Comfortably Smug (2:13)

No, they're still just fighting for illegals.

Josh Holmes (2:14)

But yeah, just like, yeah, that's not true. You're like, okay, that's true, but it's true.

Michael Duncan (2:22)

And then you can roll tape after tape after tape of them being in the opposite situation as they find themselves now. And, and they'd be arguing the exact opposite thing and it's like, boring.

Josh Holmes (2:31)

Yeah, boring. So we're not gonna give you anything boring. I will say that one notable exception. All that was on Monday. The Washington Post, of all places, editorialized on this very topic where they said two, I think, notable things. The first one was though, like as it turns out, the Affordable Care act, it was not affordable.

Comfortably Smug (2:50)

That was amazing to see.

Michael Duncan (2:52)

Right.

Josh Holmes (2:52)

Which is incredible. For those of us who were in the Obamacare wars of, like, 2010, the Washington Post, amongst all of them, was the biggest cheerleader for Obamacare. And for them 15 years later to turn around and be like, yeah, it turns out all that was a bunch of bullshit is great. I mean, it does trigger a touch of ptsd, to be honest, but it is what it is. And then the second notable thing that I think they said is that Democrats used Covid for this argument that they have additional tax credits to try to afford the unaffordable affordable that they created. And they said it was temporary in nature. And they argued that it was, like, temporary for a reason, because you were in this emergency health care situation that we didn't completely understand with COVID in 2021 and that was set to expire. And they're like, we need that. We need that because nobody can afford our unaffordable health care if you don't just continue to do that.

Michael Duncan (3:51)

Yeah, we need it in perpetuity.

Josh Holmes (3:53)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (3:53)

You know, I know when Obama sold This whole thing 15 years ago, we were going to go ahead and we were going to bend that cost curve. It was going to bend on down.

Josh Holmes (3:59)

Oh, bends.

Michael Duncan (4:00)

We're so close to getting to the bendy.

Josh Holmes (4:02)

It's just been bendy as shit. It's like Gumby.

Comfortably Smug (4:05)

I mean, that's the thing.

Michael Duncan (4:06)

It's like, just bends up.

Comfortably Smug (4:08)

The entire existence of the left is basically predicated on, yeah, communism failed, but we got to try communism harder. And like, every socialist policy, like, no, dude, forget about it. We're gonna just try it again, and we're gonna try it more.

Michael Duncan (4:21)

And it's the Rahm Emanuel line of never let a good crisis go to waste. Right. And so they looked at Covid and they're like, ah, this is how we'll lock in these subsidies for this thing that we call the Affordable Care Act. That's not affordable. And we'll lock that in forever. Right?

Josh Holmes (4:34)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (4:34)

And that's kind of what they're doing with this government shutdown as well. Because previously they had always argue, you know, a government funding fight is not the place or the time, not the time to be trying to work for a policy change.

Josh Holmes (4:46)

They're responsible for this funding the government.

Michael Duncan (4:48)

And if you want to have a conversation about policy, policy and policy changes, that's for after you pass. A crisis has said that. Hakeem Jeffries has said that. And now Republicans are offering that, like, we will have a discussion about all of these sorts of things right after we fund the government. And they're like, no, no, no, no.

Josh Holmes (5:06)

But we digress. That will be the topic, probably, I'm guessing, of Thursday's program, because there's got to be some kind of development and all that. But meaning meanwhile, like, we hope that, like, your flights are on time and everything else works because that' things start to shift. Like, you get a market change all of a sudden, you get flight delays, you get all kinds of different stuff. And, like, the American people are like, all right, all right, all right. And that, I think, is when the Democrats need to fold their cards because they. They literally aren't playing any.

Comfortably Smug (5:39)

No.

Josh Holmes (5:39)

At this point, they just, like, lies. Just. Just what it is. But there was also a development over the weekend and into Monday about ice and ice facilities. And turns out there's a couple of clips in here that we found pretty amusing. First one is a DHS officer pepper spraying the air vent of an inflatable costume. Can we get that clip one, please?

Comfortably Smug (6:11)

There he is.

Josh Holmes (6:12)

He's pepper spraying the Venture.

Michael Duncan (6:15)

Like a giant inflatable frog, I think.

Josh Holmes (6:17)

Can we get it one more time? I want to see.

Comfortably Smug (6:20)

There it is. So this is the theory behind it.

Michael Duncan (6:22)

This is the theory behind it.

Comfortably Smug (6:25)

So.

Josh Holmes (6:25)

So they're spraying the. The. Because it's an inflatable thing, and you hit it with pepper spray. It's a menace, obviously, but it's. It's working its way around. You hit it with pepper spray, nothing happens. If you spray the vent, like, that's a real problem for whoever is in the inflatable costume.

Comfortably Smug (6:45)

It's genius.

Josh Holmes (6:46)

Yeah. So we thought about it, and we're like, hmm, where have I seen this shit before? And it's all over the Internet. It turns out it's one of the funniest things. I laugh at it every time. Can we play clip 1a? This is people spraying fart spray, dude.

Comfortably Smug (7:05)

The look on the tree.

Josh Holmes (7:09)

And these are the top five.

Michael Duncan (7:11)

That poor inflatable tree, people farting into. Oh, he just farted into a Pikachu.

Comfortably Smug (7:20)

Just lose it. It's mine.

Michael Duncan (7:23)

A fart spray into Santa Claus.

Comfortably Smug (7:28)

You just see the goofy character turn around. Poor Santa. And then the realization of what has been done to it, and they lose it.

Michael Duncan (7:36)

Another fart spray into poor SpongeBob.

Josh Holmes (7:39)

Now watch SpongeBob.

Comfortably Smug (7:42)

Oh, he's gonna throw up. Can't get out.

Josh Holmes (7:47)

Cause those things are notoriously difficult to.

Michael Duncan (7:49)

Well, yeah, I mean, a fart. Look at this thing. Oh, no.

Comfortably Smug (7:59)

Dude. The look always kills me.

Michael Duncan (8:01)

It's like the look of betrayal.

Comfortably Smug (8:03)

Cause some, like, goofy animals turned around, like, what has just happened?

Josh Holmes (8:06)

It always kills me. So it strikes me that, like, ICE has been watching some vids.

Comfortably Smug (8:09)

Good for them.

Michael Duncan (8:10)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (8:10)

They figured out how to do this. But they've been dealing with all kinds of crazy stuff, and we're about to get into all of it. 1B are federal agents. They wheel away a protester. I think you flagged. This one dunks.

Michael Duncan (8:23)

Yeah. This is one of those protesters, as you frequently see in these crazy scenes, who, like, refuses to comply once they're under arrest and, like, goes limp. And they're like, I'm not gonna walk. I'm not gonna help you.

Josh Holmes (8:33)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (8:34)

And so ICE has a solution for that. Let's play that clip. Okay.

Comfortably Smug (8:38)

Amazing. They just throw him on the trolley.

Michael Duncan (8:40)

There's a little dolly or something.

Josh Holmes (8:42)

So this guy goes like, dead arm.

Michael Duncan (8:44)

And now he's spitting, Dead arm, dead leg.

Josh Holmes (8:46)

So they just put him on. It looks like a dolly.

Michael Duncan (8:49)

Right.

Josh Holmes (8:49)

The kind of thing that you move with.

Michael Duncan (8:51)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (8:52)

And they just lay him face down and truck him out.

Comfortably Smug (8:55)

And that's the thing is, like, essentially what you're dealing with is theater kids, slash children who are also dangerous. So you have to get them out there. And it's like these tantrums. They're essentially just throwing tantrums. They're mad at their parents, they're mad at their dad. They're mad at the world. They think that they're special. They're not special. They've accomplished nothing. They're angry. They've been told by the Internet that they're special and that they're out here fighting fascism. Put them on the dolly and get them out.

Michael Duncan (9:22)

The only downside to that clip is we couldn't play the audio because that was actually tweeted out by ICE Twitter account. And they put it to Chamillionaires riding dirty.

Comfortably Smug (9:33)

Amazing.

Michael Duncan (9:34)

They see me rolling. Fantastic.

Comfortably Smug (9:43)

It's great.

Michael Duncan (9:43)

And, you know, in all of these clips, and you see a lot of these protests now in the year of our Lord 2025, and you're like, wow, more hardball tactics here by ICE and federal agents and that sort of thing. And it's like, you'll see these liberal commentators on X and stuff talking about, wow, she's really aggressive. This is cruel, what they're doing to these people. And it's like, everybody forgot that we lived through Covid, that we lived through the BLM riots, that for, like, two seconds. Were about George Floyd and then became basically antifa taking over major cities in our country. And you were locked in your home and you had to watch it on TV every night as these like over privileged anarchists got to run American cities and turn your life to shit. And it's like the American people Woke up in 2020 and they're like, fuck all that. Yeah, you know, that's sort of where my head's at on all this stuff is like, y' all had it easy for too long and everybody did what you want to do. They gave them a whole city block in Portland in 2020. And it's like now they're starting to realize that law enforcement isn't going to put up with their shenanigans also too.

Josh Holmes (10:45)

Is it too much to ask for to just be fucking normal?

Comfortably Smug (10:49)

Yeah, dude, that's it.

Josh Holmes (10:51)

Like, can you just be fucking like you got the guy in the full antifa outfit. He's like, oh, today's the day I go out and I fight ice. Or today's the day I go out and I like try to pepper spray innocent people standing on the street. Or today is the day, like, dude, we're just not gonna put up with that shit. And I think that's the thing that gets lost in this ongoing discussion about federal law enforcement in cities or federal ICE agents doing their job or whatever. It's like the vast majority of Americans have voted in the last election and I think continue to, to have this perception today. Dude, we're all just sort of like from an era where it's not too much to ask that you like, get a job, do your job, take care of your family, hang out with your friends, go get shit faced. Like, go, go enjoy yourself. Go do whatever it is that you want to do. Why is it that major metropolitan areas all across this country are inundated with people who wake up in the morning wanting to commit violent crime and assault police officers and just create this chaos just to do it. And like, that's the thing that the left doesn't understand. You keep arguing at some level it's like, my gosh, what an intrusion of federal law enforcement in a state, in a city and all this stuff. It's like, well, they wouldn't be there if you're doing your fucking job. Like, just make sure that you have enough disincentive in a city to not put up with that garbage.

Comfortably Smug (12:25)

That's the thing is so much of the left is essentially just agitation, you know what I mean? Because it's like they have had over 20 years essentially of running unchallenged. Like, we saw Obamacare, we saw the left's crazy lunatic policies. I mean, we were in a place where you saw news anchors, you saw major media figures putting their pronouns next to their names wherever they like. Like, I couldn't guess this was a woman. But you have to do it because there's a small, tiny half of 1% of 1% of people who have a mental disorder and can't decide what gender they are. But all of society must bend to the will of these people. Like this is. The problem is we're done with all of that. We need to go back to being a normal country. You commit crimes, you, you do the time, you break the laws, you're going to get locked up. It's that simple. And people like it like that.

Josh Holmes (13:20)

Just realign the incentives.

Comfortably Smug (13:22)

That's it.

Josh Holmes (13:22)

Realign the incentives.

Michael Duncan (13:24)

I think the left just learned the wrong lesson coming out of 2020. They really did believe that if they made everybody's lives more miserable, they'd get elected.

Josh Holmes (13:31)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (13:31)

They could get power.

Josh Holmes (13:32)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (13:32)

And I think the American people reject that now.

Josh Holmes (13:34)

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's well said. So listen, it's getting bad out there. There's a whole bunch of cities out there that it doesn't feel like they're actually on the home team here.

Comfortably Smug (13:44)

Nope.

Josh Holmes (13:44)

Now, there's a bunch of things that we're about to get into, Chicago and elsewhere, Portland, that you gotta talk about because these are real things that are infecting places that you live right after this.

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Josh Holmes (15:03)

All right, so there was a big thing in Chicago and obviously we've been following the Pritzker vs Trump thing where he's like, no, I don't want any law enforcement. They're like, hey, dude, you had 31 murders over the weekend. Don't you think you could use some help? And he's like, you're gonna break some eggs to make an O, essentially.

Chicago Police Dispatcher (15:21)

Right?

Josh Holmes (15:21)

I mean.

Comfortably Smug (15:22)

I mean, he's got to break a lot of eggs for his omelets.

Josh Holmes (15:25)

He's like a good a cool.

Comfortably Smug (15:27)

We're going through dozens.

Josh Holmes (15:28)

A cool dozen for that guy's omelette. And it's loaded. He's got it. It's not a lot of veggies either. Boy, that fat bastard. Anyway, he. He's got, like, apparently a whole bunch of people even locally that are just unresponsive at some level. Now, I understand on Monday there was a pushback press conference from the Chicago police. That isn't kind of the way that they say it, but it feels like this might. Let's just check out the clip. Clip 2. There's a riot for your audio only listeners, which is just supremely amazing in and of itself. Like, what are you riding about?

Comfortably Smug (16:09)

I see a flag from Mexico.

Josh Holmes (16:11)

So. Yeah. And then you get ICE agents, their cars getting stuff thrown at them. They're trying to get out of Dodge. I mean, just full chaos involved. And look at these people that are like, high fiving. They're like, yeah, we did it.

Michael Duncan (16:37)

I'm seeing a lot of COVID masks.

Josh Holmes (16:39)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (16:40)

I mean, this is. This is unacceptable.

Josh Holmes (16:45)

And now you get some cops in there, ICE agents trying to get out. But, like, it's lawlessness.

Comfortably Smug (16:56)

It is pure lawlessness.

Chicago Police Dispatcher (16:57)

It's.

Josh Holmes (16:58)

They're throwing rocks at cars. Like, what are they? It's an American city.

Comfortably Smug (17:07)

Yeah, I'm over it. Dude, that's like Caracas, dude. That looks like I'm in Nicaragua or something like that. I'm over it. I'm so over it. I'm over it. This shouldn't be a question of like, oh, you know, ICE bases are surrounded by protesters. I'm done with it. I'm over it. You can issue a curfew, you can issue live rounds. Live rounds. Consequences. See, the problem is the left has been able to march so freely because there have been no consequences. Because, I mean, there was that case, you remember during COVID in New York City, you had that lady throw a Molotov cocktail. All charges dropped. All charges dropped. She can throw Molotov cocktail at law enforcement. The lesson's been given to the left that, hey, look, you can go out, you can riot, you can say, oh, in the name of justice, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to throw bricks at moving vehicles.

Josh Holmes (17:58)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (17:58)

And the reason they're so comfortable doing this is because they've seen there's no consequences.

Michael Duncan (18:04)

And back to Holmes's earlier point of, like, why aren't we a normal country? And, like, you know, you just, like, you get a job and you take care of your family and stuff like that. And like, you look at a crowd like that and you can imagine that probably the majority of these people went to college, went $300,000 into debt, probably got a master's degree and some liberal nonsense that means nothing and can't get them employed. And so what they do is they get to LARP as communist revolutionaries and throw shit at cars. It's very low stakes for them, but for them, that's fulfilling in their lives.

Josh Holmes (18:34)

Yeah, that's something worth doing. Another clip. This one's out of Portland. Clip three, please. Another riot. People barking at law enforcement here.

Comfortably Smug (18:47)

Oh, this is the video I love.

Michael Duncan (18:55)

Go back to the south where you belong.

Comfortably Smug (18:56)

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Duncan (18:58)

What's that all about?

Josh Holmes (18:59)

Oh, interesting. Meanwhile, you got these guys just standing there.

Michael Duncan (19:04)

Just standing. Dude, look at these.

Josh Holmes (19:08)

It's the dregs of society that have shown up.

Comfortably Smug (19:12)

Here it is.

Michael Duncan (19:16)

Oh, he spits in the cop's face.

Josh Holmes (19:18)

And there he goes. There we go. There we go. Get him.

Comfortably Smug (19:21)

Consequences, consequences.

Josh Holmes (19:27)

He spits on the cop and all of a sudden now he's hog died. Dunzo. Sorry, buddy. I'm all for it.

Comfortably Smug (19:37)

I love it. I love it. Because that's what I'm talking about, is consequences.

Josh Holmes (19:41)

Yep.

Comfortably Smug (19:41)

The behavior is stopped. My only worry is then they get a magistrate. Then they get a judge.

Josh Holmes (19:47)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (19:47)

Who's like, no, this is, you know, a very revolutionary battle. It's like the judge who just let Kavanaugh's attempted assassin.

Josh Holmes (19:54)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (19:55)

Get the lowest possible time. Like, what, eight years for attempting to.

Josh Holmes (19:59)

Because they were trans.

Comfortably Smug (20:00)

Yeah, because they were trans. And then you look at the judge and it's like, oh, she has, like, a degree in, like, Palestinian scholarship and has spent her entire life being, like, a left wing cog in the machine. Now she's a judge. Now she decides, oh, well, you know, you try to kill a conservative judge.

Josh Holmes (20:16)

Listen, like, I don't want to be. I don't want to be hyperbolic about all of this because, like, you know, we deal with this in America. We deal with riots. We deal with all kinds of different things. But if you consider, like, the institutionalizing on the left and the funding on the left and the infrastructure that they've built. We saw it in George Floyd. You're continuing to see it now under a second President Trump term. This is what like a group of people attempting civil war 100% in America do because it's not, you can't just simply roll into the cities and do what these assholes are doing in attempt to win. But over a 10 year period of time, if you try to fund magistrates, you try to fund judges, you try to change higher education, you try to change information flow which we've seen as the news media, you try to change entertainment, what you're doing is hoping to build a movement of like minded folks and then ultimately on the back end trying to ensure that those people who are your front lines are not held accountable for what it is that they're doing. And like over time that builds enough and enough where you have a real problem. So like in some ways, you know, look, I understand if there's fatigue from those of you across the country who don't like encounter this thing all the time. Like why is Trump, why are we always involved in some kind of like a thing? Like why is it always something. Well, he's quite literally trying to save the country here.

Comfortably Smug (21:50)

That's the thing. It's for so long people have let this fly. Yeah, letting it fly is what, let it build up to this point where like you're describing exactly, it's the patronage system of the left over. They're like, yes, you're a fail son, you got a master's in something worthless. But you know what? You can get paid to protest. You could go out, you can write, you can have all your friends online with all your pronouns in the bio will each call each other. You're a communist revolutionary. Congratulations. I'm so proud of your work, comrade. And you've done nothing with your life. You've made life worse for your fellow Americans.

Michael Duncan (22:21)

That is the funniest part about it is they use the word comrade to each other unironically.

Comfortably Smug (22:26)

It's very funny.

Josh Holmes (22:27)

It's just incredible. So like, look, the Trump squad is limited in some ways constitutionally about what it is they can do in places that they're not given express authority. We saw D.C. where they have express authority. They were able to clean up the streets. DC's fans, fantastic today.

Comfortably Smug (22:46)

It's mind blowing. I feel so bad for Americans who have to live in these cities that are just end states that are refusing to allow President Trump to make citizens in this country safe. It blows my mind.

Josh Holmes (22:58)

It blows my mind too. But what they're constitutionally obligated to do is just Protect federal property, essentially, which is why you see them in primarily a defensive posture in all this play. They can't go do law enforcement despite the fact there's utter lawlessness going on. They require a local PD to do all that was the subject of a conversation we're about to get into. But this is Stephen Miller who just kind of lays out what the White House's view on this is. The issue before us now is very simple and clear. There is large and growing movement of left wing terrorism in this country.

Comfortably Smug (23:35)

Yep.

Josh Holmes (23:36)

It is well organized and funded. It is shielded by far left Democratic judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism in their terrorism networks. So that's kind of what we've been saying here. I mean, look, that's a finer point.

Comfortably Smug (23:55)

He's right on.

Josh Holmes (23:56)

But it's totally right in that this has been something that's been built for a long period of time where they've institutionalized it and had a protection racket that's run for people that feel free to roll out in the streets and throw rocks at federal law enforcement. I mean, how many of you listening to this, like, what would it take for you to get out on your street and throw rocks at a federal law enforcement vehicle when there has been absolutely nothing done to you?

Comfortably Smug (24:29)

You know, I think that's also like.

Josh Holmes (24:31)

What would, what would it take?

Comfortably Smug (24:33)

I think that's also become like a major difference between liberals and conservatives in this country. The left and the right in this country is conservatives have something to lose. Yeah, you've got families, you've got jobs, you've got things going for you.

Josh Holmes (24:47)

Which is, I think is responsible for the blue collar shift. Like, there's so many people who like to try to define Trump era populism as like, well, no, they just, you know, now it's a shift towards like being open to union labor and all that. That's a granular DC talk. What it is is what you're talking about, which is most people are pretty fricking normal in this country.

Comfortably Smug (25:13)

It's almost like it's starting to be the argument for me, like civilization versus anti civilization, where it's like you've got people in this country who want to have a normal life, they want to build things, they want to have a family, they want to have a hopeful future. And then there's people who just want to go out and they want to wear their black hoodies and they want to wreck shit. That's basically it. I mean, that's basically it. And then you've got a party that's catering to the destruction.

Josh Holmes (25:35)

And make no mistake, that's exactly what they're doing. I mean, look, they just shut down the government. Not because they actually think it's a good strategy. Like, they're all off the record and on background with every reporter in the world saying, we have no strategy. Yep, this is, this is what we're doing. And they're doing it because they've got this base that you just saw on the table. Clips that we provided that also three months ago were saying we want blood in a political straight up politico argument. And they were like, yeah, no, our base is out of control. We don't know what to do with it. And the rudderless ship that is the Democratic Party doesn't want to do anything about it. Like, they, their hopes and dreams rely on trying to harness that. I mean, just think about it this way. If you just back up a little bit, consider like the post 08 TARP, like Big bank bailout, economic ruins in our country. And the conservative universe got really upset, rightly so, about their situation. And they demanded some electoral changes in their representation and in terms of, like, the seriousness by which they take debt, deficits and debt, because for the first time in a long time, it affected them directly. It affected their 401ks, it affected whether they could stay in their fricking house, whatever. How did they do that? They showed up at a bunch of, like, town halls, they did protests outside of the Capitol. They did a bunch of things that were like, clearly demonstrating the value of an organized effort to say, what you're doing, US Government is wrong. How does the left do it? You're throwing fricking Molotov cocktails at federal agents. Like, come on, dude. Like, that's just. There's a fundamental difference. There's no way to equate conservative angst with what's happening here on the liberal left. And it's happened for a very long time. There was a good tweet. I don't know if you guys saw this. Eric Schmidt, senator from Missouri, put out a tweet string over the weekend where he was talking about how this has been embedded for a very long time on the left in that people who are embedded in the most violent resistance within the left starting in the 1960s with like, weather Underground, people who are convicted of, like, bombing the Capitol. People who are bombing.

Comfortably Smug (28:02)

That's correct. That happened.

Josh Holmes (28:03)

Bombing. That actually happened. People who were convicted of murder were convicted of, like, the most Heinous crimes imaginable, served some time, got let out on parole over a number of years and became like tenured professors at the University of Chicago or like, you know, a bunch of Ivy League schools and celebrated Columbia.

Comfortably Smug (28:25)

Went on to also train Barack Obama. Like Bill Weathers, Bill. The Weather Underground. Bill Ertz.

Josh Holmes (28:31)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so this has been something that has been embedded in the ideology of the left for an awful long time. We just had some system of governance for quite a while that discouraged it to a point where there were real consequences. There weren't in the 60s. There really weren't in terms of what happened to them later in life. And what happened to them later in life is they just trained another route of 60s activists that have now shown up and their kids have shown up and they're pissed and they think that like a good way of expressing whatever they think their displeasure is. I'm sorry you live in the freest country in the world with the greatest access to improve your lot in life. I really apologize. I wish you would all go to Gaza, I really do. But they're not, they're staying here and they're ruining our cities. And like, only this incredibly disruptive and uncomfortable law enforcement presence that the Trump administration is putting in has any hope of reversing this kind of thing. Cuz they have consequences for the first time. I don't know, it just, it's unbelievable. You got a federal judge that blocked a Trump National Guard deployment in Portland amid a constant. That was, according to Fox News. I mean, this thing, it's unbelievable.

Michael Duncan (29:54)

Yeah, but I mean, that's sort of like where my head's at. Maybe I'm kind of black pilled on this entire thing. You know, back to Steve Miller's tweet and also this judge who's blocking the deployment. It's like you can give stiffer sentences, I guess, to people who throw rocks or the Molotov cocktails or like, you know, actually meet those people with force directly. But like, unless you're able to disrupt the funding mechanism for all of this left wing violence and the infrastructure behind it and somehow defeat all these left wing prosecutors and judges in these local jurisdictions, like, I don't know how we stop it. I really don't. I really don't.

Josh Holmes (30:32)

Well, you can move and you can stop sending them their taxpayer dollars. I mean, that's the thing that I find so fascinating. If you're like anywhere in the center and you live in Portland, like, I'm sorry that that's where you grew up. And you have nostalgia there. Get the fuck out of there. Like, you can't fund that. How can you fund that? Look at Chicago. You got a mayor and a mayor that is clinically insane.

Comfortably Smug (30:53)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (30:54)

A governor who is the most absurdly disgusting political pragmatist of all time in terms of, like, he sees value of being the antithesis to Trump in terms of his own political.

Comfortably Smug (31:09)

He's the fat pig who thinks the commies will eat him last. That's the funny thing. This little billionaire mama's boy, cuz he's got the family money, that bottom of that seat, he's like, maybe if I just go along with it, the commies will eat me last.

Michael Duncan (31:20)

And that he's surrounded by them. It was just, I think last week or two weeks ago that the Chicago Public Teachers Union was putting out a tweet memorializing the life of Assata Shakur, you know, the communist revolutionary killer who murdered a cop and stole a bunch of money from a priest and then had all of her compatriots be break her out of prison and she fled to Cuba for the rest of her life.

Josh Holmes (31:41)

That's what the political power is in Chicago. In Chicago. Yeah.

Michael Duncan (31:43)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (31:44)

So he's listening. Let's play clip 10.

Chicago Police Dispatcher (31:46)

Okay, any kind of particular hairstyle? Just younger, male Hispanic on foot, wearing all black, no hairstyle. Okay, so far. And one is where the hit. And Ron, this guy fled from the scene at 37 Fleet and Kedsby. It all occurred. Started at i55 in Kenzie, then they flipped southbound at Kessie where that offending vehicle crashed. They ran the federal agent off the road. They fled on Foot, westbound 37th place from Catsy. It was a male Hispanic, younger, wearing all black clothing. 99. Yeah. Send the cars in that direction. Have them stay put two or three blocks away. All right, have them hold tight until.

Josh Holmes (32:29)

I give you further direction, please.

Chicago Police Dispatcher (32:31)

Okay, so for our entity and is responding to 39th place in Kedsney. Per 999, if you guys can just. For the units responding to 39th in place in Kedsi, if you guys can start heading there as quick as you can and then just hold tight for instructions with 999. 9, 9 9. So the chief of patrol clear everybody up.

Josh Holmes (32:56)

We're not responding over there.

Chicago Police Dispatcher (32:58)

Radiotic. And again, per the chief of patrol, we have all the units that per 999. Chief of Patrol said all units clear out from there. We're not sending anybody over to that location.

Michael Duncan (33:13)

Sending anybody over.

Comfortably Smug (33:15)

That's a straight up. That's a stand down order that Chicago PD is telling their officers of. Oh, yeah, you know, I mean, you heard it right there. You had ICE get run off the road.

Josh Holmes (33:24)

Yep.

Comfortably Smug (33:25)

He saw the Latino suspect wearing all black, flat on foot. The police are stand down, stand down.

Josh Holmes (33:32)

Right. And now the chief's police came out on Monday and provided a counter narrative that said that they had people that were there that were in the like sort of gas, you know, whatever it was. But I just don't think that any of this is coincidental. And I think if you follow the line from the mayor of Chicago to the governor of Illinois, it's not a surprise that you have a police department that has taken orders. Like, these guys are just doing their jobs. Right? And they're just, when they get a stand down order, it's because that's what the leadership has told them to do. Like they're not there to protect you or federal agents or stop crime.

Michael Duncan (34:20)

It's like our major cities in this country are run by Bain.

Comfortably Smug (34:24)

It's like insane, dude.

Michael Duncan (34:28)

Open the prisons, take control of your city.

Josh Holmes (34:33)

I mean, it's crazy. Here's the mayor. Clip 11.

Bill Fitzgerald (34:37)

Today we are signing an executive order aimed at reining in this out of control administration. The order establishes ice free zones. That means that city property and unwilling private businesses will no longer serve as staging grounds for these raids.

Comfortably Smug (34:59)

Bro, I want to see that with like an AI that puts a Bane mask on him and the Bane voice because it's like legit. That is just like Bane.

Michael Duncan (35:06)

What is an ice free zone? Is it like a gun free zone where all the crime happens?

Comfortably Smug (35:10)

Well, you know, I think the thing is, I think Democrats tried this shit before at Fort Sumter where they're like, no, this is a federal government free zone. And they had to find out then.

Josh Holmes (35:21)

Dude, they had to find out. But I mean, look, it leads to an interesting question today which is like.

Comfortably Smug (35:29)

All the impediments, this is the, I love this question.

Josh Holmes (35:32)

All the impediments to the Trump administration just simply trying to enforce law and order. You got governors, mayors, police chiefs, all these in these left wing cities, they're like, no. And they're stopping them and they're not enforcing crime against the federal officers. All these other things. Like, should he just, should Trump just let the liberal cities fall? Should he just let him fall?

Michael Duncan (35:57)

I'm blackpilled.

Comfortably Smug (35:58)

This is such a good philosophical question.

Michael Duncan (36:00)

I'm black pilled and I say yes, But I really am curious what people think on this because I want this administration to be able to succeed with all this. But, like, at some point, you look at all of the obstacles to being successful, and it's like, like, why do we help these people that hate us so much?

Josh Holmes (36:15)

It's just such a good philosophical question. Because I think most of us grew up in and around major cities where you would go, like, the highlight of your year was to go in and watch a sporting event, watch, you know, something in the city. And it was like a fun time. It was, you know, great.

Michael Duncan (36:35)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (36:36)

And I'm sure that that still exists. Cause you see, you know, full NFL stadiums on Sunday.

Comfortably Smug (36:43)

I don't know how much of Minneapolis still exists.

Josh Holmes (36:45)

I mean, dude, it's a fair quell. Listen, I'm not here to defend that.

Comfortably Smug (36:49)

Get him.

Josh Holmes (36:50)

Pirate ship.

Michael Duncan (36:51)

Hold them accountable.

Comfortably Smug (36:52)

Pirate is going to take over.

Josh Holmes (36:53)

Pirate ship is full. It's full. Blackhawk down in north Minneapolis. But I mean, I think that that's like, do you just let it go? Because it.

Comfortably Smug (37:03)

And I've seen good arguments online for, like, why conservatives should not abandon this yet. Being like, why would we cede New York, Los Angeles, but all these major.

Josh Holmes (37:11)

American cities, centers of growth and power to the left?

Comfortably Smug (37:14)

Cause that's a good argument, too, is don't let them have any of it.

Michael Duncan (37:18)

Yeah. But then you look at a place like New York that's about to make a democratic socialist their mayor, and it's like, do you want to be saved?

Josh Holmes (37:24)

Yeah, you know, no.

Comfortably Smug (37:26)

If you're gonna do it, we should run Bane.

Michael Duncan (37:28)

They doing it deliberate.

Comfortably Smug (37:29)

We gotta run Bane in these towns.

Michael Duncan (37:30)

Wait, you know all about the different party lines that are in New York, which would be the best party line in New York City for Bain to run on to be successful Independence Party.

Comfortably Smug (37:41)

Because, like, he tricks so many voters. They see the eye and they're like, oh, it's independent.

Josh Holmes (37:44)

Yeah, it's.

Comfortably Smug (37:45)

No, you can just buy the. You can just buy that line. Bain would do it.

Josh Holmes (37:49)

Gosh. Ridiculous. Well, anyway, coming up, we're going to get to your comments from last episode, which was about the shutdown. We asked, when Democrats cave, what will their capitulation statement say? We're going to save our own for when SMASH gets back, but we want to get to yours right after this.

Americans for Prosperity Announcer (38:11)

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Josh Holmes (39:20)

Okay, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. Thank you for all of you who have in recent days and weeks. We appreciate it greatly. But when you do that and you leave us a comment, we read all of them and we get back to you on the very next episode with a little summary of the comments that we think are indicative of the larger sentiment that you've expressed. To do that, we usually start with the voice, but now we're going to start with Michael Duncan Dunks. What do we got in comment 1?

Michael Duncan (39:45)

This is from Joshua Bissey. Joshua writes, when they cave, the left will run the taco narrative, claiming that the GOP folded. Taco being a reference to the Trump always chickens out.

Josh Holmes (39:57)

They'll just pretend like they didn't.

Michael Duncan (39:59)

No, they won.

Josh Holmes (40:00)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (40:01)

I maintain we should just, like, have a giant medal for Schumer that says, I won the shutdown and we present it to him on the Senate floor.

Josh Holmes (40:08)

And then we can all just, congratulations, Chuck.

Michael Duncan (40:11)

You did it.

Josh Holmes (40:11)

You did it. You put us all through it. We were so serious about it. Yeah. No, it's not a bad plan. All right. Comment two.

Comfortably Smug (40:20)

Comment two is from Maureen Willis. We shut the government down because not doing so would allow the fascists in the White House to destroy democracy. However, we have to reopen the government to fight the fascists in the White House. That is it. That's it. That's perfect.

Michael Duncan (40:37)

Really good logic.

Josh Holmes (40:38)

That is pretty good. That is pretty good. Comment 3 comes from Morgan Hale. Democrats capitulation. Never mind.

Comfortably Smug (40:49)

You have to laugh at these idiots. You really have to laugh at the Democrats.

Josh Holmes (40:52)

You gotta laugh at them. Listen, a scandal is brewing in a prominent election as National Review reveals disturbing text messages from Democratic candidate for attorney general in Virginia. We covered a little bit of this. Not the text message component, but what's come out since. We covered this idiot getting convicted of going like 160 miles an hour. Yeah. And then. And then doing the community service Hours at his own pack.

Michael Duncan (41:20)

Pack, yeah.

Josh Holmes (41:21)

And, like, raising money for himself. And then his staffer sending a letter to the court being like, oh, geez, we really appreciate all the work. I mean, this is clowner.

Comfortably Smug (41:29)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (41:30)

This is clownery at its highest. We're going to get to all of it right after this. Okay, so we covered this guy named Jay Jones who's running for Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia. And, like, typically, we don't do a lot of, like, state and local race stuff unless it is beyond the pale. And this one has ventured well beyond the pale. There's a sitting Attorney General, Jason Miariz. We'll endeavor to try to get him on to talk a little bit about this in the next couple of weeks. But he's doing a great job. And this guy who's running against him, J. Jones, it was revealed he was doing like 120 miles an hour and was arrested and given community service. He did all of this at his pack, raising money for himself, which is like, you know, immediately everybody was like, I have nothing to see here. We're Democrats. We don't give a shit about any of that immorality. We're moving on. Then it comes out in graphic. Let's do clip four, please.

Gene Samuels (42:36)

Breaking news from the campaign trail. Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Virginia Attorney General, is accused of sending a former legislative colleague text suggesting he would like to shoot the speaker of the House of Delegates. Thanks for joining us here at Gene.

Bill Fitzgerald (42:52)

Samuels and I'm Bill Fitzgerald. This series of texts reported by the National Review. Jones, a former delegate, reportedly sent delegate Kerry Coiner texts about hypothetically shooting Speaker Todd Gilbert back in 2022 and wishing violence upon his children.

Comfortably Smug (43:08)

Oh, my God.

Bill Fitzgerald (43:09)

Has confirmed Jones sent her a number of texts, several of which read from Jones, three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler and Paul Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the heads. Spoiler. Put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know, and he receives both bullets. Every time Coyner says, jay, please stop. And Jones replies, lol. Okay, okay.

Gene Samuels (43:34)

Coiner sent us a statement that says, On August 8, 2022, I had a text conversation with Jay Jones. What he said was not just disturbing, but disqualifying for anyone who wants to seek public office. Jay Jones wished violence on the children of a colleague and joked about shooting Todd Gilbert. It's disgusting and unbecoming of any public official.

Comfortably Smug (43:58)

Okay, so these cowards on that station, which tells you a lot about the media, they didn't show the text where he said he wants to see the Children of that person murdered and the mother to hold their dead bodies, blood running everywhere. Like, this is an extremely unhinged individual. And so I think this whole discourse going around it of, like, why aren't Democrats, you know, like Abigail Spamberger, why isn't she calling on him to drop others? I think we are so past that, man. If you look at the events of just the past month, we are so beyond. I am calling on this individual. Step down, Youngkin. Your term limited. Arrest the minute.

Michael Duncan (44:37)

Yeah, it's.

Comfortably Smug (44:38)

I think, arrest him, lock him up. It's over. You can't be putting out death threats and then try to run for attorney general. Because here's the other thing. I have no faith in the voters of Virginia. This guy's been up in the poll. I have no faith. I have no faith in the people of Virginia. Because here's the other sad part. And we saw this after Charlie was murdered, how many teachers, doctors, nurses, nurses sent out tweets celebrating that? I guarantee there is a significant and terrifying percentage of voters in Virginia who saw this guy's statements. They're like, good. I agree with him.

Michael Duncan (45:15)

Well, yeah, see, that's the thing, and I think it exposes a lot about the left in our democracy, is the media tried to minimalize a lot of that stuff you were mentioning. Smug. Because, oh, well, you know, Charlie Kirk, they would say, oh, he was divisive. Yada, yada, yada. You think the speaker of Virginia, you know, deserves two bullets over Pol Pot?

Josh Holmes (45:35)

You know what I mean?

Michael Duncan (45:37)

Like, and another bit of breaking news on this. I saw a tweet, the source, again, here is this Kerry Coyner, the delegate, saying that Democratic Attorney general nominee Jay Jones told her in a 2020 phone call that a few police officers dying would stop them from killing other people.

Comfortably Smug (45:57)

People, bro.

Michael Duncan (45:59)

They want police officers dead, too.

Josh Holmes (46:00)

I got so many.

Comfortably Smug (46:01)

And he's like, and now I want to be the Attorney General.

Michael Duncan (46:03)

I want to be attorney General.

Josh Holmes (46:05)

So many reactions. First of all, prior regret in the coiner text message chain, huh? Yeah, that one didn't work out for him.

Michael Duncan (46:12)

Do you think maybe she has some other bangers that she can put out here over the next few weeks?

Josh Holmes (46:16)

Those are some bangers. But to your point that you dismayed, this guy's running for attorney general, the top law enforcement officer for a state that borders the national, the capital of this country, where his hot take is that cops should be killed.

Comfortably Smug (46:33)

That's the thing. It's not take. This is who he is. This is who he is. And it's not like, it can't be like, oh, it was a one time thing. We're seeing like over a number of years, a series of texts and phone calls. And this is an individual who, first off, we talked about way before even all this came out. He's driving 160 miles an hour and he got off. And then everyone was, all these guys were mad at me because I said, lock him up for life. I know when a dude needs to be locked up for life. And then it comes out all this.

Michael Duncan (46:59)

It became an attack on us, dude. If the guy does somehow win and become Attorney General, just think about his pack. Like, he can send every, you know, misdemeanor offender to community service and they can do it.

Josh Holmes (47:10)

They can work in his pack, they can raise money for him. Get on the phone, buster. But you know what I mean, dude, look, there was a time and I think part of the reason that everybody is sort of aghast in the political class is sort of aghast that you've got a Democratic Party that's doing nothing to try to distance themselves from this is because typically speaking, when something like this were to ha, it is disqualifying. And their names are all on the ballot. They're so fucking confident that there's just gonna be nothing but a blue wave supporting them that they don't care. They don't care.

Comfortably Smug (47:42)

That's the thing is like I'm telling you, after we've seen not only the numerous attempts on the life of President Trump, we saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated in front of everybody. We saw all these Democrats celebrating that. And now it's not like this is disqualifying. This individual shouldn't run. They're running on it.

Josh Holmes (48:02)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (48:03)

This dude is out in the open saying this. He's been leading polls, dude, enough's enough.

Josh Holmes (48:09)

Well, I mean, the best, the most indicative part of all of this is how a candidate like Jay Jones responds to it. Because it tells you the kind of pressure that they're feeling internally.

Michael Duncan (48:21)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (48:22)

From other Democrats, from other Democrats to try to like, let's smooth some waters here, pal. We're like three weeks out.

Comfortably Smug (48:28)

He's not feeling any pressure.

Josh Holmes (48:29)

Here's what he has to say. Graphic 2. Like all people, I've sent text messages that I regret. And I believe violent rhetoric has no place in politics. Let's be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General's race right now. Jason Mearez is dropping smears through Trump controlled, Trump controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue My his desperate campaign. This is a strategy that ensures Jason Mearez will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia. This race is about whether Trump can control Virginia or Virginia Republicans control regime. Really.

Comfortably Smug (49:06)

That's what I'm talking about.

Michael Duncan (49:07)

I mean, the guy goes on offense. Trump controlled media. The video clip we played was from the local ABC affiliate.

Josh Holmes (49:16)

That's the funniest part about this is it's like, you mean that you would have to have a Trump controlled affiliate to be sort of like asked some questions about your assassination rhetoric over a Speaker of the House.

Comfortably Smug (49:31)

Can I say the reason why he can get away with this kind of like a ridiculous statement is because he is not feeling any pressure. Abigail Spamberger has not said he needs to drop out.

Josh Holmes (49:42)

She's running for governor.

Comfortably Smug (49:43)

She's running for governor. She hasn't said he needs to not only drop out, he needs to go get his head checked. None of that. You haven't heard it from Tim Kaine. None of the elected officials in Virginia have said this guy's gotta go because they coddled this. They know this. They have to have their voters be so deranged into believing they're in this, like, war against Donald Trump for the freedom of the country. They have actively cultivated that belief. This guy's a result of that system.

Michael Duncan (50:09)

I think I know now who the winner of the shutdown is. It's the Democratic senators from Virginia that don't have to answer questions right now in the rotunda.

Josh Holmes (50:17)

I mean, seriously, they might be because they've said absolutely nothing but one guy who was asked. Clip 5 Virginia Damn House Speaker. So we need to understand something.

Michael Duncan (50:29)

We have to be mature in our thinking and how we vote.

Josh Holmes (50:32)

We can't get distracted because they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else that's a distraction.

Comfortably Smug (50:39)

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Josh Holmes (50:40)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (50:41)

That like they.

Michael Duncan (50:42)

This guy is from the pulpit of all places.

Josh Holmes (50:44)

From the pulpit. He's there in a church.

Michael Duncan (50:46)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (50:46)

And he's saying that the. The call for an assassination of a colleague, the kidnapping, murder of his kids.

Comfortably Smug (50:53)

In their mother's arms.

Josh Holmes (50:54)

Murder of the kids.

Comfortably Smug (50:56)

He's like deranged, sick, dangerous.

Josh Holmes (50:58)

Don't be distracted by something. How could you be distracted? What we want is higher taxes.

Comfortably Smug (51:03)

I have no faith in a party that cultivates that. I think, listen, if I'm Governor Youngkin, I send the National Guard surround this guy's house, I put him in cuffs, I perp walk him, and then I want The Democrats to argue why he needs to be free. Are you gonna say that, like, well, just because he's putting out death threats, he shouldn't be locked up. You wanna make that argument? Do it smug.

Michael Duncan (51:24)

Smug's always on offense, dude.

Comfortably Smug (51:26)

You're term limited, youngkin. You can do this perp. Walk him, and then, dude, you can moonwalk and remind everyone of Northam. This is a w. Moonwalk.

Josh Holmes (51:38)

Little blackface spice things up.

Comfortably Smug (51:40)

Yeah. I mean, they call for Northam to verzein for this guy.

Josh Holmes (51:43)

Nothing happened that he's like, yeah, he dressed up as Michael Jackson in blackface and moonwalked. And everybody's like, huh?

Comfortably Smug (51:50)

He's like, do you want me to moonwalk now? Yeah. No, no, no.

Michael Duncan (51:52)

He actually said that at a press conference.

Josh Holmes (51:54)

Do you want me to moonwalk? His press people are like, oh, my God. And people were like, yeah, let him serve his term. Yeah, let him serve his term. He's a good Democrat. Speaking of dumb criminals, we got another one for you.

Comfortably Smug (52:07)

Dumb criminals.

Michael Duncan (52:08)

What a great.

Comfortably Smug (52:10)

Nailed it.

Josh Holmes (52:11)

Clip seven, please. All right, so this is some thieves that are trying to steal an atm, and they have, like, look at them. First of all, I don't know what kind of car they've got there exactly.

Michael Duncan (52:26)

I don't know the towing capacity of.

Josh Holmes (52:28)

That, but it certainly doesn't have a lot of tow capacity. But they've hooked up the ATM to something in the car, and they're like, all right, here we go. Let's go. Backs up. He's gonna have a running start. Boom. Pulls the whole hood off the back of the thing. And now here they go. They're like, oh, geez, we're gonna have to.

Comfortably Smug (52:45)

Dude, look at this thing. Look at all this.

Josh Holmes (52:48)

Or look at the trunk.

Comfortably Smug (52:49)

The whole trunk. Is that a Nissan? Dude, like, 90% of the time when a crime is committed, the car's a Nissan. Like, I don't know what. Really? Every time, dude, Whenever you see. Because I watch a lot of cop videos. I love cop videos so much.

Josh Holmes (53:03)

Nissan's at the.

Comfortably Smug (53:04)

I miss cops being a show, dude. Like, every time it's the Nissan. And, like, when we're driving, I tell my wife, like, you know, if you got. Nissan's driving aggressive, I'm like, we have a lot more to lose. Like, Nissan drivers, It's a red alert. Like, they're gonna hurt somebody. You saw right there, dude.

Josh Holmes (53:22)

It's like coming alongside of a Toyota. They tried to, like, tow an atm, right? You're like, oh. Oh, no.

Comfortably Smug (53:28)

Okay, that's isis, you know, What?

Josh Holmes (53:30)

Merge right away, no problem.

Michael Duncan (53:31)

But like, how do you not know that if you don't have some sort of hitch on the back of this thing, you're not gonna be able to pull an atm?

Josh Holmes (53:39)

Imagine the planning session.

Comfortably Smug (53:41)

If you know things, you're not trying to steal ATMs. Yeah, it's true.

Josh Holmes (53:47)

They pull an ATM off with the trunk.

Comfortably Smug (53:51)

Dude. What stick to that car was incredible.

Josh Holmes (53:53)

Oh, my God. It's just amazing. Is there? Okay, so the next story we've got comes from the Daily Mail. British and us couples cheat death when rampaging elephants flips their safari canoes over before smashing one of the women with its trunk. Can we see that clip? Clip eight. All right, so here. God, dude, they're like, here comes the elephant. Look at him working his way.

Comfortably Smug (54:19)

Look, bro, you gotta row hard.

Michael Duncan (54:21)

He's growing.

Josh Holmes (54:23)

He's kept the rowing. Oh, Jesus. That thing's coming.

Comfortably Smug (54:27)

Oh, my brother.

Josh Holmes (54:31)

Look at the people just kind of sitting there.

Michael Duncan (54:33)

Oh, my gosh.

Comfortably Smug (54:35)

Okay, shout out to the cameraman.

Josh Holmes (54:37)

Yeah, he keeps it focused a little bit, doesn't he?

Michael Duncan (54:40)

I mean, maybe grab an ore, pal.

Josh Holmes (54:41)

Yeah.

Michael Duncan (54:48)

Oh, they're trying to clap to steer him. Steer the elephant away from the people.

Josh Holmes (54:52)

It's not like it's a freaking circus animal.

Comfortably Smug (54:56)

That's a. That's a wild. Everyone clap for the elephant. Good job.

Michael Duncan (54:59)

No, but you know how they say, like, you know, you're encouraging it. If there's a bear, you make a lot of noise, you know, and that hopefully scares them off. And you try to make yourself look big.

Josh Holmes (55:07)

And that's must have worked a little bit. Their guides took them too close to a female elephant and her two calves leading to the bull of the herd charging through shallow waters in reeds. During the attack, the four tourists on both canoes are tipped into the crocodile infested waters.

Comfortably Smug (55:23)

Amazing.

Josh Holmes (55:24)

Of the Delta. Whilst their 2Gu appear to be abandoning them and running to safety on the riverbank. A former South African game ranger who is shown the video said they're very lucky to escape indeed, because all four could have just as easily been killed by that angry bull. The woman was lucky not to have been gored with those trunks.

Comfortably Smug (55:47)

Oh, yeah, here's the thing. These ivory tusks is. Why are you involved in any of this? And your guides and such don't have guns. Like, well, see, yeah, this is Africa. You're already in crocodile waters and you're unarmed, let alone. There's like elephants. What if we boat through the crocodile infested waters and check out the kids while the dad gets pissed off when you're kidding, but this will be entertaining for the crew. Like, number one. And the guides bounced. Like, they clearly showed. They have zero. They got paid the cash up front. Right. So what's the loss to them? They're out smug.

Michael Duncan (56:20)

I think you bring up a really good point. And that is if you want to go trophy hunting in Africa, this seems actually like a good strategy because these are protected animals you can't get necessarily just shoot him.

Comfortably Smug (56:30)

Great thing.

Michael Duncan (56:31)

But maybe if you bring the elephant gun and sort of bait yourself out there on the waters and they happen to charge, he's coming right for us.

Isaiah Taylor (56:38)

Yeah.

Comfortably Smug (56:39)

And you got your friend videoing the whole thing.

Michael Duncan (56:41)

Yeah. Right. It's proof.

Comfortably Smug (56:42)

And then you'd be like, well, you don't want the ivory to go to waste.

Josh Holmes (56:45)

And then you.

Comfortably Smug (56:46)

I'm not gonna just leave the corpse.

Josh Holmes (56:47)

You can ride one of the babies off like Dumbo.

Michael Duncan (56:52)

Oh, now, kids. Ride the baby now.

Comfortably Smug (56:55)

It's sad.

Michael Duncan (56:55)

Why do you have to make it sad?

Comfortably Smug (56:57)

I mean, here's the thing. Is, like, there's a reason humans won. Right? Like, you gotta remind the animal kingdom once in a while, and you don't do without a gun.

Michael Duncan (57:04)

Poor Dumbo. Dumbo.

Comfortably Smug (57:06)

I mean, that's a lesson.

Josh Holmes (57:08)

Dumbo grows up like Bambi, and maybe he can be a household pet.

Comfortably Smug (57:11)

Yeah.

Josh Holmes (57:12)

You never know.

Michael Duncan (57:12)

That's right.

Josh Holmes (57:13)

You never know. All right, we had an interesting interview that you guys conducted today.

Comfortably Smug (57:18)

Yeah. This is with the CEO of Valoratomics, Isaiah Taylor. Isaiah was recently on Shawn Ryan. And I got so many messages. People being like, like, you have to see this interview. What he's doing is so cool with these nuclear reactors. The administration is clearly a big fan of his work, and we got him on the show.

Josh Holmes (57:35)

Awesome. Let's go to it.

Comfortably Smug (57:39)

Okay, folks, today we have a very exciting interview for all of you. You've probably seen him already on Sean Ryan. That kind of got him on our radar. Ladies and gentlemen, we have Isaiah Taylor from Valor Atomics.

Isaiah Taylor (57:50)

Amazing to be with you on the program.

Comfortably Smug (57:52)

Yeah. Welcome to be on the show. So for everyone who hasn't been following the story, I mean, you guys have been getting a lot of attention. You're going to be building nuclear reactors, something that this country's not been doing for a while. Tell us a little bit about that.

Isaiah Taylor (58:05)

Yeah, actually, we've already built our first nuclear reactor. It's in Los Angeles in our R and D facility. And what we're doing right now is we're creating our nuclear test site out in the Utah desert. Fantastic, beautiful patch of desert. And so, yeah, the work of the next, essentially a year before the president's mandate of July 4 is to go and make that test site, get the reactor out there and turn it on. So we're really excited. I mean, this is genuinely historic. We have not turned on an SMR in the United States, ever.

Comfortably Smug (58:33)

Wow.

Isaiah Taylor (58:33)

Right. Small modular reactors were ideated here, invented here, and a lot of other countries have started to figure them out. Unfortunately, the United States is behind, but we have this mandate from the President to go do it quickly. So we're really excited.

Comfortably Smug (58:45)

And I think that's the big things, because it feels like for years, especially online, people have had this discussion of, like, yes, America, you know, doesn't have enough power, and we'll just build some nuclear reactors. Oh, we could build nuclear reactors. And it's always been like, we could do something. And finally you've come along, been like, I will actually build the solution to this problem. How did that even start? How do you get involved in building nuclear reactors?

Isaiah Taylor (59:07)

Yeah, that's. That's exactly right. Like, we're just going to do it. There's. There's really no other way. You just have to do it. But this is something that I have been focused on for really, as long as I can remember. Nuclear, specifically, my. My great grandfather was a nuclear physicist on the Manhattan Project. So it's something I've grown.

Comfortably Smug (59:23)

You know, it's a family business.

Isaiah Taylor (59:24)

Yeah, I've grown up thinking about it.

Josh Holmes (59:26)

Right.

Isaiah Taylor (59:27)

You know, my grandmother was actually born in the secret city during the Manhattan Project. So it's just, you know, it's something I've thought about my entire life. And I actually thought about joining a nuclear startup when I was in middle school. Not like in middle school, but when I was in middle school, I was like, I'm going to go join a nuclear startup. And I looked across the field of everyone who is trying to build nuclear in the United States, and I realized that, like, nobody was actually that serious about it. Like, they wanted to make designs, they wanted to do analysis, they wanted to do paperwork, and there was no steel being bent. Yeah, like, that's. That's actually how you build a nuclear reactor. Right? You, like, you bend the steel and then you turn it on. There's more steps than that. But, like, if that's not your focus and that's not your immediate goal, it's just not going to happen. So I had to start my own.

Comfortably Smug (60:10)

Because that feels like an incredibly frustrating part of this whole equation. Is we know America doesn't have enough power. Yes, we know we're falling behind the rest of the world. Like China's building as many energy, you know, whether it's nuclear power plant, whether it's coal fired power plant, they're trying to build their grid up as much as possible. I think France has something like 60% of their electricity is already nuclear and America's just 70. Yeah.

Isaiah Taylor (60:32)

So I think what people need to realize is that in the 1970s, so first of all, back up to like the 40s and 50s, America was the dominant energy producer in the world. We made more energy than any other country on earth. In fact, the runner up to the United States was not even a country, it was a continent. Right. So number one was the United States, number two is the entire eu. And that was actually not very close in terms of like total energy. And what that allowed us to do is it allowed us to make most of the world's stuff. We made 60% of steel, we made about 50% of aluminum, and we made 40% of all manufactured things, like any like physical things. The United States made 40% of it. And we could do this because we had lots of energy and we had really cheap energy. And in the 1970s we had this like decision point. We had this moment where we were trying to figure out what do we do next? Because coal and nuclear were sort of neck and neck, right? We were building lots of coal, we were building lots of nuclear. And they were around the same price. Both of them were around three and a half to four cents a kilowatt hour in 20, $25. So super cheap, like really cheap energy. And we're like, which one is going to like win the future? Coal, you know, we were worried about because of environmental impact. Nuclear, we were worried about because of nuclear. You know, it just has this association with atomic bombs and sort of thing. And shockingly, we chose neither. We actually turned both off. So like trying to decide between them, we did neither. And we basically stopped building coal plants. We completely stopped building nuclear plants. And China started it. And the deep irony of this is that especially in the metals industry, which is incredibly important, we wanted to reduce CO2 impact. So we're going to like, you know, let's stop building coal plants to electrolyze aluminum and make steel. But actually what happened is that China just started turning on coal plants to own aluminum and steel. And what they burn is actually lignite coal, which is like a worse grade of coal. So the net impact on the environment was worse. And we no longer have a steel industry and aluminum industry, which means you don't have parts. And if you don't have parts, you don't have assemblies. And if you don't have assemblies, you don't make things anymore.

Michael Duncan (62:33)

So we're at an inflection point now. Like you mentioned the 1970s and now it's a new information revolution with everything in AI and these data centers that are like, they require a ton of energy if we're going to lead the way in the world and win this tech race with China in large language language models and all that sort of stuff. Can you explain how the tech that y' all are building now can help us in that?

Isaiah Taylor (62:56)

Yeah, totally. And by the way, like, this is an important point. For a while we were sort of like put to sleep about the energy problem because as we were no longer building energy and in fact plants were shutting down, we were also exporting heavy industry. And so it didn't feel like that much of a problem. Right. It's not like our electricity bills went 10x because we reduced the demand at the same time that we stopped building. And of course that's bad because now we don't have manufacturing. But like it felt okay for a while. Now the irony is in the meantime, what did we do? Well, we went, we won on software, right? So we're like, we're the best software makers in the world and this was a way around the power problem because software doesn't take that much power. Oh, wait a minute. Like, oops. Actually it turns out AI is the most power hungry industry, right? And this sort of like happened overnight. So our sort of like silver bullet that we thought was going to fix the problem that we don't have. Manufacturing ended up being the biggest power problem. How are we going to power AI? So I mean, this is a five alarm fire. We have to win on this, we have to win on manufacturing and we have to win on AI. And power is necessary for all of it. So yeah, our nuclear reactors are actually really well suited to this. Our commercial models, about 25 megawatts electric. This is actually a great size. If you want to make a gigawatt, we put 40 of them in a row. If you want 250 megs, put 10 of them in a row. And then there's a really important concept in data centers specifically, which is redundancy, right? So if you want a stable load of power, you want some backup, right? And you call this like N+1 or N +2. So if you want 10 reactors you build one more. Right. And now you have a little bit of redundancy. If your reactor is small enough, redundancy is a lot easier and cheaper. Right. So if you have a massive reactor and you're trying to build one more, you're spending like double the project cost. Right. But if you keep the reactor size small, building one more or two more, even three more, is not a huge, huge cost.

Michael Duncan (64:41)

So when you say small, how small are we talking here?

Isaiah Taylor (64:43)

Yeah, so our first model that we built in Los Angeles that we're turning on next year, it fits inside three shipping containers. Amazing. Yeah, so it's really small. That one's a nice unit for like off site use cases. The main commercial model will be a little bit bigger than that, not too much bigger than that. And that'll be a 25 megawatt.

Michael Duncan (65:01)

Can I ask you a personal question? Because you're a pretty young guy and you're talking about a very niche, like technology that is critical infrastructure for the country. And I'm assuming you walk into a lot of rooms with a lot of older people and you got to convince them that like, this is the way of the future. What's that like, you know?

Isaiah Taylor (65:19)

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone has sort of known that it was the future for a while. Like, I don't have to explain to that many people that, that nuclear is amazing. Like, it's, it's this sort of. We almost like know it's our birthright. Like we made the first nuclear reactors, we scaled them out. It was amazing. And people are kind of confused, like why we haven't done it more. And the biggest thing that people imagine is that we didn't keep doing it because it was too expensive. This is totally wrong. It is too expensive now, but it actually wasn't back when we were building lots of it. Right. Any industry that you're doing, you know, doing a lot of, you get to start to come down the cost curve. And that's exactly how it was when we were actually building all of our plants. We have like 80, I think we have 86 operating plants in the United States. Almost all of them were built from the early 60s to the late 70s, some into the 80s. And they were incredibly cheap. They were actually the cheapest energy on earth. So most of what I have to sort of explain to people is when you think about cost, you need to realize that physics hasn't changed, Right? The physics of how nuclear energy works and how you build reactors hasn't changed since the 60s. What's changed since Then is our supply chains, our regulators, you know, the talent pools. Like, we sort of forgot how to do this. And so we have to. We have to start over. That's really what valor is. So I find that people are incredibly excited about it.

Comfortably Smug (66:35)

What's the biggest challenge that you're facing? Is it regulatory? Because this administration has said we want energy dominance. I know the Energy Secretary is incredibly excited, not just about nuclear, but what you guys are doing. Is it people's fears? Is it like the movies of, like, oh, no, you know, it's a nuclear bomb.

Isaiah Taylor (66:49)

This is like, I can't even believe I'm saying this out loud. It's so exciting. But, like, for the first time in probably 50 years, the thing that the only thing holding us back is our ability to quickly and safely engineer the plant. Like, it's actually just our skills and our engineering that is the long lead to accomplishing the mission. That's like, that has not been true in nuclear for. For 50 years. And it's entirely thanks to, firstly, the President for signing these executive orders. There were four executive orders that went out in May that really just laid down the mandate to the industry. Like, we need to react. We need three reactors, actually, by July 4th of next year to be running on American soil. Like, this has to happen. And then a bunch of people underneath the President who are just hard charging to make it happen. Right. So Secretary Wright, incredible Energy secretary, he was at our office about a month ago, checked out the reactor, have a great picture of him in the control room. It's really fun. But then a bunch of people, you know, in the Department of Energy itself, I'll actually, you know, call some of them out just because they're doing such an amazing work. Adam Blake, who is currently working, you know, under the Secretary, has set his life on hold, you know, which was. He was doing amazing things before in the private sector and has put that on hold to make sure that America wins on nuclear and it would not have happened without him. Like, I think that one of the most incredible things about this administration is that it empowers people to charge forward.

Michael Duncan (68:10)

Yeah.

Isaiah Taylor (68:10)

Right. Like individual people who are special, who are competent, with incredible backgrounds. Yeah. With amazing, like, honestly, who should be, like, living on the beach.

Comfortably Smug (68:18)

Right.

Isaiah Taylor (68:19)

Like, they've made it, they've done the stuff and they actually just genuinely care about the country and they're like, well, I'm going to do a tour of duty. And that's how they think about it. They actually think about it as, like, service to their country. So Seth Cohen, another amazing guy in Department of Energy. Ankur. Like, these three guys have essentially taken the order of the President and they have said, like, we're putting our lives on hold to make sure that the United States succeeds in nuclear. And I'm just incredibly grateful. And again, it's all credit to the President, really, is. You know, we, we were pretty close with the Biden administration. We were working with them. They were pro nuclear. Right. The Biden administration was one of the first Democratic presidencies to say, like, we are explicitly pro nuclear, we're going to do this. But they were just not as willing to, to rock the boat. Right. And the Trump administration is, is the exact opposite. They're like, listen, like it's, it's actually an existential issue for us to have energy. So we're not going to like walk around this on eggshells. We're going to make it happen.

Michael Duncan (69:13)

And that's the beautiful hats we have.

Isaiah Taylor (69:15)

That's right. That's right. We have to make, we're going to make nuclear great again and make, making nuclear great again will make our country stronger. And it's just necessary. We have to do it.

Comfortably Smug (69:24)

That's the thing is I feel like a lot of people don't understand how central energy is, the production of energy to so many of the problems and why the election was decided, like, why is there no manufacturing anymore in America? Why is our infrastructure falling apart? Why is it so lacking? Why are so many of the problems, the price of energy going up? And then at the same time, we have to win the AI war with China and we have to be able to compete on a global scale. And also energy creates so many jobs.

Isaiah Taylor (69:52)

Yes.

Comfortably Smug (69:52)

Like, we're so lacking.

Isaiah Taylor (69:53)

This is so much more causal than people realize. So an example of this, if you want an aluminum part, right. Which is, you know, aluminum is used all over every single industry. It's in aerospace, it's in cars, it's in consumer electronics, it's in, it's everywhere. If you want to order an aluminum part today and you're picking between China to make your part or a company in the United States, there's a price difference, Right. We know that China is probably cheaper, but actually what's crazy is that just the billet of aluminum, right. The bar stock of aluminum in the United States is more expensive than the finished part in China.

Comfortably Smug (70:26)

Wow.

Isaiah Taylor (70:26)

Right. And the reason for that is that our aluminum bar stock costs so much more than theirs does because aluminum is essentially energy cost, right? About 40% of the total cost. Of aluminum is energy. And it's actually significantly more than the input ore. The rest of that is like processing and labor, that sort of thing. So if you don't have cheap energy, you don't have metal stock. And if you don't have metal stock, you don't have parts. And you literally can't have an industrial economy. All of your parts have to get shipped.

Michael Duncan (70:54)

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of talk about re industrialization in the United States. And what's clear in that is that's impossible without cheap energy.

Isaiah Taylor (71:00)

Energy, as simple as that. And this was true in the last 30 years. It's becoming so much more true. Right. As our economy becomes more driven by AI inference with cameras and then robotic actuation on the factory floor. Both of those things are essentially energy functions. It takes energy to run the data center that's actually doing the processing on the vision camera, and then it takes energy to actuate the robot arm and then it takes energy to make the metal stock. So actually all three of these things are just energy. So if you don't have energy, you don't make anything. And if you don't make anything, you don't have an economy.

Josh Holmes (71:32)

Wow.

Comfortably Smug (71:33)

So the, you said the unit that you're building that can fit into three shipping containers. How much energy does that make and what does that number mean specifically? Like, how much energy is that?

Isaiah Taylor (71:43)

Yeah, that's great question. So the unit that we've built so far, we're going to run at a super, super low level. So I'm going to give you a megawatt figure that gives you sort of, it's like nominal capacity. But we're gonna run it super, super low the first time we turn it on. So it'll make about five and a half megawatts at full power. We're gonna run it super low at about a quarter of a megawatt. And that allows us to do a very, very safe test on it. We get to know the, the hardware really well, we get to know the neutronics and we'll kind of bring it up over time. So that's like a five and a half megawatt unit off the top of my head. That's like. That's about 10,000 people.

Josh Holmes (72:13)

Wow.

Isaiah Taylor (72:14)

Yeah. Nuclear.

Comfortably Smug (72:15)

One unit can provide for 10,000 people.

Isaiah Taylor (72:16)

It's about 10,000. Yeah. The people living in about 10,000 homes. Yeah. So yeah, Nuclear is like shockingly, shockingly power dense.

Michael Duncan (72:24)

I'm not so sure about that. If you have to see all the electronics, like where he lives, he could probably use a personal reactor.

Isaiah Taylor (72:30)

Yeah, it's like, it's like 30 smugs.

Comfortably Smug (72:33)

I mean, that's just like, it's mind blowing because, I mean, I'm not the only one. Like, you see energy bills keep going up. You don't hear about any investment being made into, you know, increasing the capacity of energy. We've had so much red tape across this country.

Isaiah Taylor (72:49)

And I will say, like, natural gas has filled the breach, right? And I'm very grateful for that. Like, if it weren't for natural gas scaling up, it would be far, far worse than it is now. But we need to do even better, right? Like, we need to go even cheaper. Our average energy costs more than it did in the 1970s. Like, that's the opposite of how things should be, right? Like cheaper should. All energy should always be getting cheaper. And we've had this crazy inversion where actually like got more expensive for the first time in industrial history, specifically in the United States, which is like, it spells very bad things for your civilization. So we have to reverse that immediately.

Comfortably Smug (73:24)

How close do you feel we are to getting to a place where you are doing mass production of these units? He said it'd be something like 25 of these units are necessary to be able to power like one of these massive data centers that the AI companies would want to build, right?

Isaiah Taylor (73:40)

Yeah, some of the largest data centers being contemplated right now, you know, 10 to 20 of our units, in some cases 40 or greater. Now the nice thing is it's really easy for us to make this. We've designed it in such a way that it's easy to just crank them out. And this is really what, what needs to happen in nuclear. You know, I like to point out, if you buy a Toyota Camry from, you know, from Toyota, let's say you, you call up Toyota and you're like, hey, I want a new Camry. And they're like, okay, cool. Next week we're gonna start, you know, doing foundation work on your driveway and we're gonna go pull some machines out there. Right now we need to put in about a billion dollar forging unit, right? Because we have to forge it and there's gonna be a bunch of guys on site, there's gonna be a whole crew that's gonna be working on your tires and we'll get some like, stamping machines out there because we're gonna stamp the body panels, of course. Like, you want to, you want a Camry, don't you? Like, no, that's, that's not how it works. Like they make the Camry, and then it shows up at your door. Right. And that's actually how manufacturing makes everything cheap. Right. Like, you do the same thing over and over in a factory setting that allows it to become very cheap. So this is exactly what needs to happen in nuclear. When nuclear was sort of first ideated in the 40s and 50s, we were doing manufacturing, but we were also really good at construction. And power plants were all essentially construction projects. And that was, like, decently cheap for us because we had the tooling and we had the labor, and. And our economy was set up for that. Right. It's not set up for that anymore. We don't really do mass construction in the United States, and I think that's a bad thing. But it's also just like a reality of how our economy works, is we're much better at manufacturing than we are at construction. So nuclear needs to move toward that. We need to actually manufacture these things, crank them out like they're Toyota Camrys, and then turn them on.

Comfortably Smug (75:21)

Awesome.

Josh Holmes (75:21)

Wow.

Michael Duncan (75:22)

I mean, everything that you've said here is incredible. I wish you all, all the best of luck with it.

Isaiah Taylor (75:29)

Small.

Michael Duncan (75:30)

What is it? S. How do you say it?

Isaiah Taylor (75:31)

Smrs. Modular reactors.

Michael Duncan (75:33)

Small modular reactors. I think we should get one for Smug's home.

Comfortably Smug (75:37)

I would love to have one as soon as they're done. Yeah.

Josh Holmes (75:40)

Three shipping containers.

Comfortably Smug (75:41)

I mean, it's. It's just. I can't get over the fact that for so long the discussion has been, well, if we got nuclear reactors, I bet it could solve this problem. And finally someone has decided, I'm just gonna build the damn thing. We're gonna stop talking about it. And it's terrific. That's finally happening.

Isaiah Taylor (75:55)

That really is, if you want to understand valor, like, it's time to just build them. That's what we're doing. And the fact that this administration understands that and decides to just do it is amazing.

Comfortably Smug (76:06)

It's phenomenal work. Can't wait to hear more. Thanks so much.

Isaiah Taylor (76:08)

Yeah. Amazing.

Michael Duncan (76:12)

What a smart guy.

Josh Holmes (76:13)

Yeah. I mean, nice interview, boys. It's interesting to get outside of the bubble every once in a while and find out what people are up to. You know, I find that during the Trump administration, people in the line of work, of innovation, not just in the energy space, but almost everywhere, are, like, excited again.

Comfortably Smug (76:32)

Yep. It's optimism because, like, finally you have an administration that believes America can do things, America can be great again. It's that simple.

Michael Duncan (76:42)

I mean, what a, like, breath of fresh air, you know, the four years of the Biden administration, it was like, America's on decline. We can't do thing, we can't things anymore. We can't have big ideas in this country. Now suddenly you have some of the best and the brightest inside and outside of government looking to solve some of these problems. And they're real problems. It's like America's gonna need a heck of a lot of energy to beat China in the tech race when it comes to AI and everything else.

Josh Holmes (77:05)

Fascinating stuff. Thank you guys for doing it. Remember, our question of the day is should Trump let the liberal cities fall? It's a good question. I'd love to hear your answers on that. You gotta like and subscribe to our YouTube channel in order to to set that up. But you put your responses in, we gather all of them and we give you a response in the very next episode. We're going to do that again on Thursday. And with that, fellas, I think we did it.

Comfortably Smug (77:28)

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Isaiah Taylor. And thank you so much to the minions, like Holmes said, like and subscribe to the YouTube because it's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless.