Top 5 Trump Wins…So Far

Summary

Ruthless Podcast – Episode Summary: "Top 5 Trump Wins…So Far"
Release Date: March 4, 2025
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of the Ruthless Podcast, hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook delve into the top five victories achieved by the Trump administration so far. With insightful discussions, notable quotes, and expert commentary, the hosts provide a comprehensive analysis of significant policy changes and their impacts, catering to listeners who seek a deeper understanding of contemporary conservative achievements.

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Top 5 Trump Wins

5. Doge’s Role in Government Reform

Time Stamp: 00:00-14:02

The episode kicks off with an exploration of "Doge," a key figure spearheading transformative changes within Washington. The hosts commend Doge for implementing unprecedented government cuts and eliminating waste and fraud, a feat unmatched by previous administrations.

Michael Duncan highlights, “Doge is a perfect place to start because this guy campaigned on changing Washington, and this is probably the easiest identifiable way that he is actually changing Washington in a way that no president before him ever has” (00:04).

Josh Holmes adds, “We finally beat Medicare... Biden broke Medicare, but President Trump can fix it” (00:19-00:24), emphasizing the administration’s focus on rectifying previous Medicare shortcomings.

The team discusses Doge’s efficiency, such as optimizing the census process and proposing innovative solutions to reduce government expenditures. Comfortably Smug remarks, “Elon went into that Cabinet meeting was basically like, look, I'm not doing your job” (09:00), underscoring Doge’s refusal to overstep his mandate.

4. Executive Order on Men in Women’s Sports

Time Stamp: 14:02-16:04

The fourth victory centers on the Trump administration’s executive order aimed at excluding men from women’s sports, a move that swiftly influenced major organizations like the NCAA.

Josh Holmes states, “Keep men out of women's sports. It's that simple” (15:35).

Sherri Macheri praises the administration's leadership: “When President Trump showed that leadership, the NCAA was like, okay, finally, thank God, we can finally codify this” (15:35-15:47).

This policy not only aligns with conservative values but also reflects widespread public support, making it a pivotal win for the administration.

3. Ending USAID Slush Funds

Time Stamp: 16:04-19:20

The podcast highlights the decisive action taken to eliminate USAID slush funds, redirecting taxpayer money away from ineffective and ideologically driven programs.

Michael Duncan explains, “Democrats have taken this to a point where they're like, well, this guy's just trying to be the emperor of all things federal government” (20:23).

Josh Holmes emphasizes the financial prudence, “They found $55 billion to $134 billion already” (13:35), illustrating the substantial savings achieved through targeted cuts and reforms.

The hosts argue that terminating these funds curtails unethical practices and ensures that federal money is spent more judiciously, benefiting the American populace directly.

2. Securing the Border

Time Stamp: 19:20-26:03

Securing the U.S. border emerges as the second major triumph, with border crossings dropping by an astounding 93% in just eight weeks under the Trump administration’s stringent policies.

John Ashbrook notes, “Border crossings are down 93% since Trump took off” (23:43-23:58).

Michael Duncan underscores the psychological impact, “If you intend to ensure that people know there's no free lunch here, and it's gonna be a hell of a problem if you try to cross this border” (24:00).

The administration’s focus on robust border security measures has not only deterred illegal crossings but also reinstated national safety and sovereignty, resonating strongly with voters.

1. Ending DEI Programs

Time Stamp: 26:03-32:15

Topping the list is the bold move to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government and beyond, marking a significant cultural and societal shift.

Josh Holmes asserts, “The DEI thing has sort of illuminated another aspect of what it means to be a progressive liberal” (29:44).

Sherri Macheri adds, “It's like extricating stage 4 cancer from the American soul” (28:43-28:47), highlighting the administration’s commitment to eradicating what they perceive as systemic racism and corporate overreach.

By terminating DEI initiatives, the Trump administration seeks to restore traditional values and streamline organizational practices, further solidifying its conservative foundation.

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Budget and Fiscal Policy with Jody Arrington

Time Stamp: 35:04-73:10

A significant portion of the episode features an in-depth interview with Jody Arrington, the House Budget Chairman, who discusses the passage of a crucial budget bill. Arrington outlines the administration’s strategies to tackle the national debt, emphasizing deficit reduction, entitlement reform, and fiscal responsibility.

John Ashbrook shares, “We're borrowing 2 trillion a year. We have about a 7% deficit” (56:35-56:58).

The discussion covers:

• Deficit and Debt Reduction: Strategies to manage and reduce the national deficit through controlled spending and economic growth.
• Entitlement Reforms: Targeting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for sustainability and efficiency.
• Legislative Challenges: Navigating the complexities of passing the budget through a constrained legislative environment.
• Economic Growth: Promoting policies that encourage job creation, wage increases, and investment to outpace debt accumulation.

Josh Holmes emphasizes the urgency, “We could shut down the government in March and not reopen it until 2036 and not have a balanced sheet” (73:01-73:10).

Arrington’s insights provide a clear roadmap for achieving long-term fiscal stability, reinforcing the administration’s commitment to economic prudence.

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Audience Interaction: Listener Comments

Time Stamp: 35:04-43:53

The hosts engage with listeners' comments, presenting suggestions on areas Doge should focus on:

1. Bailey: Advocates for a complete overhaul of food stamp programs to eliminate misuse, citing instances of excessive spending on non-essential items (35:04-35:51).
2. Barch: Recommends addressing entitlements, highlighting the pervasive grift within federal programs and the potential savings (36:21-37:05).
3. Lorinda Leach: Criticizes congressional perks and self-enrichment, urging a crackdown on corruption and misuse of funds (39:14-40:59).

Sherri Macheri responds, “Just follow Pelosi and you win” (40:22), reinforcing the podcast’s stance against perceived political corruption.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a spirited portrayal of the hosts’ camaraderie and their playful "King of the Hill" segment, which, while entertaining, underscores the podcast’s commitment to holding their political opponents accountable.

Josh Holmes concludes, “Stay ruthless” (89:56), encapsulating the podcast’s ethos of unwavering commitment to conservative values and relentless pursuit of accountability in government.

Listeners are encouraged to like, subscribe, and check out merchandise, ensuring they stay connected with the latest discussions and analyses.

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the Ruthless Podcast episode, highlighting the hosts' perspectives on the Trump administration’s key achievements, fiscal strategies, and engagement with their audience’s concerns. Notable quotes are included to provide authenticity and depth, making it a valuable resource for those who haven't tuned in.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

The top five wins as we see it, that have gone on here in the Trump administration.

[Michael Duncan]

Doge is a perfect place to start because this guy campaigned on changing Washington, and this is probably the easiest identifiable way that he is actually changing Washington in a way that no president before him ever has.

[Josh Holmes]

We finally beat Medicare.

[John Ashbrook]

He's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.

[Josh Holmes]

Joe Biden's legacy for seniors. He raided Medicare, made premiums skyrocket, and drove up drug costs. Worse, the Biden pill penalty is already slashing the development of affordable drugs, forcing seniors to pay the price of Biden's failed policy. Biden broke Medicare, but President Trump can fix it. Call Congress and urge them to end the Biden pill penalty.

[Michael Duncan]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

[Comfortably Smug]

Just to catch it, straight over here.

[Josh Holmes]

You're in for a hell of a show.

[Sherri Macheri]

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

[Michael Duncan]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday, everybody. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan. John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial. It's nice to have a full cast and crew. Congratulations to Ashbrook and Smug and your recovery.

[Sherri Macheri]

Yeah, Back and better than ever.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it seems like you're, you know.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it knocks you on your ass, but then you get up and you come back and fight.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you missed. You missed sort of a big week last week.

[Sherri Macheri]

Yeah, y'all held down the fort. I mean, the show rolls on. That's the thing, is, you know, we got a hell of a lineup and hell of a team.

[Josh Holmes]

No question about it. A lot of thanks to Carolyn Levitt and Senate Majority Leader John Thune for coming in for last Thursday's episode. I thought that was a banger. Really nice to see a couple of different iterations of what's important that everybody's seeing on the news and get it right from the source on those folks. It was great.

[Michael Duncan]

And I mean, you guys handled it so well. That was such a great show that we put out on Thursday. And all the thanks goes to you fellas.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, very kind. Very kind of you to say. Remember, like, and subscribe. If you're interested in that and didn't hear it, go back and take a listen. It's fantastic. Great. A lot of good information. A lot of discussion from Carolyn about how they're handling and why they're handling press the way that they are handling it. A lot of discussion from Thune about the accomplishments that they've already had and the accomplishments yet to come and I think all of it provides great context in a very busy news cycle, which is happening by the moment. We saw the end of the last week, what could only be described as a unique Oval Office experience with the President of Ukraine encountering, shall we say, maybe a little different perspective than the one that he's used to, and the President and Vice President making sure that he understood what the score was.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right. Yeah. The previous president wasn't a shrinking violet, he was a half dead violet. And this one is as strong as they come. And I just. The idea that you're going to step to President Trump and expect to come out of there on top, get out of here. President Trump is leading this country, he's leading the world. And that kind of strength is what people voted for.

[Sherri Macheri]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, here's a memo. This is not just foreign leaders, of which there are some that listen to this, by the way.

[Sherri Macheri]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm told reliably. But also domestic CEOs, people who are sort of kings of their own castle. When you're going into the Oval Office and expecting to have some kind of a negotiation with President Trump or Vice President Vance, like maybe not pick like the alpha routine because you're not gonna get that done. Like the idea that you're gonna walk in and be like, this is what's, I'm the CEO or I'm the President and you're going to listen to me and I'm the alpha in this room. Like, dude, you're just not. It's gonna devolve into disaster.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is what Zelensky saw and like that. I mean, he should be obvious. I mean, I don't think that this is like psychology class. You don't need a master's degree in that to know that you're coming into his house and this man is pretty used to being the alpha in the room and you're in his house and you're asking him for something. Probably should be pretty deferential about things.

[Sherri Macheri]

It only makes sense. I mean, you are in the Oval Office with the President, United States. That's just the baseline. Yeah, that's the baseline of the situation. And he got a bad read on it.

[Josh Holmes]

Clearly got a bad read. Well, anyway, we'll see how that develops. But, you know, we're also sitting here on the morn before the State of the Union.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which, you know, like so much stuff last week was hilarious in that they had their first cabinet meeting and it was like Thursday of last week and I remember. Or Wednesday of Last week. And I remember thinking like, my God, so much has happened in the six weeks up to that first Cabinet meeting. You forget how quickly everything has been put together. There's a lot of ground that's been covered here in American politics.

[Comfortably Smug]

A lot of ground that's been covered. I have one bone to pick and that is the semantics of the fact it's not technically a State of the.

[Michael Duncan]

Union address to Congress.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm going to, I'm going to say it, to say we need to end that.

[Josh Holmes]

A joint session.

[Comfortably Smug]

When people are like, well, actually it's a joint session. And it's like, let's just, and they're all State of the Unions. It's a State of the Union. You know, the Union's been around for a while. We can all say it's the Union. The State of the Union.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, sorry.

[Comfortably Smug]

White House association, they always do this parenthetical. Not an actual State of the Union. It's like, oh, you nerds, just shut up. Yeah, we know, we get it. You're smart.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's what it is. It's not a joint session.

[Comfortably Smug]

Just call it a State of the Union.

[Josh Holmes]

F you. So anyway, we, we thought we'd talk a little bit about that. Maybe some of the things that we're about to, to hear in that this evening that revolve around the accomplishments of the first six, eight weeks. But we also have a tremendous guest last week and we talked about this on the program. But I, I, it feels the need to underscore how significant a development it was of the House passing their budget because everything that can't be done via executive order or by nominating and confirming Cabinet secretaries that can have fundamental change in their Cabinet positions or anything that's dealing with Doge and Elon has to be done through the legislative process. And all the accomplishments that you all want to see happen have to be done through something they call reconciliation. The whole bag. Every, like the, every egg is in one basket. And they have a two seat majority in the House of Representatives, which makes things a little bit tricky by passing the first step in the budget that they did last week. It is a monumental accomplishment the likes of which, like, I don't feel like it got enough appreciation. Right. The Senate moved. We heard from Thune about that. You gotta hear about the quarterback of that operation. Jody Arrington is the chairman of the Budget Committee in the House. So we thought, hey, let's have him on. You know, we hear about the Senate stuff from thin, we hear about the White House stuff from you know, the White House press secretary might as well get the budget check.

[Comfortably Smug]

Powerful friends here at the Ruthless Variety.

[Josh Holmes]

As it turns out. So you got, you're gonna hear from him here on the program today as well. And we're playing a game.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

King of the Hill.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. Because we missed it because of the outbreak of the flu here at the program.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

We didn't play it on Thursday.

[Josh Holmes]

We didn't.

[John Ashbrook]

But.

[Josh Holmes]

But I will say the timelines are sort of like in a 10 day rotation as a result of that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because, you know, it's like, it's like the. I don't want to get.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's like the NBA. We have a little bit of load management going on.

[Josh Holmes]

The load management.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's what it is.

[Josh Holmes]

You know a lot about load management, don't you, Michael?

[Comfortably Smug]

Not touching that.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, here we go. The top five wins as we see it, that have gone on here in the Trump administration. You know, you can order these things differently. And that's part of our question of the day that we'll get to, to you in a moment. But we start off with number five. And it's just the mere existence of Doge.

[Sherri Macheri]

Huge.

[Josh Holmes]

Fellas, this is, this is. In my mind, this took a different shape after the first cabinet meeting because everything that the press and the Democrats are trying to do when it revolves around Doge is create outrage and controversy and the presence of Elon Musk. And they've made him the whipping boy cuz they can't figure out how to go at Trump. So let's just attack Elon Musk and all this stuff and basically trying to turn him into an HR manager for the federal government. Right. But Elon went into that Cabinet meeting was basically like, look, I'm not doing your job. You're doing your job. You're trying to implement the America first agenda for President Trump. That's what you're doing. My job is to clear out the mess that everybody else created. But before you got there.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And that to me, reset the dial on the importance of what it is that they're doing. His understanding of the remit that Doge basically has, because Democrats have tried to take this to a point where they're like, well, this guy's just trying to be the emperor of all things federal government and he's running outside of the constitutional prescriptions of how you spend money. He was like, no, no, no, this is what I'm doing. It was the first time that I saw a very adequate description. I think we've known this on this show, but for the American public of what it is that he's doing here.

[Michael Duncan]

What do you guys think about Doge is a perfect place to start, because this guy campaigned on changing Washington. And this is probably the easiest identifiable way that he is actually changing Washington in a way that no president before him ever has. He is cutting government in a way that no president before him ever has. Other presidents sort of go along to get along. Republican and Democrat, they work within the system they're given. And he has stepped in, stepped up to the plate, and he is like, no, I'm not just taking what we're given. People want change in Washington, and I'm going to start line by line by line. And he's tasked Elon Musk. I mean, this guy has had so much success in the private sector. Why not take that brilliance and apply it to the public sector? God knows we need it. God knows we spend way too much money. And what has he found? Look, lunatic programs spending money on trans plays in Ireland and sex changes in Nicaragua and everything else. And he is cutting that back. And I'm telling you, only Donald Trump is able to execute on something like this because he doesn't give a shit when the Washington Post criticizes him. When they criticize him, he's like, I'm on to something.

[Comfortably Smug]

And cutting waste and fraud from our government is politically possible. Popular. You're talking about like 80, 20 issue here in this country, which is demonstrated not just by, like, you know, the reaction to some of these programs, which was outraged Americans. It's how the Democrats in the media have tried to defend it. And that is not actually defending the thing, because the thing is indefensible.

[Sherri Macheri]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, the programs that Elon Musk has identified, they attack Elon Musk.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

They can't.

[Josh Holmes]

They have to go after it.

[Comfortably Smug]

They have to. Right. So that's why I'm so glad that they have Doge and they can continue to do that. And I totally agree with you, Holmes, that that meeting with the Cabinet, he re understood the. The remit of what Doge could do, where it could add the most value. Finding the waste, finding the fraud at these organizations. And frankly, we sort of previewed all of that in the Tuesday episode last week when we were like, I think he's getting a little out over his skis with this email. And it was sort of prescient.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you put it back into context. I totally agree. I think that's. That was a big part of it. But like, look, it's not that everyone is The Biden administration, the Obama administration, totally negligent. And there has been administrations as far as the eye can see that have been negligent in this regard. But I will say, from a cabinet secretary standpoint, like, you only have so much bandwidth and you have a short amount of time to try to figure out how to use the political capital that you've been given to try to accomplish the things that were set out by a president in a campaign that people wanted. And you can either focus on that or you can do the clean.

[Comfortably Smug]

Because it's been made, it's made purposely difficult to rein in government. I mean, like back to that story we told a few weeks ago about how all the personnel files of everybody who works for the federal government is in some mine in Pennsylvania. And it's like you have to understand a system that wishes to perpetuate itself does that makes it as difficult as possible to change anything. So, yeah, these cabinet secretaries and stuff, they're between a rock and a hard place. Right. Like, it's tough to actually execute on what Doge is doing because they make it difficult to undo anything.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but if you have Doge, somebody's doing it for you.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly. And even Trump 1.0, Trump 45, did not get to this. I mean, they had a lot of successes, but they did not cut the government the way Doge is doing right now. And it's like Duncan always says, the first term was like a pop quiz, then this next term is like a take home test where they did planning. They knew exactly what they needed to do to attack the deep state in the way that they're doing so successfully right now.

[Josh Holmes]

And you hear little things, you know, he's like, hey, find savings here, fine, savings there. And like I heard the Secretary of Commerce, Bret Baer, did a great interview, which, by the way, he's doing great interviews with all of these guys. We intend to do them here too, to get at different things than Brett was. But one of the things was see if you can find some savings. And he was like, we do this census, it costs us $40 billion every year.

[Sherri Macheri]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you guys hear this? This is the most amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

I actually did not.

[Josh Holmes]

So Brad asks him about this. He's like, yeah, we have $40 billion and you employ 64,000 people to travel around the country. You've got to buy cars and vehicles, put people up, get meals and all these things. And their job is to go door to door and meet with people and count the number of folks. And then they got to go back and check it. And that's how they come up with a 10 year census. And this is like a major expenditure, $40 billion.

[Michael Duncan]

That's a lot of money.

[Josh Holmes]

He's like, you know, we have 64,000 employees that do go door to door already every single day. And they actually have a definitive idea of how many people live in a house just by virtue of what it is they do. It's called the post office. So maybe we just make the post office in charge of the census. And I was like, oh, man. Like, that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about, you know, like, you don't get to think outside the lines unless you have something like Doge that is putting an emphasis on streamlining efficiency. They found $55 billion to $134 billion already. This is according to an article we've got from Newsweek. But there's big things in there, and there are potentially structural things that can lead to a lot more savings. And they haven't even really gotten started yet. Doge is our number five. You could rank it much higher than that, but it is. It is what it is. Number four, this is an important one here. The variety program keeping men out of women's sports. And according to the White House, in what they did with the executive order, that's already had huge ramifications. You saw the NCAA immediately take action on this, and they declined entirely to have a point of view until President Trump expressed one. You saw the governor of Maine try to get into an argument again, I think after what we saw with Zelensky and the governor of Maine over the last 10 days, you're not gonna come in hot on this White House. Like, if you got a meeting with President Trump and he has a microphone within 10 yards of him, don't do it.

[Sherri Macheri]

And again, this is an 8020 issue, right? Like so many voters vote for front of the program. Megyn Kelly, huge proponent of making sure this got done. It's a simple thing. It's something that by far most Americans agree with. Keep men out of women's sports. It's that simple. And like you said, when President Trump showed that leadership, the NCAA was like, okay, finally, thank God, we can finally codify this and say men don't play women's sports. It's incredible that it had to be done, but it had to be done.

[Comfortably Smug]

And the leadership that Donald Trump showed on this issue, not only on the campaign trail, but with the executive action that leading the way, has also led to success in Congress as Majority Leader Thune Talked to us last week about. They're putting that on the floor. Like we're codifying into law.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right. No, Thune, Thune broke news here when he was talking about them moving towards this bill. Now he also expects Democrat opposition to. It's not going to erase. It's not going to erase what Trump has already done with the executive order. But by virtue of showing the American people, even if they don't get this thing over the 60 vote threshold, watching Democrats try to tie themselves in knots to explain why it is that men should play women's sports.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

The political impact.

[Comfortably Smug]

I would love to see a swing state Democratic senator be like, no, they're gonna. Yeah. Shout out Jon Ossoff.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that guy's gonna find religion.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. Have a good run.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, seriously.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, the, you know, the end. Another interesting character is Alyssa Slotkin. She voted to keep men in women's sports. And she is the response tonight.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which I also find completely hilarious. Like, Democrats always do this thing every time they think they've got a problem. They always think it's a demographic issue.

[Sherri Macheri]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. I mean, it's. The presence of Tim Walls on this ticket was a perfect example of them saying, okay, well, we're having a failure to relate to the middle of the country and we're doing really poorly against. With white men. Let's go find a white man from the middle of the country. Like, regardless of the fact that he believes he ought to put tampons in men's bathrooms, like, if he looks like they'll believe him.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because that's the way the Democrat mind thinks these days.

[Comfortably Smug]

He put a camo hat on. He carried a shotgun. Don't you love him now? It's like, no, he's a left wing lunatic.

[Michael Duncan]

The same thing goes for her. I mean, she is voting to give stimulus checks to criminals like Larry Nassar. She is voting to do everything that the libs want, including let China enter into their state.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

She, she's voting to eliminate gas powered cars from Michigan.

[Comfortably Smug]

Michigan, Michigan.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just wild. It's wild. Anyway, that is a very, very, very big one for us. We're going to get to the top three right after this. Chevron's latest deep water development Anchor is powered by innovation. This breakthrough technology helps enable us to safely produce oil and natural gas at greater pressures, setting a new industry benchmark. Anchor is pivotal in our goal to produce 3,300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the Gulf of America, home to some of our lowest carbon intensity producing assets. That's energy in progress. Visit chevron.com anchor to learn more. All right, so welcome back. Our doing the top five accomplishments that we think you're going to hear about tonight at the State of the Union. Certainly top five in our opinion. You can add some. We'll talk about that in a minute with a question of the day. Then we can like and subscribe. So make sure that that's part of what you're doing here. But number three in our mind is ending the slush fund of usaid.

[Sherri Macheri]

Yep, that's what it was.

[Josh Holmes]

And look, it's popular rampantly. Everyone thinks this is a good idea across the country. I mean they talk about 80, 20 issues. This is a big one.

[Michael Duncan]

Of course they think it's popular free money.

[Josh Holmes]

But like this is a very big one when you are involved in what we've been involved in, in this line of work for as long as we have. Because what Democrats did is take a fund designed for soft power that would eliminate the need for the use of troops on the ground and military presence around this world to try to curry some favor with organizations and regimes that wouldn't ordinarily be interested in that on anything else other than the end of a barrel. But that was the intent and they perverted it year after year after year. It became ideologically off the left hand side of the map, but also was treated, I would say by even some Republicans, but certainly all of the Democratic Party as sacrosanct.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't touch it. And like you didn't even get anybody before Doge. That was like, wait a second, trans studies in Tanzania.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

How the hell is the American taxpayer benefited by that? Right.

[Michael Duncan]

I think that that is such an important point, the background that you just provided, Josh, because the context is. And how Democrats corrupted it. And it's another lesson in how absolute power absolutely corrupts. Democrats are never questioned by the media when they have control of something and when they're moving it further to the left. And that is how you get these inexplicable programs. Like there was, there was something Elon tweeted late last week about trans surgeries in India.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That the trans surgeries in India are down because USAID funding has gone away.

[Josh Holmes]

Can you believe that?

[Sherri Macheri]

The thing is, is you look at this list that Doge provided and that you see where the American taxpayer money has been going. This is especially right around tax season. Everyone can look at this and just get outraged thinking that my money is being spent on what the Washington examiner had in this article they wrote. The Washington examiner identified well over 100 USAID alumni working for shadowy entities linked to Democratic aligned Arabella Advisors dark money network. They just turned it into their own piggy bank. The, the, the left had essentially taken money out of taxpayers pockets and been like we're going to put it all into our causes. We're going to pay off all, all our friends. Stacey Abrams got what? 2, 3 billion.

[Comfortably Smug]

2 billion.

[Sherri Macheri]

$2 billion.

[Josh Holmes]

The idea that political connections play any role in the distribution of foreign aid funds is reprehensible stuff. But that's, I mean that's what that is. You know, we also saw the thing. It's not USAID connected but Lee Zeldin and his crew are doing a hell of a job over at EPA with that $2 billion to Stacey Abrams that we just discussed. Turns out it's like $20 billion to places that are just like that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, other, other, you know, shadowy organizations with flowery names, you know, climate justice Action or stuff like that. And you like, you find out like these are people who are like shutting down highways or I don't know, bringing the tents to the Hamas rallies. Columbia taking billions, billions with a B.

[Josh Holmes]

Billions of dollars by day and then going and putting an anti Semitic protest on a college camp.

[Comfortably Smug]

Think about that when you're filling out your taxes.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, wild stuff, it's just incredible. So anyway, number three, that's usaid. Number two, and this could very easily be number one. We talked about it a little bit immigration just in and of itself. Look, so much of this we talked a lot about over the last three years with the Biden administration. The border problems were not just their willful ignorance about how to secure a border, it was the message that they were sending by a failure to do so. So they were basically having a welcome sign out to the most dangerous people around this world. This is the way you get into our country. And Trump, who for you know, what is it, eight, nine years, has been a signature issue. And he talks about it relentlessly, just by virtue, before he even signed the first executive order, just by virtue of stepping foot into the White House, people are like, ah, can't do it.

[John Ashbrook]

Got.

[Josh Holmes]

And then he signed the executive orders. And then all of a sudden you saw like last, end of last week, I saw the 29 cartel members in Mexico were being extradited to the United States for prosecution. Something that could have been done at any point, any point over the last.

[Comfortably Smug]

30 so frustrating years.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. But it was never an emphasis for anybody else, it is an emphasis for them. So what's the result? Border crossings are down 93% since Trump took off. 93%. We are eight weeks in, folks. 93%. You don't think that the psychology of the border has more to do with it than anything else? I mean, it just does. It's been time tested that if you intend to ensure that people know there's no free lunch here. And it's gonna be a hell of a problem if you try to cross this border. But they're not gonna come.

[Sherri Macheri]

That's the thing the entire world saw when the Democrats turned their primary. They were asked the question, who would provide free health care, education, all the benefits to an illegal immigrant who enters the US and every single Democrat on that stage, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, raised their hand, said, yeah, I would support that. The whole world saw that. And that message was loud and clear. The border was open for business. And that's what you saw. Absolute mayhem at the border the day Trump steps in. Uh, new sheriff in town.

[Michael Duncan]

And it wasn't just the southern border. Joe Biden had programs where he would fly migrants from different countries into America. And let me read you a report from Bill Mulligian that came out late last week. Some of you may have seen it, but this really puts the nail on the head that ICE has detained and charged a man with stabbing three people to death and two, including two children in Fayetteville, North Carolina, who first found, flew to the United States in July of 2024 under Biden's controversial CHNV migrant flights program. This is a 26 year old from Haiti who didn't speak English and He killed a 4 year old, a 13 year old and a 77 year old woman.

[Josh Holmes]

There's just not enough contempt to express.

[Michael Duncan]

Is only under arrest because Donald Trump is President of the United States.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. But I mean, how do you even come up with these ideas, you know, like if your goal is not active sabotage of the American people? I don't know how else to explain it.

[Comfortably Smug]

And how could you be angry enough at Joe Biden and the Democrats and Kamala Harris, you know, at that time In July of 2024, she's on television with ads about how I prosecuted international terrorists and, you know, fought the cartels. And I just want tougher, I want a secure border. Meanwhile, you know, somebody's being flown around the country and stabbing people.

[Josh Holmes]

It's also, if I'm not mistaken, the exact timeframe that the Biden administration finally did take some executive orders that did reduce a little bit of the flow. And they claimed for three years that they couldn't do it. It was all Congress's fault. But, like, as they're doing that, they're flying a dude from Haiti right over who ultimately commits quadruple homicide against children in the United States.

[Michael Duncan]

It's just bullshit. Have you ever received a free plane ticket from the federal government?

[Josh Holmes]

Nope.

[Michael Duncan]

Anybody sitting at this table? No, I haven't. I sure haven' so why is it that people in foreign countries with rap sheets are coming over here and allowed to, like, take our money that we're earning and putting into the federal coffers on April 15th to just basically wreck mayhem over regular people? It needed to stop. And that's why President Trump was elected. And thank God he was hugely important.

[Josh Holmes]

Number one. And this is the reason we picked this as number one is because it's not just the government.

[Sherri Macheri]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

The DEI sort of psychology that was pushed by the Biden administration, pushed by the Obama administration, pushed by the Biden administration, that it became enraptured in corporate America and became a cultural change agent that the left ultimately tries to do. The fact that this president ended dei, was not afraid to speak about it, and ended it for the federal government immediately had ramifications well beyond the federal government across this country. I mean, you saw some of the stores, you know, some of the retail stores out there who had these just ridiculous DEI programs. They were immediately like, nope, we're getting rid of all of this. And they had touted with press releases their good work on trying to implement these DEI things. The cultural change that took place with this administration making this a priority on day one, I don't think can really be quantified. That's the kind of thing that, like, I mean, we've talked about on this show for months. 50 years from now, 60 years from now, we'll look back on the DEI time period is like a Jim Crow type experience, like where the federal government codified active racism in this country. And that's what that was putting an end to. That has huge ramifications.

[Sherri Macheri]

It was active racism and it was an industrial complex protection.

[Comfortably Smug]

There you go.

[Sherri Macheri]

Where essentially you had these left wing groups which figured out, hey, nice company you got there would be a real shame if someone boycotted it and burned it to the ground and they ran amok for years with the Biden administration's blessing of doing this to companies.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I mean, that's the other side of it to me. Cause I totally Agree with both of you. But, like, it's not just that it was a cultural stain on America. I mean, this is like extricating stage 4 cancer from the American soul, I think. I mean, just a horrible thing. And I agree we're gonna look back on it as Jim Crow. But the other side of it, too, is it had this reinforcement mechanism from the radical left where, like, these guys ran this protection racket where you had to pay them. And that was the most offensive thing to me as somebody who, like, lives and breathes and works in politics is like, not only are you doing something that's horrific, but, like, you gotta pay some of the worst people in the world to tell America you're good for doing it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, that's the insanity.

[Josh Holmes]

It's shocking. It's part of it. Like, the DEI thing to me has sort of illuminated another aspect of what it means to be a progressive liberal, and that I could never really wrap my mind around how they can think that capitalism and business in America and creation of wealth and jobs and prosperity for the United States is a bad thing. Right. Because it's a hard concept to sort of wrap your mind around. Like, why is this bad? But then you see how it is that they practice capitalism and you're like, well, that's where they think it happens.

[John Ashbrook]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

They think the small business, like, goes. Rolls into a town and rolls into, like, a neighborhood and is like, you're going to buy groceries at my place. I'm going to fuck up all your plants.

[Sherri Macheri]

That's it. They're like, what's created by me going around saying, you implement my policy so I can buy some houses.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't you think? Like, it sort of illuminates what. They always talk about it as if it's so negative. Like, it's such an oppressive part of our society. And I look around, like, I mean, I don't know, it looks like it's lifted a whole bunch of people out of poverty. To me, it looks like it's made America the leader of the free world. Like, I don't really understand that. But if your whole concept of capitalism is shaking people down mafia style in, like, a racketeering deal across the United States, the likes of which they implemented with dei, I understand why you'd have dim view. Yeah, I get it. They're like, yeah, we're going to do it for this, but, like, nobody else should do it. Yeah, yeah, ridiculous. So anyway, that's our top five. And that's, you know, a little bit of a preview of Some of the things that we expect here, obviously Ukraine's coming up. There's no way that can't come up after the events of last week. Many, many other issues that this President will talk about. But he's really, I think one of the unique things about this presidency in the first few weeks has been that he's been a transformative figure in many ways and touched a lot of things that people didn't think he either had interest in or that if it didn't directly benefit, you know, his worldview that he wouldn't become a part of. I think Doge is a part of that. All the things we just talked about, you knew he was gonna do what he was gonna do on immigration and trade and taxes. But like all the other things that they've been involved in from a cultural and societal point of view, they run against hype a little bit. And I think that's gonna be a big part of the speech.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, and you're exactly right. And I think you're right that Ukraine is gonna come up. And of course, the White House was out yesterday previewing everything that they're gonna highlight in the speech. But one of the great things about this program is it is a community. Our audience is our friends. I mean, we went through these five items because these are the five things that we hear the most about in the comment board from everybody who's liking and subscribing and commenting. And these are the things that our audience is hoping to hear tonight. I'm sure the President is going to talk about all these things. And I thought that was, I just really think one of the best things about the program is that we are doing what the audience is asking.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you know, I mean, the way we see it is we're sitting down at the corner bar with all you on a day to day basis and talking these things through. And so that's, you know, if we sound like all your friends, that's why our question of the day, therefore is, you know, what else would you add to this list? What else would you add to it? I mean, are there more things that we need to illuminate and talk more? What would you like to hear the President say in the State of the Union? That's not on those top five of big accomplishments that we've been dealing with.

[Comfortably Smug]

If he only talked about these five things, I think it'd be a fantastic speech. There's obviously going to be a lot more. What I'm most looking forward to is the personal stories. I think Trump's first administration. He did a great job at that, at illuminating, you know, some stories that people need to hear. You know, people stand up, everybody claps. I expect we'll see a lot of that. And that's. Those are always some of my favorite vignettes from State of the Unions.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I totally agree. So when we return, we will return with your comments from last. Was it Tuesday or Thursday?

[Comfortably Smug]

This Tuesday.

[Josh Holmes]

It was Tuesday's one because we were just did the interviews on Thursday.

[John Ashbrook]

But.

[Josh Holmes]

So it's been a little while. But it's a very pertinent question. It actually ties into what we're talking about today. What should Doge focus on? We'll get to it right after this.

[Comfortably Smug]

American investment, More jobs, higher wages. It was President Trump's promise when he championed the tax cuts and Jobs act and American businesses delivered investing in US Manufacturing and equipment, increasing wages for American workers and creating over half a million new jobs. That's why he's fighting to do it again for families, workers and businesses. Tell Congress to extend and strengthen President Trump's tax reform. Paid for by the Business Roundtable. Learn [e-mail] all right, so back with your comments.

[Josh Holmes]

You gotta like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Thank you to the thousands of people who are doing that on a daily basis. We really appreciate it. It's how we reach all of you and all of your friends. To start our comments, we always start with a voice.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay. First one comes from Bailey. And Bailey writes, I think that Doge needs to focus on food stamps. That needs an effin wrecking ball run through it. When did it become okay to go to McDonald's or Carl's Jr. Or a convenience store and purchase junk food using food stamps? Not to mention all the junk food that they purchase. I was at Albertsons one day and a lady with four young kids paid for lobster tails with her food stamps card. I'm a teacher and I don't even buy lobster tails because of the price.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, hold on. I would love to see. I can't believe encountering that you imagine rolling up at the Albertsons. Yeah. And the person in front of you is like, custom ordered the four lobster tails in front of you. And they're like, oh, hold on, let me run these stamps.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Come on.

[Michael Duncan]

And you're a teacher. You've been responding to angry emails from parents in the classroom all day. And then you're buying Mac and cheese. Fucking kick in the gut. That's what it is.

[Josh Holmes]

That's tough. That's a good one. I Hadn't thought about that. You know, that was a big conversation in the 90s when we did the last reordering of balanced budget and all that stuff. And it did. There was some. And I have a feeling that RFK is going to be interested in the junk food component for sure, don't you think? All right, comment two Dunks. What do we got?

[Comfortably Smug]

This is from Barch. I think DOGE needs to take a look at entitlements, especially means tested entitlements. The amount of grift endemic, endemic to entitlements is probably the location of significant savings within the federal budget.

[Josh Holmes]

So right, so right. It's not even just so much as a grift as much as it is reality. One of the great things, and like this and probably the most popular thing to say, but one of the, one of the great things in My mind about Doge is for 30 years, everyone who has a conversation about the 10, 20, 30, 35, $36 trillion in debt has always said like, oh well, if we can't just eliminate the waste, fraud.

[Comfortably Smug]

And abuse, good place to start.

[Josh Holmes]

Or oh, you know, if we don't have a war with Ukraine type situation like that would all be balanced budget. The truth is that you could shut down our government tomorrow and not reopen it until 2036 and still not have a balanced budget even if you had 4.5% growth in the economy. That's the truth. And the reality is the entitlement piece of that drives it. And it's not just Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's the interest on the national debt. And none of your people vote on that. Everyone we've had on that's the one piece of Congress and the President. There's nothing they can do about. You either default your country, which wouldn't be good for the economy, by the way. Your growth at two and a half, three, it would look like negative two and a half and three bad luck, bad luck. But like that is the piece that you've got to handle is the interest on the national debt and these entitlement programs that do need to be reformed. And my hope is that Doge, because of the conversation that we're having for the first time in a real way gets us through identifying waste, fraud and abuse and then we can have a real conversation.

[Michael Duncan]

You might be right. That's a really good point.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean I just, we had to.

[Comfortably Smug]

Have a fresh look. I mean, look, you were talking about how ruthless is like your buddies at the bar. You remember this from Last week when we were at the bar and I was like, I'm having a lot of fun with GROK on like sports stats and stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. You were looking up all this stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's absolutely incredible. And it was like, I'm gonna ask Grock, you know, like, if we had a shutdown here, but like we kept, you know, paying Social Security and Medicare and like defense obligations and stuff, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

If we still, you know, kept all that running, but we shut down that.

[Josh Holmes]

Discretionary, it means you didn't pave a federal road anywhere in the country.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. How long would it take to get out of this debt? And grok, which is like getting insane, by the way. I think this is version three. It's getting incredible.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the X AI.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Deal. Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And if you defaulted on the interest payments, like a trillion dollars a year, even if you did that and like, you know, the entire global economy would probably falter at that point. But just as a thought experiment, 19 years. It would take 19 years even if.

[Josh Holmes]

You defaulted on the national debt.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So like, again, very good place to start with the DOGE stuff. My hope is that all of that gets into the conversation that Bart just talking about.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

On this deal. Smuggles, what do we got?

[Sherri Macheri]

Comment 3 is from Lorinda Leach. Linda writes, honestly, I know Trump needs to work with the Senate and Congress, but I think DOGE should focus on all the perks and self enrichment that goes on with those entitled power hungry A holes. Maybe if they didn't make things so cushy and financially profitable for them, they wouldn't stay in office forever. Either that or past term limits, but they will never go for that.

[Josh Holmes]

So, like, I'm conflicted by this because I've actually lived in that world and seen how different people operate. And I think there is at one level the indefensible, which is like the Nancy Pelosi stock portfolio, which is insane.

[Sherri Macheri]

Outperforms the S P. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, you know, there have those like, AI bots that track every investment that they make because they have to be transparent. And then if you were to do that, you'd be up like 235% in your investment.

[Sherri Macheri]

Just follow Pelosi and you win.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right. Which is shocking. And like, look, if it were up to me, I think you would have to divest of individual stocks entirely. If you're an elected member of Congress, you just should. I mean, you just should. But like, look, I also worked for a guy who by marriage, his wife's mom died and they inherited a Lot of money. They were a successful family. And so there was nothing but attacks about like, why does he have so much money? He's always been in, you know, public service and all that stuff. And it's like, why do you. I mean, how much do you want to talk about a death in the family? Because that's pretty much what it is. And I think that there is a difference between the self enrichment of like the 60s, 70s and 80s and like Dan Rostenkowski back in the old House ways and means days of like the 86 tax act and using campaign money to have people go mow their lawns like that shit's not happening. But there is some shady shit amongst a few like Pelosi that somehow they just end up investing wisely all the time. But like, I'll be honest, I don't. I could sound like the most naive person on the face of the planet. There's no like USAID funding going to a member of Congress. There's just not. Now, could there be a, like a. What do you call this, the old revolving door situation where somebody's very supportive of something, then all of a sudden they get out of Congress and they're the chairman of whatever that organization is. Yeah. I think that should exist. And corruption is for real. But it's not like I just want to be honest with people.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a little more complicated than that. I think I saw the story about Sheldon Whitehouses. Yep. Wife do you know about.

[Josh Holmes]

There it is like this is exactly what I'm.

[Sherri Macheri]

So his wife works for a climate group.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Sherri Macheri]

That pushes legislation that advocates for legislation that he then pushes. And then his daughter works at an investment firm that makes money on like renewable resources. Their family business is just enriching themselves that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Sherri Macheri]

100%. That is an issue.

[Josh Holmes]

And you saw with the Bidens.

[Sherri Macheri]

100%.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. So if you're looking at corruption, it's not like the people who are in Congress are funneling money to themselves. It's more complicated than that. What they're doing is having a whole bunch of grifting family members around them, like Hunter Biden going to get contracts from a Ukrainian oil company of which he has no experience in energy or Ukraine, and getting paid millions of dollars by virtue of the fact that he's related to his debt. Like that's where the corruption is. And that's that stuff. Sheldon Whitehouse and a whole bunch of others is problematic. That's where you gotta focus your fire on that. Too many like Facebook stuff and like chain emails. That you get from your grandparents, like give just send you in the wrong direction on that. Don't you guys think?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. Anyway, that's hopefully an explanation that helps clarify something. That's what we seek to do here on the Variety program. Try to give you some truth while we're at it. When we come back, folks, an epic king of the hill. Sherri Mushari is looking to be the first five time champion right after this. Hard working Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done.

[Michael Duncan]

Now is the time to unleash our.

[Josh Holmes]

Nation'S energy to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable, and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Okay, welcome back. We are going to play the signature game here of the Variety program on a special Tuesday right here before the State of the Union. I'm the defending champion, Sherry Macheri. Five times she took a right us right through 500 episodes. Like, she's.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, she's just so hot. Like, I'm actually kind of mad that I have to play against her because it just doesn't seem fair with this generational run she's on. She's like the damn New England Patriots. But I am bringing Rick Wilson.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. We've seen him in a while. Yeah. That is a different flavor.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So do we go ringside? Let's do it.

[Michael Duncan]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for king of the hip. In the blue corner, fighting out of msnbc, Rick Wilson. And now, in the crimson red corner, fighting from her own Twitter account, and current champion of the world, Commie Cherry Jacobus.

[Sherri Macheri]

You can't beat that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Gosh. Wait, who's. Who's judge here?

[Michael Duncan]

I'm the judge.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow. Ashbrooke is judge.

[Josh Holmes]

Your Honor. Your honor.

[Comfortably Smug]

A fair judge.

[Josh Holmes]

A fair, fair and thoughtful judge. A jurist the likes of which we could all hope to have our the.

[Comfortably Smug]

Clarence Thomas of the ruthless variety program.

[Michael Duncan]

Bailiff, call your exhibit.

[Sherri Macheri]

Let's do it.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. All right. I'm gonna start with just a fantastic exhibit. It's gonna be number five, if you don't mind. Spaghettz. And this is Sharon Maisheri, who's arguing about the Elon stuff. And she says if we liquidated Elon, she's upset about the cuts. If we liquidated Elon, that means just confiscate everything. He's got every American could get a check for $1 million. So, like, you know, helpfully, you know, the good people of X and the community notes have done a little math on that. It turns out at the highest that he is evaluated in terms of his total wealth, the average American, we get 1,200.

[Sherri Macheri]

It's a little off.

[Josh Holmes]

And what I love so much about it is that like, she's, she gives you the brain worm, she gives you all this and then every once in a while, just the rank dumb comes through where it's, it's like, you know, there's no correction. It's still up.

[Comfortably Smug]

Still up, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like the basic math.

[Comfortably Smug]

I got to apologize to Sherry, my Sherry. I was unfamiliar with your game. Like, that is incredible. Being that stupid, that's incredibly dumb.

[Sherri Macheri]

Take.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, well, I think I have something even dumber. Spaghetti. Can I get exhibit 10, please? Okay, so Rick Wilson is quote, tweeting Manu Raju, and as you recall, we were talking about how we're gonna have Jody Arrington in here for the episode. They passed Trump's budget in the House of Representatives and the media and all these left wing accounts on Twitter the night of that passage were like foaming at the mouth trying to figure out ways to derail this thing. And Manu was tweeting about how it's being pulled from the floor. A million tweets I saw on that night. He, quote, tweets it and says Speaker Cuckley can't pass Trump's quote, big, beautiful, big bill. Now he quote, tweets that he's talking about Speaker Johnson who had a massive victory past the big, beautiful bill. So what I love about this is it's a two for one, folks. You have the Never Trumpers owned and you have the reporter, the media owned.

[Sherri Macheri]

That's a good one. Two for one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Two for one.

[Michael Duncan]

As good as the two for one is, it just doesn't hold a candle to a million dollars to every person.

[Comfortably Smug]

Rigged court.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm sorry, Michael.

[Comfortably Smug]

Rigged court.

[Josh Holmes]

Unbelievable element of stupidity that just can't be overlooked.

[Michael Duncan]

It can't.

[Josh Holmes]

And the fact that you wouldn't immediately be like, I'm an idiot.

[Comfortably Smug]

I already gave you your plot. It's. We're moving on to exhibit number seven. I'm giving you the hottest possible now he's upset. Rick Wilson says a non trivial percentage of Roman emperors were killed by the Praetorian Guard. Apropos of nothing.

[Sherri Macheri]

Good God.

[Comfortably Smug]

Let's see if the judge likes that one.

[Sherri Macheri]

Heads up, Cash Patel. There you go.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, if you want to Stay Roman. Oh, I've got a lot of things, but let me just sort through and find out. I'd like to stay on genre when I win.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, my God. He's just on.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, yeah, I mean, I have eight thing, nine things to choose from, but, you know, whatever comes up, I like to play it a one to one basis, just so we all have a good idea.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, bailiff, you're watching the clock here, Is it.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you the bailiff? I thought you were a contestant.

[Sherri Macheri]

We can, we can get the tape.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no. Okay, so let's put up exhibit six, please, if you don't mind. And what she's doing is, quote, tweeting.

[Sherri Macheri]

God.

[Josh Holmes]

She's, quote, tweeting a account that has talked about how pro Trump activists basically at CPAC wanted Trump to run for a third term. Right. They're advocating that he should run for. They should change the Constitution essentially to give Trump a third term. And she simply writes, google Ides of March. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the Ides of March, the Ides of March is about Julius Caesar and about how he had worked a deal with the Senate to basically remain in power as a dictator and was shortly thereafter assassinated.

[Comfortably Smug]

I. Look, I hear you. It's a great tweet.

[Josh Holmes]

Assassinate. That is what she is suggesting is a parallel to people who are wanting Trump to be around for a third term is the immediate. And I, I don't even say it out loud, but, but the parallel of what she thinks would happen to this country if such a thing were embarked upon.

[Comfortably Smug]

Last thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Think. I rest my case.

[Comfortably Smug]

Last thing I'm saying is I think your tweet was the PG version of my tweet. My Tweet was the NC7 team version. He was very clear what he wanted to happen.

[Michael Duncan]

And he wanted it to happen from the inside. And I think Rick Wilson wins.

[Comfortably Smug]

Let's go. Let's go.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't.

[Michael Duncan]

I can't believe we're going to a third round.

[Comfortably Smug]

I can believe it.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't believe it.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a fair court.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, okay, let me, let me see what I've got because I have so many options. Okay, I'm just gonna go. I'm just gonna go here. In fact, I have 16 different exhibits, so it's very difficult to sort through all poor spaghetti.

[Comfortably Smug]

You got the guy working overtime.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, we'd collaborate. We go back and forth and try to figure out a couple extra days to look things through, but I think this one hits the nail on the head. Let's go with exhibit 16. Cutting cancer research so that Trump can golf more doesn't make America great again.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, my God.

[Sherri Macheri]

Where do they get this?

[Michael Duncan]

Like, think about the equivalency.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, think about the equivalency, like, so he can. Like, it's a dependent clause.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. These two things you gotta cut, you.

[Sherri Macheri]

Get cancer or golf, you pick one. What?

[Josh Holmes]

Either the kids die or I get nine holes this afternoon.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. It's an incredible leap in logic. Yeah. Okay, well, I think I got something that can compete with that. Okay, spaghetti. How about exhibit number eight, please? We got another quote tweet from Rick Wilson. He really loves the quote tweets, this guy, big guy. He's quote, tweeting the Lincoln Project, which I'm surprised is still in business. I would love Doge to go through the Lincoln Project. Yeah, it's a tweet about Doge that the Lincoln Project put out here in Elon Musk. And he quote, tweets it and he says he being Elon, he's taken the prize of most dangerous immigrant in history from Rupert Murdoch.

[Sherri Macheri]

My God. Let alone who we discussed earlier, the Haitian that was flown in by Joe Biden who murdered children. No, Elon Musk is worse than all that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Most dangerous immigrant.

[Sherri Macheri]

Despicable people.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, man.

[Josh Holmes]

Cutting cancer research is key.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

This is a. This is a very, very difficult decision because the false equivalence that Cherry laid out is completely outrageous. However, the idea that a former Republican who used to talk about how great Fox is is all of a sudden saying that Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous immigrant in this country's history, it's just beyond the pale. And for that reason, Rick Wilson.

[Comfortably Smug]

Down goes Frazier.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, I knew I had vulnerability when the assassination thing didn't catch.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I felt like that was particularly given the events of the last seat.

[Sherri Macheri]

I mean, they were strong takes.

[Josh Holmes]

I felt like if that didn't do the trick, I was going to be vulnerable. Congratulations.

[Michael Duncan]

The only reason it worked is because he had his own assassination thing.

[Comfortably Smug]

The Praetorian Guard.

[Sherri Macheri]

What a run for Sherry. What a run for Sherry.

[Michael Duncan]

She'll be back.

[Josh Holmes]

She'll be back. What an incredible run. Great game of King of the Hill. We've got an incredible guest that we want to get to right now. He is the House budget chairman, Jody Arrington on the Ruther's Variety Program. We always talk about the good, the bad, the ugly. Right. No matter what, we'll give you the straight scoop. But our best stuff is sort of like just celebrating the awesome.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And so now we've Got a guest that we could, we can celebrate. He's not going to take the victory lap, so we might have to do some of this.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm shocked that he came in here with a coffee cup and not a cup full of bourbon.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, you haven't smelled the cup now, have you?

[Josh Holmes]

He is the House budget chairman, Jody Arrington. How are you, sir?

[John Ashbrook]

I'm doing fabulous today, but I, on any other given day within the last several weeks, I could have been either the bad or ugly. But today, you know, we were successful in at least one phase and an important one of reversing course for the last four years of just complete self inflicted disaster, failed policies, reckless spending, and a major pivot to policies that will put us on the path to prosperity and a big investment in our security and all the things that we believe are going to be good for a safe, strong, free country and future for our children. So, man, it feels really good. But I know there are big hurdles on the horizon here.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And I want to get into all of that in a minute. But for those of you who don't follow every little nook and cranny of this development, the budget is the big deal. That's the ultimate shirts and skins exercise that allows you to open up the entire America first agenda, to open up everything President Trump ran on and ultimately give the opportunity on a simple majority in both the House and the Senate to accomplish things like the tax piece, like the border security piece, energy, everything that we've been talking about here over the last couple of years. But you can't do any of it unless you rest that yoke on the shoulders of Jody Arrington and make sure that he gets a budget passed first. And of course, you know, look, we're in a stage where everybody's got a lot of opinions and it ain't as easy as just sort of throwing a red jersey on or a blue jersey on people, they like to be hurt. And it turns out we have a two seat majority in the House of Representatives. Talk to us a little bit about the process from the original draft to ultimately getting to a point where you have a House budget which all the pundits predicted, by the way, was going down like 17 times before this thing ultimately passed.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, that's interesting. That's how I feel that I've, you know, crashed and burned 17 times before. But we're persistent and, you know, you have to get this right. We talked before we were on air about the monumental inflection point we're at as a nation and how historic this recent election was. And we can't miss this opportunity. Right. So we don't have the margin to that I had when I was a freshman the last time we did this, by the way, when we did 17. 17, sort of a breeze.

[Josh Holmes]

Didn't feel like.

[John Ashbrook]

It didn't feel like. And even with, even with the just tax policy, which is generally the easiest of the things that we're doing in the reconciliation bill, we lost like 13 Republicans and we couldn't lose more than one last night. So, yeah, it's. There were lots of iterations, lots of conversations, lots of meetings, lots of give and take. I think the things that we're good at, like cutting taxes, weren't the big hurdles. Opening up energy after a complete whole of government beat down for the last four years was not difficult. There'll certainly be parliamentarian questions about does this comply with the Byrd rule throughout the like. For example, the REINS act, we've been wanting to put that mechanism to sort of slow down and rein in the administrative state for a good while. So there's still things that we're going to have to shape up to thread the needle over in the Senate as these issues are litigated with the parliamentarian. The biggest hurdle, the most difficult thing to resolve was spending reforms, as I've been taught to say. Does that make you feel better? Yeah, no, I'm feeling better.

[Josh Holmes]

Super confident.

[John Ashbrook]

Michael, you feel okay about that? We are spending this country off the fiscal cliff. And for people who don't follow the state of fiscal affairs of our country, we're borrowing 2 trillion a year. We have about a 7% deficit. That's the gap in revenue and spending. That's the deficit. Our, our deficit per GDP is 7%. It's wartime levels of deficit. And we've exceeded World War II in terms of the level of indebtedness debt to GDP. And we're servicing the debt with a trillion dollars, which now is more than we spend on Medicare recipients, on the entire national defense. And things are going to get exponentially worse over the next 10 years. We'll add $21 trillion in debt. 62 cents of every dollar will go to interest, and you don't want to know what happens beyond the 10 years.

[Josh Holmes]

So, yeah, you don't even vote on the stuff.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, it's just, it's on auto spend and we rarely touch that 75% of the budget that we refer to as mandatory spending or entitlement programs. And people watch TV and they see the shutdown showdowns over the 25% of the budget, which is the annual appropriations, small potatoes, but nobody seems to know much about. And Congress seems not to pay as much attention to and act responsibly in its oversight capacity to make sure that all these mandatory programs in health care and welfare and veterans and employee benefits that are, they're running well and efficiently and that the monies are going to the people we intended them to go to and that their sustainable programs and that we've rooted out waste and fraud, which is now, by the way, just in 70 programs in the government, 2.7 trillion over 10 years. And across the government fraud, according to GAO, is on the, on the high end, $5 trillion. So we got a lot of work to do, to say, to say the least. But people don't realize that it's not just a Greece like moment that's going to get us. It's already squeezing our ability to fund our national priorities. We're dangerously low under 3% in terms of our investment in our military. And the risks aren't going that way. And neither are our adversaries in terms of what they're doing to beef up their military. We're crowding out capital in the private sector, so we'd like to grow the economy, as President Trump said, like a rocket ship. But the biggest lead in the saddle is this deficit and all the borrowing of our federal government that we're robbing for investment, for growth. We're making the cost of capital go up, inflation go up. So you don't have to get to the point where the bond markets say we don't believe you're going to pay us back. And therefore it's not just a premium tax that we want. When we borrow, we're done. Yeah. And so then you're picking up the pieces and you're not the same country you were. China gets the pole position. There's a new world order. I know, I'm freaking everybody out at home.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I mean, I feel like he's singing our theme music is this.

[John Ashbrook]

So you guys understand. Because you know why? Because we got skin in the game in ways that maybe, maybe other political leaders who came through this town don't. I have three children.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

But I'm also young enough that I think these things can happen in my prime and on our watch. And so long story to say, I'm very proud of what we do to make a meaningful change in bending the spending that's driving the debt and in a way that will steward tax dollars. Well, that will still preserve the program for the most vulnerable. Those policies are still going to be, as you know, they'll be meted out at the committee level, but these are real targets. They're meaningful numbers in terms of bringing deficit spending down. And I think we have a real shot of saving the country. I mean, at the end of the day, you can get a lot of things right. But if you bankrupt the country because of all of the trends that I mentioned.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Then, hey, farm bills don't matter as much in West Texas when you can't pay for. When you can't pay for. So anyway, that was. Sorry about that. No diatribe there. But I think I'm wound up after a three hour debate with my Democrats.

[Josh Holmes]

I can see how he persuaded some people. Yeah, you know, that's a pretty good pitch.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, you know, I think in the buildup to this budget vote, there was a worry that there'd be a handful of very conservative members who share these same concerns that you do, that they might not be on board. Right. And the media was reporting it. There were side by sides of a lot of these Washington journals saying if the vote's being pulled, oh, the vote passed.

[Josh Holmes]

All of a sudden they're lionizing people that they wouldn't be caught in the same room.

[Comfortably Smug]

Exact. Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

In hopes that everything went down in failure.

[Comfortably Smug]

But you guys solved all those problems and you know, could you speak to what goes into that is, does it just ultimately, at the end of the day, come down to trust? People have to trust you as chairman that this process is going to allow them to make their voices heard. Because in the past we've had issues with that. Right?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Yeah. I think we all feel like no matter how long you've been here, whether it's one year or eight years or 20 years, we've all heard we'll get them next year. Don't worry. Just sign off on this last omnibus and next year we're going to really trim the fat, you know, and look, I was here in 2017 when we lost the opportunity for, with the trifecta, through reconciliation, to do the first meaningful entitlement reform since the Great Society. And it went down, unfortunately in the Senate.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And we were in. We were able to pull the tax piece, the tax reform and save that, move it forward and do some really good things for the economy. And everybody benefited. But yeah, I think I'm a true believer in this. I mean, I don't feel like I'm taking orders from anybody but the people who sent me here and you know, my Convictions are squarely on, you know, answering to my children and my conscience and my God as to, you know, did I do everything to address the threats? Did I make the sacrifices that every other American leader did in times like this? Because there were plenty of. There were plenty of big moments that were seized and big challenges that we worked through. But. But we did it because people were willing to put their country ahead of their political interests, etc. Etc.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

I think this is that moment, in my opinion, and this is that issue, quite frankly.

[Josh Holmes]

I agree. But I think what's so impressive about this iteration and your leadership, in particular about how we got here, is that you always. There's never been a generation that doesn't speak to their conviction about solving the problem.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

And the problem we've had in recent years is you. You get the conviction part. What you don't get is how do you get the yes part?

[John Ashbrook]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

And there is no way to even make a dent of bending this curve in terms of making us a fiscally healthy country again without getting as many people as you can to get to a majority to say yes to something.

[John Ashbrook]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's what you've done here, which, you know, look, I was a part of a lot of these things over the years, and I remember in 20, I think it was a 2011 with Barack Obama, and I remember John Boehner did his damnedest to try to figure out if there was a way that we could get that administration at a time would have been very easy, much easier than it is now to sort of address those entitlement things that we're now becoming enveloped in. And ultimately they're like, no, no, we're not interested in it. And, you know, you mentioned the 2017 again. And now we get to a point where there's a wholesale conversation not just with what you're doing in the budget process, but with Doge.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

And we're having this conversation.

[John Ashbrook]

We are.

[Josh Holmes]

In a meaningful way. So I think for the first, this isn't some commission.

[John Ashbrook]

Couldn't agree more.

[Josh Holmes]

No, no, you're right.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like blue ribbon panel. We will study this in ways that have never been studied before.

[Josh Holmes]

And they always come back to the same thing. They're like, hey, you're screwed. Here's what I would do.

[John Ashbrook]

And you're like, well, we're not doing it. We need strong leadership. You know, it looks like we need political courage. Yeah. Wow, that's the punchline again. So when do we see it? But I Do think it's important. I think it was President Lincoln that said that without public sentiment, you can do nothing with it. You can do anything. You got to bring the American people along. And on this issue, we, I think too many political leaders shy away from it. They don't want to get bogged down in it. They don't want to be misunderstood about what they want to do.

[Josh Holmes]

It's very easy to take everything out.

[John Ashbrook]

Of super sensitive and very easy.

[Josh Holmes]

Time tested.

[John Ashbrook]

Time tested. So we've all been like, you know, Pavlov, you know, shocked into, you know, submission on that. But it turns out that even though it was a very painful last few years with one of the worst cost of living crises, totally, that, that working people especially had to endure. People started connecting the dots between the policies in Washington, in their nation's capital and their pocketbooks back home, like the spending, even monetary policy and the borrowing and the taxing and regulating and all the various things that resulted in them paying higher interest rates and for credit cards and car loans and their homes and the biggest and most regressive and most sinister gnarly tax, the inflation tax of what, 20, 21%. And so I think it awakens something in the American people. And then, as you said, we have this very brave first generation immigrant who's done pretty well here in this country who is now kicking rocks over and exposing the. Not just, not just horrible mismanagement and waste that you would assume in a big unwieldy government, but like the most absurd and insulting uses of our tax dollars.

[Comfortably Smug]

It goes back to your whole point of the bending of the cost curve and the difficult conversations you have to have on things like entitlements or this stuff that isn't discretionary spending. How hard it is to get to that. Well, I can understand why it's hard to get to that when you have the entire liberal media and Democratic politicians up in arms when you're like, I think we should cut the grant for DEI workplaces in Serbia, you know?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And it's like they make it hard for us just to do that.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like break to the protest at usaid. No, you know, don't take their money. Their money, not your money. Wait a minute. What movie is playing right now?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I don't know if you knew it was a constitutional crisis. Unless we fight fund transgender studies in Tanzania.

[John Ashbrook]

Listen, there will be no peace in the Middle east without the $20 million for Sesame street in Iraq.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, that's a real thing.

[John Ashbrook]

You know that, right?

[Michael Duncan]

That's a real thing.

[John Ashbrook]

That is a real thing. Can you believe that? That's good context, brother. Yeah, it's good context to us doing some things that would otherwise almost be killed in the cradle of the, of, of, of the Republican conference because of the incredible blowback of your taking benefits from seniors. You're stealing food from the hungry mouths of children. It's already begun. But I think with all this exposure to the waste, fraud and abuse from. Right, from this administration and, and the good work of Elon Musk with the support of President Trump, obviously, I think people are like, you know, I'm not sure I believe those guys anymore. I'm not sure I believe them. And you know what they keep talking about, you know, all these people and constituencies. What about the taxpayer? What about the hard working middle class family? And according to a study, and I wrote about this in an op ed, you know, we want to take care of people who fall on hard times and people are working hard, still struggling to pay for, to provide for their families. There isn't anybody in the country, Republican or Democrat, that doesn't want to help. It's how you help. It's preserving the dollars for those folks and not for people here illegally and others who are ineligible for those services according to the law. But anyway, this campaign is just beginning as we move out of the here are the budget targets in the resolution.

[Josh Holmes]

It feels like the first public case. And to your point about bringing the people along for the ride, you're right. You can't just step in and change everything and have everybody just sort of assume that they're gonna come along for the ride. Like, you know, there's a very effective case against any change. And there has been generations of political movements that have been built upon any sort of antithesis of a change because it scares people. But what you're doing is bend it. And democrats, you know, 50 years, starting with like, you know, FDR and LBJ have done just a terrific job of taking what is a prescriptively terrible set of circumstances for the American people and then just building on it link by link, just expanding the entitlement states little by little. Right. And if they had a third of their conference all the way back to the 40s, say, like, it's not everything, so I'm not going to do it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

They would never have gotten to the point where they're at.

[John Ashbrook]

That's exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's, I think the case that you made so effectively to your colleagues is, look, I want a balanced budget as much as the next guy.

[John Ashbrook]

I've got one.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but you, but you couldn't get.

[John Ashbrook]

It out of, Couldn't get it on the floor. I got it out of committee, though.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

No, 14, 13 trillion in savings.

[Josh Holmes]

But like we did the math the other day. I mean, you could literally shut down the government in March and not reopen it until 2036 and not have a balanced sheet.

[John Ashbrook]

That's exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

So the question is how do you grow.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Out of it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that's. And that's what you've done now. Well, that you make a great point that I need to reiterate, which is, you know, we didn't get out of the debt hole that we were in coming out of World War II in one year, two years. It was a couple of decades. And it was incremental and disciplined approach to putting in place those policies that would promote growth because we got to grow faster than we're taking in the water of debt. That's when you talk about how do you, where do you start?

[Josh Holmes]

Stabilize the debt, which also expands incomes, expands job opportunities, brings revenue to the treasury too.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the whole dynamic scoring. Right. Ultimately, you're right. You're getting people off of welfare rolls on the payrolls and people are making investment, creating greater job opportunities. Wages are going up, but you're bringing revenue also to the treasury, which is a part of our model for a balanced budget resolution. We're not going to add to the deficit. In fact, I believe the deficit will outperform our growth assumptions.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I have no question.

[John Ashbrook]

The deficit down.

[Josh Holmes]

I have no question.

[John Ashbrook]

But growth is a, a big part of it. I would say even foundational. And in time, if you have the right policies that promote and incent investment, job creation, growth and all the things that we talk about that I think Republicans are actually very good at, it turns out we talk like we're good at spending cuts, but we're not. But we've got to exercise that muscle that's atrophied. We've got to restore that piece of the, that principle and that piece of the equation while we're growing, control spending, bend the curve on spending. There's a ton of waste, fraud and better ways to manage the government.

[Josh Holmes]

That's absolutely right.

[John Ashbrook]

That in and of themselves and paired with growth will get us to a better place, to a more responsible level of debt to gdp and we will be able to underwrite the next generation or two or three in terms of what they'll need to be secure and the transportation infrastructure that they'll need to have prosperity. So we can't do it in one fell swoop, not in one reconciliation bill. And it probably will take the same time span as coming out of World War II. But here was the reward. Coming out of World War II and doing those things and doing them consistently. We emerged as the only superpower in the world. But to maintain that is even harder. It is, but that's why I think this is really, as I've referred to it, the super bowl for saving the country. This is the first big down payment. And hopefully success will breed success. We'll rinse and repeat, and we will have. And our impact and our values and America's influence will dominate the remainder of the 21st century. Man, that is what drives me every day. I'm getting. I get choked up. I may get stinking choked up. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe. You know, there was something in my cigar last night when I was celebrating. I don't know.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's a changing of the guard here in Washington. You know, there's a new generation of leadership that's emerging in the Republican Party in so many ways. And you're reflecting that. And I think to your point that you made earlier, it's because, like, look, we got kids.

[Josh Holmes]

We got kids, too.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's two, I have two. And we want to be good stewards of their future, and we know we would not. If we don't dig out of this problem for them, let alone us.

[Josh Holmes]

It ain't about feeling good.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

What is it that we're doing here?

[Comfortably Smug]

This is existential.

[John Ashbrook]

Amen.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

I love it. You know, my handlers told me that I needed to wear something that looked cool and laid back because. Pretty cool. And then I come over here, I'm looking at a bunch of stiff. You know.

[Comfortably Smug]

I love your quarter zip there, Blue Monster. So I know that course. Have you played it and the. I played Red Tiger as well, which is a great course. Yeah, we played that on my bachelor.

[John Ashbrook]

Somebody thinks we're talking about tai chi right now, and it. We're talking about golf.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, they know. They know what we're talking.

[John Ashbrook]

See, I'm a new golf guy, so I'm still.

[Comfortably Smug]

And you play Blue Monster?

[John Ashbrook]

I did.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow. You're a brave man.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I didn't tell you that I played well, but I did play it. And then I was fishing the ball out of every.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Spaghetti. We gotta get Wolf. We're coming out with a new line of golf.

[John Ashbrook]

Are you on the same.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. No. And it's. It's this one is a Gaza Riviera. And. And we got it coming out. We got to make sure, man, this guy gets. Gets.

[John Ashbrook]

That's gonna be, first of all, very hot in West Texas.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And, yeah, you guys are great.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm really always into politics.

[John Ashbrook]

I was.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Ronald Reagan.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Did the, you know, trick on me.

[Josh Holmes]

He had, like, the magic. This is fun.

[John Ashbrook]

He really did.

[Josh Holmes]

Fun and important.

[John Ashbrook]

You need the Reagan's. Right. I think it was Ted Cruz that told me that our generation, meaning he and I. I'm 52, but I don't know how the span of time. But he said our generation is referred to often as Reagan's children because he literally inspired a generation of people like us who felt like this is a noble calling and like, America is the greatest country in the world and we have this incredible responsibility and it's worth fighting for and all those things. And he was so inspirational. And then I had a great teacher in my first civics class, Ms. Becky Taylor, and she made the whole thing come to life in her classroom. Is really the combination of those two things and a tractor salesman and my dad in a little town in West Texas called Plainview, Texas, and he would get so exercised watching the news every night about somebody taking his tax dollars and, you know, wasting it, then, you know, if he only knew.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[John Ashbrook]

But I thought, how can a tractor salesman out here in the middle of rural West Texas be that exercised over the things going on in this faraway land called Washington? And I just put it all together and said, man, this is important stuff, and we got to make sure we have the right people doing the right things to keep this. I didn't call it the experiment in liberty and democracy at the time. I just said, we gotta keep this dream alive. And so, yeah, it started then. I never veered, of course. I feel like God planted the seed in my heart and then sort of one step at a time, moved closer to this very dangerous seat called the budget chairmanship. Yeah, well, listen, if I had known what was ahead of me, I would have gone into insurance.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, listen, we're glad you're here. And I think these important moments, it's important to have somebody who not only is a serious person, but. But can relate to people across an ideological spectrum. And we just heard that. I mean, what you're talking about is the entirety of that Republican conference concerns that they have about both sides of this budget. And I think that's why you got home. If you. If you don't mind, we haven't done this in a while, but every time we have a first time guest. Your last meal on earth. If you could plan it.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I'm glad you weren't going to make me sing my high school fights on. Where are we going with this? We haven't done this in a while, but take your shirt off, paint your face, come back in here and no second.

[Josh Holmes]

That's.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that's for the second round. But it was nice being with the other. My last trip. Nobody should see that.

[Josh Holmes]

By the way.

[John Ashbrook]

We're trying to project American strength.

[Josh Holmes]

For any of us. That would not be good.

[John Ashbrook]

So I'm a breakfast for every meal guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

No, Okay. I can eat eggs. I'll cook an egg, put it on pizza. I'll put it in a sandwich. A grilled cheese. I love eggs every which way, you know, but it'd be breakfast. It'd be eggs, bacon, you know, I'd have some tortillas to make my own little egg tacos. Because I'm a Texan, you know, and that's our love language.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, totally.

[John Ashbrook]

And chorizo on that. Yeah, a little one now. Yeah, now you're talking. I've lost. Where are we now? Where are we?

[Josh Holmes]

Fire up. Up the skill.

[John Ashbrook]

Higher up the skillet. Yeah, so that's, that's, that's where I live, right there. I get it in that happy place. And, you know, I'm supposed to be like a guy that walks into a cotton gin and like. Anybody got any coffee? You know, I mean, I. I mean, it needs to be. It needs to be stuck to the bottom cup. It's black, you know, like oil. Like oil. And then it's like, you know, and maybe a cigarette or something, even a used one. Just give me. But instead I'm. I'm like, does anybody have any tea latte? Some honey London fog ringing bell to anybody, you know? So, yeah, I am the lighter. A next generation West Texas guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Who did some. Some farmhand work, whose dad sold tractors, but who likes a good tea latte, I guess. And, and some egg burritos with chorizo. So I love that. What does that, what does that mean? Well, I will interpret that.

[Josh Holmes]

We're gonna find out because we got two quick ones. The second one, and this is sort of rapid fire because I know you got to get out of here. If you had the benefit of just looking back on life, knowing everything that you've accomplished to this point, which is considerable, and you could do anything, literally. Like, Cruz came in here and told us he'd Be a power forward in the NBA. So it doesn't have to be practical. Obviously, you know, but if you could do anything in life, what would it be?

[John Ashbrook]

Guy, you know how cheesy this answer is? I'm sorry to say this, because I know you want something else, but, like, I am living my dream. I am living my dream. I'm telling you guys, God is my witness. I can't believe I get to be a leader for my country and I get to wave the flag and champion everything good about America. Fight for everything good about America. And I do it every day. And I'm living my dream job. My wife knows that. If she watches, she knows. She's like, yeah, yeah. This is like how he was wired, what God called him to do. If I didn't, then I'd want to. I'd want to. You know, I walked on at Texas Tech as a. It's, you know, good big school, Division 1, Big 12. And I'd never played football in high school, so I didn't.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's just like, you're big.

[John Ashbrook]

The only thing I knew, it was kind of weird. I actually thought, now, I played sports in high school and I played football growing up, but I was a tennis player. And to this day, my dad said I was the best tennis player to ever walk on the football team in Texas Tech. And I talked to one of the coaches. Doyle Parker's not with us anymore, but he interviewed all the walk ons. And I remember I was in the weights and I thought I was athletic enough and big enough at the time that I could do this. And I didn't want to say that. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I mean, better to do that in junior high and then even if not, then high school.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, in your 18, you think you'd do anything.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, that's what I thought. And then you find out. So then Doyle Parker, Coach Parker says, okay, we're check this. You got your physical, you got the. So tell me, what'd you play in high school? You know, obviously he's referring to the position on the high school football team. I'm like, tennis. And he nearly fell out of this. And I think just to just run me off early, put me with the linebackers. Oh, God. And then it was all downhill. I got to play one red and black scrimmage.

[Comfortably Smug]

I thought you were going to say, make it cover Michael Crabtree.

[John Ashbrook]

That wasn't going to happen. It didn't. I didn't go that far for that long. But I did break my finger in the ear hole of a guy in the last play of the red and black scrimmage. And but in my mind, I thought, this is going to be like a Rudy moment. Like, I'm going to make a tackle, pick up the ball after the fumble, and I'm just like, you know, I had all the dance moves down, ready, and instead they carry me, like off the field. With your face.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And I'm like, mom. Hi, Mom. Love you. And that was it. But so I guess it would have been, if not this, that I would have been the Rudy of Texas Tech. And, you know, there would have been a book written about how this country boy who played tennis decided to walk on and became a, you know, all American linebacker. I love that.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it goes to our last box check, which is, we always say that every successful person is motivated either by the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it's not that anybody enjoys losing. It's not that anybody doesn't enjoy winning. It's like what motivates you to go to the next level. And if you think about that question in terms of yourself, it's been an amazing split. We've had 400 guests on this show and it is almost a dead even split of one of the two. And everybody sort of internalizes it when they think about it. And they say, like, yeah, I guess it's this. What do you think it is for you, man?

[John Ashbrook]

These are great questions. I really think it is equal parts fear of failure and the, the, the dream.

[Josh Holmes]

If it's fear of failure, if it is equal parts, you are a negative defeat guy.

[John Ashbrook]

No, that's a good analysis.

[Josh Holmes]

It is.

[John Ashbrook]

Because nobody, nobody gets equal parts. Like, that doesn't work. One is greater than the other. As soon as you think it, you're that guy. You're that guy. Well, then I would say I'm. It's fear, failure. Fear of losing the country, fear of letting my children down, fear. So, you know, you're in good company, sir, while I have the next, when I do the next interview, it's Michael.

[Josh Holmes]

Jordan, Nick Saban, Tiger, Will.

[John Ashbrook]

They're in that camp.

[Comfortably Smug]

We're like the Dr. Phil. Yeah, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I. As long as I'm in that company, then yeah, I'm terrified. I'm so scared of it. I'm not sure we'll ever get that reconciliation bill.

[Comfortably Smug]

But it's, but it's true because it's that that fear of failure isn't just failure for us. It's failure for our kids and our kids, Kids and so that can be a great motivator. And I'm sure that was a motivator for what y'all did last week.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally. Listen, this has been a blast. You're welcome back anytime. You help walk us through this next process with reconciliation and everything else. The team's great. We get a lot of good information, but you're welcome back anytime.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you, guys. I've enjoyed this. A great break in this crazy schedule. And sometimes too serious. Yeah, it's serious work. It's important work. Gotta have some people. We need to laugh. And thank y'all for your service over the years. Of course.

[Josh Holmes]

You bet.

[John Ashbrook]

And, yeah, I look forward to coming back on no more questions. So no more psychological analysis. I don't want. I don't want my constituents see that deep in the recesses of my soul.

[Josh Holmes]

We'll get the shirt off next time.

[John Ashbrook]

Jody Arrington. That.

[Josh Holmes]

He's a gentleman dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's a whale of a guy.

[Josh Holmes]

He. He really is. I mean, so I didn't know him. I knew of him, always appreciated his work, but we got to spend time with him. Spent like an hour with him talking about a whole range of things. Really smart, totally grounded.

[John Ashbrook]

This is.

[Josh Holmes]

The dude, you know, like, just lives in his district, right? His whole mindset is not like some beltway. We're just getting jobs, getting deals done here. And I'm a deal guy. Like, he's. He does the work that his constituents.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I. I really like the idea of a guy who's running budget being a guy who knows, like, I got to take care of not just my generation, but my kids and my kids kids. Because, like, you got to have people who are grounded, care about their constituents, and are thinking about the future. It's not all numbers. There's real people that this impacts.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. A really, really good interview. So glad he came on. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more of that guy because he's welcome back to the. The old program anytime with all that, folks, remember to like and subscribe while you're there. Check out some merch. Check out some merch. We might have some new offerings when we get these new offerings. By the way, old Drew's got. You know, I. I was told that we had some new golf stuff coming. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, we're gonna have to get.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm pretty excited about this. This new golf stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm very excited about it. That's why I'm bringing it up. I hope he listens to this and feels some shame.

[Michael Duncan]

Maybe by the end of the week.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, maybe by the end, if he.

[Comfortably Smug]

Has the courage to do the right thing.

[Josh Holmes]

So, like. And subscribe. Check out the merch. We might have some new stuff coming. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. And with that, I think we did it.

[Sherri Macheri]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much to the like. Holmes said like. And subscribe. Thank you so much, Chairman Aaron Tennant. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you on Thursday. Stay ruthless.