What Democrats Keep Getting Wrong w/ Michael Knowles

Summary

Ruthless Podcast — Episode Summary
Episode Title: What Democrats Keep Getting Wrong (with Michael Knowles)
Date: February 27, 2026
Guests: Michael Knowles, Wesley Hunt, Nick Shirley, David Hoke
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook

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Episode Overview

This episode of Ruthless delivers a quintessential mix of in-depth political analysis, irreverent humor, and signature “variety progrum” energy. The fellas welcome conservative commentator Michael Knowles for a broad-ranging discussion on the State of the Union aftermath, campaign strategy in the post-Trump era, and the art of driving political contrast. The team then hosts Texas Senate candidate Wesley Hunt for a spirited campaign interview, and closes with citizen journalists Nick Shirley and David Hoke, who detail their viral exposé on childcare fraud in Minnesota. The show also features the debut of a new comedic game: "Trump Hard Pivot."

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1. State of the Union: Contrasts, Craft, and Showmanship

Main Theme: How political theater and stagecraft at major events can create effective contrasts and shape public opinion.

• Trump’s State of the Union (04:46-09:46, 16:15-18:33)

  • Knowles reflects on attending both Biden’s and Trump’s speeches: “He was so in command of his rhetoric that night. I'm feeling great.” (09:47)
  • Trump’s central accomplishment: uniting typically disparate Republican messaging into a disciplined, compelling narrative, especially on crime, immigration, and the economy.
  • “What I really wanna put on TV is a bunch of Democrats dissing the Olympic hockey team. To me, like, that is worth 10 billion essays on Aristotle in Real Politics.” — Michael Knowles (06:52)
  • Hosts and Knowles agree that Trump’s performance created a “black line” contrast with Democrats, amplifying the GOP’s strengths.

• Political Psychology & Voter Motivation

  • Negative polarization is now a central force in American politics. Hosts and Knowles discuss the importance of making Democrats appear “scary” (10:25-12:44).
  • “What voters have to have in their minds is that the Democrats are really scary on a whole host of issues… that's more motivating.” — Michael Knowles (12:19)
  • The group highlights the practical use of these moments: “That image can be broadcast in every single midterm campaign, every congressional campaign, and it will be effective.” — Michael Knowles (16:15)

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2. The Mechanics and Meaning of Campaigning

Main Theme: Authenticity, hands-on experience, and “real world” political work matter more than ever, especially as the Trump era disrupts traditions.

• Knowles’ Backstory (20:12-23:13)

  • Knowles explains his unlikely path from joke author (“Reasons to Vote for Democrats”) to political media mainstay: “I'm the first guy in the history of political media to get a show for not writing a book.”
  • He emphasizes the dual importance of book learning and campaign “shit work.”
  • “You still need to do the shit work. You still need to do everything that nobody else is willing to do harder and better than the next guy… it's politics in its purest expression.” — John Ashbrook (25:10)

• GOP’s Post-Trump Future (26:54-29:26)

  • The hosts and Knowles debate the health of Republican campaign fundamentals after Trump, worrying that too many now believe “the tweet is the thing that changes your day.”
  • Knowles predicts the basics will become critical again when Trump is gone: “Because no one in politics has the charisma, no one will… the fundamentals of political campaigning are going to come back.”

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3. 2028 Succession & GOP Prospects

Main Theme: The post-Trump GOP field, possible frontrunners, and the leadership dynamics shaping the party.

• JD Vance is labeled the “heir apparent” (29:36)
• “There are a million people who want to run for president in the Republican Party… The dynamic issue to me is whether or not Rubio sticks with JD.” — Michael Knowles

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4. Interview: Wesley Hunt — Texas Senate Race

Main Theme: Candid, energetic conversation with Senate candidate Wesley Hunt on Texas politics, campaign grind, and generational leadership.

• Being on the Trail (41:20-44:38)

  • Hunt describes the scale of Texas, grassroots events, and voter feedback: “I've been in a different city or a different county literally every day for the past two months.”
  • “We actually ran a campaign… and I got to tell you, I think we're reaching a crescendo at just the right time.” — Wesley Hunt (42:55)

• Strategy and Contrast

  • He shares why he entered the race amid polling and Party uncertainty, seeing opportunity as “America First patriot.”
  • Strong on military bona fides and generational shift: “I'm somebody that's want to die for this country. I'm the only one that has three babies at my house… It's time for the millennials to step in and be the bridge.” — Wesley Hunt (47:19)
  • On negative campaigning: “If I'm complaining about that and worried about the past, then I'm not focused on the future…” (57:02)

• Polls and Runoff Expectations (59:44-62:44)

  • Hunt discusses recent poll surges, big money opposing him, and predicts a runoff as the likely outcome.
  • "You don't spend almost $20 million against your opponent if he's not a problem." (60:08)

• General Election Prospects (62:44-65:36)

  • Warns that Democrats are re-engineering their candidate (“James Talarico is like the Blade of Beto”).
  • Argues that only a candidate with “energy” and broad appeal can counter massive Democrat spending in the general.

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5. Crime & Punishment Segment (32:42-36:14)

Main Theme: A darkly comedic parade of crime stories, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to “obvious” warning signs (e.g., criminally named public officials).

• “Word of the wise, I think we're looking out for people to say like poon dingus, sexual, crude deviancy...” — Josh Holmes (35:41)

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6. New Game: “Trump Hard Pivot” (68:21-77:02)

Main Theme: Lampooning the abrupt transitions in Trump’s speeches, the hosts compete to deliver a showman-style riff followed by a jarring pivot into high-minded statesmanship.

• “The transitions are actually very hard to write… you get like an hour of Don Rickles and then 15 minutes of Abraham Lincoln.” — John Ashbrook (69:33)
• Holmes is declared the winner for nailing the “Trump’s fat friends” genre-to-stirring-patriotic-pivot.

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7. Citizen Journalism: Interview with Nick Shirley and David Hoke (77:26-93:40)

Main Theme: Exposing fraud in public programs, the rise of citizen journalism, and official/media reluctance to address systemic corruption.

• Genesis of Investigation (79:03-80:17)

  • Hoke’s suspicion was triggered by empty daycare parking lots and misspelled signs: “I said, that’s it, that’s it. I'm all in…”

• Blowback and Political Reactions

  • Shirley notes the reaction: “People literally came out and defended the fraud.” (81:28)
  • Media and Democratic allies resist; citizen-led journalism fills the void and forces establishment response.

• Expanding the Fight

  • The work is ongoing: “People are constantly coming to me with information and about the fraud… We will continue to investigate more and more. And I think me and David want to do another Part three in Minnesota.” — Nick Shirley
  • Hoke adds: “What I like is the fact that we capture the whole age spectrum… it resonates what we're doing with everybody.” (85:58)

• Systemic Failure, Need for Political Action

  • Hoke urges local politicians to campaign against fraud: “I said, you ought to be out front holding a press conference on state Capitol steps with a big sign that says fraud and be talking about the fraud.” (91:27)

• Where to Find More

  • Shirley plugs his store for “Lear” hoodies and offers to process whistleblower tips through his social media and shirleydefense.com.

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8. Notable Quotes & Moments

• “That's a message that says these people want to kill you.” — Michael Knowles, on the potency of sharp contrasts (12:29)
• “Either you die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain… And if you don't recognize when it's time to move on…” — Wesley Hunt, on the arc of political careers (45:02)
• “Everybody who's just looking at Twitter will not [rise up]. If you’re willing to do the things that others aren't and you execute better, you're gonna get ahead.” — John Ashbrook (25:51)
• “You know, I normally don’t click on photos of older men in my DMs.” — Nick Shirley, on meeting his co-investigator (85:52)
• [On political newcomers:] “You need to have your own ideas… the only way to do it, is you have to have the book learning, and you have to have that real practical learning, too.” — Michael Knowles (23:37)

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9. Key Timestamps

• 04:46–09:46 — State of the Union performance analysis
• 20:12–25:10 — Knowles’ career and political “real world” lessons
• 29:36–30:41 — Post-Trump GOP succession speculation
• 41:14–53:03 — Wesley Hunt’s campaign, bio, and Texas electorate
• 68:21–77:02 — “Trump Hard Pivot” comedy segment
• 77:26–93:40 — Interview with Nick Shirley and David Hoke on childcare fraud

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10. Podcast Tone & Style

The tone is light, irreverent, and deeply conversational. While the topics are serious, hosts and guests approach them with clarity and humor, peppering in personal anecdotes, inside jokes, and sharp commentary.

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This episode stands out for its blend of hard-hitting political analysis, campaign insight, grassroots journalism, and comedic experimentation. It is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of political messaging, campaign dynamics, and citizen-driven investigations.

Transcript

[Michael Knowles]

And what did Trump do? You know, he managed to get them to object to the statement that America's for Americans not to stand for Irina Zarudska. He got some of them not to stand for the gold medal Olympic hockey team.

[Bob]

The contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans at the State of the Union, I mean, if every voter, if that was the reason why they voted in the midterms, I think we would win in a landslide.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. What voters have to have in their minds is that the Democrats are really scary on a whole host of issues. They're gonna send face tattooed Venezuelan gangsters into your to like rape your children. Look, we're one nation under God and we should reject political violence of all stripes. Half the Democrats couldn't stand up for that. You know, that's a message that says these people want to kill you. America leads the world in medicine, development. It matters we get new medicines first.

[Josh Holmes]

Nearly three years faster 5 million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home. And not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racist to overtake us.

[Michael Knowles]

Will we let them or will we

[Wesley Hunt]

choose to stay ahead?

[Michael Knowles]

When America leads, America cures.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead. Learn [e-mail] paid for by pharma.

[Michael Duncan]

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[Michael Knowles]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

[Michael Duncan]

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

[John Ashbrook]

It's time for our

[Josh Holmes]

Fun Time Friday. I'm Josh Holmes along with Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook. Comfortably Smug is going to be joining us very shortly, but we had to make some desk space here, fellas, because of a guy that we've been really anxious to talk to. You know him, Michael Knowles. How are you, sir?

[Michael Knowles]

I'm doing well, guys, thanks for having me. I'm very excited. I was mentioning this a little earlier. So my best friend, very, very intelligent guy. He's an investor. Like he decided to make money instead he wasted all his time in politics.

[Nick Shirley]

We need good life choices.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. Yeah, but he's a very incisive political analyst as an amateur. And right when you guys started, he told me, he was like, hey, Michael, basically the only political podcast worth listening to is the Ruthless podcast. I was like, well, that's interesting. Why? He's like, cuz it's the only one that actually speaks about politics in a tangible way, like any real world import at just fluffy fantasy nonsense. And I say, oh, that's so novel in the podcast these days.

[Josh Holmes]

You're like, hey, best friend. I host a show, by the way.

[Michael Knowles]

I don't know. You know what, Never mind.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't.

[Michael Knowles]

Tell me about you.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you can find him over at the Daily Wire and the Michael Knowles Show. We have been a huge fan of, of what you do for a very long period of time. And more than anything, it's just you got kind of a real world. You're very smart guy. And I'm not just blowing steam, but you just have a way of making all of this relatable. And to be honest with you, in our line of work, anything in politics where somebody can make it relatable, I gravitate towards.

[Michael Knowles]

Oh, thanks. I appreciate it.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a tough deal, right? I mean, you just, you're surrounded by people that are just not that relatable.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. People who are not that relatable who live in increasingly isolated bubbles when they're even tethered to earth at all, which is rare. Yeah, that's true.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, we've had, look, we've had a, of a week here. State of the Union, you got the Olympic hockey team in town. I mean, it just kind of feels like we've bubbled up in a way that we haven't here in a long time in Washington D.C. you're not here all that often, but you've been here this week. What are your takeaways? Where do we sit?

[Michael Knowles]

This is a very strange sentiment to have in Washington. I'm feeling cautiously hopeful, actually. Abundantly hopeful. I am, because. And it kind of gets to your point on like being tethered to earth and, you know, being relatable. Going into the State of the Union, I thought Trump had This very difficult challenge, which is that things are going quite well, but people don't feel that they're going quite well on all but crime and immigration and even immigration. It's kind of ambiguous for him. But on the economy, the economy's doing quite well. Jobs, inflation, record stock market highs. All the rest of the. Even GDP is pretty good with the government shutdown, but people don't feel that way. And so why is that? And it seemed to me the issue was that people feel, I don't know, trepidation. They feel it's all precarious. So even if it's good right now, it might all collapse tomorrow. You know, we want the mass deportations, but, oh, you know, if ICE actually shows up, then the libs are gonna go riot, and that's gonna be bad for me. And I just, you know, so I felt Trump had to really calm people down, and he had to present himself as the leader of safety, security, normal, sanity, stability. Sanity. Yeah. And the Democrats knew that. So Hakeem Jeffries, of course, opens up before the State of the Union. He says, hey, guys, please, please don't do that thing you wanna do and maybe don't even show up. You know, maybe just go home or whatever. Please, just. But if you show up, don't make a nuisance. Five seconds in.

[Josh Holmes]

Can't do it.

[Michael Knowles]

No. Al Green unfurls this banner says black people rent apes. That was an awful. Raised an eye, right? He gets run out eventually. And what did Trump do? You know, he managed to get them to object to the statement that America's for Americans not to stand for Irina Zarutska. He got some of them not to stand for the gold medal Olympic hockey team. You know, I just think this. We can sit and talk about policy all day and kind of the nuances and factions of the right and, you know, the strain from Aristotle and the strain from John Locke.

[Josh Holmes]

We don't do a lot of that here.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, I don't really like. What I really wanna put on TV is a bunch of Democrats dissing the Olympic hockey team. To me, like, that is worth 10 billion essays on Aristotle in Real Politics.

[Josh Holmes]

That's so true.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, he really drove that contrast home, I thought. And I remember Joe Biden's State of the Union in his final year as president. And all the media said, wow, Joe Biden really changed the game with that speech. And I wonder, Michael, do you think that Donald Trump changed the game with his speech Tuesday night?

[Michael Knowles]

I was there for that speech, the Biden speech.

[John Ashbrook]

Were you really in attendance it was

[Josh Holmes]

in attendance and they were giving seats away from.

[Michael Knowles]

At that point, truly, they were scalping

[David Hoke]

him on the street.

[Michael Knowles]

It was easy. But that was. You know, they shot Biden with whatever and he just. He yelled at the same uncomfortably loud volume, but it was totally monotone for like 90 minutes or whatever. And he was fine.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, the bar was like, is he going to trip and split his pants? Is he going to pass out? And like, the fact that he didn't do any horribly uncomfortable thing. It was a success.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, he lived. He lived. So, wow, what a triumph. And so I was there for that one, and it was fine. It actually did beat expectations. And this one, I had. I don't know, I had managed expectations for this. I thought President Trump might go a little bit off message at times. I thought he might veer into contested areas, and he just didn't. I would say 99.789%. It was just on the money. He was on script. When he went a little off script, it was to extraordinary stagecraft effect, you know, when he would just stop there and say, look at these people. How do you not stand for that?

[Josh Holmes]

You know, full showman.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, he's an amazing showman.

[John Ashbrook]

Like the Nancy Pelosi moment.

[Michael Knowles]

The Pelosi moment was so great. Nancy, are we gonna. What do we think about us under trading? And, you know, these people are crazy. That was an amazing line. And so I just felt there was a discipline, there was a focus, there was a unity. The fact that he tied all of the issues together in terms that are beneficial to the Republicans, because you just look, you look at the most recent polls, last two months from.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's not been great.

[Michael Knowles]

It's not been great. And you say, okay, we're losing on public opinion, not on the substantive issue, but we're losing on the economy, on defensive democracy, whatever that means, and health care, as we always do, and. And we're winning on crime and immigration. Okay, tie it all together. Make me realize that your economic policy ties into your immigration. You know, the mass deportations lead to six months, consecutive rent declines. Tell me how this all kind of works as an integrated whole. He did it. You know, he really knocked it out of the park. Even the way he ended the speech. You notice this. I was waiting. Cause I was taking bets on how many times he'd say America. And the over under gets screwed up if he does the. Like, we're gonna make America strong again and make America great.

[Josh Holmes]

There's like five straight.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, it goes on forever. And he didn't even do that. He ended it in this really paternal kind of way. You know, it was, there was almost a soft ending to it. He was so in command of his rhetoric that night. I'm feeling great.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. Dunks.

[Bob]

So I agree with you 100%. And I think the contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans at the State of the Union mean if every voter, if that was the reason why they voted in the midterms, I think we would win in a landslide. But the most difficult thing, it seems to me in recent history is it's just hard to make a positive case for things in the current state of our politics.

[Josh Holmes]

It turns out negative polarization is a real thing.

[Bob]

This really isn't even a partisan message. It's just a difficult thing to convince the electorate that you've improved their lives. And I wonder how much that is going to be the crux of the argument here come summer and fall. And how can Trump fix that problem? Because he's going to have to make that positive case.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, look, it's going to have to be negative. So I don't think I'm, you know, lily eyed or something here. It's going to have to be negative. But I think he did a good job at making the Democrats look scary. So, yeah, you know, let's say eggs were $11 a dozen three years ago and now they're $6 a dozen. People are still angry that they're $6 for a dozen eggs. Right. That's too high. Even if you've improved it by almost 50%.

[Bob]

Holmes always says, what have you done for me lately?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah, I mean, look at gas prices. Gas prices really have dropped considerably. But it doesn't work that way. That's not how people think about it. And so I think what voters have to have in their minds is that the Democrats are really scary on a whole host of issues. They're gonna send face tattooed Venezuelan gangsters into your town to like rape your children. The Democrats are going to try to trans your kids. They haven't given up on that. We have this idea that woke is dead. You got to point to Spanberger, you got to point to Newsom, you got to point to, you got to point to the congressional Democrats. Say, no, it's not really dead. You have to, you have to point to the political violence angle that the chaos in our streets, the real threats to our democracy come from the Democrats. And I thought he nailed it with, you know, obviously he had this excellent tribute to Erica, Kirk and Charlie. But then there was a separate moment. The Democrats, they didn't want to really stand for Charlie and all, okay? We didn't expect them to. But he said, look, we're one nation under God and we should reject political violence of all stripes. Half the Democrats couldn't stand up for that. You know, that's a message that says these people want to kill you. You know, that is tangible. I'm not going to go out there and vote because my egg prices are a little better right now. But if I think these people really have it out for me, that might again. I'm not saying we're going to win the midterms. I ain't making that prediction. I just think that is more motivating.

[Bob]

I have been a physician for 35 years and sadly I've had a front seat to witness the decay and decline of the health insurance industry. There has been systematic denial and delay of care. There's been abuse with the Medicare Advantage plans, deceiving and extorting taxpayer dollars. You guys own PBMs. You own pharmacies, you own health agencies, physician groups, Good God, you own a bank. I have had patients cry in my room. I have had physicians cry to me, throw up their hands in disgust and quit because of actions of our health insurance industry.

[Wesley Hunt]

You.

[Bob]

You are killing people who are trying to get health care. You have put profits above patients and you put profits above those who care for patients.

[Michael Knowles]

Learn more at americansforopengoverment.com.

[Wesley Hunt]

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

[Josh Holmes]

I think Trump is sneaky good at state of the unions and for one reason more than anything else is that that so many people consume Donald Trump. Whether it's his speeches, whether it's news that is made his vodka three but they consume it through just a lens that is put on top of it either by the mainstream Media or by leftist outfits. Everything is sort of making him a caricature of who he is. And in State of the Unions, he's just who he is. And it's the first sort of unlensed ability to sort of consume what it is that he is talking about. But in doing so, he also exercises his superpower that you were talking about, which is, look how idiotic my opponents are. Right? I mean, this has always been his. His superpower is to maintain relative reasonability in comparison to the people holding up the signs, the fuck ICE buttons, the screaming at him, the not standing for Medal of Honor winners, that kind of thing. That I think resets the dial here in a lot of ways. We've slipped on the economy because of the negativity of the Democrats over a prolonged period of time. We have slipped on immigration because of Minnesota. Whatever you think of the execution of all of that, the numbers have fundamentally changed. Last night you saw a bunch of Democrats sit down at the simple statement that I think we all represent the American people here.

[Michael Knowles]

That was. Oh, look, it was obviously a well crafted setup, but it was flawlessly executed. I mean, that image can be broadcast in every single midterm campaign, every congressional campaign, and it will be effective. I actually can't believe that they fell for that. You know, obviously, when the President's got the bully pulpit and he. He is just pontificating, he's gonna put the opponents in a bad position. But the thing about being in a bad position is sometimes you actually do have to stand up. Like, sometimes he gotcha. And you gotta stand up for him. And this was like the most brazen version of it, which is like, hey, if you like good things and don't like bad things, stand up. And they wouldn't, not one of them would stay.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, it's just, we do, like, bad things.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, well, I'm bad. I'm bad. Paid for by.

[Josh Holmes]

But again, you don't get the. As this is being presented to you as an average run of the mill voter, there's differences on immigration policy, there's differences on enforcement and on ICE and on crime and all of these things. You don't get to see the actual black line difference between what Donald Trump is talking about here, flaws and all, with what it is that they're standing for, which is the same people that lent 25 million people into our country. And if they had the opportunity, they'd do it again.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes, very quickly. Would they do it again? You know, even for Andy Beshear to get out there and Say Spanberger's the model. Right. I love the honesty because he's honestly saying, we're gonna lie for six months. So, okay, he's an honest liar. And with Spanberger, and, you know, again, people won't follow this as closely, but it's worth highlighting. She really did run as a moderate pretty successfully and then implemented the most radically left wing agenda immediately, like, in

[Josh Holmes]

the first 24 hours.

[Michael Knowles]

Within the first 24 hours. And so if they're telling you that, then at the very least, Republicans can make a plausible case. Hey, guys, it's not just that things got really bad over many years or even many decades, and then Trump kind of reset it, and in 20 years, it's gonna be bad again. It's like in 20 minutes, it's gonna be bad again. They're gonna fling that border open. They're gonna welcome El Mencho back in.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's really the challenge for any party in power, is to make the election about a contrast as opposed to a referendum. And the party out of power always wants it to be about a referendum. And Democrats fell right into the trap and turned this into a contrast, at least for today. And it is wild to me that they repeated the. They repeated a lesson they learned in 2020 when they all raised their hands about, will you give free health care to every legal who crosses over our border? And they. They just did it again. I think that we can drive this contrast into the midterm. I'm with you. Like, I'm not here to predict that, you know, Republicans are going to defy history and we're going to win big in the midterms or anything like that. But I do think that we have the, you know, the Democrats are giving us all of the raw materials that could exist to be able to drive a contrast and disqualify them from candidacy.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. Yeah. And at least it could stop the bleeding. You know, the betting markets now have us losing the senate at about 40%, 41%. You know, I would be pretty shocked if we lost the Senate. And, you know, it'll get down candidate by candidate in some of these races, but to be able to paint this blanket picture of just all the Dems sitting down for big issues, you know, it brings us that. But clarity. And I for one, think clarity is charity. You know, I think that's very helpful in a political order.

[Josh Holmes]

It is. All right, I want to switch topics for a minute because a lot of us collectively have listened to you for years, listened to your commentary. How'd you get into this line of work.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm the first guy in the history of political media to get a show for not writing a book. That's how I did. It's my magnum opus. You're like, I can't even read. That's the one book he can read. Yeah. I did this joke book, Reasons to Vote for Democrats, some years ago, and it ended up hitting number one. I just self published it. And then Simon and Schuster bought the rights to Nothing, which I thought was really funny, but they said, hey, all right, the only condition is you can't make fun of us for paying you a lot of money for nothing. I said, why would I do something like that? First of all, the only reason for you to pay me a lot of money for this is for me to make fun of you. And then it is a news story, and then you'll make more money. And they said, no, we don't want to do that. I was like, you're literally just paying me for nothing. Then that's crazy. And so anyway, it started falling down the charts. I probably just violated my contract. Well, here we are. So it started falling down the charts and they said, well, we got to sell more copies. I said, well, yeah, you're right. How about that? And they said, what can we do? I said, I don't know, get me on Fox or something. So I go on Fox. I. I'd already done the bit about the book. You know, I've been researching this my whole life, and it took me five minutes to write it.

[Bob]

Ha ha ha.

[Michael Knowles]

And so anyway, I just complimented something Trump did. The big guy was watching. He endorsed it. And so then it hit number one again. Then I was offered another book deal. Kind of we're using another liberally here. And then I get offered a show because of it, which is really great. Love that. However, people sometimes like kids or people working in political campaigns, they just want to break into political media. And they say, what's the best way to do it? And really beyond the blanket, you're like,

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not sure this route is the easiest one to follow. It seems like kind of a one of one.

[Michael Knowles]

It's like one of the real keys to making in political media. And my experience is being friends with Jeremy Boreing, Ben Shapiro, Caleb Robinson, Drew Clavin, too, you know. Right. So that was the first thing that I would do. But, you know, one thing I did something I really like about the show is I did work in campaigns a little bit, you know, when I was a teenager, in my early 20s, and campaigns are so great.

[David Hoke]

Totally.

[Michael Duncan]

They just.

[Michael Knowles]

They.

[John Ashbrook]

You learn a lot.

[Michael Knowles]

You learn so much. Especially I find Congressionals are great because you get all the pettiness and vitriol about local politics.

[David Hoke]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

But with exposure to national issues, which you're interested in. And so I love it.

[John Ashbrook]

That's a good point.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. My first race I ever worked on was Nan Hayworth's Congressional. Love Nan. New York. Nelson Valley. Nelson Valley.

[Bob]

That's right.

[Michael Knowles]

But it was a big swing district, Tea Party race. New York. 19 became 18, and we won. And I had kind of an outsized role in the campaign because, you know, Congressionals don't have any money. So if you're willing to work, you can.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah. They're like, we'll take it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Great opportunity.

[Michael Knowles]

So it was great. And then, you know, I was brought onto some other campaigns, and I really like it. Cause I love book learning. I love real abstract philosophy and esoteric, niche weirdo stuff. I'm totally.

[Josh Holmes]

You're smart like that.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. I tell myself that at least. I don't know if I understand all those guys, but I really like reading them and I like all that. But actually, getting back to our buddy Aristotle, I want it to be real, you know, I want it to be in the earth. There's the Raphael painting, the School of Athens. Plato's pointing up, Aristotle's pointing down. I like pointing down to the earth. So, you know, I want to. The test of a political theory is if it actually pans out in the

[Bob]

real world, how is this actually going to work at the doors?

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, my view is you have to read a ton of books, and you need to have something to offer, an opinion to offer that's a little different than everyone else. So you're not just doing a. A Ben Shapiro or a Tucker impression or something, though. You could, you know, you could sort of talk really, really, really fast or whatever. You could vocally do that. But you need to have your own ideas. So the way to do it, the only way to do it, is you have to have the book learning, and you have to have that real practical learning, too. And I just wonder for a lot of people who are coming up in politics now who are maybe 10 or 15 years younger than us, how many of them are actually getting on the ground? Practical experience? Or is it all just mediated by TikTok?

[Bob]

Yeah, I do worry about that. Is that, especially in the era of Donald Trump, is they see what Donald Trump has done, and particularly with social media and things like that. And they're like, okay, well, this is politics.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Bob]

And it's like, politics is actually a lot more than that.

[David Hoke]

Yeah.

[Bob]

It's like big, big speeches, kissing babies and tweeting.

[David Hoke]

Yeah.

[Bob]

You know, and it's like, it's not that those things aren't important. In fact, I mean, like, the reason why Donald Trump is Donald Trump is because he dominates those mediums and he disintermediates the conversation between the media and his voters. He can go directly to his voters. It's very, very powerful. I'm not saying that's not a good idea, but showing up on a political campaign is so impactful because it's like a startup and they need help with everything. And you can fake it till you make it and do a lot of things. I mean, you could be a digital expert, you could be a data expert. You can do the door knocking, you can do the phones, you can do a little bit of everything. To your point, it is politics in its purest expression. And I encourage every young person to get involved in that because. Because it's like, that's how we all came up.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. And I really think that even though everything has changed and there's so much incentive to, like, go on Twitter and follow Twitter and just make yourself a social media icon as a nobody somewhere out there working on a campaign, if you want to get ahead, you still need to do the shit work. You still need to do everything that nobody else is willing to do harder and better than the next guy. And you're going to learn more, and you are going to rise up in a way that. That everybody who's just looking at Twitter will not. Not saying that Twitter doesn't matter. I mean, you need to have knowledge, you need to consume it. You need to know how to write it. Not saying that doesn't matter, but if you're willing to do the things that others aren't and you execute better, you're gonna get ahead.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah. And especially now, we're looking ahead. You know, I'm obviously still holding out for the third term, maybe the fourth term.

[Bob]

Ashbrook's big on that, too.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I think third term guy.

[Michael Knowles]

I mean, listen, FDR did it, FDR did it. Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

The Democrats got one.

[Josh Holmes]

Why can't we have one?

[Michael Knowles]

We're spinning them up and they got two. You know, the other thing. I'm not. Listen, I'm only half, 10% joking here. President Reagan at the end of his term, second term, and after, you know, before the dementia, obviously, he campaigned vigorously to repeal the 22nd Amendment. He said there's already a term limit, term limits at the ballot box.

[John Ashbrook]

And so again, regularly scheduled election happen every four years in this country since our inception.

[Nick Shirley]

Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

And so, so you look, if maybe we're gonna get Trump for three or four more terms, then Baron Octavian Trump Augustus will take over, leave Washington paved in marble. But if that doesn't happen, then we're looking at the end of the Trump era. And I think there are a lot of people who say maybe the GOP can just go back to exactly what it was.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no chance.

[Michael Knowles]

Please. Do you think maybe. I don't think the Anakin meme. It'll go back, won't it? No, it won't. But what that means is because no one in politics has the charisma, the singular celebrity. Yeah, no one will. I mean, Trump is an American original. Because of that, I do think the fundamentals of political campaigning are going to come back. They actually will matter again. Your infrastructure.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, do you worry about that? Cuz I find myself worrying a lot about that. I mean, I grew up in an era where the fundamentals were the most important because you didn't have somebody who could just grab a microphone and drown out the sun. Yeah, Right. And I worry about a generation of political professionals at some level who have learned that, like the tweet is the thing that changes your day, because it's not. And you can see that in those local races. Right. I mean, it's like, can you hit five more doors?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah. This is the fear in this side of politics, in the babbling side of politics, you see this, right. Real moral hazard on the right especially, which is that most ambitious people on the right in politics kind of just want to talk.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, because doing politics, it, like, sucks. Well, this is way more fun. It's way more fun. The stakes are way lower. It's just delightful. I mean, this is really.

[Bob]

Can you believe we were suckers and we did the other thing for 20 years?

[Michael Knowles]

No, it's insane.

[Bob]

What were we thinking?

[Michael Knowles]

It's like, I'm gonna have a real

[Bob]

job and I, you know, responsibility.

[Josh Holmes]

That's a great idea.

[Michael Knowles]

I'll have to be accountable for my actions.

[Wesley Hunt]

Okay.

[Michael Knowles]

And so, you know, there's this real incentive on the right to just talk.

[David Hoke]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

Which does not really exist on the left. And maybe it's because the left is bad at talking. Well, they're bad at talking. They're not good talking. Gavin Newsom's dyslexic, apparently. And maybe it's because of that. Maybe it's because, I mean, all the way down to their political ideology is more materialist. It's actually more about the here and now than the right, which tends to have more of a transcendent moral order and a view of eternity. I mean, really, that's like the furthest logical extreme of that.

[Wesley Hunt]

Interesting.

[Josh Holmes]

I haven't thought about that.

[Michael Knowles]

But regardless, we do know the libs are better at that stuff. They're more inclined to do it. And so when we come to the end of the Trump, whichever term it is, that's gonna be a potentially an existential problem for this political movement.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Do you have a thought before we let you go? And, you know, presuming we do get to the end of the Trump term here in 2028, like, what's gonna happen?

[Michael Knowles]

Well, I think JD is the heir apparent. Right. And the.

[Josh Holmes]

The Marco boomlet thing is interesting, though.

[Michael Knowles]

It's interesting. It's early. You know, this is. I mean, Marco's doing extraordinarily well. All of the signs from the admin are that Marco's endorsed JD And Trump has kind of endorsed JD And Marco as a ticket.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you buy it?

[Michael Knowles]

Well, I buy it for now.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

I sure buy it for now in 2026. But I don't know. I mean, so the real dynamic. There are a million people who want to run for president in the Republican Party, and they would take the first chance they get to do it. To me, the dynamic.

[Josh Holmes]

You might know a guy. Yeah, I might.

[Michael Knowles]

In fact, I might know a few guys. But the dynamic issue to me is whether or not Rubio sticks with JD If Rubio sticks with JD and they have the imprimatur from Trump, other people might run. But it's going to be very, very difficult all of a sudden if you have Rubio splitting and going after J.D. which I don't think is going to happen, but if you. If it does, I think you're gonna get 20 guys in the race. Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I think that's a good prediction, actually.

[John Ashbrook]

Probably. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we're gonna have you back a lot to talk about all of this.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm in. Sign me up. I gotta save more time. Cause, you know, I'm rarely even in D.C. for the night. You know, I fly in in the morning, fly back at night so my wife doesn't hit me.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, we're home.

[Bob]

We get that.

[Michael Knowles]

But now, you know, look, we're heating up. It's election season, and I had a couple of Coca Colas last night, a Cigar, too, after the State of the Union. So I gotta make. I forgot how fun that is. I gotta make more excuses to stay out.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, if you're looking for fun, we know where to find it. Although you got a co host on one of your ventures that knows how to find fun.

[David Hoke]

That's true.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, a bit of a cigar aficionado, that guy. Yeah, he really is.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, Michael Knowles, thanks so much for stopping in. We really appreciate catching up and you're welcome back here anytime.

[Michael Knowles]

Thanks for having me, guys. Good to be here.

[Bob]

Thanks, Bob.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

You want to talk about an action packed episode? This is what we've got here, fellas. We're just getting warmed up. That big thanks to Michael Knowles for coming on in, having a few yucks. We are not even close to being done. We got two more guests here today and we're gonna have some yucks. In the interim, Wesley Hunt completes the trifecta of Texas candidates that are good listeners in Texas are going to have to decide on Tuesday. Coming up next Tuesday, who wins that Senate primary. Wesley Hunt joins us later in the program to make his pitch. And then we've got Nick Shirley, everybody's favorite conservative journalist who's out there. I don't think anybody would be talking about fraud in the way that they are now if he.

[Michael Duncan]

And what an impact.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, just totally, wildly good.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sure you want to stick around for that.

[John Ashbrook]

I don't think it's too much to say that JD may have not been tasked at the State of the Union with fraud management if it wasn't for Nick Shirley pulling this up.

[Michael Duncan]

What an. That's huge impact.

[Michael Knowles]

That's right.

[Bob]

Incredible work.

[Wesley Hunt]

I think.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right. So you got to stick around and listen to what he has to say later in the program. I thought, you know, we don't do a lot of crime and punishment. There should be a crime section.

[Michael Duncan]

There should be. There should be. Lock them up. Just the name of the section, the Lock Them up report.

[Josh Holmes]

Let's just start with clip one. The report states that the victim placed a hidden camera in her bedroom after suspecting Dingus had been in there before when she wasn't home. She said video showed that it picked

[Michael Duncan]

up two pairs of her underwear and

[Josh Holmes]

smelled them for several seconds.

[David Hoke]

What?

[Josh Holmes]

Dingus was in court this morning. All right, all right. So that's a bit much. Well, you'll notice a pattern in our crime and punishment here. There is a gentleman by the name of Mayor Wayne Dingus who has been, as you heard in that Clip. Charged with voyeurism. Who could have ever guessed that Mayor Dingus could be a potential pervert?

[Michael Duncan]

It says you're Butler, Ohio.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah, it's an Ohio thing.

[John Ashbrook]

But I mean that. We're ashamed. We are ashamed.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't you kind of know what you're getting if you elect a dingus?

[Michael Duncan]

It's a bit much. You know, honestly, it's a family show. And I knew when Holmes was like, I got some great variety everyone's gonna find hilarious, I was like, here we go.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm just saying, like, Mayor Dingus getting charged for sex crimes is kind of funny.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's not even a lock them up report. I think woodchipper is the answer in this situation.

[Bob]

It's a bit much, man.

[Josh Holmes]

You get a chip.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, it says right here. Charged after he was caught sniffing an underage girl's underwear.

[Josh Holmes]

Sounds like a wood chipper. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't. I don't. But I just. I think the constituents had it coming, frankly.

[Wesley Hunt]

Right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Bob]

I mean, if you vote for a dingus, you get a dingus, you get a dingus.

[Josh Holmes]

That's what I'm saying. In other news. There's a good doctor out there. I think he hails from north of the border. He's had a tough week this week, but they too should have known what they had coming. Dr. Poon. Can we throw up the pic? There he is. That's a Dr. Poon. Canadian doctor who made international headlines during the COVID 19 pandemic with his campaign to reunite cross border families and couples that have been. He's now been charged with 43 crimes, including sexual assault, voyeurism again, and making child pornography.

[Michael Duncan]

So is this like the darkest segment? Are we shooting to make the darkest segment possible? All the crimes against you? It is actually just the woodchiper section. It's not the lock em up section. This is the wood chip.

[Josh Holmes]

You're missing the value that we're providing to our audience. And the value is when you have a doctor named Dr. Poon, you should think about this.

[Bob]

It's always the people you most suspect.

[Josh Holmes]

When there's a guy named Mayor Dingus, like, there's a chance.

[Bob]

Like if you were writing. If you were writing a screenplay and this was the plot and you named the character Dr. Poon, they'd be like, come on, man. Like, no, that's gratuitous. No one's gonna believe that's real. You're gonna take them out of the majesty of the film. If you put in Something so silly as Dr. Yeah, but here he is,

[Josh Holmes]

along with Mayor Dingus. It's like having a financial advisor like Mr. Financial Crimes. You know what you're gonna get on this deal. So anyway, word of the wise, I think we're looking out for people to say like poon dingus, sexual, crude deviancy. Like keep your eyes open for people who are named after what they're intending to do. And with that, but we should probably talk about how we're going to spend our weekend. Or more importantly, how we're going to preview our weekend, which is with Zbiotics.

[David Hoke]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

I got to tell you about this game changing product. I use it before a big night out. All of us do. We've tried it an awful lot. Zbiotics, you have one of these suckers before you go out in a big night, and trust me when I say this stuff works, you feel a million times better. And it's backed by science, right?

[Bob]

Smug.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is for so long, folks thought that, oh, you know, if I have a bunch of drinks the next morning I feel terrible because I'm dehydrated, so I need to chug Gatorade when I get home or drink three glasses of water. But that never fixed the problem, did it? Because it's not about dehydration. See, what happens is when you have some alcohol, your stomach breaks it down and there's these toxic byproducts. That's what makes you feel bad. Zbiotics knocks all that right out.

[Bob]

You're right, Smug. And you really are the Willy Loman of Zbiotics. The best salesman they have on the planet. In fact, I've taken a page out of your book and I've stocked my bar with Zbiotics.

[Michael Duncan]

So all I keep it right there at all times.

[Bob]

I've got zebiotics right there if I'm going to have a big night.

[Josh Holmes]

What a party favor for the guests, huh? Generous.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's like a party trick because like whenever we're on the road, when we're doing a show or something, if there's someone who hasn't tried it yet, I hand them one. Then we have our bourbons and whatever and without fail, every morning they're like, dude, it did work. How is that possible? That's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

If you're altruistic, you want the credit.

[Bob]

Exactly.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's what I'm in it for.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And then everybody, every morning, the next morning, they always know why we say there's no tomorrow without zebiotics. Today.

[Josh Holmes]

That's right. Exactly right, smash. Exactly right. So if you go to ZBiotics.com Ruthless you can learn more and get 15% off of your first order when you use Ruthless at the checkout. Zebiotics is backed by 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. You go to zebiotics.com fruitless and use Ruthless at the checkout for 15% off. Okay, Fox broke the story on what we previewed in our show yesterday about this website that we've got. And they did a great job of doing it. I gotta tell you. Like, I'm so proud of this thing because it is amazing. The guys did a hell of a job putting it together. We've wanted to do this for years, but we finally got ourselves organized and able to do it. And it's super user friendly. You can use it on your phone or your laptop or whatever. And all it is is simply, it's a map that links to all of the states that are in play where we have candidates that are in contested elections and we're in primary season. So this is a hot ticket. Next Tuesday, you got Texas. Well, good news. After this very episode, you click on the great state of texas@ ruthlesspodcast.com map and you will see interviews from all three of your candidates.

[Bob]

You can also, real quick, can we

[Michael Duncan]

put that right back on there? So for our audio, you know, for the folks have it on video, you can see it right there. But for our audio listeners, I designed this to be as simple and clean as possible. You're gonna see the map. You can pick the states. Like you click on Texas, you're gonna see every candidate in the Senate primaries interview right there with the link to their social. So you can discover even more if you want to follow up. This is a tremendous resource.

[Bob]

Yeah. And if you just go to RuthlessPodcast.com it's also up there in the navigation. You just hit interview map.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yep.

[Bob]

You know, if you're on mobile, you just hit the little hamburger icon in the upper right that expands the navigation. It'll be right there, two clicks.

[Josh Holmes]

It's super easy. And here's the thing, you're seeing a million ads if you're in any of these states. And like you're not gonna be able to really judge a candidate based upon the ads that they're saying against each other at this point because it's real loud out there. But if you can hang with the Fellas, you'll know in the first like five minutes whether or not this is somebody that you want to vote for or not. Good news is we've got all of them up there and if there isn't anybody, if there's somebody who says no to this, there's been nobody who has said no, but if there is somebody, we're gonna let you know that too.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's the thing.

[John Ashbrook]

That's a good idea.

[Michael Duncan]

I think for some, for years now, we've been like a must go destination for Republicans running for office, whether they're in a primary or not. Because they know, unlike the mainstream media, you're going to get a fair shake and you're not going to have like 90 seconds to sing for your supper. You're going to have an in depth conversation. You're going to get to know who these people really are. And it's so easy. Ruthlesspodcast.com map Pick the state, all the interviews are there. It's wonderful.

[Josh Holmes]

That's fantastic. And that's a good way to segue into our final, final Texas interview, which is somebody you know and you've heard here often. Wesley Hunt. Want to welcome back to the program an old friend. In fact, he might still hold the record for the most ride alongs here on Ruthless.

[Bob]

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think he definitely does. We got to get him a green jacket.

[Josh Holmes]

But he's also the third in line in the Texas deal for us to

[Bob]

complete the, completing the trifecta.

[Josh Holmes]

The trifecta of, of. So, you know, like Henny said, we got him over, over zoom. He's just so important, it's very hard to track him down. But it's great to see you, buddy. Wesley Hunt.

[Wesley Hunt]

Good to see you guys. Thank you all for having me on, man. I really appreciate it guys. Good to see you always.

[Josh Holmes]

Where do you find yourself right now?

[Wesley Hunt]

I am, I am in Houston for just for a very brief time here, not for very long. Yeah, I've been in a different city or a different county literally every day for the past two months. And last night, yesterday, yesterday I was in Midlothian, Texas and Texas, which is not far from Dallas. And I'm walking, it's a good event. About, about 30 people, very, very small town gave a speech. Even the mayor heard, heard me speak and then he endorsed me on the spot. Which was actually really cool about it was this, here's the coolest thing about it, best part about it. Gentleman walks up to me with a black Ruthless hat on. Yes, I heard about, I First heard about you years ago when you were on the program. And he go. He goes, when's your next ride along? I said, you're not going to believe this. I'm going to be on the show manana. I'm going to be.

[Josh Holmes]

That's awesome.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

We love the people at Texas. And in fact, I've spent some time down there and got to know a whole bunch of people who are. You're now asking for their vote. Buddy, you're running for Senate. The days are waning. Next Tuesday is the big day. How do we feel?

[Wesley Hunt]

I'm feeling pretty good about it, brother, if I'm being honest with you. You feeling.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

We left it all on the field. We are a team that. That ran a campaign. We actually ran a campaign. We've had over 50 events. I've done over 200 interviews, traveled all over Texas. And the best thing about getting in front of people and taking a message directly to the people is that you get to actually see what they feel, see what they want, see kind of where things are trending. And I got to tell you, I think we're reaching a crescendo at just the right time.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you surprised a lot of people with your entrance into this Senate race. It was obviously the incumbent, Senator John Cornyn, and then the Attorney General, Paxton jumped in. We had the. On the show yesterday, and that was enough of a consternation in Republican politics to throw people and hands in the air and like, oh, my gosh, Texas, we've got a real problem. And then Wesley.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

As he is prone to do, decides to. To jump in the middle of it. I mean, walk me through the calculus a little bit.

[Wesley Hunt]

Well, about a year ago, about this time a year ago, there was some polling that came out that had John Cornyn down 22 points to Ken Paxton. And that's when we started thinking about, you know what? Maybe Texans are looking for a different option. The most important thing was not just the fact that John Cornyn was down by double digits to Ken. The other issue was, was that there was like 20 to 25% that remained undecided. We began a project to basically raise our name ID statewide, because, as you know, it's very difficult to run for statewide office as a congressman because everybody knows who you are in your individual district, but nobody really knows who you

[Josh Holmes]

are statewide, especially in a state as big as Texas.

[Wesley Hunt]

Texas, a big state? Yeah, I. I've. I found out the hard way. I knew it was big, but everything literally is bigger in Texas and better and Better, if I do say so myself.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

And then we waited. Then we waited nine months. I waited nine months to see if the White House was going to weigh in on this race. We watched polling very, very closely, and we want. We wanted to see what the White House was going to do. And by the time it got to October, John Cornyn, at that point, had spent about $60 million before I even got in the race, and he was still losing to Ken Paxton.

[John Ashbrook]

We had.

[Wesley Hunt]

We were doing some polling and saw there was still a large swath of people that were undecided. And that's when we realized that somebody's got to do doing. The worst kept secret amongst my colleagues was that there needs to be a third candidate to give everyone else an option, and an option of somebody who was an America first patriot. As you all very know, I was the first person in the country to endorse our president.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you jumped in early on that thing when everybody thought you were a lunatic for doing it.

[Wesley Hunt]

I feel like it's deja vu all over again. Right. People think that I was a lunatic for doing this as well. But I. I kind of feel like I have my ear to the ground. I know what's going on here, especially when it comes to the base, and I'm somebody that can win this primary who's America first, and also win the general election. And as we are reaching the end of this whole experiment, what we are finding out is at this point now, John Cornyn and the NRC and SLF and everybody else, they have now spent what will be $100 million. This is now the most expensive Republican primary in the history of America. And John is still polling in the 20s. So we're gonna find out exactly what the people of Texas are going to think here coming up. But the problem is this, and this is just not personal. It's not ad hominem attacks. The electorate moved. The electorate moved. And John Cornyn has been around for 24 years. And there's a famous saying in Batman, either you die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. And if you don't recognize when it's time to move on, well, this is why Ken and I are kind of really trending in the right direction, and we'll see how it all shakes out. But more than likely, this is going to end up in a runoff, and we'll see who the top two are. But I'm very confident, confident at this point that I'll be one of them.

[Bob]

Yeah, Wesley, no doubt you have the bona fides. We all know that about you. We've had you on the show multiple times, and, you know, we love hanging out with you. I gotta tell you, two days ago, you know, my wife's whole family's in Texas, Austin and Midland, and Aunt Jamie out Midland shared a video of you on Bill Maher, and she was just.

[Wesley Hunt]

You tell Aunt Jamie I said hello.

[Bob]

Yeah, you know what? You should make a run out here to Midland for got.

[Michael Duncan]

Because.

[Wesley Hunt]

Because.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Bob]

The whole Hest family out there in Midland, they're great people. You should go see them. Anyway, she sent me this video. Apropos of nothing. Right. But I think what you offer here, beyond just the bona fides, is you're inspirational to people.

[Wesley Hunt]

Hey, thank you, brother.

[Bob]

In a. In a real way. And you have a way of articulating a message of America first, that people. It really resonates with people like Aunt Jamie. And as you sort of differentiate yourself here down the stretch and try to make the case beyond the bona fides.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Bob]

What is your message to Texas voters?

[Wesley Hunt]

My message to Texas voters, brother, is this. I'm somebody that's want to die for this country. I'm somebody that's want to die for Texas. I bleed Texas. I. I'm a native Texan, and I come from a military family where brother, sister, and I all went to West Point at one point. All three of us were deployed in the Middle east at the same time for two months. I grew up in a house where you make no excuses. We are not a victim. If you can't make it here now, you can't make it anywhere. And of the three gentlemen in this race, I'm the only one that raised my hand to defend this country against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. I'm the only one that has three babies at my house. I have a seven, a five, and a three year old. I got to look at them every single day and figure out ways to make this place better for them. And I also realize that this is the best time of my life to do it. This is in my prime. And when I saw with JD being 41 years old and Marco being his early 50s, and our secretary of War, Pete Hexth being in his mid-40s, I realized that it's time for the millennials to step in and be the bridge. And there's a lot of things that's been said about me, a lot of lies that's been spread, a lot of TV ads. It's really funny, brother. I'm up at like 2:00 clock in the morning, watching TV and I'm like, I didn't even know I did that.

[Josh Holmes]

Boy, I'm a real son of a bitch.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wow, this is really crazy. My, this is all joking aside, my five year old daughter Olivia, she walked up to me and she goes, daddy, I thought you were an elephant, not a rhino, because they called you a rhino. And I was like, really? What? I'm a rhino? This is really hilarious. Of all the people. But the message that I want to bring to Texas is that I think it's time for the next generation. President Trump won Texas by 15 points. Being with him in lockstep, being one of his surrogates on the campaign trail, getting to travel around with him, I just really believe that the time for us is now. And this is no shade to John, no shade to Ken. May the best person win. May the best person win. May the best candidate win. And I do believe that in my heart and in my soul that that person is made.

[Josh Holmes]

So look, Tuesday, you've got the primary and that's, that's the day. In all likelihood, based on all the polling that we've looked at, the, the Texas system is going to come into play in a, in a, probably a big way here in that nobody hits majority threshold, it goes to a runoff, which you take the top two candidates. Obviously your view here is that you're going to be one of those two candidates, which means you get to start that engine all over again and go for another. I mean, it's long too, right?

[Wesley Hunt]

Isn't it?

[Bob]

When it gets high, if you're wearing boots in Texas during a runoff, I

[Wesley Hunt]

know it's gonna be hot. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be hot, brother. It's gonna be hot.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So, I mean, look, that's where your head's at, right?

[Wesley Hunt]

Whatever it takes. This is not the most difficult thing I've done in my life, I can tell you that. Has it been difficult? Sure. But at the end of the day, brother, I'm not getting shot at. And one story, one story that I tell all the time, you know, when I was flying in Baghdad, this is one of my true stories to my heart. 55 times I said the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, before I got into the helicopter to get right with God because I didn't make it back. And I did that when I was 25 years old, that, that is difficult. The idea of me getting to travel around Texas and seeing people that, that just love to have me around, that are Showing up. They want to hear the message. They want to see the vision for the future. And the reason why I'm so optimistic too, about, about election day itself is because spoke to a hundred, over 100 people yesterday in Denton county. Just a, just a, you know, relatively small town county. We had a meet and greet. Over 100 people showed up. And I'm talking to them and they're looking at me and they're saying, we're praying for you, Wesley. We really need your leadership for the future. When I go online, I'm looking at social media. I really am just floored by how many people are being so supportive. Wesley, were voting for you. My whole family is voting for you. And a lot of this, while it might seem anecdotal, it's really starting to seem like it's truth as we are going into election day. So look, I'm in Houston today. We got a lot of interviews today that we're gonna knock out. I'm gonna be in Corpus Christi tomorrow with the President and then that evening I'm gonna be up in Conroe and then we're going to keep doing it. San Antonio the next day. You're moving in the Woodlands. We're going, brother, I've been everywhere.

[Josh Holmes]

You're going to be in Corpus Christi with the. I can't imagine he's going to try to lobby him for a last minute endorsement at something like that. I mean, the White House and the President have been. I mean, I got to imagine it's somewhat of a nightmare for them because they've got candidates here that they don't want to be in the middle of the. It's a tight race. It's a three way race. But you do know that that makes a significant difference if he does tip the scale.

[Wesley Hunt]

Well, I will say this. You know, this is also one of the reasons why I'm here. Senator Cornyn is one of two Republican incumbents that he hasn't endorsed. If the president would have come out and endorsed anybody, Ken or John, in the first eight months before I got into this race, I wouldn't be sitting here right now.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, interesting. Okay.

[Wesley Hunt]

As you very well know, so the idea that he did stay out of it, it, in my opinion, is really what allowed me to stay in it. You know me very well. If the president would have called me, if he were to say, hey, Wesley, I don't want you to do this and I don't want you to run and I'm going to endorse someone else, I'd be Happy to, you know, stay right here in my House seat and see what the future would bring. But I do believe that by him staying out of it, it gave me an opportunity and most importantly, gave me an opportunity to earn the vote of the Texan. You have to earn the vote. And I think he's waiting to see whoever earns the vote of the Texan can then earn his support later on. And that's the kind of game that I like to play because I believe in earning everything in this life.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, one of the things that we've always talked about on the program, it sounds like from the enthusiasm in your voice, you share our view. There's nothing like a campaign to get you more into politics in general. You go around your state, you. You meet people that you ordinarily wouldn't have the opportunity to meet. You talk to them about the things that they care about. Changes your perspective a little bit, doesn't it?

[Wesley Hunt]

It does. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Do you know the coolest thing about it, too? I'll tell you this. Whenever I've been out to Lubbock, multiple. I've been Lubbock twice, Amarillo twice, Panhandle, Texarkana, all these areas that. That, you know, I. I don't. Obviously, frequently. And getting. Right, getting, getting. And having the ability to travel around and see these people and talk to them. And the biggest thing that I have realized in Texas that I love the most is I have the Honor of Living Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. These people don't care about race at all. They don't care about race at all. And these are people that the left looked at and they would say, oh, no, that person is going to support you. No, these are the people that are grabbing my hand and praying for me and praying for me. And it cuts through all the noise. You realize that we all bleed red. We all bleed Texas. We all want what's best for all of our families. Let's stop dividing each other based on the way we look. And in traveling around Texas, you could. You could imagine. I mean, you know. You know, there's not very many black folk in Midland. You know, I mean, you get some

[Josh Holmes]

attention when you walk through there. Not as much as Iowa. Where your wife from?

[Wesley Hunt]

My wife's from Iowa. Right. Of all places, like, I go, I go to Makoka, to Iowa. I am the one. That's it. I am. I am the only one.

[Josh Holmes]

Now, you. I mean, you pointed this out to us a lot, and there is A. Just a ton of Americans are good people. Texans are good people. And. And far more than any media outlet would ever lead you to believe in the divisiveness that they take and the lens that they put on all. I did notice that my. My co host called you articulate earlier.

[Wesley Hunt]

Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

I feel like is a racial blast.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wesley, this is a compliment. Please.

[Josh Holmes]

I love busting chops on that. It's so good. Listen, you've. You've always had a very, very good perspective, and I. And I wonder if you have had. Because, look, there's not a lot of us who have had tens of millions of dollars run against us trying to basically convince other people that we are not a good person. Yeah, I mean, you've had that, obviously in competitive congressional races, but not like this. I mean, this is in a different category where people you've never met or never even thought about are like, man, I'm not sure that guy's a good guy because of what I saw on tv.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

If you're able to get into this runoff and you win the runoff and you are the nominee for Senate in the great state of Texas, how quickly do you think you can just put that behind you, reunite the party, and ultimately win in November? Because ultimately, Republicans cannot afford to have a race in the great state of Texas. We got other problems out there.

[Wesley Hunt]

Hey, brother. It's already behind me. It's already behind me. The smile on my face. I get up every day. I'm happy to be alive. The Lord gave me another day.

[Michael Knowles]

Jesus.

[Wesley Hunt]

Jesus woke me up this morning. It's already behind me. And when it comes time to move forward and when it comes time for us to leave for the state of Texas, when I'm the guy, I'm the guy. When you're in charge, be in charge, move on and lead. What happened in the past, it's already in the past. Whoever said what, let it go. Because if we are focused on who said mean things about me, we are focused on. Man, man, man, Somebody did bad commercials on me.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, no.

[Wesley Hunt]

I'm so sad. And I'm gonna get you back. You know what I'm not doing? I am not working on behalf of the people of Texas to further the agenda to do my job. And by the way, it's called opportunity cost. If I'm complaining about that and worried about the past, then I'm not focused on the future. When I'm the guy, it's over with. It's called politics. It could be a nasty, dirty game. I get it. It doesn't make me very happy at some times. I'm not very pleased with some people. But life, life is not about being pleased and life is not about being liked. Life is about having an adult conversation about doing what's right by the American people. If you want to serve in this capacity. And heavy is the head that wears the crown.

[Bob]

It's a good perspective because they're shooting at you, but they're not literally shooting at you. And you know the difference.

[David Hoke]

Difference?

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah, well, there's a huge. Their brother is a huge, like. Yeah, there's a really big difference. Yeah, like a really big difference. My dad, he actually asked me about it because my daughters see a lot of the negative stuff and, and you know, they ask questions every now and again and that kind of frustrates me because they're kids, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally.

[Wesley Hunt]

Especially my oldest daughter who really loves me. My oldest daughter. I'm like, I'm like the greatest thing since.

[Josh Holmes]

There's always one kid that loves you a little bit more than the other. Right.

[Wesley Hunt]

I am the greatest thing since Pockets.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

My oldest daughter. Okay, like, forget bread. Just like Pockets, like, she loves me and she sees some of this stuff and my dad has kind of has to explain to her, well, honey, you know, you know this and that. But the beauty of it is, is this, she still puts her head on my chest and goes, well, daddy, I love you and you're going to win. And whenever that, whenever that happens, all this noise. Go away, bro. Brother.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, okay, we're rounding the clubhouse turn here.

[Wesley Hunt]

Let's go.

[Josh Holmes]

What is your predict? Like, are these polls. Let me just characterize the polls for the benefit of the audience. I mean, basically there, there's a wide variety and I, I think when you get into this category of a primary in a state like Texas, it's notoriously difficult to try to pin down exactly where a race is. I will say you went from basically nothing.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Six, eight months ago to into the 20s.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And that the polling average is there. You're with well within striking distance. There are some polls that show that you're in the runoff. There are other polls are just outside the runoff. But it's a. There's enough of a grouping of different outside polling to suggest that this is something close to just a three way in a two man deal. To get to a runoff. What is your best bet? And I know you're going to bet on yourself here, but like, what do you think is going to happen?

[Wesley Hunt]

Sure, that's a great Question. So a couple of weeks ago there were two polls that came out. There were independent polls. So they didn't come from any team, didn't come from us, didn't come from Corning, didn't come from nobody. Independent polls that was in. It was a signal poll that had me in second place. And there it was, a JR Partners poll that also had me in second place. This was about a couple of weeks ago after those polls came out. Miraculously, since then, $8 million have been spent against me. Okay, so it couldn't have been that wrong. Well, I guess they weren't that wrong.

[Bob]

Imagine your luck.

[Josh Holmes]

We should have kept that one in the pocket.

[David Hoke]

Right.

[Wesley Hunt]

Tim Jackson, who hasn't had to spend any money because again, he's been in first place. He hasn't had to spend any money. He has ubiquitous name id. He's known kind of to be a champion amongst the base. These are all facts. After that poll came out, that's the first spend that he had. He spent the next day $700,000 against me. And since then that number is now $4 million. So I'm getting attacked by John, I'm getting attacked by Ken and I'm just, you know, spending positive money on myself and, and that just goes to show you, that's kind of my internal mental pole. Yeah, I have a pretty good idea on where we are. Otherwise you don't spend almost $20 million against your opponent if he is not going, if he's not a problem and is not heading in the right direction. My prediction is I do believe that Ken is going to finish in first place. Full disclosure, he's always been in first place. He has a baked in base. I do believe that I'm going to finish in second place and I do believe that John's going to finish in third place. The reasons why I believe that is because the President in Texas has a very, very high favorability among, amongst the primary voter. And what we know about John is that over the course of the past few years he was late to the party to endorse him. This last run he said it was time to move on from President Trump. And the primary voter just didn't forget those things. Also a lot of moderates that tend to vote in Republican primaries in Texas, the moderates, Democrats that realize we don't have a shot. So I might as well vote in a Republican primary for what I would call the lesser of two evils, which oftentimes was John. Cornyn. Cornyn. They're all voting in their competitive primary With James Talarico and Jack. So the electorate is even moving further right in this primary, which does not bode well for Senator Cornyn.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I was going to ask you. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Look, that's a good ballpark. And I think, you know, if I'm on your team, that is exactly the way that I see the world. Look, we've been doing politics a long time and, you know, every so often, Texas is something that we have to talk about largely because Democrat pipe dreams of being competitive. But I couldn't help but notice that the primary turnout here for the first time since 2002 has the capability of producing more Democrat votes than Republican votes.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

As you look towards potentially being a general election candidate. Is that concerning?

[Wesley Hunt]

This is why I'm running. Because it takes somebody who was young, with a lot of energy that can inspire people to walk across broken glass and hot coals to get out to the polls. Because if it's a James Talarico, they are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Basically, James Talarico was created in a lab. What they did was they took Beto, they did all the analysis as to why he lost, and then they created James Talarico. This is what they did. Right. Like, James Tyler is like the Blade of Beto. Right. He's like. Like the Day Walker. That's what they did. Because they're very smart about this.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

What has to happen is you cannot have Ken or John going against that guy with $200 million to spend. So this is about energy. This is about somebody, like I said in the last two months, and I know I've missed some votes because I've been trying to campaign my butt off because I don't have $100 million. But the two times I needed to be back in D.C. when the president called me and the speaker called me, I was there. But most importantly, JD Vance missed every single vote when he was had to be the Vice President. Tim Scott missed 150 votes when he was running for President. People don't know that. Third most in the history of the Senate. So the fact of the matter is, is that I have been campaigning and working harder than I've ever worked in my entire life over the course of the past two months to get my brand up. People can see my face. But most importantly, I want people to see the energy. John Cornyn has done three events. The last event that he did was last week in Houston, and there were more reporters and chairs than there were supporters. And when you talk about momentum and people being reinvigorated to actually go out and support somebody. It's going to take a very special candidate to go up against the aa hundred, multi hundred million dollar, million dollar operation in James Talarico. Now, when I go to bed at night, gentlemen, I say my prayers. I say my prayers every night. I'm a big believer. I do pray that Jasmine Crockett is their nominee. I do. I really do, guys.

[Bob]

Us too.

[Wesley Hunt]

By the way. It's for selfish reasons. I just want a debater. I want that debate to be in an octagon with two tables set up, pay per view, and you have two people that are United States congressmen from Texas, one from Dallas, one from Houston. We're literally the same age. We've both been black for our entire lives. And I want to articulate my vision of America in the juxtaposition of her vision of America. And I just think it would be very entertaining.

[Michael Knowles]

You got.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, you got to watch out, though. She's going to find somebody from Midlothian who's a dentist named Jeff Epstein and really pin you on that deal. I mean, he's got the support of Epstein. Because she's a lawyer and she's smart like that.

[Wesley Hunt]

She's smart like that. I'm like, no, he's my dentist. No, he's my.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, you're the man. If people want to help out your campaign here in the waning days, and you know what you hope is a runoff and eventually a general election, where do they go?

[Wesley Hunt]

Wesley4Texas.com. That's my website. We've seen a significant increase in traffic. A couple of days ago, my website crashed. That's a good sign.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's good.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wesleyhunt us.

[Josh Holmes]

Wesleyhunt us. Listen, buddy, I can't thank you enough for coming on in here.

[Wesley Hunt]

Thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

We slipped you in under the wire.

[Wesley Hunt]

Appreciate it, brother. Thank you.

[John Ashbrook]

But we've got.

[Josh Holmes]

We got a big map out there, and you can. All of our listeners can access all this stuff. So you're going to be happy about it because we got a couple hundred thousand Texans out there who are looking for some information. So thank you for doing it.

[Wesley Hunt]

I appreciate y', all, man. God bless you, man. I'll see y' all back on the Hill soon. All right.

[Josh Holmes]

Good luck out there.

[Wesley Hunt]

See you, buddy. Thank you, guys.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay. Obviously, one of the OG friends of the program, Wesley Hunt, and, you know, just so great to have him even. Even if he's remote and not here spending the whole show with us. I Mean, the guy's obviously out there working his tail off around the state of Texas. It's a big state, and it seems like he's doing a pretty good job.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I don't envy having to make a decision if I'm a Texas voter. I mean, you've heard all three of them. They all have different aspects that they bring. Whether it's experience in legislative chops, whether it's, you know, your hold it down conservative variety, whether it's young energy, youth, vigor that Wesley's talking about. Like, there's a bunch of different options here, but you got to feel good about it. A, if you're just a Republican Party person, or B, if you're in Texas, that you have these kind of options. Because too often I think we've seen these major make or break Senate races and House races that just, they don't have options. Like, you don't have a bunch of of things to kind of sort through this one. You definitely do. And so give it a listen. Go to the map.

[John Ashbrook]

Go to the map.

[Michael Duncan]

Ruthispodcast.com map and again, there's something to be said about that. Republicans actually have primaries.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

We're not like the Democrats who we like, rig it in South Carolina for Joe Biden. They'd be like, let's not even do a primary this time. Let's just hand it to Kamala. So, like, at least we believe that voters can decide.

[Bob]

It is very funny. They rigged the primary for the guy who's been brain broke and then they had to replace him. Yeah, they just love rigging it.

[Michael Duncan]

That's their thing.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so we wanna play a new game. We'll see how this goes. But I think you two made this observation today about the State of the Union and about the hilarious transitions that Donald Trump makes on a big stage.

[Bob]

Yeah. Well, I mean, what we notice, and for people who watch politics closely or a lot of people who listen to who work in politics in Washington, Washington, D.C. you know who has the pen in the Trump White House on a lot of these big speeches, it's Stephen Miller. And his style of writing is hard to forget. You know, the way the man writes. And so the contrast between Trump riffing and then when he gets back and weaves it back into the regularly scheduled program of what Stephen Miller has written, you can always notice it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Bob]

Which I think is just like a very funny aspect of the Trump era of politics is the way Trump does both of those things. And so we thought of, like doing a game where we each try to do some version of that and then smug judges it, basically.

[Michael Duncan]

Wonderful idea.

[John Ashbrook]

It's so funny to us because as guys who've worked in politics for so long, we've all written speeches. Holmes, I know you probably have some good stories that you should definitely tell everybody, but the transitions are actually very hard to write.

[Michael Knowles]

No.

[Bob]

What matter.

[John Ashbrook]

Matter who you are, they're hard to write, but especially when you got a guy like Donald Trump, who's a consummate showman out there on stage, commanding the audience and reads the audience better than anybody else in history. And so consequently, you get like an hour of Don rickles and then 15 minutes of Abraham Lincoln, and it's like. It's just funny. The contrast is funny.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's really funny. I mean, my first sort of entree onto this with Trump was, I think, 2018, where I was working with his White House political department on a bunch of different Senate races and whatnot. And we were trying to get the President to mention a couple of these races in October of the election year at an event I think he was doing in Indiana.

[Bob]

Oh, was this on Donnelly, On Joe Donnelly?

[Josh Holmes]

It was Mike Braun. Braun was our candidate. Was.

[Bob]

It was a. It was a governor's race.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And.

[Josh Holmes]

And hilariously, they're like, just write down what it is, like, generally speaking, that you want him to say, send it over. We'll insert it in, and. And we'll get this thing moving. And I didn't, like, if I was doing this for a principal myself, like, you would think about their voice, their style, their transitions or whatever.

[Wesley Hunt]

But.

[Josh Holmes]

But I was like, well, they're gonna do that. I'm just gonna send the information that I want them to say, and hopefully the President will do it. And the president gets up to, like, he's doing his thing, right? He's reading the crowd. He's got jokes. It's like a greatest hit routine. The crowd is absolutely loving every single second of it. And then he gets to the paragraph. Well, they didn't change anything. Amazing. It was just the straight kind of facts. And he. And he reads the first thing about there's one of the most important races in the entire country right here in Indiana. And then he just stops, and he looks at it. He goes, I mean, let's be honest. The races aren't that important if I'm not in it. Amazing.

[John Ashbrook]

Very funny.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not reading all this. I'm not reading all this. And I was like, oh, my God, it's just such a classic. Only One of one Trump could do.

[Bob]

It would be very funny if he was like, who wrote this? Josh Holmes.

[Josh Holmes]

Very bad writer.

[Bob]

Not that important, Josh.

[Josh Holmes]

Not that important. Not out of my mouth, anyway. So that's kind of the inspiration for the game. I don't know. Do we even know what are we calling this?

[Bob]

I mean, it's basically Trump hard pivot.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, Trump edition.

[Bob]

A Trump edition.

[Josh Holmes]

A Trump edition of hard pivot. All right, so.

[Bob]

So let's. Let's start with Ashburn.

[John Ashbrook]

No, no, I'm going to go third.

[Bob]

Oh, you're going to go third.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, he's going to.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm going to go third.

[Josh Holmes]

I wanted.

[John Ashbrook]

Smug is the judge. Here's the thing. Smug is the judge. You guys can go before me, I'll go last.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Can I just say before we begin the game that I'm very skeptical when we get to a guy who's invented a game and then invented his position in the lineup just for the judge. That's all I'm saying.

[Bob]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but

[Michael Duncan]

Duncan will go first, then homes, then old man Ash Brook. We'll do it in order of age. You know, you have seniority. The old guy at the end, he'll forget his stuff. So it's probably better for you guys, but let's just get to it, for God's sake. The wind up for this game's been 20 minutes.

[Bob]

Okay, I'll go first. Context. This is Trump talking about our brave men and women in the military after a successful military operation.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Bob]

You should have seen these men. Huge men, built like brick houses, you might say. Good looking men, strapped men. And the straps, the Velcro straps on the vests and the gear they were wearing prepared for things you wouldn't believe, folks. As I like to say, bad hombres. Upon my orders, the mission was executed at 2:00am Eastern Standard Time, upon which our brave war fighters departed. The USS Gerald Ford intercepted the target with exacting precision. They were back aboard the flight deck in less than 30 minutes.

[Michael Duncan]

That's pretty good.

[Josh Holmes]

That is very good. And it's also amongst our favorite genres, which is the description of the soldier. Yeah, I love that. That's great. All right, so it's my turn. You know how he just does this thing where he just talks about his friends?

[Bob]

Yeah. He tells like a little vignette, the story.

[Michael Duncan]

Or like one took the fat shot. It didn't work.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a friend, very wealthy, very powerful man. Very powerful. He's also very fat.

[David Hoke]

There it is.

[Josh Holmes]

He says to me the other day, Mr. President. Which is what he calls me now. Very respectful, Mr. President. Sounds nice. I can't do. Can't you do something about these fat drugs? We pay far too much for these fat drugs. These shithole countries are ripping off. This is what this fat man is dying. These shit. Oh, countries are ripping about. I said we can do something. It's called Trump Rx. Trump Rx. You can get a good price there. We'll tariff the hell out of the shitholes. America has always served as a beacon of freedom. An experiment that started with a dream of better days is now the cornerstone of peace and prosperity all over the planet.

[Bob]

The pivots are so funny. I. I don't even care who wins.

[Michael Duncan]

I also gotta give you credit for that pivot because it did sound like Stephen Miller. Like, after Stephen Miller is done with his tour of duty helping restore America, I hope he becomes, like, a documentary filmmaker. Like the founding of America.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right, right.

[Michael Duncan]

Because his words are like the greatest story.

[Josh Holmes]

Right?

[John Ashbrook]

It's wonderful, Right? It's magic. It's magic. And on the that score, mine is a little bit closer to a State of the Union type scenario on Tuesday night.

[Bob]

Okay, okay.

[John Ashbrook]

These Democrats, they hate our country. Very disloyal. Get them out of here. Just look at them. Disgusting, crazy people. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord he's trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored he hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword his truth is marching on

[Michael Duncan]

okay, I'm ready to render. So, like, Ash Brook's been in this thing lately where he's trying to crutch off of, like. I want to play a video clip.

[Bob]

I want to play technicality, dick.

[Michael Duncan]

These.

[Bob]

These guys don't.

[Michael Duncan]

You don't have a soundboard? Like, this guy thought he's just gonna, like, pull one over. Yeah, not happening.

[Wesley Hunt]

He's gonna pull one over.

[Michael Duncan]

And one thing. Can I see that sheet real quick? Yeah, let me see that real quick. Look at the size of the font. You can see that from the moon.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

From orbit. But, I mean, I don't wanna be mean because, like, you know, when you're, like, super old, it's harder to, like, do stuff. And he's trying to crutch off the soundboard.

[Bob]

It was well executed.

[Michael Duncan]

It's definitely between Duncan and Holmes, and both did, like, an exquisite job. But I think the fact that, like, I was like. Oh, you mean, like, when he Talks about his friend with the fat shot. And that was exactly what Holmes did. Kind of says that like he had keyed in perfectly. It was very close, but Holmes got that one.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm proud to take it.

[Michael Duncan]

Everyone's a winner, but Ashbrook, who tried to.

[Bob]

They were all so good.

[Michael Knowles]

It's so good.

[Michael Duncan]

Outstanding game.

[Bob]

I love.

[Michael Duncan]

I love the game, by the way. Great idea.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Brilliant.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. We gotta look for more opportunities to play that one. All right, so here's a big interview. A couple of guys. You guys talked to him. Nick Shirley is the one everybody has

[John Ashbrook]

heard of David Ho and.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[David Hoke]

And.

[Josh Holmes]

And they came in and kind of laid it all out. And you guys can hear it for your benefit bit here today on a third wonderful guest on a Funtime Friday.

[Bob]

Well, here on Ruthless, we're ready to do some leering, so we brought two special guests. You may be familiar with these gentlemen, Nick Shirley and David Hoke. How are you?

[Nick Shirley]

We're doing great. We're happy to be here.

[David Hoke]

Yeah. Thank you for having us.

[Bob]

I love the shirts.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, we're matching today.

[Bob]

Very on brand. It's unbelievable. And you're in town. You're going to be guests of Pete Stauber at the State of the Union this week. Just absolutely awesome. Must be a thrilling experience.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. Very cool to be invited to the

[Michael Duncan]

State of the Union.

[Nick Shirley]

They're very historic. I've been watching them since I was young. No matter who the president is, it's an honor to. To be there, and I'm excited to be there, especially while Trump gives a speech.

[Bob]

So I kind of want to go back in time here a little bit. You guys ever watch the Big Short? The movie? So what I love about the Big Short is they got this great quote in there talking about all the guys who kind of figured out the housing crisis. And they say in the. In the movie, what these outsiders found was the lie at the heart of the American economy, and they did it by just looking. And I love that because I think that so much reflective of what y' all have done here. David, I watched your testimony. I think it was at Minnesota legislature, where your first hint at this fraud that y' all had uncovered here at the Somali daycares was all the snow that you get in Minnesota. And what you notice is at these facilities, there were no steps, there were no footsteps in the snow. And that sort of set off this alarm bell in your head. So maybe we can sort of start there.

[David Hoke]

Yeah. So I grew up in Minneapolis, and my office is in the heart of where A lot of those childcares are. I'm just outside what's called Little Mogadishu and I drive by to the office. I go, God, there's another childcare. And then they're like three on one block. And I said, what in the world is going on? And they're all in these industrial and commercial buildings. There's no play area for the kids and there's no activity. And the only thing I'd ever see would be like a couple of Somali guys out front smoking cigarettes. I said, this isn't right. So that was sort of the, the lead into the investigation that I did. And then I started to see all these vans driving around with Somali drivers and never a passenger in any of the vans. And I said, there's another company, there's another one, there's another one. And so I started to really dig into it. And what really was the spark for the investigation was when I was sitting at a stoplight and I looked over and said, quality Learning Center. I said, no, I looked again. I said, quality Learning Center. Not only that, but the address is 1411 Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. They misspelled the word Nicollet.

[Josh Holmes]

I said, that's it, that's it.

[Wesley Hunt]

I'm all in. I'm all in. Yeah.

[Bob]

So, Nick, you put up all of these videos and you guys do obviously all this investigative research. What was that experience like? You know, it blew up huge. Suddenly you're inundated, I imagine, with a ton of media requests, a lot of pushback from liberal media and people who kind of failed on the job here. What was that experience like?

[Nick Shirley]

The experience was something like I've never gone through before. Yeah, I've been uploading videos consistently for the past two years. And so I kind of knew how it works. And I had never received this much attention for a video. I already had a few million followers before all this. But the, the thing about this video is that it exposed just how openly and blatantly these fraudsters were getting away with fraud. And it was interesting because it was a very non partisan issue of me going there, showing that fraud was taking place. They're stealing federal state money, both Republicans, Republicans and Democrats money. But all of a sudden Democrats started to defend the fraud. And it became controversial in a way where in reality we were just doing a huge public service for everybody. But people literally came out and defended

[John Ashbrook]

the fraud, which is so wild to me, because you would think the opposite should occur. You would think that these Democrats who've fought, you know, decades past to Try to expand some of these programs, you would think they would try to be hawks to make sure that the money is going to the people who are most in need. You would think that the media, who's charged with keeping everybody honest, would be looking for ways to make sure that the money is going to people most in need and not to fraudsters. I mean, that must have been shocking to you. I mean, we always knew the media's bias. And maybe you think Democrats don't have,

[Bob]

but you imagine there's a line where, like, if you'd like to hope. Right. Corruption. That they'd be on your side.

[Nick Shirley]

Exactly. And it's super funny too, because I love posting these videos. And then what's so great about it is that it then forces all these other people to actually go and do their job. They're like, frick, I gotta go do something now. I gotta go show that. I gotta go and try to show that there's no fraud happening. But then let me go admit on national TV the fraud is real.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Nick Shirley]

Quote, unquote, quote.

[Bob]

Mayor Fry, do you feel like, you know, I have to imagine you have to feel like this is only the tip of the iceberg, you know, And I sort of wonder how endemic this is to the system, not just in Minneapolis, but across the country. And do you guys plan on doing more investigations into other states or other localities and different areas of fraud that you think is out there?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, I've already started on some other states and people are constantly coming to me with information and about the fraud that's taking place in this state and that state. For instance, I just did a video on voter fraud in California showing how essentially how easy it is to register to vote, how easy it would be for an illegal to vote, how dead people are voting. There's a bunch of things that are happening inside of these locations that are not right and you can just look at them. And so the. We will continue to investigate more and more. And I think me and David want to do another Part three in Minnesota.

[Wesley Hunt]

Nice.

[Bob]

Part three.

[David Hoke]

So for the video, when I had. I was messaging Nick and he finally called me on Friday night about 9:00', clock, December 12th, and I said, you're coming to Minneapolis. We're going to make the biggest video. It's going to be bigger than all your other videos combined. He's like, well, I don't know. But I sent him this data and he goes, God, you got really good hard numbers. So he said, I'll be on a plane Monday. So he came and we started filming Tuesday. Well, I had this spreadsheet put together and it lists the top CCAP recipients in Minnesota. That's Childcare Assistance payments. So that's about 50% Medicaid, 50% state money. And of the 102 of them, 84 of them are Somali. The non smelly ones are new Horizon in Kindercare. You can go by, you see the kids, they got players, legitimate childcare facilities. The top one got $3.67 million in fiscal year 2025. This is one we actually visited. It's about 36 in Chicago, in Minneapolis, right by the George Floyd area. And you ran that clip. Where would my son Joey have someone to play with? No, that's the one. Well, the owner of that child. Child care facility was just indicted for feeding our future. She bought a one way ticket to London and they caught her before she got on the plane. But she said from this child care facility, not only did she get $3.67 million, she said in 2021, she served 346,000 meals at that location.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wow.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, it's. It's just stunning.

[David Hoke]

They don't care. It's blatant. They. I don't care.

[John Ashbrook]

And you've got to. I mean, I know that you've gone into so many other things. You mentioned a potential third installment. Any hints on the subject of that one?

[David Hoke]

Still working on it.

[John Ashbrook]

Still working.

[David Hoke]

Still working on it.

[Bob]

Okay. Okay. I gotta ask. Just because like, you guys could be like a buddy cop comedy here, like, how is it that you guys got hooked up in the first place to do all of this?

[Nick Shirley]

Well, David had been wanting to show this fraud for a long time. I had also known about the fraud for a long time. I needed somebody with information. David happened to reach out to me via Instagram, and out of all the DMS I got, David's somehow got clicked on. And there's not too many old men who I open up a DM from.

[Bob]

You're not that old.

[Nick Shirley]

You usually have to have a cute profile.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you know, I got that going on.

[David Hoke]

But what I like is the fact that we capture the whole age spectrum. Yeah. There's such a variation in our age, and it draws in people from all these different demographics. And I think it resonates what we're doing with everybody. And you can see, I mean, we've been inundated with not only from around the country, but from around the world, people saying we found the same fraud here. So it's worldwide.

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, it's a breath of Fresh Air. Because the media just will not follow up on this stuff. I mean the mainstream media, we all have our complaints, but what you have done is run circles around them just by what you saw, just by making sure that you had all the information, all the data, it's all cited and doing all of your own research. And I think it's just indicative of the new wave of citizen journalism and a rise eyes of people saying like, no, we don't need to wait for the mainstream media to, to talk about something, we can do it ourselves.

[Nick Shirley]

Exactly. With platforms like X. I think the great thing about my videos, we all knew X was powerful. But I think another thing that my video showed is how powerful X is. Because you can post a video on YouTube and you can drive a comment section, you can get a comment section to 10,000, 10,000 comments, but you can't drive engagement that then leads to more engagement that then leads to more engagement that leads to a massive conversation.

[Bob]

Yeah, there's more of like a network effect to the platform.

[Nick Shirley]

Exactly. And so people are now realizing how powerful X is. So also like big credit and thanks to Elon Musk for taking that platform back and making it so we do have a place for free speech.

[Bob]

Well, because it's more of a conversation.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Bob]

Because you could tag an Elon Musk or you could tag a member of Congress so you get to not just investigating the fraud, but how do we make this an agent for change and stuff. And so I'm sort of curious now you're in Washington D.C. state of the Union, all that sort of stuff and talking to members of Congress. Are there tangible things that, you know, you think Congress can do here to turn an investigation into actual legislation or accountability in this area?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, I don't know as far as like Congress, maybe David would know better than me on that. But I do know as far as like the departments of hhs, cms, they are doing a lot to go and shut down the fraud and say, hey, send us receipts. We want to see that you guys actually need this money before we send it to you. I don't know if you know anymore.

[David Hoke]

So well, Congress side. So before I forget, I don't know if you saw this, but three of the child care facilities, Somali owned child care facilities in Minneapolis or the Twin Cities are, are suing the state of Minnesota.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[David Hoke]

For cutting off their funding, claiming that our video was the basis for the state assuming there was fraud going on. And now they found like a sign in log. They raced to make these fake sign in logs. It's all in the same handwriting. So the state said.

[Michael Knowles]

No, no, no.

[David Hoke]

So what's funny, though, is they said that they were childcare facilities that were featured in our video, but only one of them was. The other two are in St. Cloud, which is northwest of the Twin Cities. We never went to St. Cloud for the video, so I don't. It's just bizarre.

[Bob]

Are they coming at you guys personally at all? No.

[David Hoke]

I wish they would. I'm asking them to sue me, begging

[Michael Knowles]

them to sue me, so I can

[David Hoke]

counter sue and then I can enjoy. In the state of Minnesota.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah.

[David Hoke]

Right. Because they're intertwined with fraud. Because the state wrote the checks. You can blame the Somalis, but the people at the human services, they. They funneled the money for the fraud.

[Bob]

Yeah. Wow, that's incredible. It's incredible stuff. Ashbrook, you have anything else?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I just. The thing that gets me is putting cash in a briefcase and flying it overseas. I mean, that is the most brazen act. I mean, they're not even close to trying to help people. They're just taking the money, you know, and, like, that had to shock you guys.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. The whole cash thing is incredible because that had. Haven't been reported on for a long time.

[Bob]

Like, local news had talked about this, but then it just sort of petered out as an investigation.

[Nick Shirley]

But if you do go to the Minnesota airport, Minneapolis airport, you'll see people who are working in the airport. Large majority of them are Somalians. And with these fraud networks, we know that 89% of the fraud that has been committed in Minnesota, the people that have been charged are Somalian. And so that. It's bigger than you.

[Michael Knowles]

It's.

[Nick Shirley]

It's a larger scale network than you would think. I mean, everyone knew about the fraud. In fact, in one of my videos, the person says, are we the only community that commits fraud? And he's admitting that there's fraud being committed. And these people knew about this fraud. And for them to be able to just think they can get away with putting millions of dollars in suitcases. Like, we're talking, like some of these suitcases, I've heard ranges from one to $3 million per suitcase.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow.

[Nick Shirley]

Which is like a lot of money.

[David Hoke]

Well, and what was interesting too is that the child care, the incredibly violent reaction from these people, and all we're doing is looking for child care for little Joey. I mean, they burst out and start screaming at us and yelling at us. And I mean, it was. It was so indicative of people who are trying to keep the fraud from being uncovered. If they would have come out and said, oh, the kids come later or they come tomorrow, they could have diffused the whole situation. But they could. Couldn't do it. And so I think we woke up the world.

[Bob]

Yeah, I think so, too. Well, really incredible stuff. Jacob Fry, Tim Walls, these local officials failing on the job, obviously. Is there anything else we can do at the state level in Minnesota to get these folks to actually take on the fraud?

[David Hoke]

Yeah. So I've spoken with all the Republican gubernatorial candidates. I said, you ought to be out front holding a press conference on state Capitol steps with a big sign that says fraud and be talking about the fraud. Because that's what people are really angry about. Because when you look at a map of Minnesota, the Twin Cities is blue. You get outside, it's all red, and they are furious. And they want someone to be the voice, a politician to be the voice. And none of them have stepped up to the plate to do it. I said, klobuchar is going to steamroll you guys. And the gubernatorial. I mean, it's not even going to be close. Why were you even running?

[Bob]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

So obviously a lot of longtime Democrats in the state of Minnesota and a lot of Democrats who maybe voted for Trump in 2024, 2020, 2016. Have you heard from some Democrats who are like, you guys are on to something. Our party has lost their mind. And I think that the fraud needs to be uncovered. I mean, have you, have you heard from anybody on the other side with a genuine desire to actually do something?

[David Hoke]

I've seen some videos from some folks who said they've had it with the Democratic Party. But, I mean, I have a very. I come from a very large family. I've had zero support from any of my brothers or sisters.

[John Ashbrook]

Wow.

[David Hoke]

Zero.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wow.

[David Hoke]

Astounding.

[John Ashbrook]

It is astounding. I mean, it just really, really. I mean, thank God for what you're doing. I do want to ask one thing. Where can people get these sweatshirts if they, if they want to log on and buy some?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, so you can go ahead and buy them at my website. It's called shirleydefense.com okay, so go, go ahead, become a number one Lear and go get, Go get yourself a [e-mail].

[Bob]

well, and if they want to get involved in any other way, you know, if there's some enterprising whistleblower in, you know, Minnesota who wants to come forward, or Ohio. Or Ohio or anywhere else, like, where do they contact you? What's the best way to advance these investigations.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. The best way is if you do have information, message me on Instagram, message me on X and send me an email.

[Bob]

Do you have, like, people, you know, checking those? I'm assuming you're getting a lot.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, I check them every day.

[Bob]

Very good.

[Nick Shirley]

And I have other people going through them as well.

[Bob]

Well, guys, thank you so much for coming in here. Appreciate all your work.

[David Hoke]

Thank you for having us.

[Nick Shirley]

Thank you.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you. Okay. I mean, very special to have them both in here. Obviously, everybody's heard from Nick Shirley, but I really wanted to hear from David Hoek because he has done a lot of research on this. And, you know, there are guys just like him in cities all around our country who are doing the exact same thing. Noticing the parking lots without any footprints in the snow.

[Bob]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's just deductible of reasoning at a basic level. You know, the other thing he said that was really funny to me is like, you know, I just shot a DM to. To Nick, and Nick's response was like, yeah, I normally don't click on photos of older men in my DMs.

[Michael Duncan]

That's how they.

[Bob]

That's how they got connected and met.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's funny.

[Bob]

It's awesome.

[Josh Holmes]

That's very cool. Well, they've certainly paved a pathway for your citizen journalists to do important things and hopefully save us a buck or two, because, good Lord, do we need it. All right, so remember this Senate primary thing you heard from Wesley. You got Texas taken care of. Two out of three. We've got in Kentucky, we've got Louisiana and all kinds of other things coming up of really, really important primaries in addition to. We're going to have all the general election stuff before you. If you go to ruthlesspodcast.com map, it's all right there with that. Fellas, I think we did it.

[Michael Duncan]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Michael Knowles. Thank you so much, Wesley Hunt. And thank you so much, Nick Shirley and David Hoke. And thank you to the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit that subscribe 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 Tuesday.

[Michael Knowles]

Stay ruthless.

[Wesley Hunt]

Sam.