What's REALLY Behind The Trump Vs. Musk Reconciliation Fight?

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary: "What's REALLY Behind The Trump Vs. Musk Reconciliation Fight?"

Release Date: June 5, 2025

In this episode of the Ruthless Podcast, hosts Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, Comfortably Smug, and occasional guest John Ashbrook delve deep into the contentious debate surrounding the "Big Beautiful Bill" (BBB) and the emerging rift between former President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Elon Musk. The episode offers a comprehensive analysis of the bill's implications, bipartisan dynamics, and the broader political landscape shaping the United States Senate.

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1. Introduction and Context

Josh Holmes opens the discussion by highlighting the intense controversy in Washington, D.C., surrounding the Big Beautiful Bill. The hosts aim to dissect what the bill means for the Senate, its potential to become law, and its alignment with President Trump's economic agenda.

[01:22] Josh Holmes: "We are not pontificating about shit that we don't understand. We've done it. We've literally lived this."

2. The Big Beautiful Bill Explained

The core of the episode revolves around the Big Beautiful Bill, a legislative package championed by President Trump aimed at making tax cuts permanent and addressing government spending. The hosts critique the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for their static scoring methods, arguing that they fail to account for dynamic economic growth resulting from tax reductions.

Michael Duncan emphasizes the disconnect between CBO projections and real-world economic outcomes:

[22:16] Michael Duncan: "Look at the revenue for TCGA in 2019. They don't want to look at the math."

Josh Holmes further elaborates on the bill's components, emphasizing tax rate extensions and entitlement reforms:

[18:00] Josh Holmes: "They cobble that stuff together to save $1.5 trillion."

3. Elon Musk's Critique and Republican Response

A significant portion of the episode addresses Elon Musk's public disapproval of the BBB, labeling it a "spending bill full of pork." Musk's contention is that the bill leads to increased deficits by imposing higher tax rates without corresponding spending cuts.

Josh Holmes counters Musk's argument by clarifying the bill's true nature:

[31:52] Josh Holmes: "When they say spending, that's what it is."

Michael Duncan reiterates the misconception:

[33:42] Josh Holmes: "They're calling it government spending. I just want to make that clear."

The hosts argue that Musk misunderstands the reconciliation process, which focuses on tax policies and entitlement reforms rather than traditional government spending. They assert that maintaining current tax rates as a baseline prevents deficits, contrary to Musk's portrayal.

4. Interview with Senator Joni Ernst

Bringing authoritative insight into the discussion, Senator Joni Ernst joins the podcast to elucidate the Senate's stance on the BBB. Ernst outlines the bill's intent to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, prevent significant tax rate increases, and implement targeted reforms in Medicaid and immigration.

[56:29] Joni Ernst: "What we would look at would be a $4.3 trillion tax increase on the American people if we do not extend these tax cuts."

Ernst addresses the misconceptions propagated by critics, emphasizing that the bill is not an appropriations package but a reconciliation effort focusing on tax and entitlement reforms. She underscores the bill's impact on everyday Americans, particularly working families and small businesses.

[64:19] Josh Holmes: "You have to know these people. If you know Joni Ernst, she's not interested in doing anything but making sure that you can get to the place that you're at with ensuring that you're taken care of."

5. Exploring the Political Nuances

The podcast delves into the intricacies of the reconciliation process, explaining how it allows the bill to pass with a simple majority, circumventing the need for bipartisan support. Josh Holmes criticizes both Republicans who oppose the bill on misrepresented grounds and Democrats who attempt to position themselves as fiscal hawks while supporting increased spending.

[25:08] Michael Duncan: "We have a deficit because you, taxpayer, are stealing from the government."

The hosts advocate for a nuanced understanding of budgetary processes, urging conservatives to focus on substantial entitlement reforms and responsible tax policies rather than superficial critiques.

6. Stephen Miller's Insights

Stephen Miller, a key strategist in the Trump administration, provides detailed explanations of the bill's framework. He clarifies that the BBB is designed to extend existing tax cuts, implement welfare reforms to reduce Medicaid fraud, and enhance immigration and border security.

[29:08] Stephen Miller (paraphrased): "It's about taxes and entitlements. And you can make reforms to make these entitlements stronger."

Miller emphasizes that the reconciliation bill is not about increasing traditional government spending but about recalibrating tax policies to sustain economic growth and reduce deficits.

7. Listener Comments and Additional News

The episode features listener interactions, including concerns about media representation of political acts and national security threats. A notable segment discusses allegations made by Steve Bannon regarding an alleged physical confrontation between Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant over unmet promises of budget cuts.

[42:14] Steve Bannon (via transcript): "Elon Musk shove him."

The hosts scrutinize the credibility of such claims, debating Bannon's reliability as a source and the lack of corroborating evidence from official channels.

8. Guest Appearance: Taylor Gooch

Professional golfer Taylor Gooch joins the discussion, sharing insights from his transition to the LIV Golf tour and his interactions with Donald Trump. Gooch highlights the competitive nature of professional golf and the camaraderie among players, providing a lighter contrast to the heavy policy discussions.

[105:43] Taylor Gooch: "Golf is not easy, and you're going to have ups and downs."

Gooch also touches upon his philanthropic endeavors, including the Gooch Foundation, aimed at supporting youth and community initiatives beyond the realm of sports.

9. Concluding Remarks

As the podcast wraps up, the hosts reinforce the importance of understanding the true implications of the Big Beautiful Bill and dispelling misconceptions propagated by critics. They advocate for informed discussions on tax policies and government spending, emphasizing the need for conservative accountability in fiscal matters.

[121:46] Josh Holmes: "It's all about making America stronger again."

The episode concludes with humorous exchanges among the hosts, maintaining the show's signature blend of serious analysis and lighthearted banter.

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Notable Quotes:

• "[25:08] Michael Duncan: 'We have a deficit because you, taxpayer, are stealing from the government.'"

• "[64:19] Josh Holmes: 'You have to know these people. If you know Joni Ernst, she's not interested in doing anything but making sure that you can get to the place that you're at with ensuring that you're taken care of.'"

• "[71:25] Josh Holmes: 'Nobody wants even the people who are most adept and take the most risk.'"

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This episode of the Ruthless Podcast offers listeners an in-depth exploration of pivotal economic legislation and its ramifications within the current American political climate. Through expert interviews, critical analysis, and engaging discussions, the hosts provide a platform for understanding the complexities of government budgeting and the influence of key political figures.

Transcript

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no, I'm not going to. I'm not going to sit here in a microphone and, you know, talk about how great things and whistle past the graveyard, because that's not reality. It's like there are people that are giving you a line of bull when the reality is you're using a CBO score. These lefty bull artists talking about how you actually need to. You have to pay the 2016 rate, otherwise. Well, we got that. You exploded the deficit. You're responsible on me, the government, the people who we elect us, they couldn't spend responsibly. So it's your fault.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dick Durbin]

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[John Ashbrook]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Comfortably Smug]

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

[John Ashbrook]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Welcome back to the ruthless Variety program. Good Thursday to you all. Controversy in Washington, D.C. a lot of discussion about the big, beautiful bill and what it means to the United States Senate and whether it becomes law. Big players have weighed in. We're gonna discuss all that. I'm Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smugg and Michael Duncan. John Ashbrook in the vomitorium today. Turns out he's come down with a little bit of an illness, one that he ascribes to Michael.

[Michael Duncan]

He does not. You do.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I think he may. He may. He may. I mean, you're a little bit of a Typhoid Mary here on the Variety program.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't think that's fair. I just. I just prefer to show up to work.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the thing.

[Michael Duncan]

To deliver the show Typhoid Mary. That the viewers and the listeners depend on us for.

[Josh Holmes]

That much I can't actually argue with. Because your last Typhoid Mary experience with this variety program. Smug. You were there.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. So that's the thing is, you know, he shows up to work like, you know, this is a good thing, whether he's ready to give everyone bubonic plague or not. You know, like, I always feel like if you're sick, stay home. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Comfortably Smug]

And then I get attacked for it.

[Michael Duncan]

No. Look, dude, the reason why this show has been successful is because the Listeners and the viewers can reliably depend on the fact that every Tuesday and Thursday, we show up for them. And so that's what I do, whether I have to kill one of my.

[Comfortably Smug]

Co hosts with a disease or not.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, all right, well, look, all I'm saying is if I don't. If I don't have a bullet wound in, you know, in my vitals, I'm coming up, I'm coming into work.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you've proven that. Yes, we went to Las Vegas probably about. Oh, man, that was two years ago.

[Michael Duncan]

Two years ago.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

We did a big thing out in Las Vegas where we were kind of opening speakers for a whole lineup, including Trump and everybody else. And. And we were just setting the table, and we noticed that Michael wasn't looking well.

[Comfortably Smug]

He was, like, shallow breathing, like, 100%. He should have been in the ICU, pale and sweaty. Yeah, that's what I remember. Like, he was ready to rage. He was like, I'm not going home.

[Josh Holmes]

We're going to go gamble.

[Comfortably Smug]

We're going to the casino.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. No, it's a compliment to his work ethic. He did, however, take half the cast and crew with.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, he made everyone sick.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I.

[Comfortably Smug]

Everyone. Everyone got terribly ill. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

In my. In my defense, I did not find out until I returned to D.C. that I, in fact, had RSV the entire time.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I got on an airplane and traveled across the country. I sung, I danced, I entertained.

[Josh Holmes]

You did all those things.

[Comfortably Smug]

I couldn't have known. Everyone around me was shocked that I was alive while I was infecting them.

[Josh Holmes]

And this morning, John Ashbrook is appreciative of his efforts because he is not with us, only because he is, like, on a breathing tube.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, Ashbrook's in bad shape, look.

[Josh Holmes]

Sometimes in bad shape.

[Michael Duncan]

Sometimes.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm praying for you, John.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm going to go ahead and say sometimes Ashbrook doesn't have the courage.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, wow. That is a direct.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a direct blast. May I paint a picture for you?

[Josh Holmes]

Sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

He has three children, Holmes. Ashwick's got three kids, man.

[Josh Holmes]

I know.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's got him.

[Josh Holmes]

I can't wait to see where this goes.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm just giving. I'm going to give you an example.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

We played golf last weekend.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Me and you and Ashbrook.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Playing great golf. Good weather.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, perfect.

[Michael Duncan]

And some fucking bangers on nine.

[Josh Holmes]

Lovely day.

[Michael Duncan]

Close to the pin. We both blew the birdie putts, obviously.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

But we. We get around to the turn, and then the grill's fired up.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is a wonderful service.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I see where you're going.

[Michael Duncan]

A service is provided. The grill is hot. They got options.

[Josh Holmes]

What's your special, sir?

[Michael Duncan]

And you're a little hungry.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. What's your special?

[Michael Duncan]

And you know what the special was that day? They had a wonderful br.

[Josh Holmes]

They did.

[Michael Duncan]

And not only was it a brat, the brat was marinated.

[Josh Holmes]

Y.

[Michael Duncan]

It was then split. Y was put upon the grill and then covered with peppers and onions. It was like you were at the ballpark.

[Josh Holmes]

It was incredible.

[Michael Duncan]

I ordered one. Yeah, I did, Holmes. You ordered one. Ashbrook. I'll take a hot dog. He didn't have the courage to go to Flavortown. He didn't want to do it, which.

[Josh Holmes]

Is why he finds himself in such dire straits.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what I'm saying.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You got to have the. The courage to go to Flavortown.

[Josh Holmes]

It's an interesting theory, one I could see some merits in. Well, anyway, we're going to do a show either way, and it's a banger, as smug says, because we've got a bunch of things. There's this big discussion. You saw Elon's take on the big, beautiful bill, the tax thing. We're gonna talk in some detail. Recall. I mean, I think part of the reason why you listen to this program. We've done this. We've done it. We've lived it. We know exactly what it is that they're doing. We're not pontificating about shit that we don't understand. We've done it. We literally lived this. And so we're going to explain to you under the hood what it is that's happening now. Because so much of this has been misconstrued. Yeah. And detect. And it seems it's either intentional or so ignorant that it's hard to actually argue with. You know what I mean? Like, you get there's. There are some things. And we always say this about just professions in life, and you all do all kinds of different things. There's really only two professions in all of the world that people think they can do better than the practitioners who have spent literally their entire lives trying to perfect. It is professional sports, and it is politics.

[Michael Duncan]

This coach doesn't know what he's doing.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. Right. Why would you run a trap? You got to run a sweep. You got to do it. I mean, like, you spent. Not you. You maybe coached a high school football game or so. And the guy who spent 30 years studying the defensive schemes of a West coast. You know, I mean, like, you're like, all of a sudden, you know better than the guy. And, like, I'm a fan because I do it. I do that.

[Michael Duncan]

We don't. We all do it.

[Josh Holmes]

I do that.

[Michael Duncan]

No shade on anybody. Because it's a natural thing.

[Josh Holmes]

It's an observation. Politics is the other one. Because you're like, well, they talk, I talk. I. They have opinions. I have opinions.

[Michael Duncan]

I watch the games.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So it's kind of in the same category. There's only two categories. Like, nobody would run up to an accountant and be like, I can do your taxes better than they can.

[Michael Duncan]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, you're never actually.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm not. I think smug might try to do that.

[Josh Holmes]

He might be, yes. But he's a special category.

[Comfortably Smug]

I might be better than them. I might have more. There's a chance.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a touch of. I know these things in that guy, though, because he might be right about it. He does. He does know the numbers. He does know the numbers. Anyway, we're going to break all that down. We have two guests, not one, but two, and in very different categories. Joni Ernst is with us. United States Senator. She's going to talk of us about how the Senate is receiving the big, beautiful bill that will be considered in the next few weeks. Recall that there is a deadline, official or on unofficial, that people have set by the Fourth of July. That might be ambitious. She's going to give context to all of that and talk a little bit about how she's been summarily attacked for making jokes. You know, you make jokes in this line of work, particularly when you're in cycle, and all of a sudden nobody has any humor about anything, which I find completely. It's the most inauthentic thing in the world. Right. If she's like, not in cycle. If her. If her election is 2028 instead of 2026. Anything that she has said over the last week, nobody would have ever recognized or known or reported or whatever. But the fact that she is all of a sudden.

[Michael Duncan]

We will pretend to be outraged.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, we're gonna pretend to be very outraged about all that. Anyway, she comes in to talk to us all about that, and then we've got a great guest. Listen, Taylor Gooch. And many of you who listen to us, as we know, are sports fans. Taylor Gooch, when you think about Taylor, you're like, oh, I know that name. How do I know that? So he's a LIV golfer. He was on the PGA Tour for a number of years. He was not one of, like, the Jon Rahms or Phil Mickelson's or people who had won multiple majors. Koepka and everybody else that went to live. He was like just entering the peak of his career and subsequently he goes on to live and wins the whole Damn thing in 2023. Inordinate amount of money. But also was the best case that Liv had to make to the golf fan world to say, like, we really ought to reunify this because you're not playing, playing the best talent and because PGA would come back and be like, ah, these guys all were great in like 2015. Phil Mickelson or Kept. I mean, listen, DeChambeau is putting all that to rest.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

But that was the case. They were like yesterday's news. They're their sideshow. Gooch was different. Gooch was somebody who never. He won one tournament as a PGA Tour pro and then entered this prime of his career as a live pro where he was dominating the competition. Still is. He had top 10 last year. Year. He's still playing. He's in town in Northern Virginia playing a live tour event today. And so he stopped by the program he's played some golf with. Trump likes him. He's going to give us a bunch of different stuff that, like, I mean, I love hanging out with the guy.

[Michael Duncan]

I love hanging out with the guy. And I, I, I also loved his answer on, you know, who do you like to play golf with when it's not serious?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And he, he gives some great color. I won't spoil it. You want to stick around for that 100%.

[Josh Holmes]

We get a lightning round. We' a whole bunch of other things that you're going to show up in the news later on today after everybody cribs the ruthless variety program for content.

[Comfortably Smug]

As they do, which is the way that's become.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the way the news media works.

[Michael Duncan]

We're the tip of the spear, but.

[Josh Holmes]

We'Re going to make them listen to the whole thing in order to get it so they can prepackage after 40 minutes. Yeah. Anyway, Big, beautiful Bill. So it starts with Elon, of course, an ally above all allies to President Trump during the 2024 campaign, not only spent a lot of money, but was.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, he risked a lot personally.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, he was just the ultimate. How do you say it? Like somebody who just like, set their own personal situation aside knowing you were going to take the heat.

[Michael Duncan]

Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honors. You know, I mean, like, think about it, dude.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's a great way to put it.

[Michael Duncan]

This guy had a lot to lose. And we shouldn't, you know, just brush.

[Josh Holmes]

That aside, minimize it.

[Michael Duncan]

You can't minimize this. This guy had multiple companies and he had a lot of people shooting at him. And he did the most difficult thing possible.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he decided to be partisan. And there's a reason why. The whole Michael Jordan quote about Republicans buy sneakers too, applies to the corporate world in that anybody with any skin to gain, like in a publicly traded company, avoids partisan politics because they don't want to basically alienate a customer base. He decided, I'm walking away from all that. This is what I believe. I'm all in. And he threw caution in the wind and a whole bunch of stuff took up Doge, did all these things. I still maintain that buying Twitter and converting it to X was amongst the most patriotic things that I've ever seen anyone do. And I mean that sincerely. I really do believe that. So I've got a lot of reverence for Elon. We disagree with him on some stuff, though. And what happened towards the end of his tenure as a special employee at the White House was that he was gone. And then all of a sudden, he's got a problem with the signature Trump bill, which is the big, beautiful bill. It's the sign. It's the cornerstone of the economic agenda everybody's trying to make. You know, all these discussions about tariffs, about deals with other countries like those are all parts of it. But the signature, the cornerstone of the American economic future is Congress's ability to get President Trump's vision, the year articulated in 2024, through Congress with very narrow majorities, into law to make tax cuts permanent. All these things. Well, Elon, now that he's out, he's got a different opinion. So graphic one, if we can toss that up, he says, I'm sorry, I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You know it. Okay, I'm gonna set aside commentary on that, but that was the opening salvo. Let's go to graphic 2. Interest payments already consume 25% of all government revenue. If the massive deficit spending continues, there will only be money for interest payments and nothing else. No Social Security, no medical, no defense, nothing.

[Michael Duncan]

Which. Can I stop you there? Because what I. What I find interesting about it is, you know, if you listen to the show, you watch this show, we've been talking about this for a very long time.

[Josh Holmes]

We talked about during the campaign.

[Michael Duncan]

We talked about it during the campaign. We talked about you could shut down the entire government. You could shut it all down, right, and keep funding Medicaid and Social Security and all the, you know, entitlement programs, and you couldn't balance the budget for 30 years.

[Comfortably Smug]

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[Josh Holmes]

Time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done. Now is the time to unleash our nation's energy, to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable, and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. You could take every penny the Congress votes on, every penny, every road, every bridge, every education component, every health care component, all of these things. You could shut it down. Zero right to zero tomorrow. And assuming economic growth that we all assume from the American economy over the last 30 years, you still wouldn't balance the budget until 2036, which is what we were sort of critical about at the beginning when there was a whole bunch of false promises. And we were also critical, frankly, like, the first ad out of the gate in the primary from the Trump administration was, you know, like, we're going to enhance social. We're never going to touch Social Security. We're going to enhance social. Good politics.

[Michael Duncan]

Good politics.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, good politics. But you can't simultaneously be a budget hawk and not look at Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and interest on our national debt as off limits. You can't do it like those are. Those are mutually exclusive things because they're now 72% of our budget.

[Michael Duncan]

It's table stakes for saying you're serious about tackling the national debt.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So, but like, the Trump administration knew what they were doing with all of this. It wasn't like a hide the ball thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Not at all.

[Josh Holmes]

They were like, we're gonna start with Doge and they're gonna find waste, fraud, and abuse, which, you know, we're hopeful can produce billions, if not hundreds of billions of Dollars of savings. That much he got. And like, the thing is with Elon, I think he's the most successful industrialist in our age, in large part because this is a guy who thinks outside of the box. He approaches problems differently than anybody else because he thinks outside of the box. But then his professional career, he's always brought in the smartest people of all time to help effectuate his vision. You don't land rockets on the pad unless you've got the smartest rocket scientists in the world helping you do it. It's not like Elon screwing the deadbolts into the side of the rocket. He's got people that are doing that. He did the first part right, by thinking outside the box and identifying all these things that we now know were waste, fraud and abuse. The second part he didn't even care to think about, like it was somebody else's job. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, how do you actually effectuate this into law? Like, how do you make this.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, how do you actually go about cutting it?

[Michael Duncan]

Right, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And like they walked into obvious court decisions were like, well, listen, Congress passed the funding directed to go where it goes. Constitutionally, you look at the Constitution, it's.

[Michael Duncan]

A power of the purse.

[Josh Holmes]

The purse. Like they do the thing. Like it's not a hardcore case to solve. Like this is not. Like we all act like we're outright. We're not really outright. I mean that, that's very, very simple. You can't just walk in and stop congressional spending. What you can do is identify that and then campaign to make sure that Congress doesn't ever do that. It should again, which they missed that component of it. But what bothers me about what he's doing here when he's talking about a pork filled congressional spending bill is that this has nothing to do with spending at all. Reconciliation. And I don't want to get too deep into this, but what it is, is they're dealing with taxes and entitlements. Two things. Two things. That's the only thing you can deal with in the context of reconciliation. And the benefit of that is that you can do it with 50 votes rather than 60. Meaning you don't need Democrats at all when you have Republican majorities. That's why you can get it done. They can deal with entitlements and they can deal with taxes. Trump campaigned on not touching entitlements, campaigned on it, literally. That was his first ad in the primary. In Republican politics, we are not touching any. If anything, we're going to make it easier on people who get Social Security, Medicare, okay, so that shit, the entitlement side is off the table. Congressional Republicans, along with like Stephen Miller, Rus Vaught and a bunch of conservatives did some very, very smart things on the Medicaid side by saying like, okay, illegal aliens, you can't get it if you don't work for a living as an able bodied adult. Like let's put some work requirement, the kind of things that we used to do on a bipartisan basis in the 90s that are now anathema to the Democratic Party again.

[Michael Duncan]

8020 issue 80 20. The American people are with us on this 100%.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So they cobble that stuff together to save $1.5 trillion. And then they want to extend the current tax rates. The tax rate that you see that you just paid two months ago, they want to extend that number because if they don't extend that number, it's going to go up roughly $3.5 trillion. Meaning on average, you know, $3,500 to $5,500 per person. Who's listening to this? Your tax rates are going to go up. And of course the Congressional Budget Office, which is the absolute worst.

[Michael Duncan]

Yuck. Gross.

[Josh Holmes]

They have no dynamic scoring of this whatsoever. They see it as a static, like you lower rates and money goes away type thing, despite the fact that over the last 50 years, every time you lower taxes, you get economic growth that actually produces more revenue to the federal government than you did at the higher rate.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, look at the revenue for TCGA in 2019.

[Josh Holmes]

They don't want to look at the math.

[Michael Duncan]

No, that's an inconvenient number for them.

[Josh Holmes]

So they provide a deficit number. And for decades this was a Republican and Democratic argument where Republicans were like, yeah, but you're just a dumb fuck. Like, you don't understand how this works. Because if you look every single time the economic growth associated with tax cuts, more people, more investment, more money in your pocket, more consumer spending, all of those things creates a larger economy that we can then go forward with and create more revenue. And they're like, yeah, we don't want to hear it. It was a Republican versus Democratic argument. Well, now you've got some libertarians out there. Rand Paul is probably number one. You heard Thomas Massie, the one House Republican who voted against it, were like, these are, this is deficit spending. They're saying that you're taxed. So let me just start with the problem is, is, is multifold. One is there is an assumption that something dealing with the rates of taxes that you pay is already Assumed to the federal government.

[Michael Duncan]

It's such an arrogant thing.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a horrible way of looking at it.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's like, it's especially arrogant coming from people who consider themselves libertarians. That's the thing that you would presume that keeping the tax rates of Americans the same is somehow a deficit buster. I mean, fix the government spending problem, dude, what are you talking about?

[Josh Holmes]

And they talk about, I'll give, I'll give Rand some credit on this and that he's got the political wherewithal to say, like, I would do something about Medicare, Social Security.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm sure he would.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't doubt it for a second.

[Josh Holmes]

He doesn't avoid that conversation, of course, but the vast majority of people who find themselves in the, like, deficit consciousness part of this discussion who are concerned about the price tag of the big beautiful bill are people who hid underneath the we need to do something about spending, never did anything. And then look at what you're paying as what the price tag ultimately is. So it's an assumption that you are already paying the bracket that you were paying in 2016, which is 3 to 5 points higher than you paid.

[Michael Duncan]

We have a deficit because you, taxpayer, are stealing from the government.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's unreal.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. That's the thing. And if that is your point of view, let me just suggest you're not a Republican.

[Michael Duncan]

Join the Democratic Party.

[Josh Holmes]

Join it. Get out. Like, you're not a conservative at all. If you're concerned about our deficit, let's have a wholesale discussion about chained CPI age adjustments. Any kind of evaluation on growth of Social Security and Medicare when it comes to income, means test values. Like a means test. Let's have a conversation about that. Because if you're concerned about. That's the conversation that you need to have to consider.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, the government taking your money is like, this is just the baseline. Like, why would you dare touch that? Is insane.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's even more insidious and even worse than that. It's not the rates that you're currently paying. It's a higher rate. They're assuming a higher rate. They're assuming three to five points on the taxpayers above that as the baseline. And anything that means that you were paying the same taxes that you paid last year counts in their mind.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

As a deficit.

[Michael Duncan]

The CBO is like, hey, we got to pass the hat because we can't cut any of this spending and you're just being a cheapskate, Mr. Taxpayer. Yeah, you're getting a good deal.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That's why we have a deficit. Because you're stingy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, think about that for a second.

[Comfortably Smug]

That is such an insane way to think.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And it gets worse when you couple in Doge and you find out all the ways, fraud and abuse that's been going on. But it's a separate process. It's an appropriations process. It, by law, can't be in a reconciliation bill. Now I understand why people are confused by this. And there could have been a messaging issue with that, that, like, honestly, I get it. Like, you thought the big, beautiful bill. Well, you may have thought that, like, all that shit was in there.

[Michael Duncan]

And we talked about this on a previous episode when I was like, I think they kind of dropped the ball a little bit with how they messaged the Doge stuff and then went to the reconciliation bill without trying to figure out a way to publicize. Like, we're gonna try to make this stuff statutory on the Doge cuts.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, and we're gonna hear from Joni Ernst about some of that. So, like, also, do not miss that interview, because it's fascinating on that side of it. But, like, I think that that elevated the confusion of people, is that you can't spend the first hundred days talking about all this terrible, wasteful spending of the government and then be like, you know what? Keeping the rates is actually going to increase the deficit.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, and they want it both ways. They want it both ways.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

They want to say that you not paying a higher rate is what contributes to the deficit. But then they're like, oh, but we ought to do a whole bunch of things that we probably won't do to reduce it. So it's like, vote no on either one. And, like, I'm the. I am the hardcore guy here, you know, and it's. So anyway, listen, Stephen Miller, I want to single him out in particular. And we're going to get to this after the break. This guy has been doing Yoens work at explaining the process. We don't expect you, as a listener who's interested in this and interested in your tax rates and interested in politics in general, to be an expert in parliamentary process. We spent 20 years doing this, which is why we know a little bit about it. Don't expect you to know it. But I do have a problem when people who know, they don't know try to explain to you, like, it's simpler than you all think, that it's all the same thing. It's a deliberate misconstruing of a situation that the Trump administration is trying to get their arms around and all these members of Congress are trying to do. Steven does a great job. We're going to get into everything he has to say right after this.

[Dick Durbin]

America is built on hard work and powered by American energy. Chevron has spent $44 billion with local businesses across all 50 states since 2022, fueling infrastructure and communities, all while strengthening local economies. Last year, Chevron increased U.S. production nearly 20%, powering communities and businesses from the heartlands to the coasts. We're helping to fuel America's energy advantage, building a brighter future right here at home. Visit chevron.comamera to discover more.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so we talked about how Stephen Miller is trying to explain this to everybody. I understand everybody's not on accident. It's certainly not going to mean included in the legacy media. They don't give a damn about any of that. I mean, they just. They just don't care.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, why would they? Because all they want to do is have a Chiron on MSNBC talking about Republican infighting.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

It's that. And then they go back to the Congressional Budget Office, which anybody who does this for a living knows since the beginning of time. You actually can't cut taxes with a number from the Congressional Budget Office because it doesn't reflect reality. Like, it doesn't. It's been 30 years of demonstrated falsehoods and yet they just keep coming back to it.

[Michael Duncan]

But they all run with those two incredible cottage industry.

[Josh Holmes]

It's unbelievable. Anyway, here's Miller's tweet. Let's toss up graphic three. One of the. One of the bigger points of confusion on the BBB is spending versus tax cuts. The lefty CBO says extending 2017 tax cuts, preventing their expiration, which is right. Glad they specified that. Increases the deficit. Some critics have seen this figuring, claimed or implied, the bill increases spending. Okay, all right, let's stop. Let's stop right there. That's one component that you need to understand when they say this increases spending or when Elon Musk calls it a spending bill full of pork, as he said, what they're talking about, the pork in the spending is the gulf between the tax rate that you paid last year and the higher tax rate they're suggesting that you pay next year. It has nothing to do with usaid, with the nonsense things that Doge.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Was the bullshit to the NGOs. None of that is relevant to this.

[Josh Holmes]

None of that is in. It is simply the gulf between the tax rate that you just paid on April 15, and the tax rate that they would like you to Pay, which is 3 to 5 points higher than that.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. When they say spending, that's what it is.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's nuts that, like, people have gotten this confused about what that is of that. The CBO is essentially as an entity. They believe all your money should be theirs to start with, unless you're collecting every American's every penny. Well, that's a deficit, because there's Americans left with money that could have been sent to Congress.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, smug. I would go further and say it's not a confusion. I would say it's being willfully obtuse to, you know, quote Shawshank Redemption.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's good. Willfully.

[Michael Duncan]

Why are you being obtuse now?

[Josh Holmes]

It is. But, like, this is where it gets really bad. So even is it Miller again? I'm quoting from Miller again. Even according to CBO, the bill cut spending by over $1.6 trillion. So when a libertarian, Rand example, attacks the deficit impact of the bill, they're attacking just the tax cut.

[Michael Duncan]

So a libertarian attacking a tax cut.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, so. So. So, like, let's get that clear, because there's political vulnerability on what he's talking about. The $1.6 trillion spending cut that is in this bill also provides a whole lot of liability to a whole bunch of Republicans in the middle. You've heard that show up in the context of Medicaid cuts and all these things, which we can contextualize later. But that. That's, like, where the political vulnerability the Democrats are trying to seize on. What he is talking about is, again, the gulf between what you paid in taxes and what in 2016, you paid in taxes, which is 3 to 5% higher. And they're calling it spending.

[Michael Duncan]

Just absurd.

[Josh Holmes]

They're calling it government spending. I just want to make that clear. The money that you have, that you worked hard for, that you send Uncle Sam when it's not higher than they'd like it to be, that's spending.

[Michael Duncan]

I think it's important for us to, like, level set here with the audience for a second because, like, we are obviously getting in the weeds on some very specific things. The reason why we're doing that is because it's more important than being a conservative podcast. It's more important than talking about the great work that the Trump administration is doing. What's most important to me and every person here on this panel is that we're honest with you and we're looking out for you and Your wallet. And like, that is the end of the day. It's like, I'm not going to live in a world where Republicans accept. Accept that the government has an a priori right to your money. That is not a Republican Party. That is not a conservative movement.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh. I mean, it'd be very easy for us to be like, I don't know. He said, she said.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

No, I'm not gonna say.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm not gonna sit here in a microphone and fucking, you know, talk about how great things and whistle past the graveyard, because that's not reality. It's like there are people that are giving you a fucking line of bullshit when the reality is you're using a CBO score. These lefty bullshit artists talking about how you actually need to. You have to pay the 2016 rate, otherwise. Well, we got that. You exploded the deficit on me. The government, the people who we elect us, they couldn't spend responsibly, so it's your fault.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yep. I. I could have sworn we talked about not swearing.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, well, whatever.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm sorry. We talked about.

[Michael Duncan]

I just got. I. I got it. I got.

[Josh Holmes]

Michael, we talked about it. You said. Well, you know, the algorithm doesn't appreciate that.

[Michael Duncan]

They don't thing.

[Josh Holmes]

They really don't scolded me for it. And here we go. There was like three.

[Michael Duncan]

I got. I got. I got lost in it. I'm sorry.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, well, I'm glad we're all lost in the sauce. Authenticity. That's what I appreciate.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Not the algorithm. Okay. Anyway, so we'll pick this back up. So, listen, he says. He goes on to say, of course, honestly accounted for extending the current tax rates has zero deficit. Deficit impact. Of course it doesn't, because that's what the baseline is. It's the amount of money that the government assumes. The problem is, the government is assuming that taxes are going to go up 3 to 5%. And if the government doesn't get those 3 to 5%, CBO says that's spending. Right. So he's explaining this to you, and then he says the second major point of confusion is what is actually in the reconciliation bill. It's not an appropriations bill, as we've discussed, or a general budget bill. It provides no funding or authorization for 99.9% of operations of government. It was written not by the appropriators, but by some of the most conservative members of the House. It is not a single Democratic provision or vote. The bill has three principal sections. Tax cuts, welfare reform. That's the Medicaid Piece Immigration and Border Security, because they expand the pot of which is entitled to the defense of our country when it comes to our borders and immigration. It's a dream bill. He concludes. I can't argue with that in his context.

[Michael Duncan]

How could you? I mean, this is a guy, Stephen Miller. This has been his life's work.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

He's an expert at this. He knows this better than almost anyone in this town. You know, I mean, like, you can't seriously disagree with what he said because he's describing the exact process as it exists.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, look, if. If you.

[Michael Duncan]

Not a fan, not like, not a fantasy of, like, wouldn't it be great if we could. You know what I mean? And too much of our politics is that, yes. Is like, wouldn't it be great if we could? And it's like, no. But there is a reality that we operate in, and the reason why we're doing it this way is because we don't want to ask Chuck Schumer for votes.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And before you think, like, we're fanboys about this, let me just tell you this is my least favorite tax bill that we've had in the 20 years I've been doing it, because I don't think it's all that. It's like extending current rates you get. If you make a living on tips, you're going to be wild about it. If you're a senior citizen who's had the benefit of the doubt for the American taxpayer footing the bill for you, from my perspective, for the best part of 40 years, you're going to love it. Right. For the average, like, American, you're just going to be paying the same rate that you did. This is not some dramatic tax cut, but it does follow very closely along the lines of what President Trump talked about. This was his campaign promise. I knew what we were getting into. I didn't expect, like, a massive tax cut as a result of this. He didn't promise one. He promised one to service industry workers. He promised one to senior citizens. And that was a shitload better than whatever Kamala Harris was coming back when she was a champion of small business.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Despite never, like, having a single day in a small business.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know. I was told she worked at McDonald's.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't be verified, but, like, that is not. We're not, like, over the moon about the tax. This is the best that you can do on the campaign promises that President Trump made. I'd love to have a flat tax for crisis.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the thing is like, yeah, in a dream world, I'd love it to hit 0%. I'm gonna be real. That's what I would have loved to build.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

But the thing is that everything Stephen Miller says here is truth. That's the thing. And like, I think so many folks are completely confused about what this bill is, what it does. They think it's the, like, budget bill. And that, like, with Elon's. Clearly Elon doesn't understand what's in the bill, like, very clear when he's like, this is full of pork. No, because it's not. There's no appropriations in this.

[Josh Holmes]

There's nothing.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's no. It's literally pork is like, appreciate. Pork is appropriations that you put in to get like, essentially a congressman's vote on something. Be like, okay, let's put some government program in, in like, you know, New Mexico's third district so we can get this guy to get on the bill. There's literally none of that because there's no appropriations going on in this bill. It's just the argument that the left has made and that people bought into was that if you don't hand your money over to the government, that's deficit spending. It's insane.

[Josh Holmes]

It's one of three things. When it comes to Elon. I'm just gonna be totally honest.

[Michael Duncan]

Do it.

[Josh Holmes]

It's the one of. It's one of three things. The first, the most cynical is this bill you can't argue with. It zeros out tax credits for electric vehicles. Tesla is built in large part on those tax credits, providing an economic incentive for the American people to use a deduction to buy an electric vehicle. It just was. I don't think that's it because I watched the purchase of Twitter.

[Michael Duncan]

You don't buy Twitter if you're worried about that.

[Josh Holmes]

I watched him put all the skin in the game in 24. I watched the personal liability that that guy put himself through. I don't think he gives a shit his about bottom line. Like, I don't mean maybe it plays some role and then he's getting pinched with Tesla and all kinds of different things. But I don't. I just don't think that's it. The second part is what I talked about in that he actually just doesn't understand government. He did the first part of what he does so well. In the second part, he just didn't understand or come to a complete understanding of how you go about effectuating his vision on shrinking government and eliminating waste. That seems plausible. The Third is there's something else going on here and I don't know what that could be. I don't want to speculate too hard, but there is a story, there's a story that showed up that we got to tell you about because it may have, it may have some impact on some of this stuff. Steve Bannon, the War Room. Everybody knows Steve Bannon. He says that Elon Musk and Scott Besant had a physical confrontation. This is according to Newsweek. Elon Musk allegedly got into a heated discussion with a senior White House official that turned physical during his time as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency Doge. According to Steve Bannon, a former chief strategist of President Donald Trump in his first term in office, Bannon told the Daily Mail that Musk's turbulent time at the Winehouse took a dramatic turn when he allegedly shoved 62 year old Treasury Secretary Scott Besant during a heated exchange. According to Bannon, Besant confronted Musk over his sweeping but unfulfilled promises to deliver $1 trillion of budget cuts. Scott Besant called him out and said, you promised us a trillion dollars in cuts and now you're at like 100 billion. Nobody can find any savings. What are you doing? According to Bannon. Okay, okay. And that's when Elon got physical. According to Bannon, it's a sore subject with him. Bannon said it wasn't an argument, it was a physical confrontation. Elon basically shoved him. According to Bannon, the clash occurred as Musk and Besant moved from the Oval Office to outside the Chief of Staff Susie Wiles office and then passed the office of then National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Trump 100% sided with Besant after the clash. Bannon added, I don't think Besant has any bad blood, but he's got a job to do and he is going to to do it. According to Bannon.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay, so that's Bannon's plugged in. I'll say that, man. Okay, Bannon is plugged in.

[Josh Holmes]

He's plugged in.

[Michael Duncan]

Bannon is plugged in. Okay. Yes. However, I would say he's had the knives out for Elon.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, he has.

[Michael Duncan]

He might be an unreliable narrator when it comes to this sort of thing. Or I don't know, or a lot I don't know.

[Comfortably Smug]

Or like, like I would think if this was complete, this is me just, you know, what I do best, just asking questions. But like, if it didn't happen, wouldn't someone immediately come out and be like, that didn't happen. Actually, of course that didn't happen.

[Josh Holmes]

You would have seen more commentary, I think. But I don't know. I mean, again, maybe you just wanted to go away and it's Newsweek. It's basically like a clickbait publication that doesn't have any real weight.

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

You just kind of make it go away. And I don't know. I mean, listen, to be clear, we didn't inquire with the White House press office about this.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, okay, so here's my take on it. I mean, like, Bessant could be right 100%. But if he really thought that he was going to get to a trillion dollars of cuts, then he was setting up Elon Musk for failure. Because what Elon Musk was looking at was.

[Josh Holmes]

No, Elon's the one that said a trillion dollars in cuts.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, fine.

[Josh Holmes]

It wasn't.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the thing. So, like, yeah, I saw, I saw real quick. Just like someone did a GROK fact check, which I love GROK for being able to do this, of like, what amount did Elon promise? I think he initially gunned for. He said on the campaign trail he would love to see like 2 trillion in cuts. Then Elon said, I'd love to see 1 trillion in cuts if we can get there. And then he moved it to the more reasonable. The goal became like 150.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, I get all that. Here's what I would say in Elon's defense is like, if you're not somebody who's worked in politics, you look at the government, you look at the spending, and you think all things are the same thing. And I can look and, and find ways to cut across all of these things. But, like, when your remit becomes USAID and all of these programs, it becomes a very small part of the hype.

[Josh Holmes]

But again, this is why you listen to the ruthless Friday program. Because back in the primary of the Republican party during the 24 election, we had an episode where we were extremely critical about multiple ads from Republican candidates saying we will never change anything about Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, or interest in our national debt. Like, they basically just communicated to the American people. Now, politics wise, was that smart. Sure, but it boxes you into a situation that you're describing.

[Michael Duncan]

Now, look, dude, I think Elon approach this like most grassroots conservatives did, and they're like, I don't understand what the process of this is. All I know is there's a lot of waste that is here in this government that we can cut out of it. And he wasn't thinking about Reconciliation bills and what can fit in them, or, like, what's discretionary versus what's mandatory spending? And he's like, I think I can cut this much out of the government. But, like, when you also have your, like your, your, your sales kind of trimmed by the fact that, like, you're locked into that thing, like you said Holmes, it's an impossible task. You can't, you can't look around to the discretionary budget for waste, fraud and abuse and be like, we're going to balance the budget. That's not a realistic thing to do.

[Josh Holmes]

It's all, it's all just understanding the, the significance of the task that you're undertaking. I mean, there was like, I don't have the numbers, so I'm paraphrasing. These are definitely wrong, but, like, it's. A million seconds ago was like last Wednesday, and 10 million was like, a month ago, and 100 million was like, six months ago, and a billion was 20 years ago, and a trillion was like before the birth of Christ.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

So, like, understanding what you're dealing with when 73% of the American budget is on autopilot in that Medicare and Social Security and interest in the national debt category, when you take that off the table and pretend like you're gonna balance the budget, it's a dishonest conversation.

[Michael Duncan]

It is.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a dishonest conversation. And like, for you that are listening, like, look, it's really easy to be like, yay, government has spent so much money on dumb shit, and they do, and they should root all that out. And I think Doge exposed an awful lot of it. But if you're actually talking about balanced budgets, it's the only conversation you can have, because you can shut down the government tomorrow, turn the lights off, not spend another dime, have every member of your Congress go home for the next 15 years, and you're not going to balance the budget. Think about that.

[Comfortably Smug]

But nature would begin healing.

[Josh Holmes]

But I mean, so. So, like, that's the honest conversation.

[Michael Duncan]

Right? But people don't want to have.

[Josh Holmes]

They don't want.

[Michael Duncan]

The difficult thing about politics. It's, it's, it's. This conundrum we find ourselves in is like the actual solution to the thing is politically difficult to do, and nobody does.

[Josh Holmes]

Nobody wants even the people who are most adept and take the most risk.

[Michael Duncan]

Somebody like Elon Musk can't even get there.

[Josh Holmes]

Can't get there. That tells you how disgusting this whole situation is that we've gotten ourselves into. Anyway. The question is, how does this end, especially with the Elon and Trump thing, like, he's not working in the government, obviously the president's biggest supporter. They're good friends. He's enmeshed in so much of the identity of this administration, but he's now, like, drawn a heavy line against the signature, the cornerstone of the Trump agenda. How's it end?

[Comfortably Smug]

Great question. That's a great question.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, what happens here? Is it a divorce? Is it a, like, people come to their senses? We have the conversation that you just heard because if you had that conversation, it feels like you can get to the right place.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But I don't know. When we come back, your comments from last episode on what can Trump do to stop the Middle Eastern terrorism from coming to the United States of America. Particularly proud of that episode. I think we did a really good job of breaking down just how corrupt the media is. We're going to get to all of it right after this.

[Dick Durbin]

America is built on hard work and powered by American energy. Chevron has spent $44 billion with local businesses across all 50 states since 2022, fueling infrastructure and communities, all while strengthening local economies. Last year, Chevron increased U.S. production nearly 20%, powering communities and businesses from the heartlands to the coasts. We're helping to fuel America's energy advantage, building a brighter future right here at home. Visit chevron.comamera to discover more.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, well, we usually start with a voice, but he's probably hugging the porcelain as we speak.

[Comfortably Smug]

Poor guy.

[Michael Duncan]

I'll try to fill in the best I can.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, you made a mistake.

[Michael Duncan]

You might as well write, this is from David Henderson.

[Josh Holmes]

Made a mistake. You might as well fill in. Yeah, a little Typhoid Mary down here.

[Michael Duncan]

It's not true. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do a HIPAA violation and explain why it's not true. Because I have respect for my co host who's not here, even though I trolled him in the opening sec.

[Comfortably Smug]

Anyway, you think Smith David made him.

[Michael Duncan]

Say David Henderson writes, trump has done what he can do. It's time for Congress to act and codify into law Trump's eos on this topic. Love the show, guys. I never miss it. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please are the greatest six words in podcasting, bar none.

[Josh Holmes]

Thanks, David.

[Comfortably Smug]

They are.

[Josh Holmes]

That's all fantastic and an homage to our man Smash as he is staring down the porcelain goddess.

[Comfortably Smug]

And we were gonna have a king of the hill until Duncan made him sick.

[Josh Holmes]

I know we had a good one.

[Comfortably Smug]

It would have been a great one.

[Josh Holmes]

I would have banged out, too, because I had Ashbrook money. Stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

Poor Ashbrook. All right, what about comment two comes from Ratboyd. And they write Trump could impose a travel ban on a list of countries and would get a news replay from 2017 journals. Probably wouldn't even update the graphics. That's good. That's good.

[Josh Holmes]

That's so good. I love that. Comment three comes from Zach Gutman. Has any country successfully fought off a communist revolution? Whatever that takes is what Trump needs to do. But I have little faith he'll be able to do it with the media, the universities, and a lot of our court systems fully committed. Let me give you a little hope, Zach. We did it here, we did it here. Don't think they haven't tried. They've tried each and every time they've gotten their hands on power. And one of the things that I'm most proud about in my entire career being associated with were the eight years that we served in a minority capacity under Barack Obama. Because they tried every day.

[Comfortably Smug]

They tried.

[Josh Holmes]

They tried every day.

[Michael Duncan]

Everybody forgets that everything that you're seeing today from the left, the seed was planted by Barack Obama.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

100%.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep. And. But it has taken the vigilance, and it's why we spent so much time on the front end trying to get the shit right with our own people about what it is that you're hearing and, like, making sure we're all on the same page about it. Because you can't beat these people if half of your people are using their talking points.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Michael Duncan]

Can't be divided.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, if you think that your tax dollar is reckless government spending. Like, if you think that the gulf between the tax rate you paid this year and what you paid in 16 is a government spending activity, you've missed it.

[Michael Duncan]

You've missed it.

[Josh Holmes]

You've missed it. You've missed what it takes to be a conservative. That's what Communists do. They try to confuse.

[Michael Duncan]

You're stealing from the government.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. You're stealing from the government. It's all of our collective thing. We've just yet to determine how much it is that you owe.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, Right.

[Josh Holmes]

And depending upon how, you could look at it as successful or you could look at it as a threat to the government that we pose and the decisions that we make for you, we reserve the right to do more.

[Michael Duncan]

We'll decide who deserves this.

[Josh Holmes]

That, Zach, is what the Communists have in mind. But we've had a lot of success. So has There been a country, it's us just got to continue. So we got to go right into interview. Joni's going to give us context on this with that. JONI Ernst, well, we wanted to give you a little bit more flavor for the big beautiful bill as it goes into the Senate. And we thought who else but to talk about something than somebody who is taking that right on the chin and come back fighting to try to explain all of this to everybody, giving you a little insight into what the Senate is about to do. JONI Ernst, Senator, how are you?

[Joni Ernst]

Oh, great. It's good to be with you. It's always nice to be be with the fellas.

[Josh Holmes]

Always nice. I think she probably needs a jacket. We talked about procuring jackets for people who appear on the program four more times.

[Michael Duncan]

I feel like you're, you're now like an Augusta jacket.

[Joni Ernst]

Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yeah, I think so.

[Josh Holmes]

I think we needed, we needed Wolf, let's get on that.

[Joni Ernst]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, you've been a part of a lot of really contentious debates over the years, always with a thoughtful touch, representing your constituency, you know, trying to see the impact of everything. But when you get into tax debates with Democrats, it's insane, right? I mean, they just, they've totally misconstrue everything that is a part of a package. Obviously, that's what's happening now. How do you see, just at the onset, before this thing sort of gets into the meat of votes and all of that, like, where do you think the big beautiful bill is in the United States Senate?

[Joni Ernst]

Well, in the United States Senate, we are currently drawing up our own provisions that will go forward into the big beautiful bill that President Trump wants. And it's so it's going to be a good process, a thoughtful process as we move through this. And even before the bill, Texas ever came out from the House, we heard a lot of screaming and wailing out across the United States with people not even understanding what was going to be in the bill or how it would end up in the Senate and then what form it would take once the Senate got done with it. So there's still a lot of work to be done, but there's a lot of teeth gnashing and hand wringing going on over this. But truly, what we are trying to do, one, we want to extend or make permanent the tax cuts of 2017 through the tax Cuts and Jobs act.

[Josh Holmes]

Which I, you know, look, I put my communicator hat on and this is like the, the leadership role that I used to have in a comms capacity. We keep talking about this tax cuts. Yeah, no, there's tax cuts in here, for sure, but so much of this is about keeping everyone's tax rate exactly where it's at. If you don't do something, it's going up dramatically.

[Joni Ernst]

Dramatically. What we would look at would be a $4.3 trillion tax increase on the American people if we do not extend these tax cuts, if we do not make some of these permanent. One thing as well, we've had conversations, and as we look at modeling on the impact of not doing this bill, we could see a 4% drop in GDP across the United States, setting us up for a very, very serious recession.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's the thing that the bean counters over at the Congressional Budget Office have never understood. I've been a part of now more than I want to admit, but at least four different efforts to try to cut taxes, and they always come back with the same thing. We've been talking about this a lot lately where CBO is like, well, I mean, it's always a static look. Well, they've cut taxes so that revenue comes out. And so you're going to have this much revenue. It is absolutely no bearing on what the economy does as a result of it. I mean, I think we saw.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. In the Tax Cuts and Jobs act, they predicted we would lose 1.5 trillion.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

In revenue as a result.

[Josh Holmes]

We do.

[Michael Duncan]

They were off by 1.5 trillion, as it turns out.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, and yet. Covid. In between.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, Covid. In between. Between. I mean, you could just look at, like, the revenue number that came up in the year after and see that they were wrong, but they seem to always get it wrong. And part of it is they can't, like you were saying, they don't look dynamically at what the economy is going to do as a result of, you know, businesses and people finally having some predictability of what the rate is going to be for the foreseeable future. Like, businesses don't plan one year in advance. They plan 10 years in advance.

[Josh Holmes]

And you look at this from the standpoint of Iowa. Right. I mean, can we miss the people of Iowa, by the way? It's been, like an hour.

[Joni Ernst]

They are so good.

[Josh Holmes]

It's been over a year since we've seen the good people of Iowa.

[Michael Duncan]

And she's. She's hosted us around.

[Joni Ernst]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

You were great.

[Joni Ernst]

You need to come on back because we've got the state fair. I've got my roast and ride coming up in October. Lots of Opportunities, folks.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. All right. We'll keep the. We'll take it under advisement. But I mean, the way that. And I've. We've known you for a long time now, and the way that you look at it is. All right, what, what impacted it. This have on Iowans, Iowa farmers, you know, people who are just trying to make a living, whether they're in the like, the no tax on tips situation with people who are, you know, waiting on tables and things like that. And you look at that versus what it is that people are trying to do to stop this. I mean, it's a dramatic difference.

[Joni Ernst]

Yeah. I think what we're seeing from the left is again, a lot of fear mongering and they're not thinking about the people that are impacted by not enacting this legislation. Like you mentioned, tax on tips. I mean, that's pretty significant. No tax on Social Security. Oh, my gosh, let's please help.

[Michael Duncan]

That can't be true. Senator, I was told this is a giveaway to the rich.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, that's what I was told reliably. It's just for the rich. Yeah.

[Joni Ernst]

You know. Oh, gosh. I think about my mom and my dad and I think a lot of folks do tend to forget that some senators are actually human beings too.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you in particular. You in particular.

[Joni Ernst]

I feel like I still live in my hometown in Red Oak. I don't live in a big fancy city. I live eight miles from where I grew up on the farm. My neighbors are impacted by the very legislation that we are working on. And all of us do take that into consideration. I think about the reference prices, which are prices that are set by the federal government. Reference prices for our farmers when it comes to, say, natural disasters or times of drought. You know, what prices do you use when you're trying to compensate farmers? Those reference prices haven't been updated since 2014. Things have changed significantly for our farmers since 2014. And in the 2014 farm bill, it was data that was from 2012. So we are updating reference prices in the reconciliation bill. That's a huge deal not just in Iowa for our farmers, but all across the United States. So things like that, the no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, of course we want to strengthen Medicaid, which we think is really important. My staff. And just going back and looking at the situation, There were over 543 billion with a B missed payments made through Medicaid for people that were not eligible. Just over the last 10 years, half a trillion dollars. So we had to get that right.

[Josh Holmes]

It's always been a conversation about waste, fraud, abuse, illegal immigration. It's never been about a cut to Medicaid.

[Joni Ernst]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

And I know, like, look, you. Nobody can take a joke these days.

[Joni Ernst]

Nobody can take a joke.

[Josh Holmes]

So, like, you make a joke, and all of a sudden you're the. You're the person who is. Oh, you want to defund and kill people. But, like, the very premise of the attacks that you've undergone is the idea that you just have to, like, separate your mind from what this bill does, from just some political talking point that Democrats are going to have about anything in terms of Medicaid. I don't think this is. I mean, if it was up to me, I'd do a hell of a lot more if I had just like a magic wand in terms of reforming that system. You've seen places like California with Medi. Cal.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's basically the backstop to bloated budgets that they have in that state. There's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse there. But this is kind of a scalpel to make sure that people who are on Medicaid can actually receive it.

[Joni Ernst]

Right. And at the town hall that I had the other day, there was a really, really good story that was shared by one of the members of the audience that was a great example. It was a young mother of. Her husband is working. She is working, but they are part of our working poor, and they need Medicaid.

[Josh Holmes]

It's literally designed to help.

[Michael Duncan]

And they shouldn't get the short shrift because people are abusing the system.

[Joni Ernst]

Exactly. And that's what I shared with her. I said, that is a really incredible story, and you are exactly the people that we want to protect on Medicaid. See, this is admirable that they're working.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. The demonization of politics, it never gets to that story. We have a ton of listeners who, you know, we did a whole segment on. On this whole thing, and they got back to us. Hey, there was a portion of my life where I was a single mother or single father, and I was trying to deal with all this, and I had to have some supplement to make sure that my kids were fed. And, like, that's what I kept coming back to is, like, you got to know these people. If you know Joni Ernst, she's not interested in doing anything but making sure that you can get to the place that you're at with ensuring that you're taken care of and you have the capability of rising out of it. And going, absolutely, you know, becoming a more productive piece of this economy. That's the whole goal of this bill.

[Joni Ernst]

So, yeah, I think that the demonization that is out there, and, hey, I've got broad shoulders. I can take it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, you've done it a lot over the years.

[Joni Ernst]

But what a lot of folks remember is that just 10 years ago, when I shared my personal story about wearing bread bags over my shoes when I was a kid because we only had one pair of shoes, you know, my mother went to extreme lengths to make sure that we were always neat and tidy going to school. You know, I wore homemade clothes that my mother made my mother canned. We had a huge garden. So I came from a family that probably would fall within those poverty ranges today. But we were a very proud family. My family worked really hard. Today I'm a United States senator, but I still live in my home community. I still go to church with the same people I grew up with. I can't say that of a lot of these Democratic members on the other side that went to private schools and really fancy colleges. You know, the dress I'm wearing today came from Goodwill and Council Bluffs. So, I mean, I'm serious. I still know my roots where I came from. And I can appreciate that people fall on hard times, but what we are trying to do is help them up out of those hard times. And so for the left to be out there in their fancy suit jackets and just berating everyone for trying to help people do a little bit better and as you said, protect what we have so that it goes a little bit farther for those families that truly do need it, that is really, really important.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And it starts with being a good custodian of the people's money. I think as we get into CBO scores and you've seen this construed even on our own side, misconstrued as the. This is a spending bill. Spending. No, it's about taxes and entitlements. And you can make reforms to make these entitlements stronger, as we've discussed. But ultimately, this is the people's money. And what we're talking about is taking. Either taking by doing nothing, taking more of it away from the American people, or allowing them to keep, you know, virtually the same amount, they've got more. Or in special circumstances, they get a lot. You know, you get no tax on tips and that kind of thing. But that ideology is what made most of us Republicans, is you understand that federal government's working for the people. It's not. We're not just taking your stuff and telling you we can do it better than you can. And as this debate has progressed and you've seen, like, the Elon Musk comments where he's talking about this bill in a way that it's a big spending bill, it's not doing all kinds of things, and he's frustrated about the Doge cuts. You've talked about the Doge cuts, but it's a separate process.

[Joni Ernst]

It is. And what we are hoping in the Senate as well is that we can find other cuts, we can make the bill better because there is, believe me, I've been doing this for over 10 years now with my squeal awards, my, my squeal work. We've got a long ways to go to get things a lot better. And it's fraud.

[Josh Holmes]

That's a throwback to the first make them squeal.

[Joni Ernst]

I love it, but we can do much better. And so I share Elon's frustrations and I've worked with him on Doge. And so we can do better in the Senate, but it is a separate process when it comes to the discretionary spending portion of our budget that will be done through a rescissions package. And we have the first one that's gone to the House already from the president and director of Vote over at the Office of Management and Budget. So we're starting with a very small $9 billion package that we can rescind, get rid of that spending, but there's a lot more to go, and we can do that. So you won't see all of the savings and in the reconciliation package, but for the American people, we will continue working on this because a lot of what is being rescinded is money that as a federal government, we really shouldn't be spending. We really shouldn't be spending.

[Josh Holmes]

How frustrating, though, is it for you to see it conflated, where we're talking about very real cuts that Doge identified, Elon identified in his team with the idea that they'll take a CBO score and they'll be like, well, it's four or $5 trillion deficits as a result of this. Like, very clearly what that is is you paying the tax rate that you're currently paying. They're scoring that as a $4 trillion loss. And as we've seen over two decades, the economic growth overwhelms. All of that is it's gotta be frustrating sitting in your seat knowing all that and also knowing how difficult it is to explain all of that when Democrats are Making this argument that somehow they're budget hawks.

[Joni Ernst]

Oh, my gosh. A little bit of a throwback. Sorry. I go back to the Iowa State Senate when one of my first days there, I had a Democratic senator, you know, behind the chambers. He laughed at me and he was like, ha, ha ha, Joanie, I love being a Democrat. I never have to tell anybody. No, I mean, that's that. I mean, he literally said that to me. And I see the same thing here in Washington, D.C. the Democrats never say no. You see a big good spending bill, man, they're all about it, put more in there. And now all of a sudden, yeah, they want to be these fiscal hawks. Well, actually, we're the ones being the hawks going through doge and finding the savings, the fraud, waste and abuse.

[Josh Holmes]

It's never popular to find the fraud and abuse because everybody's got an excuse for it.

[Joni Ernst]

Oh, my gosh.

[Michael Duncan]

And somebody has to be the adult in the room. Right? I mean, that's what the brand of the Republican Party is. And if we ever lose that, then we're going to lose what we've gained. And we can't be afraid to have this fight. Like we have to do it, you know, even if it's difficult. It's always easier to tell everybody yes to everything that they want. But then we're gonna lose our way in all this stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

No question about it. Well, listen, big heart, we know where you came from. We've watched that all the way through your entire career. Happy to say I was there at the beginning of the beginning, and you've always been a good friend of the program. I know you're looking at this the right way. Thanks for your good work and let's hope we get it done.

[Joni Ernst]

Yeah, I hope so too. And in the end, we will have a strong bill that protects the most vulnerable in our population, making sure that they do have access to medical care, making sure that those hard working entrepreneurs and small business owners, you know, are still receiving the tax opportunities that they should. I mean, this is all about making America stronger again. And I think we're well on our way. So thank you.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you so much. Joni Ernst, ladies and gentlemen. Gentlemen. All right. Thanks to Senator Joni Ernst for coming in. She puts a lot of that in context. I do find it completely hilarious that if you're in. In cycle, you can't joke about anything.

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

And like, she makes an offhand. We didn't talk about it in the interview, but she made an offhand comment about like, everybody's gonna die.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, to a bunch of, like, left wing activists who are like, if you end net neutrality, we're all gonna die. If you pass tcga, we're all gonna die.

[Josh Holmes]

They said it about everything that Republicans have ever tried to do and she tried to make light of it and she was like, see, she wants people on medication.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, she wants people to die.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, yeah, yeah, definitely. Somebody who grew up, like, amongst the poorest of all of the United States senators is the one who wants to make poor people die. Not the case. And I think she quitted herself quite well in explaining what it is that they're trying to do. I just think that people like that are gonna fight figure it out in the United States. And I think this is all noise. And I think that thune, the leadership team, you're all going to get together at some point, disabuse this nonsense about your tax dollars, equal spending from the government. And I think you're going to get there. Anyway, thanks to her for coming in. We always appreciate it. We got a lightning round of stuff that we got to cover. This one caught my eye. Incredible stuff. It's a flashback to the Tuesday episode. We were talking about the Boulder, Colorado situation. USA Today had a take. Were they interested in, I don't know.

[Michael Duncan]

The victims, maybe explaining the motives of the terrorist?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Were they talking about the political culture that gave rise and radicalized somebody in their midst?

[Michael Duncan]

I hope so. Spoiler alert.

[Comfortably Smug]

They didn't.

[Josh Holmes]

No. They write headline, boulder suspect's daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation.

[Michael Duncan]

In these trying times, we must think of the terrorist families.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, I love.

[Michael Duncan]

So what about the other bin Ladens?

[Comfortably Smug]

This is like, how do you look yourself in the mirror if this is your kind of thinking?

[Josh Holmes]

How about elderly Jews dreamed of not being set on fire.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, right. No, no, not an important story to tell.

[Comfortably Smug]

Their hatred of, like, Trump and the like cooked in antisemitism among the left, which ostensibly also clearly extends to the media, is so great and has rotted their brains and their souls to the point of they're like, trump's deporting an illegal terrorist. I have to side with the illegal terrorist. Like, what?

[Josh Holmes]

So true. The guy is like 72 hours removed from Molotov cocktailing innocent seniors. And they're like, will somebody think of their family?

[Michael Duncan]

She wanted to be a doctor.

[Josh Holmes]

She wanted to be a doctor.

[Michael Duncan]

Just like I'm in Al Zawari.

[Josh Holmes]

A mostly peaceful Clare.

[Michael Duncan]

Mostly peaceful.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, my God. All right, our second story. This one's going to raise a lot alarms, guys. This Is the kind every once in a while there's a story where you're like, whoa, we got a lot of threats here.

[Comfortably Smug]

Me and Ashbrooke were actually getting ready to do our hit on Jesse when this hit, like breaking news headlines. He broke the show, and he said this right before we went on. I was like, that sounds very bad.

[Josh Holmes]

This sounds very bad. All right, so foxnews.com broke the story. Patel sounds alarm. He's talking about the FBI director sounds alarm as Chinese nationals charged with smuggling agro terrorism agent into the United States, quote, unquote, direct threat. So let me describe that for a minute. Chinese researchers racist. Oh, my God.

[Michael Duncan]

Why are you attacking the Chinese board?

[John Ashbrook]

The board.

[Michael Duncan]

Ashbrook's gone and the board is active.

[Comfortably Smug]

Remember when they told us that saying that Chinese labor is where Covid came from was racist?

[Michael Duncan]

It was racist.

[Josh Holmes]

Good use of the board. Anyway, Chinese researchers surprise accused of smuggling a potential agri terrorism weapon into the US At a University of Michigan lab. Kash Patel talked about all of this. And it was a dangerous biological pathogen in the United States. The University of Michigan laboratory demonstrates a serious national security threat to America's food supply. The case is a sobering reminder. This is, according to Patel, that the Chinese Communist Party continues to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate our institutions and target our food supply, an act that could cripple our economy and endanger American lives. So what it was really is a fungus that was being smuggled in. It's called Fusarium grammarium.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's basically like the last of us. If you've seen the last of us. This is the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a scientific. It classifies it as a potential agroterrorism weapon. That is a disease that causes head blight, quote, unquote. And to put a finer point on that, a disease of wheat, barley, maize, rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Basically poisons. Your crop. Now is the breadbasket of the world here in the United States, a major source of our not only security or national security in that we're not reliant on anybody else for our food. Also, our economy that we export to the world just so happens to come at a time where we're having trade discussions about our agriculture, our commodities should work.

[Michael Duncan]

That's crazy. Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Interesting.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

[Josh Holmes]

Total coincidence. In University of Michigan, Go Blue was more than happy to have these researchers come in and study such items. Yeah, but they didn't do it through governmental means. These are People that work at the University of Michigan, which I'm understanding has NIH grants, all kinds of top security clearances and things that you would do to interact with the government to know exactly how it is that you can study these kind of things. These people brought it through a suitcase.

[Michael Duncan]

Right? And I would also point out when the investigators looked at his phone, they found an article about biological warfare.

[Josh Holmes]

Interesting.

[Michael Duncan]

So like unrelated. Unrelated.

[Comfortably Smug]

He was like, oh, that.

[Michael Duncan]

Just an austere. Just an austere scholar.

[Comfortably Smug]

And who the media has been like, we need these students in this country. The backbone of America. Chinese students trying to make the last of us real.

[Josh Holmes]

The backdrop to this discussion.

[Michael Duncan]

It brings us to the larger point. You look at everything that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is trying to do with expelling these radical elements from.

[Josh Holmes]

You don't have a right.

[Michael Duncan]

Our universities, who. These foreigners who we come in and we have into our universities and educate them that maybe we should require these people not be enemies of the United States of America.

[Josh Holmes]

What you know, but also like the.

[Comfortably Smug]

Statue of Liberty says, give me your enemies of America for my schools.

[Michael Duncan]

Give me your biological warfare.

[Josh Holmes]

I want agri. Terror. I think that's what Lady Liberty. If you look at the book, if you were able to peel back the first page, of course you can't because, you know, time. Who are we to judge corrosion?

[Michael Duncan]

That is true.

[Josh Holmes]

But if you open the first page, it says, give me your agri. I mean, dude, it's just the most mind boggling thing. And like they just so happen to stop these people.

[Michael Duncan]

Right? Who have we not stopped?

[Josh Holmes]

Who have we not stopped? This goes to Smash's point that he always says, like, this is just happenstance that we're finding out about these things. This thing could decimate the entire Midwest of this country.

[Michael Duncan]

We let in millions and millions of people.

[Josh Holmes]

They drop it into the University of Michigan. By the way, has anybody talked to anybody at the Wolverine Center? Be like, hey, why are you guys working with these guys?

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a pretty bad school, to be honest. And the stadium's not what it's cracked up to be.

[Josh Holmes]

Horrible stadium, taking shots at the Big House.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, that's the thing. It's the Big House.

[Josh Holmes]

That might be the most proactive thing you've ever said.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, Ohio State's much better. Everyone knows this. And you don't hear about Chinese agriculterists at Ohio State. I'll say that. Find me one. It doesn't happen.

[Josh Holmes]

You wait for Ashbrook to be gone before you start taking a pile.

[Comfortably Smug]

He has to be near death for me to say.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, the last bit here is Karine Jean Pierre. Another missing Ashbrook deal is Corrine Jean Bier. She's written a book. You're not gonna believe this stuff. I mean, it's unbelievable.

[Comfortably Smug]

I can't believe she wrote a book. How like, was it in crayon? Yeah, like how I was like, it's gonna be a children's book. It's a coloring book.

[Josh Holmes]

No, rumor has it there was no drawing a part of it and nobody actually knew that it was on the market. But it came out and somebody sent out some excerpts where she reveals that she is leaving the Democratic Party.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh my God. So brave.

[Josh Holmes]

She's now becoming.

[Comfortably Smug]

Working for Joe Biden was so bad. I'm leaving the party.

[Michael Duncan]

I would point out she worked all the way to the end of his administration.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Every last day.

[Michael Duncan]

Every last day in the 2025 to inauguration of Donald Trump. Trump.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

She didn't have this come to Jesus moment when she was like, you know what? This White House is broken. I must resign. Nope, she will. She worked all the way to the end and now she's decided it was broken.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, she's decided that. And then she, she. This is like the quote, the highlight quote that they've got as a history maker.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Holmes]

And you know what she's talking about, right? Which she's like the first openly gay. Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

She's like, I just want to say real quick, I'm sick of that shit. I'm glad we're over it. Those are not real accomplishments.

[Josh Holmes]

No, just simply be.

[Comfortably Smug]

If your accomplishment is an immutable trait, it's not an accomplishment.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you.

[Comfortably Smug]

You have to earn it. If it's like I'm the first person to put up 100 points in an NBA game, that's congratulations. If you're like, I'm the first left handed, under five foot, ten foot golfer on a Sunday, like, that's not an accomplishment.

[Josh Holmes]

Dude, I feel like he just described me.

[Michael Duncan]

In your defense, you're a great golfer.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you. I appreciate that. But so she says as a history maker, a veteran public servant, political analyst and independent thinker, she [e-mail] there's nothing move.

[Michael Duncan]

She was literally the spokesperson for the White House. This independent, independent thing.

[Josh Holmes]

She urges Americans to think outside of blue and red box as we consider what's next to save democracy.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm waiting with bated fucking breath.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I can't wait. Can you Imagine the prescription. And, you know, like, the funniest part about this is, like, it's either one of two things. Either this, like, the idea that she couldn't roll the geriatric into a second term.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Has gotten her so pissed at Democrats because they're the ones that ultimately pull the plug on the whole situation, that that's why she's losing, leaving the party. Or that, like, the fact that they're not far left enough because Charboal background is, like, significantly to the left of this crazy left administration that we just left.

[Michael Duncan]

That can't be true. She's independent now, but she's independent.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can I give my honest take on this?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

So this is what happened. So she is still unwilling to believe the fact that she has zero talent, that she was given that job so that they could have a bullet point, that we have hired the first black woman gay, you know, person making history with this when she saw the person who had the job before her got a TV show.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. She didn't get one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Apparently the word on the street is KJP wanted a TV show and she didn't get one.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, can I offer some career advice?

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's very difficult to find slots on MSNBC. 35 people watching.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it's difficult.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I would suggest a different tact. I think it's important that the Trump era go for full circle here.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

It started when Donald Trump was elected and it created the Never Trump movement. Former Republicans who decided now we need a Never Biden Democrat. He could be like, become a Republican.

[Josh Holmes]

He could be like the. The Jefferson, you know, the Lincoln Project. She could be like the Jefferson Project.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, my God.

[Michael Duncan]

Get that Griff going. Make it come full circle.

[Comfortably Smug]

If you're listening. Kdp, that'd make you money.

[Josh Holmes]

You'd make a lot of money. Trick people into it once you're clear of the interns. But other than that, like, it's a clear sailing.

[Michael Duncan]

Clear sailing. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Kjp, listen, don't say we have never done anything for you.

[Comfortably Smug]

It could work.

[Josh Holmes]

Ideas coming out the wazoo. Over here, another guy with a lot of ideas. We were very happy to have this dude. And it's very nice to change the top, particularly all this nonsense that we've been talking about. Let's talk a little golf. Taylor Gooch. Well, it's not every day that we have a professional golfer in here, fellas, but today is a special day. He's in town for a big live tournament. Taylor Gooch. Good to see you, bud.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, glad to be Here.

[Josh Holmes]

Fun times. Listen, you won the whole thing in 23.

[John Ashbrook]

It was a good year.

[Josh Holmes]

It seemed like it had to. I mean, you were top 10 again last year, but seems like the live thing's working out pretty well for you.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah, I, you know, it's, I would say it's a good time to be decent at golf, you know, as a professional, so.

[Josh Holmes]

Got some options.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, it's, it's been, you know, a good, good few years, man. I played on, you know, PGA Tour for five years and, and then moved over to Liv and Pretty crazy to think about. This is season four. First season was kind of a half season, but this is the fourth season of, of live, which is, is crazy. So it's been, it's been a good few years.

[Josh Holmes]

Time does fly, no question about it. And of course, all the discussion about reunification, all that, we won't get into it entirely here off the top, but seems to me like, look different format with live, but you're kind of coming cresting into a part of your career where you're playing just absolutely incredible golf by anybody's standards, a little bit more of a laid back deal. Did that suit your style a little bit better, you think, or was it just sort of like, you know, you were just playing good golf.

[John Ashbrook]

It's, it's funny. That's what a lot of people say. Like, man, it's like more relaxed, laid back. I'm like, yeah, until you have a putt that loses you a million dollars.

[Josh Holmes]

Shorts.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I don't know if there's anything laid back about that. But. Yeah, I mean, like having music go in, like a different type of feel of it is, you know, it's kind of more on par with other sports, sporting events, you know. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's different, but at the, at the end of the day, it's still, you gotta make birdies and you don't want to make bogeys. And you know, it's, it affects your, you know, your tournament, it affects your wallet, it affects, you know, what you're potentially doing the rest of the year. So. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's like I tell people it's still golf, you know, but it's just, you know, tuned a little bit differently.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Any difference in terms of the camaraderie on Tour with the. Seems like from the outsider's perspective. I don't know if everybody's hanging out together, but it seems like there is a togetherness a little bit where you get at least what's flashed through the media. It seems like everybody's sort of, like, hanging out and having a good time.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Obviously trying to win, but.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, just, you know, obviously with the team aspect, like, you. You know, you want to be the team that's, like, showing up the next week, and everyone's like, oh, they won last week. Like, so there's that. The. Then obviously, kind of with, you know, all of the adversity that we face, especially early on, like, you know, it kind of galvanized all of us, even if we're not on the same team or not. You know, obviously, when you're watching majors or other events and you see, you know, live God doing well, like, we're cheering for.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Our guys. Right. And so. But, yeah, you know, golf is not easy, and you're going to have ups and downs. And so, you know, it's. That's the other kind of part of this is, you know, when you have teammates and you have got, like, you know, it was when we were in Singapore, I kind of had a couple tough starts to the season, and we're in Singapore and I'm hitting balls next to Brooks, and he's one of my teammates, and. And we're chatting, and he's like, man, like, last year when you were doing this, like, you looked like you had more control, like. And so, like, kind of having a little bit of. That is, you know, it's nice to have, like, you know, some other eyes. They're kind of, you know, giving you a little bit of input here and.

[Josh Holmes]

There, and so with a pocket full of majors.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, like I said, it's just a little bit different. You know, on. On tour, it. It can be lonely and. And it's. It's a. You know, it's a grind. And. And same with Liv, you know, it's. It's a grind. But, you know, having a little bit of, you know, that support system that's just a little bit different is. It's something, you know, as a dude that grew up playing, I played football, baseball, basketball. I'm from Oklahoma, so I wrestled, like, doing these team sports growing up, and then kind of getting a little bit of that team aspect back into this individual sport is something that, you know, I enjoy.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you still watch any tour stuff, like last weekend's job tournament?

[John Ashbrook]

Not really, but also, even when I was on tour, like, I. You know, this is my job.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. And so when I'm not doing my job, I. I'm not really Watching golf too much. So I play plenty of it with buddies back home and we'll have a cocktail and hang out so I can. I can still get away and enjoy golf in a different aspect. But if I'm sitting there watching tv, I'm probably not watching golf.

[Josh Holmes]

You imagine that your group of buddies has Gooch in it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Friday, couple of transfusions, and then. Yeah, Gooch is on my squad.

[John Ashbrook]

This.

[Michael Duncan]

I have a question. So you play obviously, a ton of competitive golf. We don't. We're amateurs. Right. We play for fun. I'm curious, like, when you want to have like a relaxing round of golf, like, who would be your go to player you'd want to play with?

[Josh Holmes]

Like, anybody in the world?

[Michael Duncan]

Anybody?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, gosh, that's a. That's a great question. So I'll answer it, like, in a little different way. So I have a group of buddies that every year we do a golf trip together.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And there's eight of us and most. There's only a couple that didn't grow. Most of us grew up together. There's only like two or three dudes that didn't like, grow up since we were five years old together. And so. And they're all former college athletes. They. We have a. Tennis, football, a few baseball, like, you know, golf, like, so we have good athletes that's, you know, no longer are athletes that have taken up golf. Right. And they all love golf. And there's one guy that's about a 12, 14 handicap. The rest of the guys are anywhere from a plus to, you know, two handicaps. So it's a pretty good, really good collection of guys. And we, we've done some different formats over the years. We've done like six or seven years of this trip now, but traditional most of the times we've split it up into two teams of four and so, and so, oh, my gosh, like, pretty much the, the most talking is throughout the year of, like, if I go have a good tournament, it's. Well, in our group text, it'll be like, well, this year you're gonna be a plus eight instead of a plus seven. Like, we gotta adjust, you know, the strokes now. And so most of the talk, especially in the month leading up to it, is like, you know, like, oh, like one of the dudes, his name is JP. Like, JP just played with Jared Wright. Like, JP shot 400 today. We're having to move his handicap, guys. Like, so there's, there's some, there's some really, really good banter that gets so to answer your question, our group trip that we do every year, that's. That's the. That's the one. And we play four rounds. We always go. Go to Scottsdale just because we always do it, like, in December, January. So go get some good weather. And so round one and round three. From tea to green, you can take a mulligan at any point in time.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay. It's unlimited. Once you get on the greens, you can't take any mulligans. But from tea to green, take mulligan. But to take the mulligan, you have to take a shot first. Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it.

[John Ashbrook]

And so that's it. You know, And. And being in Scottsdale, in desert golf, those can come in handy. Yeah, exactly. And so. But also, you know, sure enough, everyone starts to kind of feel like Superman and, like, I'll hit. I'll hit like a wedge, like 25ft. I'm like, well, I'm not making that. I gotta hit one closer, and I can hit one closer. So. Yeah, right, right. And then. So everyone. So it's. It's. The scores are really never that much different, even with the mulligans, because, you know, as we know, there's a. The return.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Starts to kind of. There's. Right, there's. There's a curve. There's an inflection point of.

[Michael Duncan]

There's also a sweet spot.

[John Ashbrook]

It's helpful. It's helpful. Oh, no, it's detrimental now. So, yeah, it's. There's been. It's. That's my. That's my. If I got. I'm not picking one, dude. I'm picking our group. And we're gonna go, you know, do our. Do our thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Nice.

[John Ashbrook]

It's fun.

[Josh Holmes]

Diminishing returns. All right, I want to talk about a couple other things that you're involved in. Obviously your foundation work, which I don't think, you know, a lot of guys like you who make an extra effort to create a foundation that's important to you. I don't feel like this stuff gets talked enough about. People think of you, professional athlete, you know, winning this, winning that. But, like, this seems like a really important cause. Gooch foundation stuff for you.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah. My. My wife and I started it back in 2022, and it was something that we had talked about, you know, for years. And I have an incredible wife who's such a giving heart, and. And we had talked about for years, like, I've had such a blessing of a life and career, and how do we. How do we give back. And so. And so we had talked about for years, and then we kind of decided to make the jump and do it. And so it's a. Like I said, we've been doing it for a few years now, and it's, you know, it's. It's so cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. Like, it's. The most rewarding things that we do is to see, you know, our extra effort, our extra time, our, you know, our heart and soul being put into this, and to see the impact that it makes. It's super cool. And so I'm from Oklahoma City originally, and so our foundation focuses on the best way to put it is helping. Helping children, helping the youth and giving them opportunities. And that's not just through golf. While golf has been an extreme blessing to me, I don't want us to just focus on, all right, let's just get more clubs in people's hands. Like, I love the game, but, you know, there's a lot more to life, you know, than just, you know, getting people into golf. And so, yeah, it's been. It's been an incredible few years. And our. We have one big event every year, a Pro Am fundraiser that we do, and it's going to be the Monday after Live Dallas, which is our next event after this weekend. Yeah, we always get a bunch of, you know, pros and celebrities come and, you know, play for the day, which is awesome. And we raise a bunch of money and. And do a lot of good with it. So, yeah, it's coming up. It'll be fun.

[Josh Holmes]

That's cool. That's very cool. Oklahoma City. So I had to. I'm from Minnesota.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

So I couldn't help but notice last week with your OKC squad, and then I was browsing stuff to see, like, you know, what you're up to before this interview, and I was like, oh, well, here he is, like, courtside, absolutely talking my team. And I was like, this isn't gonna go well. But you know what, you guys, what a team, dude.

[John Ashbrook]

It's. It's been. So being from Oklahoma City, like, college is king where we're from, because there's no pro sports until 2008 when the Thunder came along. Thanks, Seattle. And so, like, when they came, it just, you know, being a sports dude, like, I just.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And I. College basketball was my thing at the time, and then NBA, I was like, I know it. I don't love it, but I don't have a team, like. And so once Thunder came in it's my. My. My weeks and months and years are. You know, I'm that fan. Like, it. It affects me, dude. So we were playing the PGA Championship last year, year at. At Valhalla, and we lost that week to the Mavs in the second round. The conference last year, Western Conference. And my caddy, who's from Australia but has spent last 20 years in the States, majority of the time he's been in Dallas. And so, you know, he's, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

He'S a Bass fan.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Kind of not a real fan. You know, a true. A true Australian is, you know, gonna do a lot of talking, I was just gonna say.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

And so with his kind of fake, you know, team being the Mavs, he, you know, he was giving it to me that week. And we ended up losing to the Mavs, like, I think Friday or Saturday night. And the next day we were teeing off. It was. Yeah, it was like Friday or Saturday night because I'd made the cut. I wasn't playing that great, but I made the cut. And the next day we're teeing off, like, whatever, 9, 10am and my caddy had sent me a couple texts after the night before of, like, us getting closed out of the series. And I think he could tell, like, it. It hit me just enough because he didn't talk about it for, like, the first, like, eight holes. And then, like, at the end of, like, you know, like the 12th or 13th hole or something like that, I made a birdie, kind of, like, you know, feeling good. And he goes, well, can we talk about it now? Okay, well, good on you for not bringing up prior to this, because I would have maybe, like, kicked you off the bag for the day and brought a buddy in, but. Yeah. So it was. It was. It was funny. But I'm feeling way better now than I was a year ago, so.

[Josh Holmes]

So this guy's an Indiana guy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Okay, one piece of advice. If you do go courtside in Indianapolis for the McAfee.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

McAfee is going to roast you. So don't go courtside, Michael. Sit up in the two.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Or at least not go eye to eye. Yeah. Make sure he doesn't know who you are.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, that's funny. The thing that sucks is game one is Thursday, which, I know it off Friday, so it's like missing game one, you know, at home, but. Nah, that's all right. It's gonna be. It's gonna be fun.

[Josh Holmes]

You're a big sports guy across the board. Couldn't help but notice that Once all of your success is sort of compounded here with your golf game, you get into some other stuff. Bull riding. You own a bull riding team. Can we talk about that?

[John Ashbrook]

It sounds crazy and it is crazy. I've never been on a bull. First and foremost, like, most people, like, go to. They're like, did you grow up riding bulls? I'm like, guys, no. I grew up, like, playing, like, traditional sports, not like, what, this Western world of sports. And so I was.

[Josh Holmes]

Imagine there's an insurance policy on this guy's body. They probably would not.

[John Ashbrook]

Correct.

[Josh Holmes]

Correct.

[John Ashbrook]

Honestly, I think it might be that crazy. It's not even on there because they're probably like. The insurance company is probably like, they.

[Josh Holmes]

Nobody.

[John Ashbrook]

No one's crazy enough to actually do this. But I was actually playing. I was playing the. The Open over. What year was it? It wasn't at St. Andrews. One of the years I was playing the Open and my agent called me, and my agent and I have a couple businesses together. And so he's kind of my business partner slash agent, and he called me. He goes, dude, he goes, you're gonna think I'm crazy. He goes, but you gotta watch this show on Amazon Prime. It's called the Ride. Okay, go watch it. And it was following season one of. So pbr. Yeah, kind of like golf, bull riding has.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Been a traditional, like, individual Sport. Right. In 2022, ironically, same time Live, PBR decided to create what's called a team series. And so the first two years, 2022, 2023, there was eight franchises. Half the season, half of the calendar year basically was dedicated to the team series. And it was. I tell people, like, it was like, if you watched it, you would think, like, okay, if the PJ Tour had decided to create. Start live and create, like, a team series. This is what this is. It's like the same concept. So I'm like, watching this. I'm like, call my agent back. I'm like, dude, this is sick. Like, there's got to be more than eight teams, though. And so sure enough, they're like, yeah, they're going to do two expansion teams. And I start. We start looking more and more into it. And all the analytics are incredible from, like, a viewership. Like, there's. They get as much viewership as NHL and there's all these numbers. And I'm like, dude, I feel like this is going to become something. And then sure enough, they're like, one of the expansion teams is going to, like, going to have a team in Oklahoma. I'm like, let's buy that. Me, I know. I know how to. I know a few people there. And so now, a couple years later, we have a team. And, yeah, I know a lot more about bull riding now than I did two years ago. And that's not crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

That's not the end of the outdoor sports. Still is. Fishing team, too. Did you grow up fishing?

[John Ashbrook]

I mean, yeah, but not, like. Not for marlin and stuff. Like, in Oklahoma. Like, I was getting, like, some perch and, you know, bass and stuff. Landlocked and. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, that's a whole other thing. And it's just. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, this is what I love about this dude, is it's like you just. You're a sports guy.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And so, like, these are two interesting things. Obviously, there's not a saturated marketplace. You want to be a part of it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. Who knows what the future of all looks like? But it's. It's fun, I think.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you make any of the guys that are on your team, like, take you out, like, guide you, essentially?

[John Ashbrook]

I haven't yet.

[Josh Holmes]

You definitely.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm going to, for sure.

[Josh Holmes]

And I just want you to know the ruthless variety programs available at any time.

[John Ashbrook]

Let's make it happen.

[Josh Holmes]

That would be fun as hell. That's awesome. So a couple other just sort of items. You play with Trump multiple times?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

How's that?

[John Ashbrook]

It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, he's. He's like. I tell people he's just on a golf course in particular, but outside the golf course, too. But he's just an entertainer dude. Like, he's just. He loves, like, just chopping it up. Like, he loves talking stories. He loves just talking sports and anything. And so, man, he's just. He's just like a dude's dude. Yeah. You know, it was cool whenever I was. So I played with him in November. December is after he'd been elected, but obviously before he was back in office. And we. Back when I was in junior. Junior golfer in high school, there's a tournament called the US Junior Amateur, and it's widely regarded, like, the top junior golf tournament in the world. And it was at Trump Bedminster, and this was 2009. And somehow, some way I have kept. Over the years, I had had him sign a flag. He came and walked around with me, my dad, in a practice round, and I just went. I was like, hey, you know, Mr. Trump. This is before Mr. President Trump, like, right. I went and got a flag, and he Signed it, and I somehow kept it. And so when I went and played with him back in November, December, I brought it with me because the flag said, like, you know, 2009 US Junior Amateur.

[Josh Holmes]

No way.

[John Ashbrook]

Like, you know, trump bedminster. And it's his same exact signature. And so we go and play and we finish the round. We have lunch after, and I went to the locker, grabbed it, and I said, you know, Mr. President, this is crazy. I'm like, but I need another signature. And I, like, threw it down. He looked at me. He, he literally said something like, you gotta be shitting me. It was, it was, it was such a, such a cool moment. And Tiffany, his daughter Tiffany was there, and, like, she looked at, and she was like, dad, this was before everything. This was like before all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And so it was, it was, it was one of those cool moments. Like, I was like, you're probably not gonna remember much about me, but you're gonna remember if I come and bring this flag in front of you. So it was, yeah, it was cool. It was crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

That is, I mean, he's obviously a huge golf fan, a huge golfer in his own right. I mean, obviously, he's a lot of fun, a lot of different places in the golf course notwithstanding. He's taken a big interest in not only live, big PGA guy, too, from the very beginning. And this administration has talked a lot about trying to assist in some way in like, a reunification effort. Like, what do you think? What was your take?

[John Ashbrook]

Sure. I think nobody knows anything about what could potentially happen. Like, it's you. And we're to the point, like, from my perspective, it's like, feels like you hear something new or different every other week. And so, but until something actually happens, like, I'm just going to continue focusing on birdies and let all that handle itself. It'll be interesting, though. I, I don't know what the, I.

[Josh Holmes]

Don'T know market demand for it in some way.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I, I think everyone would agree, like, what would be best for the fans, which is the best for everything. That's what, like, that's what I think most of us golfers would agree with. This too, is like, it's become about more than just, like, what's best for the fan at times. And like, we, my cat and I will, we'll joke at times. Like when we're out at a tournament, you hear, like, these crazy dudes, they're yelling up, seen things, and we're always like, could you imagine being that guy that's like saying that, but also, like, I'm thankful because of him. I get to do this for a living. Like.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

And so, like, the attention has gone away from the fans in some aspects of this. Like, there's been some, you know, improvements in, you know, the production and some of the parts that I think have been tailored towards making golf more entertaining to watch. But, you know, I think what's best for the fans is that the best of the best are playing together. Right. And that's exactly right, man.

[Josh Holmes]

And I don't know if you caught this, but on Sunday at the Memorial, Jack Nicklaus himself made a comment about this.

[Michael Duncan]

He said that Scotty Scheffler knows that.

[Josh Holmes]

Some of those other guys that were on the leaderboard with him are not in his league.

[Michael Duncan]

Obviously, they're great guys.

[Josh Holmes]

They're great golfers.

[John Ashbrook]

Right, Right.

[Michael Duncan]

But his larger point, point about the lack of competition is the first time.

[Josh Holmes]

I've ever heard him say something like that.

[Michael Duncan]

And I feel like maybe there's some.

[Josh Holmes]

Forward momentum here to build the best golfers together.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I hope so. Again, I think, you know, I don't think there's really many people that would disagree with, like, everybody wants that at every level. Like, the sponsors, the fans, the players. Like, everyone wants the best of the best competing together. Right. Like, and we. Back when I was on PGA Tour, we, like, it was a pretty normal conversation of, like, there's. There's too much golf currently, and it allows, like, too many events to have two different of fields where, like, I could always compare it to this. Like, if I give you pizza 40 weeks a year, the other 12 weeks, you probably don't want pizza. Right. It's part of what makes, like, the NFL king is, like, from February 1st until September 1st, essentially, like, you can't have it. It's just human nature. Right. And so even before Liv came around, there was. There was talks with BJ Tour of, like, we have to adjust this system. Right. And so, again, I don't know where this all lands or what it looks like. I think anyone who says they do is full of crap. But I'm hopeful sooner than later that it will land in a place that the best of the best are competitive, competing way more often together than not. And right now, it's just, you know, not the case. There's not the best of the best competing. And, you know, the other discussion is, like, the. The majors, you know, it's. It's. They've had the chance to be the place where the best of the Best, you know, are competing together all the time. And, you know, you. You got to hope that they're going to continue to figure out ways, you know, beyond, you know, the.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

The grandfathered exemption, the last 10 years of what it's looked like. Like, you got to think that they're going to want to continue to, you know, figure out. How do we continue to figure out who the best of the best in the world are so that we can get all of them, you know, together for our events. Because, you know, the majors are not the PGA Tour, you know, technically. And so there's. They have an opportunity and to kind of improve their product, honestly. Like, they can be that standalone until all this gets figured out. They can be the ones to be like, hey, we're gonna figure out how to have all these together. Which if I'm, you know, the PJ of America or the USGA or Augusta, like, I'm sitting there thinking, like, dude, this is an opportunity to almost, like, start to bind the. The powers that be and the fans and everyone back together, and we can be at the forefront of that. And a few of them have started to slowly and so hopefully encouraging that. Yeah. And so hopefully things are on the right path. And, you know, we. We'll look back this in five, 10 years and kind of chuckle about. Yeah. A little bit of this, like, chaos in. In the middle of it from a fan perspective.

[Josh Holmes]

I definitely hope that is the case.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Let me ask you one last aspect to that. I mean, you're a professional athlete. Focus on your craft. Try to do the best you can, particularly an individual sport like the one that you're involved in, all of a sudden, it becomes super political internationally. You know, I imagine that that is sort of a disorienting process where all of a sudden you're, like, personally being attacked, that you're in a political discussion, that you never asked for that, all of that and how that encompasses your golf group. But then you turn around and go out and win the whole thing in 23. At the height of all of that, people just sort of compartmentalize it or.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I mean, we're crazy, dude. Like, we play a crazy sport to begin with. So, yeah, we talk about a lot. Like, you know, it's. It's our job. And it's. Since I was nine years old, like, this is what I've wanted to do.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And you don't get, you know, to playing on the PGA Tour live. Like, you don't get to become one of the best players, you know, in the world without being ultra competitive. Right. And so, yeah, like, you have to be able to when it's game time, when you're between the ropes, like, it's the. Nothing else matters except making birdies. Like, it's. It's so cool seeing, like, guys like Phil Mickelson and Sergio and some of these guys who, you know, I grew up watching that are still competing, like, dude. To see, like, their, like, dedication to their craft and, like, their, like, competitiveness. Like, dude, when, like, I've been, you know, fortunate to play some practice rounds and some stuff with Phil and, like, dude, he cares. So, like, yeah, he wants to. To beat your ass. And it is, like, it's so.

[Josh Holmes]

And take your wallet.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, exactly. It's so cool because, like, you know, this dude who has. Is one of the greatest ever.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And has made more money and majors, like, he could ride off into the sunset. Like, you know, he's good, right? And to see, like, how much he still cares, it's, like, one of the coolest things. And my. My caddy and I talk about all the time, even when he hasn't, you know, he hasn't played great for the last couple years. And he. Dude, he just grinds and he cares, and so it's just cool. And. But again, it goes to show, like, to get, you know, to this level of. Of any type of, you know, sport, like, the. The competitiveness that it takes, like, dude, you. You gotta be crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

I got the last question I've got for you.

[Comfortably Smug]

We.

[Josh Holmes]

We generally go through a list, like, three questions, so we ask everybody. I feel like the last one has to go first here. Our view is that every successful person, regardless of your line of work, finds themselves in one of two categories. A thrill of victory or an agony of defeat person. And it's not that anybody enjoys getting beat or anybody doesn't like winning. It's, like, what motivates you, right. What gets you back to the range, what does all that. And, like, the prototypical agony of defeat persons. Michael Jordan, like, that is. And Tiger, to some extent, that. But it's like, he literally had to invent new slights in order to get him out of the bed in the morning. And Phil, for us, has always been the thrill of victory guy, where it's like staring 285 over water and he's pulling an iron. Like, I think I hit that shot, but I can do this again. Right? It's not the motivation that's negative. Motivated. He's like, no, I can do that. Yeah, that's the thrill of victory. So, like, in that spectrum, where do you find yourself?

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, I hate losing, dude. Winning is cool, but, God, dude, like, I. I put it, like. And I kind of wish at times I had a little bit more of that other side, because, like, I talk about with my coach, like, I've. And it started in college and when we were, like, qualifying. Like, I'm trying to qualify for my team. When we had a bunch of studs, like Morgan Hoffman and Kevin Tway and Peter Uline, like, all these, you know, studs. And, like, I just felt like I was trying to get on the team and, like, survive. I was in, like, survival mode. Right. And so I got really good early in my golf career at, like, surviving, and I've had to learn how to thrive. So, like, in a different way, I think there's also, like, two. Like, there's two types. There's guys that are good at surviving, and then there's guys that are good at thriving.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And so that's kind of a similar metaphor of, like, you know, interesting. Like, the thrill of winning versus agony defeat. It's like, same thing. It's like, I'll do whatever it takes to. To not lose. Like, and I love winning, but, like.

[Josh Holmes]

But then to go to that next.

[John Ashbrook]

I hate losing. Like, losing is the worst. And so, yeah, I'm definitely the agony guy.

[Josh Holmes]

All right. Being from Oklahoma, you can pick your last meal on earth. What is it? What would it be?

[John Ashbrook]

Now? Are we talking, like, restaurants, or are we talking, like, anything in the world?

[Josh Holmes]

It can be a restaurant. It could be something your mom makes. I mean, it could be absolutely anything.

[John Ashbrook]

All right, we're gonna go with the restaurants. Oh, my gosh.

[Josh Holmes]

Is it tough?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, this is tough. It's tough. We've been fortunate. We eat some good food, so I'm so. One of the coolest meals I've had in a while. That just goes to my mind is. So there's a Chipriani up in New York City, right near Central park, and it's like your quintessential, like, old school. Like, you felt like Al Capone was in the right. Like, it's a. It's a nice. It's not like a. Like a hole in the wall. It's chippy on it, so it was nice. But, dude, like. And I went. I was with a couple buddies. One of my buddies, he works on Wall Street. He was former golfer. Another buddy that I met him at the. The Pro Am in Palm Springs. I play with him amateur. He's a You know, forever banker, Wall street guy. And. And it was funny because, like, I had always wanted to go to this place. And so I had set up the reservation. We show up, and my old school buddy, he's like, you know, 65 years old, we show up, and I had made the reservation for the wrong day, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. And so it. But my buddy, he was like. He's like, hey, don't worry about it. He, like, pulls the gm. He's like, hey, can we get a table? I'm like, hold on a second.

[Josh Holmes]

Can this be done?

[John Ashbrook]

He goes, dude, for 30 years, I came here three or four days a week. Like, this is. And I'm like, so you're the Al Capone? I was like, I thought I was setting up something nice. And you. You used to live here, basically. So it's. It's one of those. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Big steak.

[John Ashbrook]

We had some, like. We. We like, we split up everything, but it was like, dude, like pasta, like, it's Italian, right? Like, it's just. We had all. It was like a quintessential Italian meal. We had, like, some different pastas. We had. We had, like, some different types of steak. I mean, we had every. It was one of those. There was four or five of us.

[Josh Holmes]

Your last meal is going to be a real. That, like, you got five, six courses.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, yeah. And of course, I'm a wine guy, so. And. And, you know, place like that, you got to start with a martini. And so, like, you know, if you're going to do it, you got to touch every level of it. Right?

[Josh Holmes]

I can appreciate that.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Culinary experience.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, exactly. It's about more than just the. The food. You know, it's like, all right, how's this experience? Right.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so last one. If you. With the benefit of hindsight, now that you are where you are in your career, well established, obviously very successful, you look back over life, you know, you're involved in this foundation, what you're doing to help kids. If you had it all over to do again with the benefit of hindsight, and you could do something else, like, what would it be? Would it be like.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, so knowing how the world now works, I've always said that, like, the finance world fascinates me.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, now you have more interaction with the finance.

[John Ashbrook]

This kid from Midwest, Oklahoma didn't know about this whole world. And so, yeah, it's. The finance world, like, is super fascinating. It's like the. Like, again, like, the competitiveness. I mean, it's like, it's like chess, like, the way that you can, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Utilize capital and move it in all this stuff. And, like, it's just. I don't know that the finance world is very fascinating to me, but also the political world is, too. I don't say I would want to go into politics in a different world, but it is.

[Josh Holmes]

Feels like every time you open your mouth, somebody's jumping down your throat. Anyway.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, like you said, somehow golf has, like, become politics in the last couple years. So I've almost gotten a crash course the last few years. But, yeah, it's like finance and politics are super fascinating, and I'm by no means smart enough to go do either of those now.

[Josh Holmes]

You never know.

[John Ashbrook]

But it was funny. I was in. We had a tournament in Saudi last December, and we had a dinner, and. And we show up to this dinner, and there's a few of us golfers, and basically, they were like, hey. I just. It was after the round finished. Like, y' all just. I'm like, can I just. I'm gonna work out after. I was like, dressed like this. I'm like, can I just show up, like, or do I need to get dressed up? You know? And they're like, no, you just. You're good. Just show up and show up. And I see, like, 50 dudes in, like, four full business suits, and I'm.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, like, this doesn't feel like.

[John Ashbrook]

And it was like. It was like, the brass of, like, JP Morgan and, like, Goldman. Like, oh. I'm like, somebody could have warned. Thanks for the heads up, everybody. Like. And what was funny is. So we sit down at, like, all arranged seating. We sit down, sit next to this dude who is from, like, somewhere around London. He had one of those accents. And so he. We sit down and he goes, hey, just so you know, he goes, you're probably a golfer, right? And I'm like. And he goes, Just so you know, I don't want to offend you. Like, I don't know anything about golf. I'm like, great, we'll talk about anything else. And about 30 seconds later, like, because we had, like, name plates, and, like, he looked. Are you that bull riding guy? I'm like, I'm like, dude, I've been recognized as a golfer my whole life, and I just got recognized as the bull riding guy. But like, a few days prior, Wall Street Journal had done, like, a full spread on, like, you know, it was like, something about, like, billionaires betting on bull riding or something like that. Not a billionaire, but. But they tossed in but they would talk about me in this, like, you know, basically how guys like Mark Lazary and these different guys from different areas of life and business are now in getting involved in bull riding. Right. And so we're talking about it, and at the time, long story short, tko, which is a new creative entity that wwe, you know, is now a part of. And so that had just come out. And so I'm saying to this, you know, British guy, I was like, hey, I'm just a golfer. Apparently a bull riding guy, too. But, like, explain to me why they did this. Like, why did Endeavor do us and Silver the cap and all this stuff?

[Josh Holmes]

I could give you a real education.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I was like, you're the banker. Like, talk to me about this. He goes, you know, that's what's crazy about this. He goes, sometimes we don't even understand what's going on. So apparently, you also don't have to be that smart to maybe be in that world too. So. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That's awesome. Well, Taylor Gooch, thank you so much for stopping by. Good luck.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah. Thanks, dude.

[Josh Holmes]

I appreciate it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Gonna be a good tournament this week. We're gonna come out, we're gonna say hello, and hopefully I'll put on a show.

[John Ashbrook]

All right. I'm excited. I'm excited, man.

[Michael Duncan]

He's a whale of a guy.

[Josh Holmes]

He really is.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, he's so much fun. I would love to play golf them if we ever got the chance one day, you know, I was really hoping he'd ask for some scouting report on RTJ that they're playing.

[Josh Holmes]

I thought he was going to. He didn't.

[Michael Duncan]

He didn't.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I don't feel like he thought we were qualified to get him.

[Michael Duncan]

Look, I birdied nine once. Fair point. Literally the only birdie I've gotten that entire golf course. And I took a picture of it.

[Josh Holmes]

But he was the kind of guy that you get to the end of, you know, what is it? You know, expanded interview. And you just got there.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, you just got to the point where he understood us and we understood him. Like, he's gonna come back. When he comes back, we're gonna get like a cocktail rolling, and we're gonna get. We're gonna get.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, after his whole discussion of how he plays golf with his boys.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Where he's like, you can take a shot to get an extra shot. Yeah, I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally. I mean, he's one of us. This guy is a very, very good guy. Root for him. He is here in Northern Virginia playing in the live tournament this weekend if Typhoid Mary didn't give him some communicable disease.

[Michael Duncan]

Come on. Don't put that on him.

[Josh Holmes]

Finish. Hopefully he'll finish.

[Michael Duncan]

Don't watch.

[Comfortably Smug]

Get sick, dude. Watch him get sick because of Duncan. That'd be tough.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm just saying keep an eye.

[Michael Duncan]

I am not the vector.

[Josh Holmes]

Keep an eye.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, Fouchy.

[John Ashbrook]

So good.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, so nice to have you here with us this week. A lot of important topics, a lot of important parts of our show like and subscribe to the YouTube. That's how all of your friends can see what it is that we're doing. Check out some merch items. We got some fun stuff while you're there. And with that smug. I think we did it.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Taylor Gooch. Thank you so much, Senator Joni Ernst. And thank you so much to our listeners. Like Holmes said, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube hit that subscribe. It's more fun in videos. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the lining on the libs. We'll see you Tuesday. Stay ruthless.

[Josh Holmes]

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.