your crown to get melted down, you can watch a monkey bar fight.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

So I got to hang out in places like that.

[Josh Holmes]

So head on over to the Tides foundation and you will find monkey bar kick fighting.

[John Ashbrook]

Find.

[Comfortably Smug]

Find your closest, closest opium den and they have monkey bar fighting and they melt down gold.

[Josh Holmes]

Incredible. All right, so listen, an awful lot of you have been wanting to have a larger discussion with DHS and about what's going on with Immigration Enforcement and ice. Obviously, we know about the violence. We've covered a lot here on the program. There's also a whole bunch of other questions that deal with, you know, where are the priority? Like, how are they doing this? Right. Cause you get nothing. But mainstream media is like, oh, they're just picking people off the streets and deporting them and whatever. And you get the Kilmore Abrego Garcia example and everything else that just, like, fundamentally pollutes what the good people of ICE and what Homeland Security are doing. So we asked DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Trisha McLaughlin to come in, put a finer point on all this. Want to welcome to the program somebody you've probably seen a lot of these days because she is a spokesperson for all things, but she's the DHS Assistant Secretary for public affairs, Trish McLaughlin. How are you?

[Trisha McLaughlin]

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, this is exciting. I've seen a lot of you on Fox and on other networks talking about all of the various things that you guys are into. Obviously ice, a key component to all of that, and stokes feelings on the left. This is something that the ruthless variety program has thought long thought was absolutely necessary for so many reasons. Give me a little overview of where you think things sit. Where are we in terms of the overall mission of ice, and then we'll get Into Homeland and everything else.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah, of course. And Homeland Security is such a huge, gigantic organization. 280,000 employees, which is crazy. Anything from TSA to Secret Service and then CBP and ISO, which of course get a lot of attention, as they should. It's such a critical part of the President's mission and a huge part of the reason that he was really elected president. You know, we have a tall hill to climb, but I think that it's been pretty exceptional what the men and women of ICE and law enforcement have been able to do, closing the border first and foremost. But now we're able to take those CBP agents, many of whom were on the ground and processing people into the country under the Biden administration and now they're out in the interior of our country. We're about almost 500,000 arrests at this point between CBP and ICE and then we have about 1.6 million self deportations, which is what we're really aiming for.

[Josh Holmes]

Because it's so only way to completely.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Do it to get the masses of numbers. It's a lot less expensive, it's about 70% less if you self deport than if we have to forcibly remove you. And as well, it's a lot safer for law enforcement, it's a lot safer for the communities. It was a lot safer for the migrants themselves.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no question about it. So look, we heard you talking a lot after the Dallas situation and unfortunate attack there. Not an isolated incident, which is the sad part. We look at what's happening in Portland. Can you give us a little context to the, you know, what you see on cable news and everything else. But like what's happening in Portland?

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah, what's happening in Portland? Portland is, we're seeing, it's increasingly organized, we're seeing, are seeing quite a bit of violence. But because President Trump and Secretary Noem have surged resources that has stymied just a little bit and we want to keep on seeing that, that slowdown. We are seeing antifa aligned individuals and President Trump has really tasked the entire administration from Secretary Bessant to Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, Secretary Noem. We're going to get, we're going to follow the money, we're going to see where is this funding coming from because we know some of it is domestic and some of it is also foreign coming in to really stoke violence and chaos.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I mean the thing that I find most interesting is it's a hard job given all of the policies of the open border under Biden and all of the illegal immigrants who came in the country and incredible job y' all have done so far. I gotta imagine it's made more difficult by the fact that like you have to go on cable news and argue with all of these people who want to see you not succeed. Do you enjoy that? I enjoy watching it.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

I relish the fight a little bit. But I think it's all because we know what we're fighting for, which is law and order. The men and women of ICE constantly, you said it yourself, demonized by the media, dehumanized by the media, called Nazis, likened to the Gestapo. And so the fact of the matter is these men and women are enforcing the rule of law, the law on the books of Congress. So these men and women are putting themselves at risk every single day. They're facing 1000% increase in assaults against them. So I'm happy any day of the week to go on cable news and fight the fight for these guys.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, you mentioned some of the stats and you guys have made such great progress on making arrests and the self deportations, but Democrats have shut the government down. I'm wondering if that has had an impact on your ability to deport the most dangerous people who are here right now.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

I think at this moment it hasn't slowed us down. But as, as soon as things, you know, continue as we. We're not seeing much of an end in sight to this shutdown, I think resources are going to start to get strained. So it was about two weeks ago that Secretary Noem, they reallocated money so that our law enforcement was being paid during this shutdown. Because at first ICE and CBP and Secret Service and across the board were out there, you know, arresting these criminal legal aliens off of our streets and they weren't being paid for it as well. While they're being told by the likes of JB Pritzker that they're going to be prosecuted for enforcing the rule of law. It makes, makes no sense. It's, it's crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

It makes no sense. There's also just a ton of misconception about what's going on up here. Right. I mean, I think the administration, you guys did an incredible job at the onset of all of the operations, at the beginning of the administration to show that we're getting criminals out of here and people with deportation orders were getting them out of here. And then I think that the left, at some point, just because of the pure media saturation, if nothing else, had gotten into a point where they were basically accusing you guys of like just random traffic stops like throwing people out of the country. Help prioritize that for our listener. And how you all are dealing. How is DHS and ICE and everything else dealing with all the. Still a priority, obviously to get criminal aliens out of the country, as it always will be. But the identification process, how you go.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

About doing it, that is a huge misconception and I think intentionally so much like how the media says we're arresting immigrants and they don't clarify that it's illegal aliens.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's the Maryland man.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Of course, the Maryland. Actually, I think that's a perfect example is the Kilmara Brigo Garcia case where that was kind of the tipping point. I think that the media was really trying to convince people that this guy was just indiscriminately picked up. He had no criminal record, this, you know, this innocent Maryland father. And in reality he was sent to see cop because he's a human trafficker and MS.13 gang member. The fact that they tried to whitewash that you had Senator Van Hollen flying on US Taxpayer dime down to Elsa Salvador to share a meal with this guy, that to us really was the tipping point. And we've tried, you know, and we will continue to bang our heads against the wall in communicating the fact that 70% of those illegal aliens who have been arrested under this administration have either prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges against them. But that doesn't even include people who are wanted for murder in their country of origin. That doesn't include people who have Interpol notices, human rights abusers, known or suspected terrorists. They might not have a rap sheet in the United States. You don't want these people in your country.

[John Ashbrook]

Totally.

[Josh Holmes]

So help me understand that. Because I think that's a really important point is because you now have done due diligence on people who have deportation orders who may have previous criminal histories. That's sort of tough to piece together. Obviously, there's international legal components, but. But that. Is that still sort of the top priority of what you all are working on 100%.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

When we say we want the worst of the worst out of this country, it's not just a talking point. It really is what it is. That's who we're going after. And these are not indiscriminate stops. We're not just walking on the sidewalk and picking up random people. We have intelligence. We have reasonable suspicion under the fourth amendment of the Constitution. That's who we're going after. And it really is child. I mean, I get reports on my desk every single day saying Who? The worst. The worst people who were picked up the day prior. I mean, I saw on my desk today child pedophile murder. There was a trend member really despicable human beings that it shouldn't be left or right, Republican or Democrat. You don't want these people in the interior of our country.

[John Ashbrook]

Totally. And I'm so glad you're focused on that, because what we know about, what we saw during the Biden years was all of these sort of fighting age men who weren't even necessarily from Latin America, who were coming over from Africa, coming over from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, places from all over the world who were just magically in Mexico and walked across the border. And it just seems like it's such an important thing to focus on getting some of those people out of the country.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

It's 100% a focus. And I think, of course, we talk a lot about the border crisis because it was a humanitarian crisis and a national security crisis. But the other piece of this is the legal immigration system that the Biden administration completely corrupted. I mean, temporary protected status, which is, you know, supposed to be used for very rare circumstances. And for about an 18 month period of time. We have people who are using this VISA program for 25 years. They've been here for a quarter of a century, and there's very little vetting. We just were talking earlier off the show about how there's this guy who is a known terrorist who came in this country. We're seeing that across the world.

[Josh Holmes]

Can you put a finer point on that? Because I'm blown away by this story.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And this is just now kind of surfacing. Give us some context. This is a Hamas fighter, essentially participated in October 7th.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yep. So this is an individual that the Department of Justice just arrested out of Louisiana. He entered the country on a visa legally under the Biden administration, September of 2024, first to Oklahoma, and then he moved to Louisiana. This isn't an individual who was involved in the training of Hamas fighters, but also he was involved with the. Allegedly involved with the massacre of 69 individuals, including four U.S. citizens. This is somebody who has been living with impunity in our country as he just slaughtered innocent people in Israel and innocent Americans as well.

[Comfortably Smug]

And he was granted permanent legal status in the United States during the Biden administration.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

During the Biden administration. I mean, underscores horrendous vetting, considering it was online and on social media that this individual, what he did, the terrorist attacks he conducted.

[Comfortably Smug]

Go ahead, question. So how do we stitch all this together? Like with the, you know, this is what I'm doing. This is the most terrifying thing that to me is it's a big world out there. People are coming to the United States, and we know things that we know in the United States. We have rap sheets of people who've been arrested and things like that. How do you piece together things like Interpol and social media and intelligence abroad so that when somebody shows up at our shores and says, hey, I want, you know, temporary legal status here in this country, that we have a full picture of who these people are, It's.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

That's such a great and important question, and I actually think that's something we've gotten a lot of flack for, is these, say, temporary protected status or shuttering some of these programs that would let people in with visas. The reason why we're doing that in so many cases is because their country of origin has horrendous vetting or has a government that's infiltrated with terrorists or people who hate the United States. So how can we count on them to do their vetting and let them into the United States? It's something we're going to have to keep on pushing back against Secretary Noem. She's done a phenomenal job of going to south and Central America and brokering these information agreements so that we know who's on their way up to the country. Right. It's not just one stop is America. They're making their way up. And so many times it is criminals, it's known or suspected terrorists. I mean, just in the interior of the United States. In the last 250 days, we've arrested 700 known or suspected.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow, that's wild. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah. What took 17, 18 for 9, 11. You know, I mean, that is a wild deal. The one thing that stands out to me about the way you guys are going about all this is that you got Secretary Noem on the road, as are many of you, and seeing this firsthand, which is a huge departure from what we had with Mayorkas, who didn't. Didn't he ever visit the border? I'm not sure if he ever.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, Kamala was down in South America. She was gonna find the root causes of migration.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Call.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, she figured it out. She was a SAR dude. I mean, that's the way what you do down there. But, like, his thing was. Oh, yeah, no, no, I'm all about. But actually, like, never really. I mean, maybe went one photo op, but never saw any of this stuff. And of course, at this point, it was an interior issue because they let 20 million people. They just never addressed it.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

No, they never addressed it. But also, he vilified his own law enforcement. You guys remember when he. There was the whipping incident with horse reins, Border patrol. And Secretary Noem went down to meet with them. I think it was her second week on the job. Because this has been a broken agency under Mayorkas and under Biden for the last four years. I mean, I think what we see with ICE too, is that we have to unleash those men and women. They've just been sitting. Some of these people have been working from home. Home for four years as they're supposed to be law enforcement agents. So it's really Secretary Noem getting on the ground, seeing what these men and women need, what resources they need, what, hey, I'm here with you. I have your back. As you're being dehumanized and demonized in the media and also, I mean, making sure we don't have these broken agencies anymore so they can actually do the job and carry out this mandate.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, Actually do what's on the books already. Right. So, Trisha, it's your second stint in the Trump orbit. You were there in the first term as well. You've come back in the second, obviously in a really important role. Tell me about your experiences that. I mean, it seems to us, and we've said this a lot on the show, that the first time around was a lot about. We talked about this with Eric Trump last week. Just trying to figure this thing out.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And of course, just unbelievable amount of media, tax, lawfare, everything else that we have with the Russiagate deal. This time around, it feels like everybody knew what the plan was, and on day one, it just start running. Is that. Are we right about that?

[Trisha McLaughlin]

I think you're completely right. I think that also this administration has just so done apologizing and that's so freeing for all of us because we don't have to apologize for doing our jobs day in and day out and defending the men and women of law enforcement. I also think President Trump has a remarkable team around him from a G Vondy, Secretary Noem Hegseth. I mean, everyone's been really remarkable. So total kudos to the president for putting that team together.

[Josh Holmes]

It feels like the team is working well together. Everybody gets along on a personal level. Obviously you have disagreements when you're dealing with huge amounts of things, but it seems like by and large, everybody's sort of pulling the wagon in one direction.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Oh, I think absolutely And I think the American people have also woken up to what was going on in the country for the last four years. The perfect example, of course, is the border crisis and the humanitarian crisis that Biden manufactured and created. So I think the people, they don't believe the media anymore. And that is so refreshing because as you know, head of public affairs at dhs, every single day we're dealing with a new hoax from the media.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

So it's very refreshing. We also have X, right?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Elon Musk gave us that kind of power.

[Comfortably Smug]

Trisha gets to quote, tweet people all.

[Josh Holmes]

Day and be like, lie, lie, lie, two hand dunk.

[John Ashbrook]

You know, to be honest with you, I think that the President was very, very smart to hire somebody from Cincinnati.

[Josh Holmes]

Ohio to do the job Trish is in right now.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's why we're so successful.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Exactly. You're so, you know, I think Ruthless was so smart to hire someone from Cincinnati, Ohio.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you very much.

[Josh Holmes]

Initially. Yeah, initially we, it's just some sort of script writing and editing. But he's worked his way up here, I guess. Golly.

[Comfortably Smug]

Unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it is unbelievable.

[Comfortably Smug]

You knew he was going to shoehorn that in.

[Josh Holmes]

You did.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

He had to. That's the right thing to do.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I ask you just because, look, we're going through this government shutdown thing and this is different. I spent an awful lot of years on the hill. Government shutdowns were to be avoided, but it also just felt like one side was clearly winning, one side was clearly losing. You go into this thing, I don't understand a single point of the Democrats talking points.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, generally speaking, there's enough muddy water there.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Where everybody's like, ah, it's a pox on both your houses. And they're hoping that anybody who's in charge of the government ultimately takes responsibility for it. But this just feels different. Cuz they have no argument at all. But what I'm asking you about is in terms of dhs, in terms of ice, in terms of what it is that you're doing, surely this has some impact.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah, I mean this is not your grandmother's shutdown. Right. This is totally different. This isn't even in the A block of what most shows are talking about, which is pretty remarkable. I think with tsa, there's hasn't been delays yet, but I think the longer that this goes on, we're probably going to see some resource constraints there. TSA is not getting paid, our air marshals are so, I mean, you're going to have frustrated federal employees who you know, are working day in and day out and they're not getting paid. And you might see some slowdowns there as far as ICE and CBP that is being funded. So I think we're continue be out there arrest the worst. The worst. We're not going to be slowed down and there is going to be an impact and I think it's going to come to an impasse here soon.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just, it's wild to me. Right. You've got all these. You guys have a huge department.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Full of federal employees. I imagine it. Almost everybody's a little bit concerned about where their paycheck shows up at some point.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Oh, I know for my team, some people certainly.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. I'm like, you're like, I think it's going to be okay.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Don't get the guac at Chipotle.

[John Ashbrook]

Don't get.

[Josh Holmes]

Tone down the guac. But like, you know, you look across at Chuck Schumer in the way that Democrats have approached not only the government, government shutdown, but everything that you guys do on a day to day basis doesn't feel like there's a lot of sanity there.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That's gotta make people nervous.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

I mean I think the fact that Chuck Schumer, what is his talking point? What is his message? Because the fact that they passed this 13 times over and then really it's just about giving illegal aliens free health care. We've seen this movie before and the American people aren't buying it. And the, you know, this really does help us dojafy the government and I think that's a great thing. We were talking about how there's 280,000 employees at DHS. There's some great Americans in there and there are some people who do not have the country's best interests in mind and we need to get rid of them. And these refs are helping us do just that. So that's the bright side of this. Shiny.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean literally there is only one silver lining.

[Comfortably Smug]

Thank you Ros Vaught.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you Rusp.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Brilliant.

[Josh Holmes]

No question about it. All right, so final question. Look, you guys have a job to do. You're going to continue to do it, priorities stay the same. We're dealing with a 20 million person plus number that came in during the Biden administration. Obviously you're not going to be able to be 100% successful on that. But is this going to continue to stay in the same priority range and doing what you're doing? Is there anything from a public affairs Standpoint, I ask because I feel like we can help on this, to emphasize just how these law enforcement agents are doing exactly what it is that they signed up for that the law actually prescribes them to do. I feel like your ability to do the job at some point is on your job. Yeah, Right. Because if the media is successful in ultimately misconstruing what it is that the mission is, that's where things go sideways here.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

It is PR warfare. It really is, because the American people have to know who we're actually getting out of this country and who was in this country we talked earlier about. Kilmara, Abrego, Garcia. How often do the media bury and continues to bury the fact that this Guy is an MS.13 gang member and was trafficking human beings. The media wants to cover up for the criminality of these people, and they'll continue to do that. So, I mean, every single day, we are putting out who's the worst. The worst. And I think, you know, there's some consternation on my end. I don't want people to become numb to it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

But we have to keep on hounding that message over and over and over again. And as far as the arrest numbers. Right. We have. Because of that big, beautiful bill, we're able to hire more law enforcement officers in ICE and cbp, and so we will have those arrest numbers go up. But I think some of the strategy really is, as those arrests really ramp up, so will those self deportations. Because you get the message. If you don't leave now, we're gonna arrest you and we're gonna deport you, and it's not gonna be on your own timetable. It's gonna be on ours.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep. Yep. Well done. Listen, it's nice to have a professional doing this kind of thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly right.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

A Cincinnatian.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't go that far. You had to do that. I mean, he's just gonna keep talking about that all day. Listen, Trisha McLaughlin, thank you for everything you're doing. Keep up the good work. Best to everybody over there at Homeland and your entire team, and come visit us anytime you got anything you want to talk about.

[Trisha McLaughlin]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Josh Holmes]

Appreciate it.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, she is such a pro. Like, every single thing she said was informative. And you knew that if we had more time with her, that we would have gotten even more information. So I hope we have her back soon and on a regular basis, because, obviously, this is a huge priority of this administration, and there's a big reason for that. The country wants it.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's an important message and I think she had really great stats. And, you know, she has to spend every single day fighting media on Twitter and on cable television to try to get the truth out there. So, you know, I'm glad we were able to have her on.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally. Trisha McLaughlin, very good work here in the Variety program. Welcome back anytime. Fellas. This has been a hell of an episode. It's going to be a hell of a week. Look, the government should still shut down. I mean, the clips that Democrats are providing. Boy, oh, boy, we're going to have a lot of fun this week. So you got to keep tuning in. Remember our question of the day, will the Dems know King's early vote strategy work? That's something you're not going to hear anywhere else other than the Variety program. Big kudos to Ashbrook on putting the puzzle pieces together on all that. Like, and subscribe to the YouTube channel while you're at it. And with that, fellas, I think we did it.

[Michael Duncan]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thanks so much to Trisha McLaughlin from DHS. And thank you to the Minions. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube hit that subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the wine, and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless.