Trump's Masterstroke In Iran As Dems Spiral

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary

Title: Trump's Masterstroke In Iran As Dems Spiral
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Chris "Comfortably Smug" Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Release Date: June 24, 2025

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1. Introduction

Timestamp: [00:00 - 01:46]

Josh Holmes welcomes listeners to the "Ruthless" variety program, introducing co-hosts Chris Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook. The trio sets the stage for a robust discussion, emphasizing their commitment to next-generation conservative talk and promising an in-depth analysis of current events, particularly focusing on President Donald Trump's recent actions in Iran.

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2. Trump's Decisive Strike on Iran

Timestamp: [02:03 - 06:21]

Josh Holmes initiates the main discussion by highlighting President Trump's recent mission against Iran's nuclear facilities. He contrasts Trump's proactive stance with previous administrations, noting how Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden approached Iran's nuclear ambitions differently.

Notable Quote:

John Ashbrook [03:20]: "Number one, biggest L of the weekend, hands down to the Iranian mullahs and the government of Iran. Number two, has to be like, Obama and his team."

Discussion Points:

• Historical Context: Holmes references past presidents' strategies, from Bush's war on terror to Obama's drone strikes and financial appeasement ("pallets of cash").
• Trump's Approach: Emphasis on eliminating threats proactively rather than appeasing adversaries. Holmes praises Trump's decision to strike decisively, citing it as a responsible leadership move to prevent future threats.

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3. Retaliation and Missile Defense

Timestamp: [06:21 - 10:09]

The conversation shifts to Iran's response to the strike. John Ashbrook shares President Trump's official statement posted on Truth Social, detailing Iran's missile attack on a U.S. base in Qatar and its subsequent interception by American Patriot missile systems.

Notable Quote:

John Ashbrook [09:36]: "Iran has officially responded to our obliteration of their nuclear facilities with a very weak response which we expected and have very effectively countered."

Key Insights:

• Effectiveness of Defense Systems: Holmes explains the Patriot missile intercepts, ensuring no casualties.
• Technological Superiority: Discussion on the advanced capabilities of American missile defenses, highlighting interceptions occurring above the atmosphere and describing the visuals as "mind-blowing."
• Future Implications: Acknowledgment that this strike may not be the end of Iran's aggressive actions, setting the stage for ongoing vigilance.

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4. Constitutional Authority and War Powers

Timestamp: [10:09 - 22:49]

The hosts delve into the legality of Trump's military actions, countering Democratic arguments that claim the president overstepped constitutional boundaries by acting without congressional approval.

Notable Quotes:

Josh Holmes [39:39]: "He's Commander in Chief, the United States of America. It's Article 2 Powers in the Constitution."

Chris Smug [39:54]: "It's very clear. He's Commander in Chief... when there is a clear and present danger to the United States, the Commander in Chief can act. He does not need approval from Congress."

Discussion Highlights:

• Executive Power: Strong defense of the president's authority to act unilaterally in matters of national security, referencing Article 2 of the Constitution and historical Supreme Court cases.
• Democratic Hypocrisy: Holmes points out that Democrats have historically engaged in similar unauthorized actions under previous administrations (e.g., Obama bombing without war resolution).
• Critique of Opposition: The hosts criticize Democratic figures like AOC and Chuck Schumer for their perceived overreach and contrarian stance on Trump's actions, labeling their objections as “idiocy” and “hypocrisy.”

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5. National Security and Immigration Concerns

Timestamp: [22:49 - 38:20]

Transitioning to domestic issues, the podcast addresses the intersection of national security and immigration, particularly focusing on the influx of immigrants from countries identified as security risks.

Notable Quote:

Michael Duncan [36:01]: "The last four years, my biggest concern was this open border was the biggest national security vulnerability this country's ever seen."

Key Points:

• Immigration Data: Reference to a report showing 1.7 million people from problematic countries entering the U.S. under Biden, compared to zero under Trump.
• Security Risks: Hosts express fear of potential sleeper cells and terrorist threats from these immigrants, invoking memories of 9/11 to underscore the gravity.
• Law Enforcement Critique: Strong condemnation of Democratic-controlled law enforcement agencies for allegedly failing to manage illegal immigration effectively, with calls for harsher measures and accountability.

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6. Tax Cuts and Debt Ceiling Debate

Timestamp: [38:20 - 77:24]

The discussion shifts to fiscal policies, particularly the passage of Trump's proposed tax cuts and the looming debt ceiling.

Notable Quotes:

Josh Holmes [70:07]: "The more they're fucking around and giving Politico what they want, the more they're gonna fail to shut that down."

John Ashbrook [72:08]: "Democrats are nihilists... they want Senate Republicans not to stick together. They want to fail so that the economy goes into the tank, taxes go up..."

Highlights:

• Tax Bill Progress: Overview of the House passing their version and the Senate's procedural hurdles, with optimism expressed about meeting the July 4th deadline.
• Debt Ceiling Urgency: Explanation of the critical need to raise the debt ceiling to prevent economic collapse, countering Republican reluctance with a fervent call to action.
• Democratic Obstruction: Accusations that Democrats are intentionally creating roadblocks to derail the tax cuts and debt ceiling negotiations, aiming to tarnish Trump's legacy by fostering economic turmoil.

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7. Media Critique and Political Satire

Timestamp: [77:24 - 80:47]

The hosts criticize mainstream media for biased reporting and misrepresentation of Trump's actions, using humor and satire to underscore their points.

Notable Quotes:

Chris Smug [80:11]: "This looks so good. Like, we're going to sink Guam because you have such good ideas."

Josh Holmes [80:27]: "I think it's a sabotage. It's the only reason it really is."

Key Elements:

• Mocking Media Narratives: The hosts lampoon media attempts to find faults in Trump's foreign policy, portraying them as desperate and uninformed.
• Humorous Segments: Incorporation of satirical clips and exaggerated scenarios to highlight perceived absurdities in media and Democratic rhetoric.
• Internal Banter: Light-hearted exchanges among hosts, reinforcing group camaraderie and shared viewpoints.

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8. Listener Engagement and Personal Stories

Timestamp: [80:47 - 82:00]

The podcast features listener comments, providing personal anecdotes and reinforcing the episode's themes.

Notable Contribution:

Listener "Summer Days": "My base in Iraq got bombed twice with over three dozen rockets from an Iranian proxy group... Iran will continue to be a problem whether we address it today or tomorrow."

Discussion:

• Real-Life Impact: Highlighting the sacrifices of American service members and the ongoing threats posed by Iran, validating the hosts' stance with firsthand experiences.
• Call to Action: Emphasis on the necessity of proactive measures to ensure national and allied security, resonating with the audience's shared concerns.

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9. Conclusion and Final Remarks

Timestamp: [82:00 - End]

Josh Holmes wraps up the episode by reiterating the importance of the discussed actions in safeguarding America and advancing its interests globally. The hosts encourage listeners to stay informed, support the administration's policies, and participate in the upcoming tax and debt ceiling initiatives.

Final Notes:

• Encouragement to Engage: Hosts urge listeners to like, subscribe, and engage with the podcast's content on various platforms.
• Sign-Off: A unified call to "hold the line" and remain steadfast against opposing political forces.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

1. John Ashbrook [03:20]:
   "Number one, biggest L of the weekend, hands down to the Iranian mullahs and the government of Iran. Number two, has to be like, Obama and his team."

2. John Ashbrook [09:36]:
   "Iran has officially responded to our obliteration of their nuclear facilities with a very weak response which we expected and have very effectively countered."

3. Josh Holmes [39:39]:
   "He's Commander in Chief, the United States of America. It's Article 2 Powers in the Constitution."

4. Michael Duncan [36:01]:
   "The last four years, my biggest concern was this open border was the biggest national security vulnerability this country's ever seen."

5. Josh Holmes [70:07]:
   "The more they're fucking around and giving Politico what they want, the more they're gonna fail to shut that down."

6. Chris Smug [80:11]:
   "This looks so good. Like, we're going to sink Guam because you have such good ideas."

---

Key Takeaways

• Aggressive Foreign Policy: The episode underscores President Trump's decisive actions against Iran as a necessary move to eliminate existential threats, contrasting sharply with prior administrations’ approaches.

• Constitutional Defense: Strong arguments are made regarding the president's constitutional authority to act unilaterally in national security matters, challenging Democratic assertions of overreach.

• National Security Concerns: Linking immigration to national security, the hosts express deep concerns about the potential infiltration of hostile elements, advocating for stricter border control measures.

• Fiscal Responsibility: An urgent call to support tax cuts and raise the debt ceiling, positioning these fiscal policies as essential for economic stability and growth.

• Media and Political Criticism: The podcast takes a critical stance against mainstream media and Democratic politicians, portraying them as illegitimate and obstructive forces against America's best interests.

• Listener Validation: Personal stories from listeners reinforce the podcast's messages, providing real-world examples of the threats and sacrifices discussed.

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Conclusion:
In this episode of the Ruthless Podcast, the hosts deliver a fervent defense of President Trump's foreign and domestic policies, particularly his strategic strike against Iran's nuclear capabilities. Through a combination of historical analysis, constitutional arguments, and personal anecdotes, Josh Holmes, Chris Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook present a compelling narrative that champions proactive national security measures and fiscal responsibility. Their critical stance towards Democratic opposition and mainstream media aims to resonate deeply with their conservative audience, reinforcing their role as steadfast voices in modern conservative discourse.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

Nobody wants global war. Nobody wants, you know, troop commitment in the region and all the things that we've had to deal with over the last 20 years in terms of the war on terror and everything else. Like, I understand the anxiety, but if there is a group of people anywhere in the world that says they want to eliminate you from the face of the planet, you have two choices. You wait around for them to get the capability to do as they wish or you try to eliminate the threat. America's beverage companies are investing in America. We're American companies making American products with American workers in America's hometowns. We're local bottlers and manufacturers operating in all 50 states, employing more than 275,000Americans in good paying jobs, delivering for the nation because we believe in the promise of America and the people who make it great. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Beverage Association.

[Chris Smug]

Trump country is booming.

[Josh Holmes]

We're building, hiring and winning in America.

[Chris Smug]

Because energy tax credits create jobs and put America first.

[Josh Holmes]

Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country. More production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.

[Chris Smug]

And America's comeback depends on American energy. President Trump keeps keep what works, don't repeal energy tax credits.

[Josh Holmes]

Learn more at Built for America US.

[Michael Duncan]

Paid for by Built for America.

[Josh Holmes]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[John Ashbrook]

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

[Unknown]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, good Tuesday to you and welcome back to the Ruthless variety program. I'm Josh Holmes along with Chris comfortably smug, Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. A full cast and crew left to right across your radio dial. As always, fellas, admirable job holding down the fort for me last week.

[Chris Smug]

Thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

Great shows.

[Chris Smug]

It was fun.

[Josh Holmes]

So listen, a lot of content out there. Many things that we want to put on in context and give our opinion on. And as is always the case, Democrats give us a lot to work with. Yeah, so we're going to have some yucks in the process. Iran, obviously is the big discussion point that we're having across the world, really. And you all by now are very well aware of the mission that was executed against the nuclear facilities and the development of nuclear weapons within Iran. There's been presidents back to my beginning in politics, George W. Bush in deep discussions about whether or not America had an obligation to do something to prevent a regime that said, we will kill you if we have the capability for doing something about it. And W. Bush, obviously, with the war on terror and Iraq, they sort of had their hands full in that regard. And Obama drone striking weddings and sending them pallets of cash and sending Iran pallets of cash. Decided there were other more pressing.

[John Ashbrook]

Can I say, like, number one, biggest L of the weekend, hands down to the Iranian mullahs and. And the government of Iran. Number two, has to be like, Obama and his team. Yeah, they, man. I mean, it's not coincidence. Like, they were hand in hand, they tried to be like, okay, Iran, we'll give you pilots of cash. We'll try to like.

[Chris Smug]

Well, that was.

[John Ashbrook]

That was sort of all their theories.

[Chris Smug]

I thought that was the funniest thing over the weekend. You know, you watch this and you're a little tense about the whole situation. Obviously, it's like, what's gonna happen here? But then you have these Obama pod bros explaining to the world, well, now that Donald Trump has attacked Iran, you know, they're very dangerous. Like, they, you know, they could do terrorist attacks in Cyprus, blowing up a, you know, a bus full of American tourists.

[John Ashbrook]

Obama, if you're so dangerous, you give them pallets of cash, like, explain that thing to me.

[Josh Holmes]

I saw you tomahawk dunk on Tommy VI the pod, bro.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah, I was like, fucking Shawn Kemp.

[John Ashbrook]

Took no prisoners, man. Good for Duncan.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, they, you know, look, they like to reinvent history every time. I mean, there was also other takes that I saw that I agreed with that were terrific, where they always talk about the consequences of American action. And, you know, maybe when you spend the last 30 years attacking America and its interests and its action allies abroad, maybe we're the consequence. You know, maybe the consequence is coming to Iran finally for the first time.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah. America is the one who knocks.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, there it is.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right.

[John Ashbrook]

That's it.

[Josh Holmes]

And, like, that's a good framework for how it is that we view in the ruthless variety program what's happened here. I understand there's a lot of questions, a lot of anxiety about what this all means. Nobody wants global war. Nobody wants, you know, troop commitment in the region and all the things that we've had to deal with over the last 20 years in terms of the war on terror and everything else. Like, I understand the anxiety, but if there is a group of people anywhere in the world that says they want to eliminate you from the face of the planet, you have two choices. You wait around for them to get the capability to do as they wish, or you try to eliminate the threat. And it's that simple. And what I love about President Trump and the way that he has executed, particularly Middle Eastern foreign policy is that it's always about, let's see if we can find a different way to do something. And then he runs up into the familiar blockades that every president before him has run up against. Instead of just throwing hands to the air and being like, okay, well, I guess I'll focus on taxes for a while. He's like, okay, well, you've left me no choice. Soleimani is a good example of that, right? Isis, what he did with isis, is a good example of that. I mean, taking decisive action. Moving the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which every president before him had said, you can't do it because it's going to create.

[John Ashbrook]

Even though they ran on it, everyone would campaign promise. And then they, they wouldn't do it.

[Josh Holmes]

He's like, okay, well, let's just do it. And so this is a situation where you have a regime in Iran that has not only just said they wanted to kill Americans, they're the largest state sponsor of terrorism. They've killed more American soldiers than any other country on this planet. They've like, internalize that for a minute. Internalize that. When we were involved in Iraq, when we were involved in the region, you can go back to the Khobar Tower bombings or the Beirut, the barracks bombings in Beirut or all the. That was all Iran. That's what they were doing. You can go all the way back to the student hostage situation in 1979. It's the same thing. Ayatollah Khamenei, now his son, and that's what they're doing there. And it just took sort of the recognition of a responsible leader to say, well, if I ever get the opportunity to ensure that they can't actually reach beyond their little sphere of influence, I'm going to do it. And he did it. Yeah, it's a big look. It's a big deal. And we're going to tell you a lot of questions out there in the universe about whether this is, particularly in the online universe, about whether this is America first or whether we're going to answer all of those things. We're going to get deep into depth and we're going to have some yucks because Democrats, again, yeah, it's content. We've also got an update on this Senate action on this big, beautiful bill and when you can sort of rest at ease that your taxes are not going up. And we'll talk about all of that along with some variety that you're going to love. But to start off with, I think the biggest question was answered Monday that most Americans had, which is. Okay, what's the retaliation for this? Right, because this is the reason why every American president hadn't done what President Donald J. Trump had done, which is what's the retaliation for doing the right thing? The right thing was obviously eliminating the nuclear capability of Iran. Everyone has agreed on that. Literally everyone has agreed on that. But the question was always at what cost? So what's the retaliation? Well, turns out they launched, they launched some missiles at a US Base in Qatar. No missiles impacted. All were intercepted, no casualties. The attack was, as Donald Trump has said, pre announced.

[John Ashbrook]

Can I read this in its entirety? Can we get this on the screen? This was posted by President Trump on Truth Social. Iran has officially responded to our obliteration of of their nuclear facilities with a very weak response which we expected and have very effectively countered. There have been 14 missiles fired, 13 were knocked down and one was set free because it was headed in a non threatening direction. I am pleased to report that no Americans were harmed and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they've gunned it all out of their system and there was.

[Chris Smug]

And.

[John Ashbrook]

There will hopefully be no further hate. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice. This is man. He is so good at just being mean to his enemy.

[Josh Holmes]

Just a dog.

[John Ashbrook]

I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice which made it possible for no lives to be lost and nobody to be injured. Perhaps Iran can now proceed to peace and harmony in the region and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America that's just so hard.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we talk for a bit about the thank you for attention to this matter? How that's just become the mic drop?

[John Ashbrook]

That is so good.

[Unknown]

It was incredible. Over the weekend, all these memes just sort of flourished on Twitter with like a B2 and a flag flying behind it. It said thank you for your attention to this matter. It's just, it's one of the greatest things.

[Chris Smug]

I guess what I love about it the most, and I've said this numerous, is like Trump more than any politician in the history of politics, can break the fourth wall.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

You know, and it's like, all right, we all know what Iran is doing here. Like, they have to have a face saving measure in which they try to lob some missiles at some American facilities in the Middle east, but they've been degraded by Israel and then by the United States. And Donald Trump isn't going to even give him that. He's going to know. He's going to be like, no, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to dog walk you on the world stage. Stage and let everybody know. I know that's the best part.

[John Ashbrook]

So amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the best. So can we get a, a clip? 1A. This is just of the missile defense systems. This is in Qatar. And I got to imagine that's a little disconcerting looking out your window and seeing a fireworks show above you. But what that is is Patriot missile defenses from the Americans shooting down these missiles headed towards Qatar and more importantly, American bases in the region ensuring that, as Donald Trump said, 14 missiles were fired, 13 were knocked down and one was set free. No casualties in the Americans.

[John Ashbrook]

You want to know the crazy thing about those images is when you see those interceptions, that's actually happening outside the Earth's atmosphere.

[Josh Holmes]

That's crazy.

[John Ashbrook]

Isn't that mind blowing?

[Unknown]

Mind blowing.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the level of technology America has. Is those explosions that you're seeing, those are above the earth's atmosphere.

[Josh Holmes]

They look like stars.

[Unknown]

I will say, I know we're going to get, I know we're going to get to it a little bit later in the segment. I don't think this is the end of what the Iranians are going to try to do.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I think, and that's part of the discussion we're going to have is like the cost benefit analysis on all of that. But we're going to get into it. I think that the. Look, we would be remiss if we didn't take some acknowledgement over the opposition and it's uniform on the, on the Democratic side that somehow now, despite their strong preferences that Iran never get nuclear capability, they now have a problem with somebody actually effectuating that policy. Foremost amongst them, aoc. Our girl. Yes, our girl. Let's pop up. Graphic one, if you don't mind. The President's disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and the congressional war powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.

[John Ashbrook]

Horrible. Take.

[Chris Smug]

Hell yeah. Oh, she hit all of the liberal. You know, what would you say? Call mad libs. Say she, she hit it all.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like an SEO.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

They're trying to get all the things in for the, the adverb.

[Chris Smug]

I think the funniest part about it is the idea she gives a. About the Constitution.

[Josh Holmes]

She never cared a lick like when we were doing. She Was using taxpayer dollars to.

[Chris Smug]

No, she studied it now.

[Josh Holmes]

Force landlords not to evict people. She was like, no, no. Cast constitution. Like, I don't know, there's like several amendments that directly pertain to the last set of shit that you were dealing with.

[John Ashbrook]

And Cassie, I was, I was on vacation this past weekend. And among all the bartenders I encountered, her take was the worst on the situation. Like, are you like, that's the problem is people irony. AOC is not qualified because she's a bartender. Any other bartender I encountered this past weekend had a far better foreign policy take than her. She's just uniquely dumb and thinking, well, why don't we impeach the president for this? It's unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

It's so bad. But she wasn't alone. I mean, there was a whole Adam Schiff. Shifty Schiff was out there with his thing.

[Unknown]

Ilhan Omar.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean like the usual suspects were out there. It's worth noting from the Democratic side that Obama had bombed without a war resolution in any way. Many countries. Iraq in 2014, Syria in 2014. Libya 2011, Yemen 2016. Somalia 2014. Pakistan 2016. And in the era of AOC, Iraq, 21. Syria, 21. Somalia, 23. Yemen, 24. I mean, so get out of here.

[Chris Smug]

How many times did she file articles of impeachment over this illegal act?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Amazing.

[Chris Smug]

That's crazy.

[Michael Duncan]

What do soaring auto insurance rates and inflation have in common? Greedy billboard trial lawyers and fraud. You're paying more because trial lawyers are bilking the system. They're working with unscrupulous doctors to fake injuries and file fraudulent medical claims. They're conspiring with Ms. 13 gang members to recruit illegal immigrants for their bogus lawsuits. And while they're getting richer, hard working Americans are getting crushed by higher auto insurance rates and higher inflation. Frivolous lawsuits are costing the average family over $4,000 a year in hidden taxes. It's a corrupt system. Greedy billboard trial lawyers use fraud and frivolous lawsuits to line their pockets. Then they give millions to Democratic politicians to defend the racket. Lawsuit abuse and insurance fraud are attacks on you. But President Trump can stop their scam and make America affordable again. Ending lawsuit abuse is one more way to put America first. Paid for by make America affordable again.

[Josh Holmes]

It's been crisis after crisis. COVID lockdowns, Biden's inflation, open borders and rampant crime. Now liberals want the largest tax hike in history. Crash crushing families. Unless we stop them and bring America back. President Trump and leader John Thune's plan will cut taxes for working families, strengthen our border and our economy. With no tax on tips or overtime wages, America is ready for President Trump and Leader John Thune's working family tax cuts. If you wanted somebody to best articulate the hollowness that is today's Democratic Party, you never have to go any further than the top of the food chain in the Democratic Senate. And when you have Chuck Schumer, his existence in and of itself is like a mad libs to the intellectual bankruptcy that is the Democratic Party because he doesn't actually care about a fucking thing. His goal is to try to stand on top of a very dynamic, insane Democratic majority as best they can cobble together those coalitions. And so he's in one place one way, he's in another another day. And then he just says things that are inherently contradictory.

[Unknown]

Well, he's here in footsteps. He's got Chris Murphy out there on Twitter making his case. And he's got Chris Van Hollen flying to El Salvador and having margaritas with.

[John Ashbrook]

Abrego Garcia and AOC Record fundraising for folks who want her to primary him.

[Josh Holmes]

But like, he's getting out in front of all those things too, right? Like Holland goes and has margaritas with a human trafficker, as we found out. And he's got a strong statement in support of all of that, you know, and then he just drops it. And you're like, well, it wasn't really his idea. He didn't think of it. And then he comes out and he's like, supportive. He's supposed to be like the one Democrat who's left who's pro Israel gonna support Israel. And it's very important to the pro Israel community that they have Chuck Schumer standing in the way of the. First of all, he's done fucking nothing to stand in the way. The Democratic Party has gone from 100% pro Israel party to maybe a 20% pro Israel party. On his watch, on his watch, he's apparently leading this outfit. So, like, you know, if this is your guy, maybe look for another guy. But this is where this thing really gets in Technicolor. Look@clip1. This is from a couple weeks ago.

[Unknown]

In June 2nd, when it comes to negotiating with the terrorist government of Iran, Trump's all over the lot. One day he sounds tough, the next day he's backing off. And now all of a sudden we find out that Witkoff and Rubio are negotiating a secret side deal with Iran. What kind of bull is this? They're going to sound tough in public and then Have a side deal that lets Iran get away with everything. That's outrageous. We need to make that side deal public. Any side deals before Congress, and most importantly, the American people. If Taco Trump is already folding, the American public should know about it. No side deals.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so the Taco Trump thing, and the reason why that's so ridiculous, is it was something that came up with traders on Wall street about the tariff situation. It was. Trump always chickens out, and it was about effectuating the dates by which tariffs were gonna go into place. Now, ridiculous, because all of those were negotiations and whatnot, but the Democrats at some point detected that it got under.

[John Ashbrook]

Trump's, and also it was fake. So it turns out it was. It was a couple traders who donate to the Dems that were doing that. Yeah, yeah. And so then the Dems actually came up with this and tried to push it.

[Chris Smug]

Then they got their friends in the media to.

[John Ashbrook]

Bingo. They got the media to write it wired up, and then they got Democrat politicians that they donate to to say it. And now how stupid does Schumer look?

[Unknown]

It's not the only thing that was fake. I don't know if you noticed, fellas, but there were several cuts in that short video that Schumer was filming to camera on an issue that supposedly matters a great deal to him. And it reminded me of Randi Winegarden jumping up and down while she's reading a script, trying to convey some sort of emphasis, like she actually cares very much. He cares so much about this topic, he's got to cut seven times for a short video.

[Josh Holmes]

Zero authenticity. But that's the hallmark of Chuck Schumer. So now, all of a sudden, all of this happens, and let's put up the full text of his statement, if you don't mind, fellas. President Trump must provide the American people and Congress clear answers on the actions taken tonight and their implications for the safety of all Americans. No president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something that's consequential as war, with erratic threats and no strategy. Confronting Iran's ruthless campaign of terror, nuclear ambitions, and regional aggression demand strength, resolve, and strategic clarity.

[Chris Smug]

I'm confused. Wait, I thought he was a chicken, Josh.

[Josh Holmes]

I thought he was chickening out.

[Chris Smug]

I thought he was gonna chicken out. And now he does the thing and you're mad about it.

[Josh Holmes]

Wait, hold on. It was that he was letting him off the hook, but then he didn't let him off the hook, and now we're concerned about congressional.

[John Ashbrook]

And he says in that Little video of his. He's like, oh, the terrorist government of Iran. Trump's gonna let him get away with it.

[Unknown]

And I don't know if you guys caught this, but over the weekend, Democrats were whining. We didn't get a heads up. Nobody called us and let us know. Caroline Levitt made it very clear that Chuck Schumer was called. He was given a heads up.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, well. And then he had to say it was perfunctory. You're a spokesperson. It was perfunctory of what it was that they were doing, whatever the hell that means. You got a heads up that we're bombing Iran. Something that you have told your constituency for decades is something that you support, and now all of a sudden, nope. War Powers Act.

[Chris Smug]

Well, it's my favorite thing in the Democratic Party. We've talked about this a lot on the show, and that is when they know Donald Trump has done something that is clearly and obviously correct and right. It always has to be a process argument.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

They can't actually argue the thing on the merits. They're like, the call was wrong. It was perfunctory.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

You know, or like, it just. He did it the wrong way. He didn't do it with the war powers thing that we never enforced on Biden or Obama. We're going to force it on Donald Trump and therefore he needs to be impeached.

[Josh Holmes]

Where's your TPS report?

[Chris Smug]

He didn't file the right TPS report.

[John Ashbrook]

The COVID sheet.

[Chris Smug]

He didn't give me the personal call. And the COVID sheet was not correct. It was not dated, and it wasn't signed by him. And for that reason. Impeach.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude. It's true.

[Chris Smug]

It's true.

[John Ashbrook]

It's really true.

[Josh Holmes]

But that is what these guys do. And then they try to hide underneath it. And so Schumer is going to simultaneously try to shore up the left flank.

[Chris Smug]

It's what you always say, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is very pro Palestinian.

[Chris Smug]

He's so hollow. It's so. It's such hollow. It's just hollow, superficial politics. The guy has just absolutely no core.

[Josh Holmes]

No core. He's trying to shore up that pro Palestinian, I would say, close to majority within the Democratic Party.

[Chris Smug]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Along with his historical support for Israel. At the same time. Because he's not speaking to the substance of the matter. He's speaking to the TBS report.

[John Ashbrook]

It's genuinely concerning their party's nihilist hr.

[Josh Holmes]

It is nihilist HR it is.

[Unknown]

Everybody loves hr.

[Josh Holmes]

Look, they're not alone. There's a couple of voices within the Republican Party and people with me online, right the Tucker Carlson's of the world who are talking about whether bombing Iran is America first as they understood it. We are going to contextualize all of that right after this.

[Chris Smug]

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[Josh Holmes]

Iran thing has put people in different positions in that. We've talked about this before on the show about when Republicans are out of power. You're libertarian left, which finds itself on the right and some fiscal issues and whatnot, tries to grab hold of the Republican Party and pretend as though because they've got a big online voice over the last 15 years, they're trying to pretend as though this is the Republican Party of Donald Trump. We have highlighted on this show several occasions in which this sort of pacifist, isolationist type mentality that they ascribed to President Trump during the course of the 24 campaign just wasn't accurate. And if you looked at Soleimani alone, what was your line on this guy?

[John Ashbrook]

He turned him into salsa.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. So that in and of itself is or ISIS or anything else is belied by how President Trump conducted foreign policy. He's not an isolationist, he's not a.

[Chris Smug]

Pacifist, and he's not a neocon on the other side of the world.

[Josh Holmes]

And he's not a neocon. Right. It's not about like building countries in the mold of the United States or making the same mistakes that we had about deposing Muammar Qaddafi and turning Libya into a terrorist center or Egypt in the Arab Spring or whatever. He's a realist about all of that.

[Unknown]

Right. But if you listen to the detractors on the right ahead of the bombings, you would have been under the impression that Donald Trump is about to start a 20 year ground war, Iran. And that was never on the table. J.D. vance himself, over the weekend made a very, very good point over and over again. We are not at war with Iran. We were making war against their nuclear weapons program. It's very specific. And what President Trump did was very targeted. It's the opposite of what he was being accused of doing ahead of his bombing.

[John Ashbrook]

So I want to speak on this because, I mean, even last week, the first folks who saw the episodes know that, I mean, on a very personal level, I'm very skeptical of, given the American experience of, like, the previous 20 years. Like, you know, I had good friends, like, who went and after the September 11 attacks, went and they signed up with the Marines. And I hired a good friend when I was at the board of elections who was an Army Ranger. And after, after he was there for a little bit, he was like, I don't really enjoy this kind of, like, you know, line of work. And he went and he signed with, you know, a private military contractor. But for a lot of Americans, the 20 year war on terror was very scarring, you know, and that particularly in.

[Josh Holmes]

How we got out of it.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly. And that experience. And so when me personally, I was seeing, okay, what would this look like? You know, these people are saying that we need to act on Iran. And the last thing I ever wanted was for more young Americans to have to experience something like that that are, you know, a lot of our friends and our generation experienced and, and like, not hearing from some of those friends again and not knowing what happened to them. And the unique genius of President Trump to use this moment, because it's a very specific moment, he threaded the needle. This was a very, very small window that he was allowed to act within where the past 18 months, you'd seen, given after the attack on Israel, how much Israel's military had degraded Hamas, had degraded Hezbollah. Right, right. And then you have a situation where Russia is pinned down with a war in Ukraine. And then you have a situation where the Houthis had been just decimated by America, where, like, so many of the pieces that Iran had to count on to always keep itself safe.

[Chris Smug]

Well, and then you had 10 days of Israel taking out all the air defense systems across Iran. And so Donald Trump had the opportunity to do something that he wouldn't have previously been able to do without those terrorist proxies like Hezbollah, Putin drones into northern Israel or Hamas, you know, doing terrorism in the South.

[Josh Holmes]

What did you say this afternoon? They're basically doing an air show over to rank.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah, right. I mean, like you could, you could bring out old biplanes and there's nothing that Iran's air defense could do to stop Israel from doing it.

[Josh Holmes]

Ladies and gentlemen, at 1942, p51 coming across. You'll see pilot Chip McGivern, he's just.

[Chris Smug]

Doing, just doing barrel rolls.

[John Ashbrook]

They should, they should take the P51 and run it there. Let's get some more, let's get some more W's for the P51. But like the threading of the needle because the window and the opportunity to accomplish this would never be there again. Yeah, and it could have been easy. It could have been easy because there's so many people like Trump voters such as myself were like, I don't know about this, Wait on him. And he did it because so many folks have been like. And he knows. And he saw this within his own base of people being like, oh, no, this is gonna be war. This is like, you know, I didn't vote for a neocon. This is not what I voted for. But for him to be willing to take that risk and to do this because for so long, like, I think the Obama presidency was a perfect example of what happens when you are essentially captured by fear of how they appeased the Iranians. They're like, no, listen, we have to send them pallets of cash and we have to. The only way forward is to try to be their buddy.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a carrot stick. And they're always a carrot person because it's a blame America crowd. I mean, to be honest with you, it does break down as simple as that. You either believe that America is a force for good or you do not. And if you do not, you believe that every action that America takes anywhere in the world is going to result in a reaction, that the American people are going to bear the brunt of. What you do by doing that is erase the 30 year history of Americans already bearing the brunt of it and our allies bearing the brunt of it. If you think October 7th was a joke and that no American was harmed with that and our hostages aren't still somewhere in Gaza, like, okay, I could understand how you could figure that out. But when you know the history, the accurate history of what it is that these people have been attempting to do to this country for a long time, when you're given an opportunity, you take it.

[John Ashbrook]

And also, just like going forward for the future for future generations of Americans, what this means for them, of you see this horrible situation of like, oh, what are we going to do with Russia and Ukraine oh, we have to like, send supplies, sell arms to Ukraine. How are we going to approach this? Because Russia is a nuclear power and you don't have to deal with that with Iran any longer because President Trump sent those B2s. They just. Those precision bunker busters, gone, done. It's off the table. We don't have to let Iran try to the way that. I mean, they just extorted the Obama presidency. That's just, let's be honest. They got extorted this country under Obama, because they were like, we could, we could develop nukes. You never know. Trump's like, that's off the table. And he's clown like, he is dunking on them, right?

[Chris Smug]

And what I would say is like, okay, to all of those people who worked in Barack Obama's White House and his foreign policy, his NSC and all of that sort of stuff in the State Department and those pallets of cash that went over there to Iran, when you saw those paragliders go into that music concert on October 7, did you think to yourself, wow, I got a lot of innocent people killed. Do you ever think about that?

[John Ashbrook]

They should think about that. I hope they can't sleep.

[Chris Smug]

Because you should think about, like, having the shamelessness to post and question Donald Trump's resolve and his decision making against Iran, because that's where the money went, the murder of all of those Jewish people.

[Unknown]

Fellas, I don't want to get too far ahead of the program here, but their weakness in Iran was mirrored in their weakness on the border. Everything Obama did to let Iran get off the hook is what Joe Biden did to let everybody get off the hook who was walking across the Mexican border over the four that he was president.

[Chris Smug]

And now this to your point, and you've said it numerous times on the show, but like, now those people have the audacity to be like, well, maybe they're sleeper cells of Iran.

[Unknown]

I know they're in the United States, without a doubt.

[Chris Smug]

How do you think they got in this country?

[Unknown]

Because of your exact. Last October, House Republicans did a report with the Customs and Border Patrol data center, and they learned that there were 1.7 million people who came over here from countries that the American government has identified as security problems for our country. So people from Yemen, people from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and China, and these are fighting age men. And so there's so much focus on getting illegal immigrants deported from this country. And I know Tom Homan has been on this case, but I would really like to hear more about what this government is doing to move some of these North Africans into Jika Stans and Uzbeks out of the country who came here and they're not, they're not, they didn't come here looking for work. They came here with a job already. Well, that's what terrifies me.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, so look, let's just get into this now. And I want to get back to the legality of what Trump is talking about and put to rest like the Thomas Massie's and Rand Paul's and all that nonsense in a second because it legitimately is nonsense. And you know, of course, Democrats piggyback their way into it, despite the, I guess, 19 different encounters that we discussed on the Obama and Biden administration where they did the same thing without a war Powers act. But on the immigration side, you make a good point. Because the question that Americans always have is what's the retaliatory component look like? I mean, is this something where we have a real fear in the homeland? Is this something that's going to jeopardize our soldiers abroad? I mean, we saw a good look at the Qatar situation, if that's what it is. I feel very comfortable with where we're at. But as you mentioned, the immigration component opens up a whole new concern for those of us who lived through 911 and understood that there were people who came here on student visas. All of a sudden you had pilot's license and next thing you know you're killing 3,000Americans by flying planes into buildings. Like what is the capability of all that? Now, thankfully, you have an administration that's not blind to the problem that Biden created with 20 million people coming into this country, 1.7 million from people from countries that we deem to be problematic from a national security standpoint. Let's listen to Tom Homan on clip two, if you don't mind.

[Michael Duncan]

As I said, the last four years, my biggest concern was this open border was the biggest national security vulnerability this country's ever seen. So I pulled numbers this morning just from a CBP under Joe Biden. There was 1,272 nationals Iran released in the country between Ofo and the border Patrol. And you compare that to the Trump administration. Zero, right? Zero releases.

[Unknown]

Yeah. I mean, if you're not terrified by that number, you're not terrified by anything. And I will tell you, their missiles being intercepted by American Patriot technology over our bases in the Middle east, that's one thing. But we saw what they did in Israel on a Saturday morning in October a few years ago. They can do the exact same thing over here. So I think that Americans have to be vigilant. We have to be talking to our. The people in security. If you see something that is weird, you gotta tell people. Because I think, dude, it can happen here.

[John Ashbrook]

And here's the other thing is, like, you think about this context with what we've seen about these idiot Democrats out there standing in front of like ice trucks trying to go out there and arrest illegals and try to arrest criminals. You are literally aiding abetting terrorists. Get the hell out of there. Like in LA and all these rioters. It's like, if you are trying to stop cbp, you need to be put in prison. Like, I'm so over this. Like, we've allowed this. That. Oh, you know, these are just like. The media especially has done everything to say, this is just protesters. You know, if you stand in front of police trying to arrest criminals, a lot of them are violent offenders here illegally. That's just protest. No, it's not. And now it's. The stakes have been raised considerably.

[Unknown]

And you might think that maybe they just forgot the lesson of 9 11. I don't think anybody here has forgotten the lesson 9 11. You know, there are so many people in New York and New Jersey who painfully remember that lesson every single day of their lives. But, like, the idea that we are supposed to just pretend like it can't happen again here, I mean, we cannot. You know what I mean? Like, that it is so important that we stay vigilant, because it can't.

[Josh Holmes]

This is a story that the media is missing.

[Unknown]

They are.

[Josh Holmes]

And one that we endeavor to get you here in the ruthless variety program. We're going to reach out to a bunch of officials to try to get greater clarification. I saw a story, I forget which publication about the additional FBI assets that are on Iranian immigrants, basically. And trying to figure out whether we not we have sleeper cells or not. And we're going to. We're going to pursue that because that's information that you need to sleep. I think comfortably given the fact that we're in an extremely dynamic situation. But I also wanted to address this issue of constitutionality. And there is. Look, there are two, maybe three members of the Republican Party in Congress that believe that the President, United States does not have executive authority to act in America's national security interest. That every time he lights the fuse on a tomahawk, it requires 535 people sitting under the Capitol dome. Their acquiescence are at very, you know, their approval of doing that. Now, there have been a myriad of Supreme Court cases, many of which were litigated in the first 10 years of this century.

[Chris Smug]

Or just read Article 2 of the Constitution.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, right. I mean, that's basically the core.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, Poindexter, if you're into, like, reading.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's pretty clear.

[Chris Smug]

It's very. It's very clear. He's Commander in chief, the United States of America. It's Article 2 Powers in the Constitution for everybody who claims to be somebody who cares about the Constitution that exists for that reason, for when there is a clear and present danger to the United States of America, the Commander in chief, Donald J. Trump, can act. He does not need an approval of Congress. If he needs to go to war and we need to take the US Military and put all of those assets over there in the Middle East. Yes, you should do that. But I mean, we haven't done it since World War II, so clearly the courts are well established in this fact that it's not necessary. So I don't know why people are pretending this is all fucking this thing. That really pisses me off about this entire put a quarter entire fight. And smug. You were talking a little bit earlier about, like, sort of like that generational scar for people who grew up in the era of 9, 11. And I'm right there with you. That was me. It upsets me when people exploit that to make up bullshit.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, totally.

[Chris Smug]

And I felt like so much of the fight that was happening in the online right. Were people exploiting that pain from Iraq and Afghanistan and our friends and people and our producer here who went and fought in Afghanistan, exploiting that to make something more than what it is.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

And that's such a dishonest thing to do to your audience and something that we would never do here on this show. I mean, we. Two episodes last week, we talked about this conflict in Iran and we gave you the stakes of the entire thing. But what did we reiterate the entire time? Like, no point Donald Trump talk about putting boots on the ground in Iran that we weren't talking about, you know, doing Iraq all over again. But that was the entire conversation over the whole weekend from a bunch of dishonest people who are undermining the president. It is like, at no point was Donald Trump talking like that. And I just think it's so dishonest for people to pretend something is real. That is not right.

[Unknown]

They would have you to believe that his mission is to create a bicameral system of democracy.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

Three branches of government also The President isn't a mascot. They have.

[John Ashbrook]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Real power.

[Chris Smug]

Real power.

[John Ashbrook]

When you're commander in chief, it's commander in chief. It's not a title, it's a duty.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a duty. It says it right there in the job description. And you analyze. You alone, along with your staff and your military advisors, assess threats to this country. You don't go ask Adam Schiff his opinion about whether or not something constitutes a threat. Because as you know, as we've watched, you're gonna get a predictably partisan, ideological sort of, what is it? Is it good for me politically type answer out of these people? And you don't have time in a national security setting to deal with it. And again, I hate to keep coming back to this, but like, if you look at the biggest mistakes that America has made, you could argue Vietnam, right? But after that, when you're talking about the lead up to 9 11, if you're talking about, you know, all the various problems we've had with Ukraine and everything else, it's about not dealing with the issue as a commander in chief. Like you're dealing you. When someone says that they want to kill you and then they actually, they put action behind it where they kill your people, hundreds of people, and they do it. And then they say they're developing a nuclear weapon and then they go about having tangible evidence that they're enriching uranium beyond 60%. That is very close to weapons grade uranium. The only question is when they get it. And if they get it, you're relying on their good graces not to do what they said they would do when they get it.

[Unknown]

Right, right.

[Josh Holmes]

They said that they would use it and they said that they wanted to eliminate Israel and the Western world. They don't like the United States. They said, death to America. That's not coming from some protest group as we have in the United States. That's coming from the ayatollah. They say, death to America. So you take a look at that and you see, all right, put it in your street sense level, right? You've got a guy on the street who says, I'm gonna kill you. And then he says, I'm gonna obtain a gun. And then he goes and gets the gun. Are you gonna wait for him to find you somewhere on the street to kill you, or are you gonna try to take action to make sure that he never gets the opportunity to jump ugly out?

[Unknown]

I think what you need to do.

[Josh Holmes]

Of course you're going to do something.

[Unknown]

What you need to do is just give him a pallet of cash and then maybe he won't shoot you after he gets it.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the best part, is the pallet of cash they kept.

[Unknown]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

Can I interest you in a pallet of cash? Don't answer. I'm just sending it.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is an easy answer. If it's somebody else's pallet of cash. That is the American taxpayer. Right. I mean, these people are supposed to represent us and they're siphoning off our tax dollars to give to a whole bunch of people who ultimately use that cash to attack our allies in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas. I mean, this is like a, this is a no brainer of all no brainers. And the idea that you need a war powers act to ensure the safety and security of the American people. I mean, you saw that stupid statement out of Medvedev, the former president before Putin, of Russia, where he was like, no, we're going to ensure that they're, first of all, they didn't damage their nuclear capabilities. And second of all, we're going to ensure as Russia, that we give them the capabilities, possibility of delivering the payload.

[John Ashbrook]

That tells you right there.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, so it wasn't about nuclear energy, was it?

[Chris Smug]

Yeah, I actually loved that statement. It revealed the whole theater of the whole thing.

[Josh Holmes]

It did.

[Chris Smug]

Like, we're talking about enrichment levels and like at the un Are they comfortable with this amount? And what are we going to do here with the Obama administration, this deal and all the bullshit? It was all bullshit. They want to nuke. They want to fucking nuke. They want to kill us.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

They made it very clear.

[Josh Holmes]

And it is a very direct parallel in my mind to the situation that we had in the late 90s and early 2000s about systematically quarterly almost attacking American assets abroad and thereby allowing Al Qaeda to build capabilities to figure out how to attack us. And either you ignore it, as Bill Clinton, Democrats did in the 90s and early 2000s, the results in something like 9, 11, or you take action, which is what Donald Trump did. And so get your fucking mind rat. This is not a perfect world that we live in. No, it's not a place where you can put on the blinders, throw up the walls and pretend like Youngstown, Ohio is going to thrive again if only we don't look outside the borders of the United States. It's just not going to happen. Like, this needs to be done. Stuff like this needs to be done to ensure not only the peace and prosperity of the American people, which is the primary goal, but all of our allies that we do business with and how we grow our economy abroad. It's that simple.

[John Ashbrook]

Real quick, I just want to take 10 seconds. On a very petty and personal level. Michael. Michael Duncan dunked on Tommy Vitor this past weekend, who's one of the pod bros, and they're very mad at us. The pod bros. Tommy Vitor blocked me. They're mad because we have now more listeners and viewers than they do and they look very stupid. They tried giving money to Iran, all.

[Josh Holmes]

Their ideas and we didn't deliver pallets of cash.

[John Ashbrook]

Anyway, by the minute, Ben Rhodes hairline gets worse.

[Josh Holmes]

Worse.

[John Ashbrook]

The bro is having crisis. Everyone saw on video he was he with a backpack, crying, sitting on the street, and he's never recovered from it. And. And I enjoy watching you all suffer.

[Josh Holmes]

That was it.

[Chris Smug]

That was worth it.

[John Ashbrook]

That's all I had to say.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it.

[John Ashbrook]

That was entirely worth it. I just had to say it.

[Josh Holmes]

Bless you. That's why you listen to the ruthless variety program, because that's fantastic. So how are the libs in the media handling all this? Predictably. We're gonna get to it right after this.

[Unknown]

Okay, folks, time to sound the alarm. Trump's big, beautiful tax cut is coming down to the wire in Congress. And my friends at Americans for Prosperity want your help to get it across the finish line. If the bill doesn't pass, the average American family is looking at a fifteen hundred dollar tax hike. Americans for Prosperity says not gonna happen right now. Some members of Congress are getting very shaky with every special interest in D.C. pounding on their doors. But AFP thinks it's time for hardworking Americans to do some pounding of their own. So AFP and its grassroots army is already out there pushing back on crazy ideas like raising tax rates and supporting the congressmen who want to cut taxes. AFP is the only organization I know that can bring this kind of grassroots pressure to bear. If you want to join the fight to Protect Prosperity, visit ProtectProsperity.com to help Trump get his big, beautiful bill. That's protect prosperity.com.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so the media look was very predictably predisposed on the Iran thing.

[Chris Smug]

No, you don't say.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's like all the deficiencies of. Well, President Trump's an isolationist. He doesn't understand the value of what it is that we're doing in Ukraine to keep the Russians pacified. He doesn't understand the Middle East. He doesn't understand. And then he does something that no other president could do that they all claimed was Important and yet now have a problem with it. Much like the Chuck Schumer. Like Chuck Schumer, like, goes a step above to put a fine point on the hypocrisy and idiocy of all of it. But the media just be clowns himself. And our winner of Hack Madness.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, she did it again.

[Josh Holmes]

She just can't stop. She must have some kind of a humiliation.

[Unknown]

Yeah. She has done what Tyrese Helliburton would have done if he stayed healthy in that game seven.

[John Ashbrook]

Whoa. He did all. Dude, Indiana, no shame in their game.

[Unknown]

Dude.

[Chris Smug]

That's really below the belt. I expect that from a loser from Ohio.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

The Pacers.

[John Ashbrook]

Indiana deserved the win. That was a horrible tragedy.

[Josh Holmes]

I love that he leaves Ashbrook hanging. But Brennan has Marco Rubio on. And let me preface this by saying Marco, who's the Secretary of State and has acquitted himself perfectly over the first six months of this administration in terms of articulately laying out the president's agenda and what we're doing and pushing back on the nonsense. As also the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. There's not a thing that this lady can say to him that he doesn't already know because it's been his job for, like, a decade. And yet she's the expert. Check out clip three.

[Unknown]

Are you saying there that the United.

[John Ashbrook]

States did not see intelligence, that the.

[Unknown]

Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization? That's irrelevant. I think that question being asked in the media. That's an irrelevant question to.

[John Ashbrook]

That is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments.

[Unknown]

You know, it's not.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, it was.

[Unknown]

No, it's not political. I know that better than you know that. And I know that that's not the case. But I'm asking whether the order was given and the people who say that it doesn't matter the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury. Why would you bury things in a mountain 300ft under the ground? Why would you bury six? Why do they have 60% enriched uranium? You don't need 60% enriched urine. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons.

[John Ashbrook]

Dude, I so crushed. I have to say. He has been stacking so many W's. Yeah, and like you said, like, Margaret Brown's definitely got some, like, humiliation fetish thing going on because it's like tag team. Like, Rubio and JD Are basically taking turns being like, I don't care, Margaret. Why are you so bad at this? And he's done such a terrific job. Especially like that image you saw of when President Trump called that press conference. You had Secretary Hegseth, you had Secretary Rubio, you had J.D. vance, you had Trump roll up. And it felt like, okay, I have such confidence. Because you're seeing capability, strength. Right. As opposed to, like the Biden years, the Obama years. You had. I mean, again, we can go back to, like, Ben Rhodes. You have these people calling the shots. And now you have these people who are like, listen, this guy's been on the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This guy's the Secretary of State. And to just on the spot, dismantle. So, so, so, so good to see.

[Chris Smug]

The two things I would add to that. Number one, it goes back to the TPS report argument is like, Margaret Brennan's there and she's seriously asking the Secretary of State, like, did you see the TPS report where the ayatollah himself was like, build me a nuke? It's like as if that's a thing. And then the second part of it, and I think this is really important, is sort of disarms the entire argument is like, you put it down 3, 300 meters.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

Encased it in concrete. Build an entire complex inside of a mountain.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

You're doing that to make nuclear energy.

[John Ashbrook]

Really?

[Chris Smug]

Really? That's what you're saying. It's a civilian nuclear energy program. That's what you're doing. Seriously.

[John Ashbrook]

Also credit. Credit to, you know, Secretary Rubio, because I'm usually of the opinion of you should avoid and ignore the leftist media, which is like, what Margaret Brennan, CBS is probably the most left wing. It's crazy out now, but credit where it's due to have the, like, capability to roll up in the lion's den and dunk on them that JD has. That Secretary Rubio has.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

They still do.

[Michael Duncan]

Huge.

[John Ashbrook]

That's.

[Josh Holmes]

They still do it. They still put them out. Which it does say something.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it does.

[Josh Holmes]

They're willing to go have the argument. I think the best clips that this administration does or is as a result of interviews, but you have to have.

[John Ashbrook]

That, like, 1% talent that like, JD and Rubio have, or else, you know, you're a mess.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So beyond Margaret Brennan describing what's important in a threat analysis to the Secretary of State and former Intelligence chairman, listen here it goes beyond a shrill, angry lady. Like, the goal of all of them is to find a crack in the armor, some kind of a hypocrisy, some kind of a missed story that they're able to, like, never mind the fact that you've got an incredibly brave bunch of people who executed an incredibly brave maneuver to keep the American people safe. The question is the TPS report. The question is all of this.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm seeing these posts on Blue Sky.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So, like.

[John Ashbrook]

And he's like, I actually see the report, lady.

[Josh Holmes]

This one.

[John Ashbrook]

I see the intelligence report.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. He's like, I actually get these intelligence report. So. But this one actually made me laugh out loud. So this is Sam Stein in Graphic three. What he says is in response to Donald Trump talking about the successful attack. This is right after we had cleared Iranian airspace to notify the American people of what we had done. He says, wow, what happened in two weeks?

[Chris Smug]

Whoa, whoa.

[John Ashbrook]

Body bag.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

So last week you got him.

[Josh Holmes]

So last week in the South Lawn, the President was asked what he's going to do with Iran, and he laughed. He was like, what a stupid question. Why would you ask me about putting a timeline on what it is? And he's like, I don't imagine we'll probably do something in the next two weeks. This dude shows up and he's like, well, there's a clear element of misleading. He said, two weeks, only four days.

[John Ashbrook]

And I love it because President Trump ran in 2016 on this. How he said that. Like, it is so stupid how Democrats were like, I want you to tell me the day you would do this bomb. And he's like, we have to be unpredictable. One of the greatest men to ever leave this country, Richard Nixon, was known for a foreign policy known as madman theory, where he was unpredictable. His enemies never knew what he would do.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

So Sam Stein's like, no, no, no. Don't you understand? Obama was like, you have to send pallets of cash and wire them if you're gonna do anything.

[Josh Holmes]

At the same time, the New York Times is doing a piece about how his Twitter account was compromising the safety of our men and women in uniform because he was, with transparency, announcing to the American people what it was that we were doing.

[Chris Smug]

I just can't wait until the media calculates the amount of jet fuel we wasted sending us B2s to Guam and.

[Unknown]

What that did to the climate.

[Josh Holmes]

So good.

[Unknown]

You gotta think about what.

[Chris Smug]

Was the misdirection worth it, sir?

[Josh Holmes]

Also, just think about the extent to which this president and his national security team has gone here to try to avoid innocent casualties. Yes, they went to remote nuclear sites to bomb them to take out the threat.

[John Ashbrook]

They didn't bomb Tehran and hit that one with subsurface bunker Busters. So, like, some guard at the tower was untouched while this like three stage bomb is tunneling using a blade of steel covering to only hit the fucking accelerators.

[Josh Holmes]

But smug. It didn't hit the 14 day mark.

[Chris Smug]

Oh, no.

[Josh Holmes]

So we're concerned. This one's my absolute favorite. Graphic four, if you don't mind. This cat, John Ismay, he says in a. In the briefing, hegseth referred to B2 pilots as our boys on those bombers. Yet both men and women have been trained to fly them. Boom.

[Unknown]

Got him, got him, got him.

[Chris Smug]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

I saw. I resign. I apologize to whoever this is because I think that they are a listener. But somebody had this thing on Twitter that was like in the song by Cyndi Lauper, girls just want to have fun. It is inaccurate in that historically, both girls and boys have been known to enjoy fun.

[John Ashbrook]

Dude, that's the New York Times.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the same saying, like, you're trying to find schisms of things to be critical of. Like, we're critical of Hagseth for saying, are boys on those bombers. Dude. What?

[John Ashbrook]

Obama sends literal pallets of cash to people that are like, these are dangerous terrorists and we're sending them pallets of cash. And the New York Times, like, yeah, women have also been trained to fly these planes.

[Chris Smug]

Did we do a land acknowledgement when we entered Iranian airspace?

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know.

[Unknown]

And why haven't we put trans people in those planes? That's the problem with our society.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not equality if our trans don't get to bomb them. It just isn't. We're living a lie here in America. So in graphic five, one of the contestants, frequent contestants, David Frum, who's a noted neocon. Just hours before Trump took out Iran's nuclear program, David Frum wrote about how Trump always chickens out. Again, go back to the taco thing that, like the left wing, according to, like, two analysts on Wall street who had come up with this, they think agitates him. And so what he's done here is use the vernacular of Chuck Schumer. Very clever bumper sticker that they've come up with to suggest that the mullahs of Iran join the bet that Trump always chickens out.

[Chris Smug]

And he posted that the day we hit the nuclear sites in Iraq.

[John Ashbrook]

I won't name names, but I've heard rumors that a hedge fund that Chelsea Clinton was associated with who is run by a noted Democrat donor is the source of that.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, oh, interesting.

[John Ashbrook]

I've just heard rumors about that.

[Josh Holmes]

No, that's good.

[John Ashbrook]

Many People are saying these are litigious individuals.

[Josh Holmes]

Important information here.

[John Ashbrook]

Mark Lasry is very litigious.

[Josh Holmes]

Allegedly. We're joking and laughter.

[Chris Smug]

Parody. Parody.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a. So anyway, you take a look at that and then you like the little enclaves of liberal progressive nonsense that we've dealt with. Like if you're thinking about the last two weeks, you're like, all right, so what is one of them that has been absolutely outrageous. I know. L. A, Right, Louisiana Is.

[John Ashbrook]

This was so nuts. I can't believe it.

[Josh Holmes]

Somehow weren't enforcing anything. They got people with Mexican flags all across the streets. They're allowing people to burn down shit and, and riot and whatnot. And like we had to send in the National Guard. A trick. Because they wouldn't do their job. So naturally the sheriff's department, who is in charge of keeping law and order in la, has something to say about the Iranian strike.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah, naturally, naturally.

[Josh Holmes]

So they go up to save. We want to put this on the board. Our hearts go out to the victims and families impacted by the recent bombings in Iran.

[John Ashbrook]

How is this real? How is this real?

[Josh Holmes]

While this tragic event occurred overseas, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, it's closely monitoring the situation alongside our local, state and federal partners. This is so good. They've had literal riots, looting, burning down of the city. They are not following federal law. They are letting illegal immigrants take over their city. They are going to weigh in on a bombing campaign against people engineering nuclear weapons, against.

[Unknown]

We are going to sing the song of Iranian traders who were long on the weaponization of their nuclear weapons. They lost a lot of money and we need to recognize that, bro.

[John Ashbrook]

The LA Sheriff's Department can't keep the Apple Store from getting hit for iPhones. They're monitoring the situation in Iran.

[Josh Holmes]

What are you doing?

[John Ashbrook]

Your job, bro. Just do your job. Just do your job, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just. I mean, you can't make it up. No, I understand. Well, Faith since deleted this ill fated thing, so even they.

[John Ashbrook]

Which is a further cowardice.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean they know. They know. But this is what you get out of the.

[John Ashbrook]

I want like Tom Homan and Dog the Bounty Hunter to run like the police department in the state of California. Yeah, like let's just actually have law and order in that failed thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's get some stuff done. So it gets to our question of the day, which we've touched on. I think you know our point of view, but is bombing Iran America first. You all have, particularly those of you who spent a lot of time online Some strong opinions about this one way or another. You know, ours, the Tucker Carlson thing. Look, we saw the, the Ted Cruz Tucker Carlson interview, which I don't think went particularly well for either of them.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

To be honest, like I watch it.

[John Ashbrook]

No winners.

[Josh Holmes]

Holy smokes. Like you talk about disintegrating, you know, any sort of constituency, like they're just killing each other. I happen to come down on this particular topic strongly along the side of Ted Cruz. But like that's the debate that's happening within the Republican Party. And I think that you all probably have some views too. It is funny to me though, all the people who are like ascribing this libertarian, non interventionalist build a wall and don't look outside our borders type policy have scrambled back to sort of recontextualize what it is.

[Chris Smug]

Interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

Which should also tell you something. Look, at some level I appreciate the Thomas Massie's and the Rand Paul's because they're intellectually honest. They come at it and they say what they. Now I disagree as vehemently as I can, but if you're following a bunch of people who are like, no, foreign wars, forever wars. We can't even look outside of our border. And then all of a sudden today they're in a situation where they're like, no, this makes sense and President Trump knows what he's doing. Think about the rest of the advice that you're getting. Maybe tune in double to the ruthless variety program because we're not going to make any shit up. We're just going to tell you exactly what it is, whether you agree or disagree with what it is that we're saying. Like your comments on all of that. And we got to get to your comments from last week. Again, thanks fellas for holding the fort down. Of course, really appreciate it. Should Trump order a strike on Iran, which was very, very precious.

[John Ashbrook]

Great question. Timing could not be perfect.

[Josh Holmes]

Just a 48 hour.

[John Ashbrook]

Poor Sam Stein.

[Josh Holmes]

We didn't hit his two week mark. Oh no, what a shame. Anyway, if you like and subscribe to the YouTube channel, we read all of your stuff and we get representative sample here on the program to do that. We always start with a voice and.

[Unknown]

You know we have the best listeners on the planet. Summer Days is among them. Summer Days writes I was a service member back during 2020. My base Taj in Iraq got bombed twice with over three dozen rockets from an Iranian proxy groups within three days. It was in response to a well deserved assassination. They aimed at living areas, gyms and food areas on base. We lost American and British soldiers there. My unit participated in the evacuation of our embassy in Baghdad, too. Iran also attacked directly Al Asad Air Base, where I. While I was in country. It still happens, folks. And it drives me nuts that we pretend that it doesn't or that Israel is the only one with skin in the game because it's politically inconvenient. The military's job is to keep them all occupied over on foreign soil so the bombs and insurgents don't come to hit us here at home. But it's only a matter of time before another Dem takes office who thinks that winning hearts and minds through financial appeasement actually works. Spoiler. It doesn't. It makes us look weak. Fundamentalist Islam does not view mercy as strength. In my opinion, Israel has provided an opportunity to set Iran's nuclear program back to the stone Age and possibly even usher in a regime change. And we would be fools not to take it. Iran will continue to be a problem whether we address it today or tomorrow.

[Josh Holmes]

Let me just say this is somebody who knows what they're talking about.

[John Ashbrook]

Can you tell us some lottery numbers in your next comment?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, they know what they're talking about. And Summer Days obviously has lived that life.

[Unknown]

Right? We. We had the best audience.

[Josh Holmes]

We do.

[Unknown]

We have. There are so many guys, men and women in our audience who actually knew people who paid the price. They paid the price themselves during the 20 years in Iraq. And I just think, like, we have to pay attention to that voice.

[Chris Smug]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

No question about it. All right, next comment. Dunks, Runks.

[Chris Smug]

Comment 2 is from Lisa Marie, great.

[John Ashbrook]

Friend of the program.

[Chris Smug]

Great friend of the program. Lisa writes, sadly, Trump will have to do some kind of action from us before Iran surrenders again.

[Josh Holmes]

Very correct.

[John Ashbrook]

Nailed it.

[Josh Holmes]

Very correct. She's totally right in that. Look, there's a lot of geopolitics in the region, right? And Saudi Arabia is no friend of Iran. Qatar, no friend of Iran. Turkey, no friend of Iran. I mean, you're talking about all the countries that are in the mix of this discussion. Discussion. But the idea that Israelis are the only ones that are perpetrating this disarmament of Iran creates problems under the top end of the regime. Like the, you know, your leaders of these country can philosophically understand that. But the rank and file look, they're Islamic. They're not huge fans of a Jewish state just decimating an Islamic state. She's right. I mean, this is in order to get the job done, not just physically in terms of us having the technological expertise in Order to get it done, but politically in the region to get it done. She's right.

[Chris Smug]

It's the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

Everybody has to remember that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris Smug]

Like it's not just that. It's the Republic of Iran. They are carrying out a revolution against the West. They're not going to stop unless we make them stop.

[Josh Holmes]

Because they tell us. They tell us.

[Chris Smug]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Good comment, Lisa Marie. All right, Comment three, Smuggles.

[John Ashbrook]

Comment three from Lisa. Peter and Lisa writes, making deals with Iran is fruitless and would give us a false sense of security. They're not people of their word. Lying is permissible. Getting caught lying in the sin in their economy, you cannot trust them ever. Great lesson. Shout out to the pod bros again for not learning that one.

[Josh Holmes]

I love the dragging of the pod.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, Duncan, just. Man, he beat the shit out of Tommy. That was great to see. Yeah, great to see. No prisoners. They're mad because their ratings are shit.

[Josh Holmes]

You made his Menchis a mess.

[Chris Smug]

Mess. Absolutely destroyed them. I bunker busted his mention.

[Unknown]

You were like, you were like SGA over the.

[Chris Smug]

Okay. Unbelievable.

[Josh Holmes]

We were all getting along so well.

[Chris Smug]

Look what he did.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so a quick update on this tax and the big beautiful bill. You recall that the administration had set a deadline of July 4th in order to pass something to law though that is not out of the question. Look, it sits some stanks. Obviously the House passed their version of the big beautiful bill. It's gotten over to the Senate. There's been discussions about the tax stuff is largely locked. The issues have dealt with Medicaid. They have dealt with a little bit on the salt side of things, state and local deduction because you don't have blue state senators that are representing people of high tax states. And so it's less of a problem there. And there are like this. If you ever met a senator, you've met someone who looks in the mirror every morning and sees the next President of the United States. The idea that they're going to just sort of usher along with some rank and file House member is accomplished.

[Unknown]

Unthinkable.

[Josh Holmes]

Is unthinkable. Like there's a jurisdiction to all of us. Very important. You have to put the Senate imprint.

[Unknown]

They don't appreciate what I have to go through.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I, I look at the longer view, longer tail. It's the teacup and the saucer.

[Unknown]

It's the way the Washington said, we are the saucer.

[Josh Holmes]

So they're going to take their time with the whole thing. I've been gratified because I'VE seen the work that the White House has been doing with the Senate and then trying to keep Speaker Johnson in the loop on some of these things. Now it's not resolved. They're going to go through a whole bunch of procedurals stuff this week. But this week is a pretty big week in determining when this thing actually gets done. And I say when, not if.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

This is not ever a question of if the media would lead you to believe by talking about process, by talking about, you know. Well, Johnson says there's 30 House Republicans and now opposes Senate bill or, oh, there's at least four or five Republicans in the Senate who say that they oppose the bill as written. Like all of that is designed to generate this conflict in this clickbait about whether or not this thing's going to get done. Let me just assure you it's going to get done. There is no other option. The question is when July 4th, I think is still attainable. They're going to shoot for it. I look at this in terms of how this is the other piece of it related to the debt ceiling, which also needs to get done. And recall, if you, this is about the spending that was done in the Biden administration and whether or not your entire portfolio evaporates overnight because the American people or the American government hasn't figured out how to set a debt ceiling to finance the spending that was already done. Like you hear Rand Paul or whatever, they're like, oh, as long as the debt ceiling. And part of it I'm not doing.

[John Ashbrook]

And you know, this is the thing is, again, I always say that Democrats are nihilists, but in this example, they are personified as nihilists because what Democrats want is for this to fail. They want Senate Republicans not to stick together. They want to fail so that the economy goes into the tank, taxes go up, and they can be like, wow, Trump destroyed the economy under his watch.

[Chris Smug]

So, so here just put a finer point on it. This is Leader Th in Fox News. He wrote, senators have worked to develop this bill for well over a year now. Now it is time to act. Border resources are drying up. National security needs have never been more apparent. With each passing day, we move closer to reaching both our nation's debt limit and the largest ever tax increase on the American people.

[Unknown]

That's what's, that's what and he's, and he goes on to promise that the Senate will stay in until it is done. And I think that the Senate finishing by the 4th of July is realistic. Now, can the House also process A revised version by the fourth of July. I'm not so sure. I really, I mean if we're being honest, I think that it could take a little bit more time. I think I sort of look to the month of July for the, for either a conference process or a ping pong process or for the House to come to grips with what the Senate is sending over. You know, there is a lot more revenue coming into the federal government thanks to the tax cuts that President Trump passed in 2017 and also the tariffs he's levied on some of these countries. So there's a little bit more leeway in that debt limit number you're talking about. I talked to an economist last week who said that it was pushed out sort of to the end of August, mid September, before that, before that deadline hits. So you could see the start of August or maybe the first, second week of August as the real backstop for House and Senate to come together on a look.

[Josh Holmes]

I think they're going to get done sooner rather than later. I want to take the debt limit thing and just like, you know, wrap this up in terms of the big. There are going to be discussions about Medicaid, there's going to be discussions about salt, there's going to be discussions about a whole bunch of things that may or may not have anything to do with your pocketbook as you're listening, but that it is sort of contingent on you getting this larger tax package. But when you elect somebody to the Senate or the House, they have to sort of abide by the ideological consistency with within your district for sure. And their goal, their job, as defined by the founders of this fucking country, is to try to drag whatever product they've got as closely to what it is that your district represents as possible. That's what good representation is. That's why you have it. When you have people that deal themselves out over something that needs to happen. I keep hearing this conversation with, about Thomas Massie, about Rand Paul where they're like, we'll never vote for anything with a debt ceiling increase. Okay, well first of all you gotta talk to Joe Biden about that. Cuz your inability to prevent him from raising the debt, $6 trillion was nonexistent. Whatever your arguments were, they weren't persuasive. They got it done at a party line vote and now the American people are on the hook for it. So your responsibility is try to figure out how to prevent the impact of those poor decisions on your constituency. And if you're to just not raise the debt Ceiling. As a result of all of this, you're going to bankrupt every single pension fund, every single bondholder, every single anybody with anything in the market whatsoever. All your retirement, your 401ks, all that stuff. And I'm not being hyperbolic about it.

[Unknown]

Like that's an actual thing, tangible negative impact like that.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what happens. And anybody who tells you that not raising the debt ceiling somehow makes America live within its means is a fucking insane person who doesn't understand how this whole process works. They don't understand how dynamic our economy is. They don't understand where we're getting our loans from. They don't understand where that money gets called. If you're making a loan to the United States that all of a sudden you've defaulted on that loan, do you think people will ask for their money back? Of course they will. How do you think the American markets respond to that? So when you say you're never going to do something, I'm never going to sign off on Americans paying the same tax rate as they're paying right now and not a higher tax rate because we have to raise a debt ceiling that is become important because of the Biden ceiling spending. What you're saying is I don't give a shit about the American consumer and what your experience is. I have an ideological point to make and I have no patience or no time for any of that. I've got no patience or no time. So, look, urge your people to get in this because no is not an option. And the more they're fucking around and giving Politico what they want, from a quote standpoint about, oh, maybe I'm there, maybe I'm that, like, just shut that down.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Online or everything else.

[John Ashbrook]

Circle the wagons.

[Josh Holmes]

Just circle the wagons. Get it done, throw it over the finish line. Let's get on to making sure the world is a free and prosperous place and the United States of America is leading all of it. That's what I have to say.

[John Ashbrook]

Well said.

[Josh Holmes]

All right. You want some variety?

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, always.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude. I caught this thing over the weekend, so. Good.

[John Ashbrook]

I haven't seen this yet.

[Chris Smug]

I had like 10 people send this to me.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's. It's just so good. All right, so you remember Hank Johnson, the representative. You said you would see Guam.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This guy said he would. Is there any fear? He asked in a congressional hearing, a member of the military about whether or not we would sink the island of Guam by putting a base on one side of it out of fear that it would capsize this is not a joke.

[John Ashbrook]

This is.

[Chris Smug]

This actually happened just floating there.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the mentality of a representative who. Where the. Where does he represent? Atlanta. Jesus, you can do better than that.

[Chris Smug]

Poor Brian Cup.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't believe he has to deal with this. Anyway, this cat is like I'm probably a Braves fan. He's like I know what I'm not.

[Unknown]

Terry Pendleton and Sid Bream and all those guys.

[Chris Smug]

He's just had a lot of sports takes here today.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, if that's the brain trust that explains why Delta so bad. If this is your kind of thinkers.

[Josh Holmes]

You'Re going to get Kemp back in here. He's going to be upset by that anyway. Listen to how he's addressing what's going on in our country. Clip 4.

[Unknown]

Oh man.

[Chris Smug]

Oh my God. Where you going with that gun in your hand?

[John Ashbrook]

Dude? That is so out of tune. And nothing like Jimi Hendrix.

[Chris Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm going down the street. Shoot down democracy. What you know I want to be a king someday. This can't be real.

[John Ashbrook]

That's an attempt to hate Joe. Right? Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Like dude bro.

[John Ashbrook]

That's bad.

[Josh Holmes]

So like the hey Joe Jimi Hendrick tune and Jimmy Hendrix a notable sort of anti war it was my take over the weekend that if anybody if there was any action as taken by the result of this it would be like Jimi Hendrick coming out of his grave to advocate for a ground war and ran based on what was the.

[Unknown]

Press secretary was just like yes sir. This is outside standing, sir. I can't wait to get this up. People are gonna. It's gonna kill. It's going viral.

[John Ashbrook]

Let's make sure that your guitar is not tuned or you know what I here. Here's my thinking is. Is because I always think people think the worst possible thing. They're horrible people. His chief of staff wants his seat. This guy's getting old. Yeah, he okay that.

[Josh Holmes]

I think it's a sabotage. It's the only reason it really is.

[Chris Smug]

The only explanation that you would look at that video and you work in that office and you're like yes post.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Chris Smug]

This looks so good.

[John Ashbrook]

Like I want that seat. I want everyone to think he's too old. I push him out and it's me. I could be that guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude. It's so bad.

[Unknown]

Very interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

It's so bad. So play that to yourselves all weekend. I know you'll enjoy when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. We read all of your comments and the question of the day is is a bombing Iran America first interested to hear what you have to say. We'll read all of it on Thursday. Thanks so much for joining us with that. I think we did it.

[John Ashbrook]

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