Who Will be the Heir of MAGA? Vance or Rubio?

Summary

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Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Who Will be the Heir of MAGA? Vance or Rubio?
Date: May 7, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug (absent), Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Special Guests: Marco Rubio (audio clips), J.D. Vance (audio clips), Leonard Leo (interview)
Main Theme:
This episode dives deep into the evolving conversation within the conservative movement: Who will inherit the "MAGA" mantle after Donald Trump's tenure—J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio? The hosts offer lively, insightful discussion, peppered with laughs, candid analysis, and expert interviews. They explore recent political developments, dissect the challenges of political succession, and feature an in-depth interview with Leonard Leo on the conservative legal movement.

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Table of Contents

1. Celebratory Opening and Smug Update
2. Main Event: Who’s the MAGA Heir? Vance v. Rubio
   • Rubio’s Press Room Performance
   • Analyzing Rubio’s Strengths
   • J.D. Vance: The Expected Heir
   • The Nature of Political Succession
3. Polling, Prediction Markets, and the Inevitability Factor
4. Campaigns and Conservative Coalitions
   • Tucker Carlson & The Podcast Wars
   • Foreign Policy: The Isolationist Debate
   • The Indiana Case Study: Trump's Party
5. Interview: Leonard Leo & The Conservative Legal Revolution
6. Notable Moments & Quotes
7. Timestamps Key Segments
8. Closing Thoughts & Audience Engagement

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1. Celebratory Opening and Smug Update

• [03:09] Josh celebrates cohost Comfortably Smug’s new baby boy, joking about parenting advice and how “Smug Watch” continues until he’s back.
• [03:47] Duncan observes: “The guys with the toughest exterior tend to be the softest when it comes to people they love. That kid—they love that kid.”
• Friendly ribbing about Smug’s upcoming parenting adventures and supportiveness of the Ruthless “family.”

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2. Main Event: Who’s the MAGA Heir? Vance v. Rubio

2a. Rubio’s Press Room Performance

• [06:25-14:58] The hosts discuss Marco Rubio’s headline-making appearance at the White House press briefing—a rare move for any cabinet secretary.
• The panel plays several clips, highlighting Rubio’s easy humor and command under pressure:
  • [08:47] Rubio jokes: “You can ask me two questions. I’ll give you one answer, and I’ll pick the one I like better.”
  • [10:19] Playful self-deprecating banter when learning the room.

2b. Analyzing Rubio’s Strengths

• [17:07] Rubio’s vision: “We want [America] to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything...Ours is a story of perpetual improvement.”
• Hosts agree Rubio’s performance shows humor, expert command on complex policy, and the ability to offer a forward-looking, presidential vision.
• Josh: “Are we gonna pretend like that’s not a presidential candidate?” ([18:07])

2c. J.D. Vance: The Expected Heir

• [23:27-26:43] Vance’s political moves dissected—his Iowa appearances are read as classic footholds for future presidential runs.
• [26:43] Vance’s messaging: “I’m the leader of the Fraud Task Force in Washington… finding fraud in the federal government is like fishing in a barrel with dynamite.”
• Johnny: “J.D. best channels the forgotten men and women of the Trump coalition; that’s his absolute best stuff, just as Rubio’s best is the big vision and foreign policy.” ([29:20])

2d. The Nature of Political Succession

• [24:12-33:18] Hosts argue that nobody is “handed” the White House, even with infrastructure and endorsements.
• Duncan: “You have to build your own wave…no one becomes president surfing someone else’s.”
• Josh: “When Republican voters cast a ballot in 2028, it will be because of their movement. It won’t be anyone who says they are the heir apparent of MAGA. There is only Donald Trump. There’s one owner of that situation.” ([31:14])

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3. Polling, Prediction Markets, and the Inevitability Factor

• [35:58-37:56] Kelshi futures and RCP polling show Vance as a current “heir apparent,” but Rubio making statistical gains.
• Josh outlines the “inevitability bubble” problem: “As soon as it [inevitability] bursts, the dam breaks and Katie bar the door.”
  • E.g., 2016: Jeb Bush was presumed inevitable, but Trump prevailed.
• Discussion of how Vance’s wide polling lead (45%+) could shift rapidly.

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4. Campaigns and Conservative Coalitions

4a. Tucker Carlson & The Podcast Wars

• [50:08-54:42] Panel touches on the impact of conservative media rifts (“podcast wars”) and the Tucker Carlson–Vance association.
• Johnny: “It’s a classic Tucker rhetorical technique—he says he’s going to reveal hidden knowledge, then wildly speculates… but can provide no backup.” ([51:07])
• Josh: “The more you’re tied with Tucker, the tougher it gets—especially as his ratings drop with GOP voters.” ([55:41])

4b. Foreign Policy: The Isolationist Debate

• [56:13-59:37] The hosts explore the confusion over “neocon” and “isolationist” labels in the GOP.
• Duncan: “When it’s Paul Wolfowitz saying we all need to be in Iraq forever, you understand the pushback. But pure isolationism is not the answer, and Trump’s found the happy medium.”

4c. The Indiana Case Study: Trump’s Party

• [61:00-65:29] Indiana primaries discussed as evidence of Trump’s continued iron grip on the party.
• Johnny: “What about Donald Trump being indicted a billion times and then winning the nomination in 2024 disabused you of the notion that he is the tightest with his voters of any politician we’ve seen in modern American history?” ([64:21])
• Hosts note neither Vance nor Rubio (nor anyone) will inherit a movement—they have to build and earn it.

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5. Interview: Leonard Leo & The Conservative Legal Revolution

(Begins [73:59])

• Leonard Leo, long-time Federalist Society leader, discusses building the infrastructure for conservative legal victories, how politics is “downstream from culture,” and strategies for operationalizing conservative principles beyond pure ideology.

Key Points:

• Leo reflects on growing the Federalist Society from student intellectual circles to a national juggernaut influencing courts and public policy.
• [86:41] Predicts no imminent Supreme Court vacancies, downplays direct political calculations among justices.
• [94:47] On “crushing liberal dominance” in media, culture, and corporations: “We just unleashed a lot of pain on those sectors, or we incentivized those sectors to think seriously about it.”
• Leo underscores the importance of operationalizing principles, recruiting talent, and building sustainable institutional networks.

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6. Notable Moments & Quotes

• Marco Rubio’s humor ([08:47]): “You can ask me two questions. I’ll give you one answer, and I’ll pick the one I like better.”
• On Rubio’s vision ([17:10]): “My hope for America... is that it’s a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential.”
• Josh ([18:07]): “Are we gonna pretend like that’s not a presidential candidate?”
• Duncan ([24:21]): “The job of President is not something that’s just given from one man to another…it just doesn’t work that way.”
• Johnny summarizing the polling dynamic ([65:58]): “It’s always about the inevitability bubble… as soon as it’s burst in any real way, the dam breaks and then, Katie bar the door.”
• Leonard Leo ([99:06]): “When you’re getting attacked, it’s because you’re stealing someone else’s lunch. If I haven’t been attacked, I wonder, am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing here?”

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7. Timestamps Key Segments

• [03:09] – Opening: Smug’s new baby & team banter
• [06:25-14:58] – Rubio’s press room performance & analysis
• [23:27] – Vance’s trip to Iowa: signaling future ambitions
• [26:43, 29:34] – Vance stump speech audio; strengths vs. Rubio
• [31:14, 33:02] – MAGA “ownership,” succession, party memory
• [35:58-37:56] – Polling, prediction markets, “inevitability bubble”
• [50:08-54:42] – Tucker Carlson, podcast rifts, coalition complications
• [56:13-59:37] – GOP foreign policy debate (neocon, isolationism)
• [61:00-65:29] – Indiana primary: evidence of Trump’s influence
• [73:59] – Leonard Leo interview begins
• [94:47] – “Crushing liberal dominance” in media/culture
• [109:40] – Leo’s “thrill of victory” vs. “agony of defeat”
• [112:46] – Closing, Fun Time Friday tease

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8. Closing Thoughts & Audience Engagement

• The hosts conclude reflecting on the uncertainty and inevitability myths in GOP politics: ultimately, the successor to the movement will have to build and campaign for it. No one will inherit MAGA by proclamation.
• [66:33] Johnny: “You have to wonder how much of that is voters’ assumption that he [Vance] is anointed... it’s not a guarantee.”
• True to Ruthless form, the episode is rich in inside-baseball, playful ribbing, and self-aware about the content game, inviting listeners to weigh in:
  “Is there an heir apparent to MAGA? You let us know and give us your thoughts on the discussion that we just had.” ([69:03])

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For New Listeners

This episode offers an insightful, entertaining, and candid tour of the post-Trump GOP succession fight. Whether you’re catching up for political strategy, movement history, or the inside scoop on conservative legal strategy, the hosts provide clear-eyed analysis and lively debate perfect for political insiders and casual listeners alike.

Key takeaway:
The Republican Party’s future isn’t set. J.D. Vance leads, but Rubio is surging. No one will “inherit” MAGA—2028 will require new energy, vision, and a coalition forged in real competition.
Listener engagement: Share your opinion: Who’s the real heir, or is there one at all?

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Transcript

[Josh]

Trump, obviously he has made it very clear that these two terms are his two terms and someone is going to follow him with the mantle of Republican nomination and then ultimately, hopefully the President of the United States.

[Johnny]

There is a conversation percolating of who is the heir to maga.

[Josh]

It won't be anyone who says they are the heir apparent of maga. There is only Donald Trump. There's one owner of that situation.

[Duncan]

Can the MAGA universe transport to somebody else if it's not Donald Trump? Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet. Now they're messing with your credit card. Your credit card and the security it offers are under attack. The Durbin Marshall credit card bill would change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. That means higher risk of fraud, greater chance of stolen personal data, and the loss of rewards programs just so corporate megastores can pocket billions of dollars in higher profits. Tell Congress to guard your card. Visit guardyourcard.com to take action and learn more.

[NetChoice Representative]

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

[Josh]

ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. This program has become one of the most influential podcasts in America.

[Johnny]

I love the personality.

[Leonard Leo]

You guys are killing it.

[Johnny]

I just saw your number one.

[Duncan]

So congratulations.

[Josh]

It's an honor and a pleasure to welcome the great Sean Manity. Guys, I love you.

[Leonard Leo]

Congratulations on all your success. This is why you listen to the Ruthless podcast because nobody else would ask that question.

[Johnny]

The only political podcast worth listening to

[Josh]

is the Ruthless Podcast. It's time for our main event.

[Johnny]

The Ruthless Podcast.

[Josh]

Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. We're gonna slay some dragons here. But first of all, worth mentioning, our co host, who's attending some to some family stuff here, has delivered along with his wife, a beautiful baby boy. Congratulations to Smug and Smug junior. Big deal here for the program.

[Duncan]

Yeah, Yeah, I couldn't be happier for him. And there have been a ton of comments from the minions already that are like, oh, I can't wait till they fly on a plane. I can't wait till he has to put an iPad in front of the kid.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

But the reality is, you know, I mean, he's going to hate me for saying this. He's absolutely going to hate me for saying this. But the guys with the toughest, toughest exterior.

[Josh]

Oh, yeah.

[Duncan]

Tend to be the softest when it

[Josh]

comes to the people. They love that kid.

[Duncan]

And he's going to be such a great dad.

[Johnny]

I noticed in the comments as well, that people were saying, oh, well, you know, I saw that Smug's baby boy came. So Smug watches over. No, au contraire. Smug Watch has only begun. Smug Watch does not end until he's back in this studio.

[Josh]

Oh, 100%. Yeah. We're going to find out what that ultimately manifests itself. But a big congrats. And we obviously, as a family here on Ruthless Variety Program are very, very happy for our colleague and we hope to have him back soon. But obviously there's great responsibility, one of which he hasn't experienced before.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Despite giving us all the par parenting advice in the world, it looks a little different when you're wearing the shoes.

[Duncan]

Yeah, that's right.

[Johnny]

Chickens coming home to roost.

[Josh]

For sure. We're gonna get into some stuff here.

[Johnny]

Good stuff.

[Josh]

They don't want us to say it. They don't want us to talk about it, but we're going to talk about some things about sort of the makeup of the Republican Party, what the future of the party is, and some observations based upon the week's events that you just can't ignore any longer. There are things that you gotta talk about, and as you, the listener, we value what it is that you're thinking about, and we know what you're thinking about at this point. We haven't really tackled it on the Ruthless Variety Program. And it's about Trump, obviously. He has made it very clear that these two terms are his two terms. And someone is going to follow him with the mantle of Republican nomination, and then ultimately, hopefully, the President, United States. And who is that? I mean, we're going to get into that and there's some developments on that front. One of the things that happened this week that caught our eye, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is completely hilarious, was Marco fully embracing the meme that. You know, the meme, if you're on the Internet and you check this stuff out, it's like, Marco has all the jobs. Anytime there's a job opening, anytime somebody's head coach gets fired or, you know, any type of high profile firing, there's the meme of him on the couch in the outfit.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Of the thing.

[Johnny]

Well, because they kept giving him new jobs in the administration. I think he actually still the archivist as well. The Library of Congress.

[Josh]

He was like 70. So, you know, last week when Caroline Levitt went on maternity leave, he jokingly came into the White House press office and was like, well, I'm your new press secretary. And everybody laughed and there was a little bit of B roll. But he was sort of sheepish about it. He's like, we don't need to. This was a joke. And I was trying to have fun with you people. Well, he showed up on Tuesday and did actually the White House briefing, which I've never seen done. I've seen, you know, years and years of cabinet officials going in to the White House briefing room, mediated by a White House press office to provide context on something that is the biggest story of the day or something that the administration is working upon that they want to emphasize. Never have I ever seen anyone in an administration other than the President, United States White House Press secretary, or their deputies come in and just throw it open and try and just have a conversation with, you know, the unwieldy nature of the White House press briefing room.

[Johnny]

Yeah. And as you sort of alluded to earlier here in the opening, there is a conversation percolating of who is the heir to maga. So this, like, as the backdrop of this press briefing is an interesting thing in our line of work. It's an interesting because obviously JD is seen by many as the heir apparent. But there's been a lot of talk about Rubio as of late.

[Josh]

Yeah, there has. And we're not going to do the thing that like the all the mainstream publications do, which is like speculate wildly. What we're going to try to do is get under the hood and give you some thoughts based on our experience of being in this line of work and knowing the players, all the players who are all friends, by the way, all of these people who we're Talking about are good friends and acquaintances of the program about what we think, everybody's thinking and how this whole thing is shaping up. First, to give you context to all of this, I want to give you just a couple of ideas what we're dealing with in case you missed this press conference that Rubio did. Clip 1. I have two questions on two separate issues that come.

[Marco Rubio]

Do they get two questions for these two questions?

[Josh]

There's a lot of people in here.

[Marco Rubio]

All right, well, you answer, you can ask me two questions. I'll give you one answer.

[Johnny]

Thank you very much.

[Marco Rubio]

And I'll pick the one I like better.

[Josh]

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

[Johnny]

All right, I like it.

[Duncan]

Very funny.

[Josh]

So there's a sense of ownership right

[Johnny]

off the top, a command.

[Josh]

Let me just say, like, I've never been White House press secretary. Neither of any of us here. We have been in big press scrums where the question of the day is coming at you and it's difficult to navigate. There is no more difficult job in the world. Now, Caroline makes it look pretty easy because she's got command of that room and does. If you, if you were to deal with anyone in any, I don't care how impressive you are, and drop them into the middle of that room without having several times experienced it in that setting, it's alarming. I mean, this is like the kind of thing that makes your blood pressure run through the roof. Nobody in there wishes you well. Like, nobody. And so there's a bunch of anxiety. They know that they're there to just like, get you. But there's also, what, is there 50 people in there screaming like, you know, the smartest people that journalism can provide? Which again, there's a discount on some of that.

[Johnny]

How dare you talk that way about our White House correspondent John Ashbrook.

[Josh]

Well, you know what?

[Duncan]

It's, it's, it's difficult criticism to take, but you got to be able to take it.

[Josh]

He's only there for the hard hitting stuff.

[Johnny]

That's right.

[Josh]

He's only so. But anyway, Hugh drops in there and all of a sudden it's light. It's funny. More clips. Clip two.

[Marco Rubio]

I'll get to you. Are you guys all the TV people?

[Leonard Leo]

Go ahead.

[Marco Rubio]

I'm sorry. Go. I'm learning. They gave me a little map. I don't know where I put it of the people here. Some of you had like, red X's. I'm kidding. No, you go ahead.

[Duncan]

It's very funny.

[Johnny]

Funny.

[Josh]

But again, what it betrays is the lack of experience of being in that room and doing the thing and like he doesn't really know who these people are, what they're doing. But there's no lack of comfortability behind the podium. That is not something that is commonly done in politics. I can say, you know, having worked in and around dozens and hundreds, really a Republican politician, I don't know that I've worked for somebody that I would recommend to do that.

[Duncan]

Right, right. So it had to be some combination of Rubio himself who wanted to do it. And I know we weren't going to get into speculation, but I'm just going to go ahead and venture into that department here because nobody has decision making authority over what happens in that room. Quite like the greatest press secretary who ever walked the face of this earth. The President of the United States is very focused on how his organization presents up to the American people. So you gotta think that President Trump himself had some sort of either approval or encouragement. You know, we don't know. But Trump was involved, I think, somewhere with Rubio.

[Josh]

I think it was his idea because ultimately that job is a spokesperson for the President of the United States. He's well aware of Internet culture, he's well aware of the meme of Marco. And so in and of itself, it's a fun vignette, the kind that Trump just loves, like Internet memes and sort of playing into all of that. But ultimately he just, you know, he wants to say, how do my people do? I find it impossible to believe that it was conjured up by anybody else other than President. Now, perhaps somebody came up with the idea and asked him, but it would have taken his approval.

[Duncan]

And he, and maybe somebody asked him and he was like, what a great idea. Yeah, yeah, let's see how this goes.

[Josh]

That could have been exactly the way it went down. But involvement, one way or another, is that interesting. I don't know. We're gonna about to get to it. Clip 3 I think it's a real

[Marco Rubio]

test for the UN right, as a function, as something that functions that can solve global problems. What is the purpose of the un? The UN was supposed to be a place where you could peacefully resolve global conflict. Right now you have a country who is unlawfully, criminally and illegally taking possession of an international waterway and blowing up commercial vessels and putting mines in the water. I don't know if people appreciate, like how outrageous this is, how unacceptable it is that any country would fire and try to sink commercial vessels or put mines in the water. Both of these things are illegal. And so we're going to take it to the UN and we're going to give it another chance to be a forum in which we're not even asking people to, like, commit troops to the region and help blow up their Iranian boats. All we're asking them to do is to condemn it, to call on Iran to stop blowing ships, to remove these mines, and to allow humanitarian relief to come through because there's humanitarian aid that's trapped. That's it. This is a very modest requirement. And if you're telling me that the international community and hundreds of countries cannot rally behind that, then I don't know what the utility of the UN system is if it can't even solve something as straightforward as that.

[Josh]

All right, so the reason we play

[Duncan]

this clip, common sense.

[Josh]

You get the humor, you get the comfortability. You also get an argument. I don't think everybody can appreciate. That argument in and of itself is a very complex argument. You're basically arguing for the lack of utility of the United nations from the White House podium. Incredibly potent argument that I don't think there's a lot of press secretaries would want to venture into for a whole variety of reasons. Perfectly comfortable doing it, articulating in a way that everybody can understand. I don't care if you're right, left, or center. What he said makes total sense. In complete command and without fear of contradiction, delivering the message. Again, interesting. That's like a different thing when you see a cabinet secretary. Now, granted, it's the Secretary of state, so this is his purview, so he has particular expertise in it. But he's really forward leaning, explaining complex topics where they're looking for somebody to trip. And he's just kind of doing his thing. That coupled with humor, good nature, doing all that, it's interesting, right? It's just there's, there's things here. There's many, many things here.

[Duncan]

Look, dude, I go back to the idea that Trump wanted this to happen, and I think that he is so proud that he hires the best people and he wants everybody in the world to see it. He's like, I am in charge of the United States of America, and when I hire somebody, you know, they're competent. And let me show you. You know, like, I, I think that that's part of it. I mean, it's a display. There's no, the, the only thing more powerful than telling people something is showing, showing them something. And for President Donald Trump to show the world who he has hired and how competent they are under any circumstance, I think is a very powerful message.

[Josh]

So, look, I Think that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it, presuming he's played a significant role in putting him there is. It's a tryout. I mean, there's a lot of people that would say that, I don't know. But you drop him in the middle of one of these things. Nobody loves a spectacle like Donald Trump or a competition like Donald Trump. You put somebody, you can't be mistaken about what this does. This is a international platform. In a job that he doesn't do for a living, most cabinet secretaries would be an auto no to jump into that room. Marco is obviously a fit for. So he knows he can do the job. He's not worried about him embarrassing himself, but like, why would you do. I don't know, let's see how he does.

[Johnny]

And also, you know, at this time, between the operation of Venezuela and then the war in Iran, you know, topics fit has been sort of ascendant on the scene as a public facing representative.

[Josh]

If we were talking about the big beauty, right, he might not have been the choice to do something like that. So you're right. Topics also fit the moment. Clearly that plays a role. But then you get into the kind of third dimension of Marco that he rolls out here in clip four, you've had a deep faith for God and country. At the end of the day, with

[Marco Rubio]

all that you've liked. Keep going.

[Josh]

You've been extremely busy.

[Marco Rubio]

Go ahead.

[Josh]

I'm sorry, as we all know, I gotta ask you, what is your hope

[Marco Rubio]

for America at a time such as this? My hope for America. And how do you personally deal with that? Yeah, look, I mean, my hope for America is what it's always been. I think it's the hope I hope we all share. We want it to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything. Where you're not limited by the circumstances of your birth, by the color of your skin, by your ethnicity. But frankly, it's a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential. I think that should be the goal of every country in the world, frankly. But I think in the US we're not perfect. Our history is not one of perfection, but it's still better than anybody else's history. And ours is a story of perpetual improvement. Each generation has left the next generation of Americans freer, more prosperous, safer. And that is our goal as well. But it is a unique and exceptional country. And as we come upon this 250 year anniversary, I think we have a lot to learn and be proud of in our history. It is one of perpetual and continuous improvement where each generation has done its part to bring us closer to fulfilling the vision that the founders of this country had upon its founding.

[Josh]

H. Are we going to pretend like that's not a presidential candidate?

[Johnny]

It sounds like a presidential.

[Josh]

Are we going to do that? Yeah, like, I mean, look, all of us are familiar with Marco Rubia's talents. He's been on the scene for a while. He ran for president against Donald Trump and was beaten soundly in that regard. And nobody is questioning. We'll get to this in a minute. Donald Trump's hold on the Republican electorate. We'll give you some demonstration on all of that, but that just doesn't sound to me like somebody who's foreclosed the

[Johnny]

idea, at least in their own head, that they could be president one day.

[Josh]

It just doesn't.

[Johnny]

Right.

[Josh]

It just doesn't. And that is multi tool player stuff right there. You did the funny, you did the comfortability, you did this seasoned sort of technocrat expert component and then you do the forward looking vision, vision component. It's like bing, bang boom, and here we are. Now, if you ask Marco Rubio and many people have about his ambitions to run for President of the United states, he'll say, J.D. vance is my buddy. I love J.D. vance and I have. If he runs for president, I'm first in line to endorse him. That's what he said. That's what he said publicly. And he's shown nothing to the extent that he doesn't believe that they are good friends, despite Tucker. And we'll get into this too, and everybody trying to divide the camps or whatever, but it's kind of hard to ignore at some point that this guy's becoming a thing that is larger than maybe even this administration had previously conceived of. Right. Everybody knew he was smart. Everybody knew he could articulate policy better than the average bear. And then he'd spent a lot of time learning, particularly international policy in his time in the Senate. So you knew you could do the job. Not sure that you knew he had like Michael Jordan like, capability at this level, but that's what that looks like to me. And I got a lot of texts from people who are not terribly political, who are catching this stuff on the news. They're like, jesus, what's this? Which tells me, as somebody who does this for a living, anytime you get the external folks, not the operatives, not the politicians who are all of a sudden lighting you up about something, anytime, it doesn't matter what the issue is. Anytime I get like, you know, one of my buddies back home or somebody being like, hey, what's this? I know. It's like slipped containment.

[Johnny]

Right? Right. It's not just a DC story anymore.

[Duncan]

Right, Right.

[Johnny]

Because, I mean, most of what I've read in this is the sort of, like, you know, parlor games of, you know, reporters who have these beats who are like, you know, JD Is positioning himself to do this, or Marco's positioning himself to do this, or, like, I've done a focus group that says X that maybe Margo. You know what I mean?

[Josh]

Yeah, totally.

[Johnny]

And it's like, yeah, none of it's real info. That's not real info.

[Josh]

It's.

[Johnny]

That's, like, empty calories stuff. But, like, ground truth from people back home who are like, what's the deal with this guy? Is way more resonant, I think, with the broader country than any of that writing.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Well, it becomes like, you know, what was that, that Netflix move? That Garfield thing that we watched?

[Duncan]

Oh, yeah. Lightning. A death by lightning.

[Josh]

Death by lightning. And all of a sudden, like, he had no ambition to run for president. All of a sudden, he's the nominee. Like, I'm not saying this is same same. I'm just saying, like, at some point, it becomes pretty loud, and it's hard to ignore. It was very easy to ignore the first year of this administration, where there is a obvious heir apparent in J.D. vance and three more years of Donald Trump, and all of a sudden, you could creep closer to the midterms. I mean, a presidential campaign's gonna launch in November or December of this year. Of this year. I don't think people understand the proximity it's coming. So these discussions are now. And these things happening at this moment are nothing, but they're not interesting. So at the. At the same time, all this is happening. JD Vice President, United States, who we love. We love this guy in the program. He's. We've gone fishing with him. Um, he's just. He's just a genuinely good human being, and he's got a lot of good people around him. But they put out a story about how he's in Iowa. Hmm, that's interesting. So NBC report. Vance makes Iowa debut with midterm message. This is not a normal, normal election. Vice president visited the state that hosts the first presidential caucuses to make a pitch for Representative Zach Nunn, Republican, locked in a tough reelection fight. Also happens to be a tough governor's fight and a tough Senate fight. It's A pretty significant piece of the puzzle if Republicans want to keep majorities in the House, majorities in the Senate, and then have governors who are following along with an America first agenda. So it's not, it's not like random in the sense that why is he in Iowa? Like, there's a lot going on in Iowa. But I think, you know, I learned very early on anytime a politician shows up in New Hampshire or Iowa, it means something.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And it's much less about what's happening tomorrow than what's happening down the road. And I find it impossible to believe that this is entirely divorced. Like these things are entirely divorced. He's in Iowa making the pitch. Heir apparent. Polls suggest he is the heir apparent. There's a ton of information that we will get to about how he has sort of inherited an infrastructure that would make that an obvious transition. And yet here we are talking about it. It's not a no brainer yet. And I think that is something that's like worthy of discussion, don't you?

[Duncan]

Yeah, I mean, I just think it goes to show that the job of President of the United States is not something that's just given from one man to another.

[Josh]

It's just not.

[Duncan]

It's just not. Under no circumstances is that the actual way that somebody becomes president. It just, it doesn't work that way. You know, J.D. is going to have to work for it. Infrastructure or whatever, you know, aside, I happen to think that he has a very, very strong case for it. I'm a ride or die JD Guy simply because he grew up in a town just north of mine. And you know, in Middletown, Ohio, they had Kyle Schwaber, they had, you know, Chris Carter, they had Jerry Lucas, and they have J.D. vance. And it is not often that the middle of nowhere in Ohio can produce somebody. You mentioned Garfield. You know, you meant we were talking about death by lightning. It is not often that the middle of nowhere in Ohio produces somebody who can rise to this level. And I feel like he is at the right place at the right time in a very special moment. And I think he's going to be very hard to beat. But the reality is there's a race on and whether anybody wants to talk about it or not. And nobody really does except for here on.

[Josh]

I mean, literally nobody. I can't tell you in our line of work here in Smack DAB in Washington D.C. nobody wants to talk about

[Duncan]

the subject that will not be mentioned.

[Josh]

Yeah, I mean, it's just nobody wants to talk. This is the thing that you can't talk about, like, of course. I mean, it's administration to run, everybody's following. Yeah, listen to what he said. He's going to endorse jd and everything's all good.

[Duncan]

They don't just give the White House away. So he's going to have to earn it just like everybody else. And I happen to think that he's capable of earning it. You know, I think he has a message that naturally comes to him, that goes directly to these Democrats who are more comfortable in FDR's party than they are in AOCs that all voted for Donald Trump. And I think he's going to execute that message very well.

[Josh]

He's smart as hell and he's. And he has driven and he has shown. I mean, he wouldn't be here in this conversation if he wasn't capable of earning it. But there are some things that we're about to go through after the break that we're going to get to that maybe, you know, sort of like provide some texture to what is happening. But I do want to play a couple of clips just of JD's stuff so you get a sense of what he's doing right now.

[J.D. Vance]

In clip five, I'm the leader of the Fraud Task Force in Washington, and people have asked me, is that a hard job? And I say, well, I mean, think finding fraud in the federal government, it's kind of like fishing in a barrel with dynamite. Every, every week I get a report from the task force. You know, we have our weekly meeting and I am shocked every single day by the things that we find. Just one of, one of the all stars on our fraud Task force is our great Agriculture Secretary, Brook Rollins. And Brooke. And Brook has found out that we've got 355,000 people on SNAP benefits receiving double benefits, that we've got 186,000 dead people getting SNAP benefits, 186,000 dead Americans getting food stamps right now. Now, I know the fake news media is going to say that the big headline from this speech is JD Vance proposes that we take away food stamps. That's what they're going to say. I actually think that we should take food stamps away from dead people. I'm guilty of that. I think that's a reasonable thing.

[Josh]

So, I mean, look, there's a lot there that's a. I mean, one. It resonates like crazy with the Republican electorate. Hard for me to believe it doesn't resonate with everybody, but, you know, in this day and age, I don't know, it's good, it's funny. You know, there's some. There's some components to it. He's right on message. You know, ultimately being in charge of fraud for a government that is just all fraud, it's a tough job. You know, I mean, it's like he's taking it a little differently than Kamala Harris took the border security issue. Right, right, right. He's actually doing something about it. But ultimately, there's going to be a lot of people that are like, oh, what'd you do about it? I understand you identified it, but what'd you do about it? And there's Congress and there's a whole bunch of difficult things that one man, J.D. vance, can't do himself to bring restitution to the American people for that. Ultimately, people are going to say, well, what'd you do? What'd you do? It's a difficult position, but he's right on message, and it's incredibly persuasive and he's got an incredible amount of talent. So, I don't know. It's components.

[Johnny]

Well, and the other thing that J.D. i think, does better than anybody else in the administration is when it comes to domestic policy and talking about the American worker, he best channels the forgotten men and women of the Trump coalition.

[Josh]

That's his best stuff.

[Johnny]

Like, that's his absolute best stuff, just as Marco Rubio's best stuff is the big vision and foreign policy stuff. Right. So they each have their strengths at this moment in the administration.

[Josh]

Yep. No question. We got one more clip. Clip six, please.

[J.D. Vance]

This is not a joke. There are people who have Lamborghinis who currently receive SNAP benefits. I said, huh, that's interesting. You know, I'm a pretty conservative guy, but I would think that like, 95% of the United States of America would agree that if you are wealthy enough to afford a Lamborghini, then you are wealthy enough to not receive SNAP benefits from the American people. Is that common sense?

[Josh]

Yeah, I mean, it's. He's doing. He's doing the right. He's doing the right stuff there. But this is kind of what you expect an extremely talented vice president, United States to do out on the stump to a friendly crowd in Iowa. You don't expect the Secretary of state to decide that he's going to play the role of press secretary in the middle of the White House and throw it open to the most hostile people on the face of the planet and just sit and, like, eat their lunch. Yeah, there's two different things going on there. Would you guys be shocked at all if JD does the White House press conference.

[Johnny]

No, absolutely not.

[Josh]

I, I think that he doesn't, almost doesn't have a choice.

[Johnny]

To Ashbrook's earlier point where he was saying, you know, but nobody hands you the White House. I don't think JD wants anyone to hand him. I kind of. You know what I mean?

[Josh]

I agree. If he's gonna do what he's gonna do with his. Exactly.

[Johnny]

It's like you have to earn it and always goes back, homes. You've got said this forever. He said we were saying this before the 2024 election. And that is nobody comes becomes president surfing somebody else's wave. Like you have to build your own. And so whether Donald Trump endorses J.D. vance or somebody else or whatever, it's not his. It's not his yet until you go out and you actually do the work. And JD's obviously doing that.

[Josh]

When they, when Republican voters ultimately cast a ballot and decide who the nominee is going to be in 2028, it will be because of their movement. It won't be anyone who says they are the heir apparent of maga.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

There is only Donald Trump. There's one owner of that situation.

[Duncan]

The best evidence of that. I mean, you separate MAGA from that. You separate everything in the last 10 years from that. The best evidence of what you're describing is 2016, when everybody was like, oh, no, Jeb Bush, he's got hundreds of millions of dollars. He has all of the mechanics of the Bush family behind him. He will be the next Republican nominee for president. And then all of a sudden, Donald Trump rises up, eats his lunch, a completely different message, eats his lunch. So.

[Josh]

But then you also had 10 other candidates on the stage that were doing various iterations of a Tea Party movement that lasted 10, 12, and 14 elections. There was now three cycles deep. Those get a little stale in the cupboard from a messaging standpoint.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

They were just trying to tap into once what. What once was an extremely potent thing that honestly gave rise to Marco Rubio, if we think about it. Yeah.

[Johnny]

I still remember when he is on the COVID of National Review, right, With his arms crossed, and he was the Florida speaker of the House and he's gonna run for United States Senate. He was the insurgent Tea Party candidate,

[Josh]

and everybody was like, get the.

[Johnny]

Yeah, there's no way. Right.

[Josh]

But that was part of the movement. But you watched everybody else do the stale talk, the stuff that expiration date was like six months long. And then you watch Donald Trump roll in and be like, your hair is Fucking ugly.

[Duncan]

Right, right.

[Josh]

You know, and everybody was like, whatever that is, I want it.

[Duncan]

Right? Dude, it just, it goes to show you that it doesn't matter. Like if you run the same campaign that somebody ran three cycles before, you're running a campaign that is destined to lose, you have to run the campaign for the moment and it doesn't matter who you are.

[Josh]

Yeah, I mean, it's exactly right. So we're going to get break this down a little bit in more detail right after the break. Where does all of this land? Is this real? Like, are we seeing the early stages of a primary or is this all overblown and ridiculous? We're going to get to all of it right after this. Okay, so look, you heard in the first segment just sort of the conversations is happening behind closed doors these days. But when you look out at the electorate, there are competing narratives that are happening about what happens to the MAGA movement. Is JD an heir apparent that is going to have no primary? Is Marco a real thing? And there's a couple of ways to look at it. One is polling and one of these prediction markets. And can we toss up the graphic on Kelshi? So this is interesting, right? So last August you had Vance at 56 and Rubio at 9. Today in terms of the predictions and remember the way that Kelshi works is people that are buying, it's basically a commodity exchange where you're buying futures and what it is that you think is going to happen, and there's tons of investors from all over the world that are putting these in. And it's not measuring public opinion in any way, but it is gathering information on what people think is going to happen. And it is a good measure of trends, of like whether things are more optimistic, less optimistic on a whole range of topics. And this one Today it's Vance, 38, Rubio 26. Now all of that set against the backdrop of Marco Rubio saying, JD Vance is my very good friend, if he decides to run for president, I'll be first in line to endorse him. It's a pretty definitive Sherman esque statement. And yet people don't buy it. At least in the prediction markets, they don't buy it. They're saying that they think that there's. At least now you know, you're within 12 points of being in a neck and neck race of who's going to succeed Donald Trump for the Republican Party mantle. So you go to the polling, polling is a little bit more definitive in terms of where public opinion is. And in graphic two, if you look at the RCP average, the real clear politics are good friends over there. They've got Vance at 45 and a half and Rubio at 14. Now, if you look at most public polls, this is what you see in that the Republican primary electorate has concluded what has been told to them in perpetuity, that J.D. vance is in fact the heir apparent. He's Vice President, United States, he's next in line, they like him and they want to vote for him. And he is not quite at a majority, but an extraordinarily healthy plurality of the support.

[Duncan]

I'll tell you, if we can throw that Tom Bevin RCP thing back up, there are a couple of names we have not mentioned yet on the show who may or may not be in the conversation. There's RFK Jr. Obviously the big leader of the MAHA movement, Ronnie D. Governor of Florida, outsider on this administration and still making waves out of his own state. I mean, I feel like I see a headline with him doing something every single week.

[Johnny]

Well, and the other person I see on there is Donald Trump. Trump Jr. Which is, which is kind of funny because, like, he's been way more definitive.

[Josh]

Even, Even I'm not doing it.

[Johnny]

I recruited J.D.

[Josh]

vance to be Vice President, One of my best friends.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

I would never run against him. And people are like, yes, put him in the ballot. Yeah, right, right, right.

[Johnny]

I do kind of feel for him

[Josh]

in that regard that he's always like, dude, I'm not. I'm not running for fucking President. They're always like, yeah, but what does he pull? So, but, but if you look at all of that, it look, it's a commanding lead. And if you look at previous. And we don't have these numbers in front of us, but just, you know, memory recall, you didn't have that, obviously with Dick Cheney. You didn't have that with Mike Pence. You didn't get an opportunity, obviously, because it was one term and he was out. Um, you gotta go back a long way. And even George H.W. bush had significant challenges.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Buchanan, Dole, others that, that there was a real open question about whether he was going to be the heir apparent. Like Reagan said so, but it wasn't obvious. So this is a thing that you just have to kind of grapple with. And there is no handing it over. Like I've said forever. When you mentioned, you mentioned the surfing, the other person's wave, like, my, my great lesson on that was Reagan and H.W. two very different people, obviously. And it would have Been the easy thing for George H.W. bush to run as just a Reagan acolyte. He was a hero to conservatives in particular. Primary voters suffering a little bit in the center of the electorate towards the end of his administration. But he went a way different direction. You had Ronald Reagan, who was the lighthearted sort of whatever, but it was Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall. It was the peace through strength message. It was the shining city on a hill. All of a sudden you have George H.W. bush as a thousand points of light, and underneath that is a very different agenda, a very different branding of what it is that he wanted to do, which ultimately resulted in his nomination. If you look at all the failed vice presidential candidates over the years, they have failed to develop that secondary cause. Like, you may have gotten to know me through something you love, but I'm going to need something else. Me, the voter, I'm going to need something else.

[Duncan]

You could argue, I mean, I guess Al Gore started talking about the Earth has a fever, but that was after he ran in 2000.

[Josh]

No, it was done. He was already done by then.

[Duncan]

He was done by then.

[Josh]

He was, by and large defending the Clinton administration.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

And lockbox, remember?

[Duncan]

That's right.

[Johnny]

Remember the lockbox.

[Duncan]

That's right. But, you know. Yeah, yeah.

[Josh]

In a hilarious situation where they actually had a balanced budget.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Like the mo. The least resonant time for Social Security to insolvency. He was running on lockbox. Interesting choices. But.

[Duncan]

But it proves your point.

[Josh]

Totally different. And that is where you've yet to see. Now, I don't think that they. Look, if J.D. vance decided to establish his own identity at this point in the administration, it would be like pouring kerosene all over your body and setting yourself ablaze. Do you think the President of the United States, who owns the Republican Party at this point would appreciate that? Of course not. And he's a loyal soldier, and he's gonna do what he's. I think he's shown at this point that he is willing to go to the map for Donald Trump no matter what.

[Duncan]

Right. And it would be unnatural for JD Because a big reason why he was selected as the vice president for 2024 was because he was communicating very clearly to the Maga faithful what it was that the President was trying to say. You know, like this guy was carrying the torch.

[Josh]

Yeah. No more so in that vice presidential debate than he did with Tim Walls, where he put a fine point on the MAGA agenda to the point where Tim Walls. Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

[Johnny]

Yeah. Very funny.

[Josh]

You know what I mean?

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh]

I don't know, maybe I'll vote for you. You know, you're pretty persuasive when you can get your literal opponent to be like, man, this guy's super reasonable. Which is what. And that's the kind of talent that he's got. And so there's dueling articles that have happened within the last week that, that take both sides of this. Politico did a piece called White House Insiders See Rubio on the rise as potential 2028 pick. Now, the other pieces by Ben Smith and semaphore about J.D. vance. Now, the first one with the Rubio case says once a long shot candidate, Rubio's record is one of admirers in the White House. And among the MAGA base, some of President Trump's closest confidants increasingly see Marco Rubio as a serious 2028 contender in acknowledgment of the Floridian's savvy handling of foreign conflicts and his ability to avoid political landmines. I get it. I also know that, you know, this is not widely reported, but Susie Wiles, who runs a very tight ship, I have so much admiration for this woman.

[Duncan]

Yeah, she's incredible.

[Josh]

She has done what no one else has been able to do in keeping a focus to this White House. And she's just a talented operative all around, like long before she showed up as White House Chief of Staff. First woman, by the way. We don't talk about that.

[Duncan]

No, the press will never. Will they never first build a statue about her.

[Josh]

But she is, I mean, she, look, she's a tough lady, but one of the things that she insisted upon is the consideration of Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. And obviously the decision was the President's, but she was prevailed in getting that consideration and having him ultimately make that choice. Now, that was a tough choice to make. Remember that 2016 primary got real ugly and I was involved. Johnny, you were involved in 2018 or when Marco said that he wasn't going to run for Senate again, but we were dead to rights. We're going to lose the Senate if he didn't. And he was tough to try to convince to get back on board. And you know, he's like, look, I'm just not going to do it. And we talked a lot to the Trump White House in that era about whether or not the President would have a full throated endorsement. And like, to be honest, at the beginning was sort of reluctant, obviously, like nobody had gone. He went after him to remember the small hands thing and the whole, like, it got increasingly personal at the end of that thing.

[Johnny]

The Rubio in the water.

[Josh]

In the water and all the. Yeah. So, like, it became. It was a thing.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And Trump ultimately got over that one, because he got to work with Marco a little bit, and I think they understood each other a lot better than they did as opponents. But two, he understood that basically his success or failure on the political front in the midterm hugely tied to whether Marco decided he wanted to do that. Ultimately, Marco Rubio decided he wanted to run because basically the people of Florida just demanded it and. And he decided he would do it. Came back with a little different profile, played a different role in the United States Senate. But when he came back into this section of his career, it looks a lot more to me like how he first emerged, which is this, like, bright, shining star of talent that he's uniquely comfortable in.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

That is hard for somebody like the President of the United States to ignore.

[Duncan]

Right, Right. No, that's exactly right. I mean, I remember those days. You know, he had this primary opponent who was some, like, developer that had all these scandals and everything. Yeah. Carlos Barouf. Good memory.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

And he was trying to beat Marco. Of course, Marco wiped the floor with the guy and then went on to win the general in. In great fashion in that 2018 cycle. But I think you're right. I think Trump sort of saw down the road, the long game, as we like to talk about here at the Ruthless Variety Program. Trump saw down the road and saw an opportunity with Marco that maybe he hadn't seen previously.

[Johnny]

And I gotta give the President credit for one thing, because I'm not like this famously. I hold grudges.

[Josh]

Oh, yeah. Forever. You're a good grudge keeper.

[Johnny]

That's the problem with having a good memory, is he's able to do the water under the bridge thing better than most. And I know a lot of people think, like, you know, he's constantly a brawler all the time, but, like, not just Marco. So many people he's brought into the fold who've slighted him in the past. I mean, like, think about, like, the Elon stuff. You know, like, he's friendly with Elon again, even though Elon said things that.

[Josh]

Jd, jd JD is a good example,

[Johnny]

you know, really, all of it. I mean, yeah, Donald Trump has thicker skin than people give him credit. 100%, yes.

[Josh]

100, no. It's really well said. So the other side of this with Ben Smith, who, you know, like, I know smug loves to throw darts at, but he's had insightful analysis for as long as I can remember. Like, since I've been involved in politics, this guy's had insightful analysis. And what he wrote is why it's still J.D.

[Johnny]

vance.

[Josh]

A year ago, Vance was a presumptive 2028 Republican nominee. Now, Washington. Conventional wisdom, a 5050 blend of dinner party chatter and possibly sponsored social media posts holds that prize is slipping a bit from his grasp. Polymarket, a reliable measure of conventional wisdom as his odds of winning the nomination down below 40% from a November high of 60%. And then they've got this, like, dumb. Dan. This is Dan Pfeiffer.

[Duncan]

Yeah. No, he was Evan Bae's consultant.

[Josh]

Yeah. I mean, makes sense to have him in speculation about the Republican nomination. I'm sure he knows a lot about it. He couldn't find a quote from, like, the wizard of Oz.

[Johnny]

Literally anybody, Literally any human being that's sucking air.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

But anyway, the post, it goes on to say, like, look, guys, got the infrastructure. And there was a lot of stories earlier this year, including a New York Times piece that was featuring the fact that the president himself basically gave the job of harboring and overseeing the whole financial network that funds maga, that funds the Trump universe, to JD Vance. A hell of a gift. Yeah, you're looking for a Christmas present. As a politician, it's about as nice as it gets.

[Johnny]

Yeah, it's the keys to the kingdom right there.

[Josh]

Pretty good. And he's done well with it, which is another component to it. And, you know, in New York Times, the vice president is also the finance chair of the Republican National Committee, allowing him to court donors who could prove helpful to his run for president at some point. It's an unusual second job. Nobody previously. That was the vice president. United States held such a position.

[Duncan]

I mean, here's the thing. It sounds like a very, very powerful tool, but how powerful is a universe untethered from its creator? You know, I think that's a question that will be answered in the next few years. Can the MAGA universe transport to somebody else if it's not Donald Trump? You know, I think that is a legitimate question that everybody is gonna be asking over and over and over again. The answer might be yes, because the alternative for those voters could be a socialist Democrat who's like, no, America should be a communist country.

[Josh]

If it ever becomes a binary choice, it becomes very quickly solved.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

The question is how quickly it can become a binary choice.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

And I'm not sure that we're not in a situation where that binary choice has gotten more complicated. And one of the reasons that this is complicated, we've heard from an awful lot of you who've wanted us to weigh into the podcast wars. We have refused in large part because it's not real.

[Duncan]

It's not.

[Josh]

And, like, none of these people matter at all. And like, whether somebody who supported Trump, who's like on a microphone making it up on a daily basis, supports him now or doesn't support him now matters not. What matters is ultimately what you're communicating to your constituents and how voters feel about it. So that's why we've, like, removed ourselves. But voters do have an impression about the podcast wars, and that does color their opinion in a lot of ways. And one of the things I think is complicated things for JD Vance is what is obviously a pretty close relationship with Tucker over the years. And there was an interesting New York Times thing that came out over the weekend. Where's an interview, long form interview with him? I'll give you a little taste of that clip, Sam. JD has been subject to, this is

[Leonard Leo]

well known, but I'll just confirm it.

[Josh]

Non stop treachery from people on the neoconservative side. Who are these people around Marco Rubio? And they have been totally against J.D.

[Leonard Leo]

vance from the very beginning.

[Josh]

Who do you mean specifically? You know, I don't know is the real answer. I don't know you're accusing people of treachery. So I'm wondering. Well, I know there's been a lot

[Johnny]

of treachery for sure.

[Josh]

And I know they've been, they were so mad about J.D. getting that job. I mean, they.

[Leonard Leo]

Who's they within the White House?

[Josh]

I don't, you know, I don't know the answer to that. I've never worked there. So, like, if you don't work there, you can say, you know, you can

[Leonard Leo]

say what you think you know, but

[Josh]

it's hard to really know. This is me looking skeptical.

[J.D. Vance]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Well, being honest, like, I don't really know.

[Johnny]

That is, it's a classic Tucker rhetorical technique where he says, he, he, he says he's going to reveal hidden knowledge that we all know to be true. And then he wildly speculates.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

And he can provide no backup to that thing.

[Josh]

It works great as a soliloquy.

[Johnny]

Yeah. But like, when someone's like, all right, so the specifics on that, so who is that? That's where it gets tough. And like, like, I'm, I'm not naive to think that there's different camps or different opinions on JD Vance or Marco Rubio, and there might be jockeying or comm shops pitching stories to reporters that make one look, that's politics, baby.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

That's not treachery.

[Josh]

That's the big league.

[Johnny]

That's the future of the country. And so to cast it in this way, I think is entirely divorced from the reality of what most people in Washington do for their daily job, frankly.

[Josh]

Yeah. As evidenced by the segment that we just did where you had Marco Rubio doing a White House press secretary briefing and then a story pitched by the JD Vance operation while he's in Iowa.

[Duncan]

Right, right.

[Josh]

That's what politics is.

[Duncan]

And the other thing is that it struck me about the conversation was not. Was less about what he was saying and. And more about who he was saying it to. You know, if we're talking about politics, baby, and, you know, the presidency of the United States, we're talking about the Republican nomination. Yeah. And the people who decide those things aren't interested in what the New York Times has to say about it.

[Josh]

It is amazing.

[Duncan]

They're just not at all.

[Josh]

It is amazing the newfound interest that the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post and the like now have in Tucker Carson.

[Johnny]

Yeah. Because he says he regrets voting for Donald Trump.

[Josh]

Right.

[Johnny]

He apologizes for it, which I think

[Josh]

is a complication for J.D. now, J.D. is famous, and I think this is one of his great assets for not abandoning friends in a moment of opportunity. Like, he's a loyal guy. And where this is complicated him is. With him is. Now you've got Tucker Carlson, who, I don't know where you would even categorize where he is on the spectrum except anti Trump. Like, is he conservative?

[Marco Rubio]

I don't know.

[Josh]

There's a lot that's not conservative there. Is he liberal? No, he's definitely not liberal. Like, I don't know where he is, but he's certainly not maga. And that is what he's going to require at some level to stay at the top of the heap, at least in the interim, until he can make his independent case to Republican primary voters about why he should be the nominee in 2028.

[J.D. Vance]

Yeah.

[Duncan]

One of the things that you're taught early on as a Republican press secretary, if you want your boss to be on the front page of the New York Times, simply encourage him to attack another Republican, because that is a str shot to everything that that newspaper has to offer. Oh, you want to attack a conservative front page? Be my guest. It's all yours, my friend.

[Josh]

The red carpet is yours. The top of the New York Times

[Duncan]

just attack another Republican. That's all you have to do.

[Johnny]

Why?

[Duncan]

We'll put you in headline. I don't understand why a guy with a trillion people in his audience and he flips on a microphone and to the Internet and like I got to talk to the New York Times. I don't, I don't understand that.

[Johnny]

Maybe he wants to run for president.

[Duncan]

Well, I don't think that's impossible. His name wasn't listed on the Tom Bevin list of people who are polled. Let me just double check that here.

[Josh]

Yeah, I don't see, I don't see it. I don't see it in there.

[Duncan]

No, it wasn't listed, but that's not impossible.

[Josh]

But this, so this is the pinch.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Josh]

I think everyone can acknowledge that JD Vance at this point is the heir apparent.

[Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And is the likely nominee of the Republican Party in 2028. He's got the infrastructure, he's got the polling, he's got the talent and he's got the ability to go deliver the message and build an organization. No question about it. But he's also pinched a little bit in that you've got the Tucker Carlson's of the world. And then you have these like summaries, like leaks about how he's uncomfortable with Iran. And then he's got, you know, people like Tucker out there saying they regret for voting, voting for President Trump or supporting President Trump because of Iran. I mean, this fucking blows my mind that anybody, that that's their position. But, but that's what they're saying. Which pits him against like the MAGA faithful. There's been polling over the last couple of weeks that have shown that like Tucker had 65, 70% of the Republican electorate that were approved and loved of Tucker Carlson. It's now like 30. I mean, his. So the more that you're tied together with that, the more difficult it becomes because ultimately Donald Trump still runs this damn party. Well, yeah.

[Johnny]

Right. And, and Tucker needs to have some way of reconciling the fact that he's told all of his listeners and viewers that what he says is what Donald Trump believes. So if Donald Trump does something that he doesn't like, then it has to be treachery. Outside forces are making Donald Trump manipulating Donald Trump.

[Josh]

I haven't changed.

[Johnny]

And I think the problem for Tucker and people like him is they saw what everyone saw, that opposition to the war in Iraq is really one of the things that animated the 2016 run of Donald Trump in Putting America first. It was an end to foreign interventionism and nation building and all of that sort of stuff.

[Duncan]

Duncan, you've been talking about that for a very long time.

[Johnny]

But they over read it as massive isolationism. Isolationism and those are two different things. And in overreading the tea leaves on Americans skepticism of foreign adventures, they have now created an isolationist view of the Republican Party that I'm sorry, is not anywhere close to the majority and by

[Josh]

the way, has never really existed in any significant faction.

[Johnny]

But it has existed for a long time and no, but I mean in

[Josh]

terms of its value to the larger electorate.

[Johnny]

My criticism there, like on Tucker with like the neocon forces of Marco Rubio, it's like I don't even know what the hell a neocon is anymore.

[Josh]

No, I don't know. You know what I mean? Apparently it's anybody who like, you know, takes binoculars and sees out across the Pacific Ocean.

[Johnny]

Well, in the age of like Bush's Republican, you know, foreign policy, I knew what a neocon was that made sense. People who wanted to export democracy abroad and, and replace regimes and all that sort of stuff. But like in the framing that it's used now, it's more the sort of like throwaway Ron Paul 2008 thing where it's like you're a neocon if you want to do anything. And I think that's an entirely useless framing of the argument. And honestly, it hurts Tucker's case. Some of what he says I empathize with when it comes to America's foreign policy, but the way that he frames it, I think is just fundamentally wrong.

[Josh]

Well, I mean, look, just, I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole on foreign policy, but if you can't see how a global marketplace knits itself together, right, in that your influence is pretty important to making sure that Americans can feed their families. You're not being honest with yourself. And, and that's, it's the, what has always bothered me about it is the, the dumb ification of foreign policy in the global economy in that you just, oh, we don't want it. Not a dime goes out until we rebuild our bridges. We're not going to build a thing because you don't have any revenue coming in, your GDP is negative, your joblessness is through the moon because you've cut yourself off from the largest global marketplaces that sustain jobs and exports out of this country. You know what I mean? Like, you gotta have an idea of how the modern economy Works in order to have a foreign policy view.

[Duncan]

In my opinion, you can see how each side goes too far. You know, when it's Paul Wolfowitz saying that, no, everybody needs to be at war in Iraq for 15 years, God damn it, you understand why people are like, wait a minute, what is this for?

[Josh]

Well, it ceases to become about your interests.

[Duncan]

Right. And then when people are like, no, we can't do a single thing overseas, even though they're like, you know, rebuilding so that they can come kill us with their terrorists, it's like, well, wait a minute, what's the military? Can't we. Can't we stop them before they do that? So, like, there is some happy medium there. It seems to me like Trump has really found it.

[Johnny]

I think so.

[Marco Rubio]

I think.

[Josh]

I think Trump is there, and I think that there is a little bit of a jarring impact to people who are loudly supporting his campaign that he's not an isolationist. We said this all along. He's never been an isolationist. Tell that to Soleimani. He's never been an isolationist. And I think you're right in that you can't admit you were misleading people at some level. So it has to be on Trump,

[Johnny]

but not blaming Trump.

[Josh]

Right. There's some forces, Forces behind Trump.

[Johnny]

Right.

[Josh]

Because, of course, that's the beauty of conservative media. Right? It's like if you disagree with President Trump, you can't actually say, I don't like.

[Johnny]

It's just what he's doing.

[Duncan]

The idea that Trump is an impression, questionable figure.

[Johnny]

Yeah, right.

[Josh]

Or a puppet.

[Marco Rubio]

Right.

[Josh]

That somebody else is just sort of like, marionetting around the. I mean, fucking A. Are you kidding me? Guy's been on the stage since 1980. Right. Like, one thing I can conclude.

[Johnny]

Hey, you want to know what he was talking about bombing Carg island, then? Right?

[Josh]

I mean. Yeah, right. Just do a little bit of homework. You understand where he's at on all this stuff. But he still owns and operates the Republican Party electorate, so you have to go by indirection. There's pervasive forces, all of these things, like JD's trying to do the right thing, but there's these other things out there that are real problematic and whatever. And you see that played out this week with Indiana, a state, a home state of our brethren here, the Hoosier State. The Hoosier State, where you had the media suggesting out loud that Trump's grip on the gop, wishful thinking, I might add, influence waning. Yeah, yeah, But. But that somehow he was losing his grip on the Republican Party. And it's as evidenced by the fact that there were these primaries against these state reps in Indiana who refused to remap in the, in the redistricting fight Indiana, and that the Trump Organization had gone all in try to primary these guys, which they did. And you can make your arguments one way or another about whether that's a smart use of time and resources, but they did. And the suggestion from, like, here's one from the New New Republic. Let's pocket pop up that graphic. Trump is losing his political juice right before the midterms. That's interesting. Okay, graphic four, if you can pop this one up. Trump has lost control of the gop. Oh, it's with Jennifer Ruby. Dan Pfeiffer, dude, is he making two, he making two appearances here?

[Duncan]

Why? It's not Jen Rubin, but I would draw your attention to Dan Pfeiffer's name. Dan Pfeiffer was an Evan Bai guy. And Evan by, for those of you who do not remember, famously went to Washington and left Indiana in the dust. And so the, the irony that he has the pulse on what Indiana wants is just very funny to me.

[Josh]

Our favorite one was flagged by the old man himself, an Indiana Hoosier native, by James Briggs and the indie star who, you know, a lot of shoe leather reporting on the ground stuff came up with his own. Trump's day of reckoning is here.

[Johnny]

Yeah, what I love about this one is, you know, he's, he puts this up before the polls close on Tuesday. And I'll just read here from the article. Much like the Senate redistricting vote, Trump's wrath is looking shaky. Politico reporting from Politico and CNN projects a bad night for the Trump endorsed primary challengers. I just want to say this guy works for the Indy star in Indiana and he's citing the reporting of Politico and cnn, two national publications, to tell him what's happening on the ground underneath his feet.

[Josh]

Local journalism is not in a good place.

[Johnny]

Unbelievable. He continues, you know, Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith is already managing expectations, telling both outlets that defeating three out of the seven anti redistricting senators would constitute a good night for the revenge tour. Sorry, but 43% is a failing grade in any class. Wow. Body bag. Dude, we're just hours away from loud mouse like Beckwith. Expanding the goalposts even further to the point at which a good night is two wins or one win or maybe even a realistic war was the friends we made along the way. Anyway, Trump Won five of the seven. Yeah, right.

[Josh]

Yep. And like, one of them was because they. What they had to the guys, same

[Johnny]

name, two people, the same name, a little bit of, you know, chicanery, what's going on there.

[Josh]

But, like, there's just no doubt. I mean, these are people who are in good standing with their constituency for a period of time.

[Johnny]

And what about Donald Trump being indicted a billion times and then winning the nomination in 2024 disabused you of the notion that he is the tightest with his voters of any politician we've seen in modern American history.

[Josh]

Right.

[Johnny]

So if Donald Trump is like, I was slighted by these people, his voters are going to take retribution against them. It's why we argued here on the show. It's like, do not unilaterally disarm on this redistricting thing. Deliver for the president. They're already doing it in New York. They're already gonna do it in Virginia. Just do it. And they were like, no, we gotta be principled. Well, your principles mean nothing when you lose power. I just can't believe we it came to this. But it did.

[Josh]

Look, we illustrate the Indiana thing to illustrate the issue that both somebody like Marco Rubio and The Vice President, J.D. vance have, which is undeniable control of the Republican Party by Donald J. Trump, our president. And yet the full knowledge that nobody who's nominated in 2028 is going to do it by being just anointed as the next heir apparent, as evidenced by the whole first section of this thing.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

People like you capture the imagination of voters. It's on to the next. Nobody ever gives anybody anything from what they did. You know, you can maybe get a Hall of Fame statue. You maybe get a plaque in a museum somewhere, maybe name a building after you. But you're certainly not President United States.

[Johnny]

Okay, so just like, trying to organize my thoughts here in summation of this whole segment, and I think, and this feels weird because it feels like you're talking shit about your friend a little bit.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

Here.

[Johnny]

You know, I love J.D. i love him. And if he's the nominee, I'd be very happy to vote for the guy. Also, just to be able to vote for a millennial, as an elder millennial myself, that would be fantastic. But I do feel like at the present moment, you look at those polls and it's like 45, 43% JD Vance in the primary. Like, you have to wonder how much of that is voters assumption that he is anointed, that that is like they're Like, I'm with JD Because Trump is with JD and so it's really on something that is possible but not a guarantee. Right.

[Josh]

It's always about the inevitability bubble in any candidacy. And you see this play out, particularly in Republican primaries where you see incumbents, where as long as there's an inevitability bubble, people are more than happy to support them. And as soon as it's burst in any real way, the dam breaks and then like, Katie, bar the door. You don't know what's going to ultimately happen.

[Johnny]

And the other thing is, and like, I remember we did a segment on, on Fox Ashbrooke and I did where this question was posed at the beginning of the Iran stuff and Rubio was doing a bunch of media and everything. It's like, is this a real thing? And the comment I made then and the one I'll make now is like, Donald Trump ran the most popular show on television. It was called the Apprentice, where he literally got to watch all these people compete to be his Apprentice.

[Josh]

Yes.

[Johnny]

I have a very hard time thinking Donald Trump is just gonna walk out of the Oval and say, see you guys. By the way, he's the next gu. I don't see that ever happening. But then also to like be self critical here, I mean, maybe that's wish casting in and of itself because we have a conservative podcast and it's like, what's better for content? An actual primary or somebody being anointed.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

You know, so like, maybe I'm blinkered on the whole thing and JD Is going to be the guy. I don't know.

[Josh]

Well, it could be. It could be both. It could be both. But I think if you are a conservative anywhere across this country over the last six months, you've at least had this conversation. And this is just an opportunity for us to sort of weigh in with some under the hood discussion that we've been privy to about why this is a little bit more textured.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And if you think for a second, like, look, Marco Rubio is a professional's professional. He's going to do his job. He's going to support the President, United States. J.D. vance is a professional, is loyal as hell. He is gonna do his job as Vice President, United States. At no point do I think that either one of them are going to lay down their responsibilities in order to campaign against each other in any formal way. But a campaign's coming. A campaign's coming. And the question is whether or not you think that Marco isn't thinking about it at all. You're crazy.

[Johnny]

He's crazy to run against jd. You want to know why? Because he hasn't come on the variety program. He only gets a pass. Marco, you only get a pass to run for president if you come on the show.

[Josh]

Well, we saw. We saw.

[Johnny]

JD's come on the show.

[Josh]

We saw this play out. We did all the primaries. All the primaries. All the candidates came on. There was one candidate of an upcoming primary who didn't come on. He just exited stage right or left or whatever last week. That was the Kentucky primary.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Two guys are still in the race. The other guy, not so much.

[Duncan]

Nope. So he's out.

[Josh]

We're thinking about. We're thinking about. Listen, this was a great discussion. I'm glad that you guys could be a part of it. When we come up next, we're going to get to your comments, but we first got to ask you to like and subscribe. When you do, we ask you a question of the day. This question is, is there a narrow parent Tamaga? You let us know and give us your thoughts on the discussion that we just had. Love to read all of it and get back to the very next episode. When we come back, your comments from last episode right after this. Okay. When you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Friday program, we ask you a question today and we read your comments in the very next episode. Our question from last episode was write your own DNC autopsy. Remember these clowns who poor Ken, wanted the learnings, didn't want to. No, we're not going to deal with the autops, just the learnings from the autopsy. Well, where do the learnings go? Well, just to the people who met. They need to do the learning.

[Duncan]

I think you mean the leerings.

[Josh]

That is exactly right. It was more of the leering. So we asked for your comments on all of that. To do that, we always start with a voice first.

[Duncan]

One from Yellows v. 650. Yellows v. Writes, my autopsy would have been literal. Quote, fellow Democrats, it turns out that Joe Biden was dead. We probably should have run someone who was still among the living.

[Johnny]

It's true.

[Duncan]

I think that's very astute. Yellows v.650.

[Johnny]

We went through a whole cycle of recriminations after the election where it was okay to criticize Joe Biden and then that just like went away.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

And everybody forgot that this is all kind of his fault.

[Josh]

Feels right.

[Johnny]

Makes you almost feel bad for Kamala.

[Josh]

It does a little bit. No, no, I don't. No, no. All right. Comment to Dunks Runks.

[Johnny]

This is from Mona Moon. Mona writes my suggestion for the Democrat autopsy. It was perfect. You made a flawless campaign. Never change.

[Josh]

Oh, Mona.

[Johnny]

Mona's joke. Joking, Mona. But I. I did listen, as I am often one to do, to the liberal podcast. When they had their post campaign autopsy with all of the Kamala people, they made.

[Josh]

They made the heavy case that it was perfect.

[Johnny]

That it was perfect.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

And there they. It was always caveated by, like, we just didn't have enough time.

[Josh]

Yeah. Doing 56 days.

[Johnny]

You know, it's a really truncated campaign, though, and we're just spinning this thing up. Never mind that the bar.

[Josh]

Our chart on her campaign was like that. It was like, if it looks like this, more time doesn't mean. No, it doesn't mean that.

[Johnny]

I mean, more time. More time to make it worse.

[Josh]

Yeah. Trend lines, they're called, I think.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

I'm no mathematician, but I think that's right. All right, so we gotta get to an interview. Many of you do not know this guy. But for those of you who have been involved in conservative politics for a while, you inevitably know this guy because he has put a heavy imprint on many, many things. Most foremost amongst them, the conservative judiciary. One of the authors of Conservative Judges, A Plan to Put Conservative Legal Minds Into Place. And we've seen 15,000 liberal organizations rise since this guy took the mantle of the Federalist Society and rise and fall. But this guy made it work over a period of time where he actualized those gains. And working with, you know, President Trump and Leader McConnell and others, they actually fundamentally changed this country in many ways, which is something not a lot of people can say. Honestly, he's a. Is somebody that should be admired and respected, in my view, regardless of whether or not he's popular today or popular yesterday, or if you're a liberal, you hate the guy. I think this guy is a perfect definition of somebody who has figured out how to just drive forward and implement the kind of change that he has told everyone he wants to do. Leonard Leo. Look, I'm really excited about this interview. It's a rare opportunity. This man doesn't do a lot of interviews, but he knows more about serious and important things than almost anybody around. I've had the pleasure of knowing him for a long time, and you all know his work and has been. Have been beneficiaries of his work. Leonard Leo. How are you, sir?

[Leonard Leo]

I'm great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[Josh]

It's great to see you. Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

You guys dressed up for the occasion,

[Josh]

a show right after. I love that. Okay. All right, well, I'll see how this is gonna go. No, look, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Leonard's work, he's the founder of the Federalist Society. And it is to courts and legal conservative everything. What like, you know, the Declaration of Independence is for America. I mean, it literally is the foundation by which the Supreme Court now exists. And all of the building, through appellate courts and federal courts have been upon. And you were at the center of all of this. Is this. How did this start, by the way? Like, how in your mind, how did you just decide to do. Because you literally just did it.

[Leonard Leo]

Well, thanks. I'd be happy to answer that. But first, I think the most important piece of business needs to be taken care of. I understand that there's a bit of a tradition here. Oh, some people come bearing gifts and I understand that, you know, wines and spirits.

[Josh]

Oh, yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

That's the way to occasionally get. Yeah. So I'm gonna present you here with a bottle of one of my favorite wines. This is. This is Dominus. I thought since we're going to be talking about crushing liberal dominance, Dominus would be a good wine to present.

[Duncan]

Thank you.

[Leonard Leo]

It is a great wine. It's a 2013, probably Christian Moyo's greatest year, his 30th anniversary wine. There's two great years, 12 and 13. That wine will last for 40 or 50 years. But you can pop that baby open and you can crush that bottle just like you crushed liberal dominance.

[Josh]

Well, whole entire critique at the top is completely reversed by this.

[Leonard Leo]

And. And we've got a Bunch of America 250 glasses that you can use with.

[Josh]

Incredible.

[Duncan]

It's not going to last 40 or 50 years. Yeah, I hope not.

[Johnny]

Probably just save this for the next Supreme Court vacancy.

[Josh]

We're going to get to some of those questions because this is a man who knows what he's talking about. So give us a little backdrop. How did you get interested in all of this and begin to sort of spool up what ultimately became the Federalist Society and this big conservative movement nationwide?

[Leonard Leo]

Well, I had always been interested in America's history and the Constitution since I was a kid. So, you know, and any, any kid that's really interested in that stuff starts to gravitate toward wanting to be a lawyer. So that was kind of how I got to all of this in the first place. And. And then, you know, I got active in the Federalist Society when I was in law school. I first. Actually, Josh, I first Got introduced to it when I worked on Capitol Hill as an intern. My boss at the time, Senator Orrin Hatch, was really involved in it. And I got dragged to a couple of Federalist Society meetings, a really famous one where Ed Meese was giving the legends in there.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

And he gave the famous originalism speech. This dingy Chinese restaurant in D.C. where they used to have their meetings. And I was there and I was like, wow, I love this group. I love what's going on here. I gotta do something them with this. So I got to law school, started a Federalist Society chapter. Cornell. They didn't have one. And then when I graduated and was clerking, I was going to go do the usual law firm thing because that's what you do when you come off your judicial clerkships. And then I heard from the Federalist Society that they needed somebody, and so I came on board. And at the time, the organization was really strong at the law schools, but really didn't know what to do with.

[Josh]

More of an intellectual pursuit than a

[Leonard Leo]

intellectual, you know, very much about educating law students, giving them sort of a balanced diet of ideology in law school, which was great. But what do you do with all these graduates? They're all supercharged, talented. They want to make an impact on society. So I came on board really to sort of figure out how do you. How do you harness that talent? What do you do with it? And that's where we started, you know, moving forward with the lawyer side of the equation and finding ways to create that type pipeline of talent and push those people into the choke points in our legal culture. Which, of course, one of them being. One of them being the courts.

[Duncan]

But, you know, it's really grown. I mean, the Federalist Society chapters all over the place. My own kid brother, Joey, I call him Joey. People professionally call him Joseph. I will never call him Joseph. But he's.

[Josh]

He hasn't gone by the initials yet. The J. Ash Brook.

[Duncan]

I will never let.

[Josh]

That seems to be a thing.

[Duncan]

But, you know, he's been very involved in the Cincinnati area and he's. He's coming out here for, for your events and everything. And it just. It seems like it is only gray growing even now.

[Leonard Leo]

It's. It's doing great. It's. It's a part of the conservative movement that's had enormous impact and has been really, really successful. It's. It's among the most talented people you'll ever see in the movement. And. And of course, law just permeates. Right. So many different aspects of society that that, you know, it's, it's an institution and a network of people who can have just outsized influence because of the role that law plays in America. So when you're a young law student and you see this opportunity to be a part of a network that's a real change maker and you're conservative because if you're not, you're not going to be interested. You know, that's, that's what you're attracted to.

[Josh]

In law school, I thought some of the work that you did to basically raise the whole organization to prominence, but professionalize it in many ways, was provide ammo to folks like me on the difference between conservative jurisprudence and what we saw out of the liberal side, which is basically just outcome based stuff. And the arguments, as I was a young staff guy, was really interested in this kind of thing, always made so much more sense. And then if you're looking for a judge or you're looking for a proper application of law, what you're looking for is somebody who interprets the Constitution, interprets the law, renders a decision based upon text and statutes and precedent, and it's, that's where our fairness is. It's not simply somebody who's staring down their glasses and looking across the dice and saying, well, in a fair world, this is the outcome that we ought to come to. And it's in my mind, this is what we do, we should do. And it just, it provided so much ammunition for young conservatives like me to say, like, nah, there's really not two sides to this argument. There's really only one side. And I felt like I didn't ever really conceptualize all of this until you all sort of organized it in a way that was out in front where you could tell the story. Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

I mean, it really makes a lot of sense and you don't have to think about it very much. I mean, the fact of the matter is you don't want five members in black robes on a court to be making everything up and basically running your country. That's not what America is all about. And especially if you're a young staffer in Congress or you're a member of Congress, why in the world would you want a court that's doing your job? Yeah.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Leonard Leo]

Now, maybe some of them, they just want to mail it in and that's great.

[Josh]

Right.

[Leonard Leo]

But for most of them, you would think they would want to exercise the authority that people elected them to exercise. Right. So it seems like such common sense.

[Duncan]

Right.

[Leonard Leo]

But here's the problem, Josh, and you Know this. You guys know this from your experiences. The reason the guys on the left liked this so much on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in our country is because the political process doesn't agree with most of their ridiculous ideas of what a society should look like. And so they couldn't get that stuff adopted in the political process. And so they relied on judges to make it up so they could achieve the same results, but without the messiness of democracy.

[Josh]

The old legislating from the bench.

[Leonard Leo]

That's right.

[Johnny]

I love that. And I love what you said about In Impact. You're kind of taking the intellectual heft of the conservative legal movement, and you're providing, like, real world impact on public policy and jurisprudence and all that sort of stuff. At the end of the day, politics is personnel. And what makes the Federalist Society, and you in particular, quite a boogeyman of the left is you guys get that. And you look at a situation like United States Supreme Court and all of your work and impact on creating short lists of potential justices and things like that. I mean, it's changed our country in so many ways. And I'm curious, in all of your experience, what that's been like.

[Leonard Leo]

Well, first of all, it's been an extremely exciting experience, and it's something that I'm not sure I ever would have imagined. And obviously, what you're talking about is how we operationalized our ideas, how we weaponized what we did, right? So it was all well and good to talk about how to interpret the Constitution, what the Constitution means, what's the rule of law all about? How do we educate and persuade people about these ideas? And the conservative movement, for many, many of its years of existence, basically did all that sort of education and ideation. But there comes a time in the life of a movement when you have to operationalize and weaponize what you believe in. And the conservative legal movement, starting really in the 1990s, was poised to do just that. It could pivot from talking about all these different things, which is important and still is, but then finding ways to make it happen, right? So that's when you take all this talent, guys like your brother Joey, right? And you say, okay, you know the rules now. You know what you believe in, so what are you going to do about it? And you need an institution that can guide those people into the key choke points of our legal culture. Judgeships, state AG offices, agencies in the federal government, the Justice Department, congressional staff offices, governor's offices, public interest law firms. Right? Funnel your talent into those places or into big law Firms that do pro bono work or whatever, and then have them make their impact known, have them implement their ideas, become a judge, fight for a judicial confirmation, run for state ag, work for a state ag, do something at the Justice Department, do Judge Picken at the White House. Find a way to take your beliefs. Right. And just implement them. And that's what the Federalist Society did. And I think what's really exciting about that isn't just that the legal culture has been transformed. There's more work to be done, but we've been pretty successful. That's exciting. But what's even more exciting to me now for the conservative movement more broadly is we have a model. We now have a model for, across various sectors and aspects of the conservative movement and of culture and society of how to crush liberal dominance. We now know what the recipe is to do that.

[Josh]

Well, I know you've now broadened the aperture, shall we say, and that you're involved in almost everything on the conservative side and pushing back on liberal dogma and activism and various sectors. But before we leave the courts, I gotta ask you ballpark whether you think we're going to have an opening this summer in the Supreme Court. And if so, I imagine you have some thoughts on what that ultimately looks like.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, sure. So, famous last words.

[NetChoice Representative]

Right?

[Leonard Leo]

I'm going to. I'm going to tell you that I'm going to be wrong.

[J.D. Vance]

Yeah, that's all right.

[Leonard Leo]

I've been before.

[Josh]

I just toss hypotheticals out there.

[Leonard Leo]

I don't think. I don't think we're going to see a very vacancy.

[Josh]

Is that right?

[Leonard Leo]

I don't. I don't. I don't see it in the cards.

[Johnny]

Well, the wine will age then. Yeah, that's what we're waiting for.

[Leonard Leo]

We did. We did bring a wine that did not have to be opened immediately. I'm. I'm hoping it's not 40 or 50 years, which is probably how much you can age that thing. But. But look, first of all, I think Justice Thomas has made it pretty clear publicly that, you know, he. He wants to serve out his term for as long as he's alive.

[Duncan]

Well, he's really earned it, too.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, well, he has. And I mean, I remember him jokingly saying years ago that, you know, they. They deprived him of, what was it, 43 years of his life. And so he was going to serve for at least that long. So I think we all know where his head is.

[Josh]

You could take him at his head.

[Leonard Leo]

You never know. You never know. And you know, God in nature can do lots of things, but. But I think he's poised to serve. Justice Alito is at the top of his game. I mean, he's writing some of the most important decisions of the current court. He's playing a very outsized role on the bench there, as we see from his opinions and from commentary about what he's doing.

[Johnny]

So did you, did you read, by the way, his. What he wrote about Ketanji Brown Jackson on her dissent on vra? It was incredible.

[Josh]

Oh, yeah.

[Johnny]

I mean, the guy really is right now at the top of his game.

[Leonard Leo]

Oh, yeah.

[Johnny]

And. And like at a cr. A crucial time in this court with people like that serving with him, I think.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, he. He let it all out.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

And, you know, he's a. He's a person of tremendous patience and forbearance and integrity. And to have said what he said means, you know, he really felt that one of his colleagues acted like a jerk.

[Josh]

They overstepped.

[Leonard Leo]

And so, and so that was a big deal. And it wasn't just him. I mean, he got Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch to sign that statement. And as you may have seen in the Wall Street Journal today, which I thought had a very good theory, there is a footnote in Justice Alito's statement which suggests that somebody on the court was to blame for the delay that took place in getting his opinion out. And so it wasn't politics. It was either somebody on Ketanji Brown Jackson's side or some of his colleagues who were trying to tweak his opinion, slow things down. It wasn't politics. It was people who were trying to either slow things down or, or make. Make the decision more complicated.

[Josh]

Fascinating. Yeah, fascinating.

[Leonard Leo]

But I don't see either of them leaving right now.

[Josh]

How much do you think internally at the quarter? Just in conservative legal circles, people look at the Ruth Bader Ginsburg situation and try to put themselves and their movement and what they have sort of worked to preserve throughout their career hear and wonder aloud whether or not they unintentionally impact that. If, say, you serve another three years, you have a Democratic president, and all of a sudden Kentanji Brown Jackson Jr. Is sitting in Alito or a Thomas seat. How much do you think that does that way?

[Leonard Leo]

In my experience, I think most judges tend not to think a lot about politics and understand that politics isn't their best game. And so, for example, on the US Supreme Court, if there's a single thing that influences when someone decides to leave, it's when am I no longer able to do the job or when am I getting to a point where I don't think I could? And this was kind of a standard that emerged many years ago when Thurgood Marshall retired. I don't know. You know, a lot of people might not remember this. It's a long time ago, but he had a press conference when he announced his retirement, and somebody from the press at the press conference asked him, you know, why are you retiring right now? And Marshall just looked at him and

[Josh]

said,

[Leonard Leo]

I'm falling apart. Can't you tell? I'm just falling apart? And what that moment did, and I've heard this from some Justices, it kind of created a standard on the Court

[Josh]

that, like a self evaluation, there has

[Leonard Leo]

to be a self evaluation, and there has to come a point where you just decide it's time to go. I'll tell you one interesting story. Justice William Douglas was on the Court for a number of years, and toward the tail end of his tenure, he became, he had dementia and a lot of delusions and other things. And there was, there was a very hot debate on the Court, interestingly, about whether his vote should count. Ultimately, a majority of the members of the Court really believe that it wasn't their place to say that a judge's vote wasn't going to count. But, but again, we've had these moments in history that have caused Justices to say to themselves, wow, I don't want to be here if, if I'm in that state. And I think that's the thing. And that gets them most. That's the factor they consider beyond any of the policies. Yeah. Followed by a family situation. So Justice o', Connor, for example, retired because her husband was not well and she wanted to spend the final years of their life together and not encumbered by a job. But it's interesting, you find that sometimes Justices who retire and the sitting Justices, I'm sure, know this, sometimes when Justices retire, they have a little bit of remorse because they feel like, well, now what am I going to do?

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

So a lot of that factors in a lot more than political considerations.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's interesting. That's fascinating. You know, we always think about it in a political context. So that's, that's really interesting. So I want not now get to what you were talking about, about this broadened aperture of what you have been involved in and you've taken what you successfully accomplished and the legal side of building just an incredible apparatus and spread it out through a bunch of different areas where you are now involved and crushing liberal dominance Seems to be the umbrella by which all of this lives under. Yeah, talk to me a little bit about that.

[Leonard Leo]

Sure. The key thing to remember, you guys know this, having worked politics for years, is politics and public policy are downstream from culture and politics and public policy can't get too far ahead of the culture or they won't succeed. And so recognizing that sort of state of affairs, we made the decision to really double down on trying to deal with the broader cultural and societal problems that we're having and to really try to crush liberal dominance across different sectors. So rather than just focus, for example, on the law, which we still do, and a lot, we felt that it was important to get at other cultural and social institutions like entertainment. News media woke corporations.

[Josh]

Well, and you started doing an awful lot of this when you. You're running headlong into some big headwinds in that the whole rise of post 2020, Joe Biden, we're canceling all star games in Atlanta, we're doing. And the whole George Floyd riots. Everybody's into ESG and DEI and everything else. And that's kind of when you decided to operationalize all of this, to push back in the other direction.

[Leonard Leo]

Well, what we realized was first, that we had to.

[Josh]

Right.

[Leonard Leo]

If we were going to continue to post gains on law and politics and public policy, we were going to have to do something. We were going to have to push the push a little bit harder on the culture and get it more in our direction, first of all. And secondly, we knew that most Americans were with us on a lot of these issues. They didn't like where entertainment was. They wanted family values, aligned entertainment. They didn't like an imbalanced news media,

[Josh]

kind of a silent majority out there.

[Leonard Leo]

That's right. They didn't like the fact that corporations put their politics ahead of their customers. And so we knew that there was this well of discontent in our culture and in our society about these things. And that if we could only find a way to sort of channel people's concerns about this and really raise those to the surface in ways that put pressure on the entertainment industry, on the news media, on. On corporations, we could start to see a little more balance. And that's what happened. I mean, we just unleashed

[Marco Rubio]

a lot

[Leonard Leo]

of pain on those sectors, or we incentivize those sectors to think seriously about it because they would make money if they did the right thing, because ultimately these businesses want to make money.

[Josh]

Well, and you've always been really great at recruiting talented people around you to help, which is your whole point in the beginning.

[Leonard Leo]

There's such a great network of people in the conservative movement working on this stuff. I mean, groups like Consumers Research and Honest Elections Project and American Parents Coalition and I mean, there's so many. And they know their craft really well. They've got a good beat on what the American people want and they know how to operationalize and weaponize their ideas. They know how to win. Is it nice to have some people in the conservative movement who have fun finally think about how to win?

[Josh]

Wouldn't that be something? No, it's fascinating because look, you're in a short list, but there are always lists of people who make fundamental impacts on public policy, this country's direction and everything else. And it's usually for a shorter amount of time than you have. Frankly, most people who do this, do this for a moment in time and they become the world's boogeyman overnight. And generally speaking, the press and the left immediately sort of make up a narrative about it. Everybody believes it. They kind of go by the wayside. You've been doing this a long time. You've taken more arrows than almost anybody I know just by, just by virtue of your success in this arena. And like what the latest is, it's like, well, yeah, this is Leonard Leo. People, people give him billions of dollars and he just throws it around. Obviously that doesn't understand the concept of what it is that you've been working on. But just give me some pushback on how you even hear all of that in your own head and try to imagine the work that you've been doing on a day to day basis and watching the left just try to hatch it away, it doesn't have any effect.

[Leonard Leo]

It seems like you can't let it get in your head.

[Josh]

Yeah,

[Leonard Leo]

there are a lot of things that help you get through all of that. Some of it's faith. You know, you recognize that you're going to have enemies and that you're going to be persecuted for what you believe in. I mean, that's at the center of Christianity and understanding all of that. And so you forbear it, right. And you pray for your enemies, you know, or whatever. Some of it's family, right. Having the support structure around you and friends. Yeah, but, but you just don't let it get into your head. And, and, and you recognize that when you're getting attacked, it's because, because you're stealing somebody else's lunch and you're in it. Okay, so, so, so basically, you know. Yep. Okay. You know, two weeks go by and I Haven't been attacked. I, I'm wondering, am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing here?

[Josh]

You get to that point, Right?

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah.

[Johnny]

Haters gonna hate.

[Josh]

Yeah. Why are they, why are they not attacking me today?

[Leonard Leo]

This is.

[Josh]

Are we doing enough?

[Johnny]

So I got a question for you, because you obviously have met brilliant conservative luminaries over the course of your career. I don't want to know who's the smartest, but I want to know who's the funniest. Who's the funniest conservative? Is it like Antonin Scalia? I always heard he was really fun. I never got to meet the guy.

[Leonard Leo]

Oh, yeah, he told great jokes. He really did tell great jokes. They were great old fashioned jokes. I'm not even old fashioned.

[Johnny]

Leonard, we need your help with, like, you know, getting people on the show, guest booking. So if you know anybody who's really

[Leonard Leo]

funny, he told great jokes. And you know the other guy who's just infectiously funny and just raises your spirits as Clarence Thomas.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

I mean, first of all, it just starts with his laugh, right. And then he just has such a great way of telling stories, you know, and, and, and you know, and he's just so, he's, he's really funny, too.

[Josh]

It's a big part of being a brilliant jurist is a good sense of humor.

[Leonard Leo]

Yes. You need a sense of humor to work with some of the people.

[Josh]

You kind of do. Right. Don't you? I mean, I can't even imagine.

[Leonard Leo]

And, and Scalia used to put some of that in his opinions, more so than Justice Thomas does. But Justice Scalia used to always have a little, Occasionally would have some humor in his opinions, but they both have a great sense of humor. They tell good jokes, tell great stories, make people laugh. They're great at what they do, and they're incredible intellectuals and, but they've got the whole picture, right? They know how to be a generous, kind, funny human being. Yeah. If you can't laugh and you can't laugh at yourself sometimes, then there's probably something wrong. Those guys, those guys know how to do that.

[Josh]

It's well said. I have three questions for you. But before we do, experiencing what you've experienced over the course of your career and being. Achieving what you have achieved, do you ever just sit around, like, how the hell did all this happen? Like, does it just. Do you ever think about that?

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh]

I mean, because it's wild to me. You are. You stand alone in my view of someone who is smart, capable, driven, but also just by force of will created something that was. Couldn't be ignored and ultimately became a part of a culture that was so universally adopted by not only the Republican Party, but conservative movement nationwide that what came to fruition over the last 10 years was a dream you couldn't even dream in the 1990s. And so I wonder if you look back on an awful lot of that, you think to yourself like, huh, I can't believe this.

[Leonard Leo]

Can't believe it. No, it's. Well, look, some of it's providence, right? Because, you know, I certainly don't.

[Josh]

You don't do a lot of navel gazing, it sounds like.

[Leonard Leo]

Look, I mean, I know this much. I don't personally deserve, you know, the success that, that the movement has seen. I think we've got here. We've gotten here partly because of Providence, partly because lots of people stepped up, up to the, to the, to the charge in a way that, yeah, I couldn't really imagine. I mean, people rallied around our principles in a fabulous way.

[Josh]

Right.

[Leonard Leo]

And then just to witness now, I guess, two or three generations of young people.

[Josh]

See, that's the wild. So talented. Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

So talented.

[Josh]

Who are doing what they're doing in large part out of inspiration of a previous generation.

[Leonard Leo]

And they're courageous and, you know, they're driven and they're capable, usually smarter than I am. I mean, it's really inspiring. And maybe that's, you know, that's the key thing. It's just. It's always been really inspiring to meet all these people and to see their drive and their talent, to say, wow, you know, I just want to connect these people because they're really good and they can get the job done.

[Josh]

I mean, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's a little, you know, self deprecating, if I'm being honest. He played a lot bigger role than just connecting the dots on people, as you would suggest. But I, I get it. I understand where you're coming from. So three questions we ask everybody. If you can plan your last meal on earth, what would it be?

[Leonard Leo]

Last meal on Earth.

[Josh]

And does it involve.

[Leonard Leo]

It involves a very good bottle of wine, that's for sure. Okay, so there's got to be a bottle of red, preferably a Burgundy. Burgundy. So I'm going to go on a non American here, but that's okay.

[Josh]

And you can drink your dinner. I mean, there is no.

[Johnny]

I would, I would, I would pair it.

[Leonard Leo]

I'd probably pair it. My favorite last meal would probably be veal Milanese.

[Josh]

Oh, there it is. Okay. All Right. Is there any special restaurant or is

[Leonard Leo]

it just like, oh, Sally, my wife's

[Josh]

a really great guy.

[Duncan]

There it is.

[Josh]

So there it is.

[Leonard Leo]

In D.C. if you want to get a real good veal Milanese, you know, you could try Et Voila. Or you could try Cafe Milano.

[Josh]

Yeah, there you go. That's good.

[Leonard Leo]

That's good recipe.

[Josh]

That'll be my meal. All right. So a lot of different guests. I have different ones where I'm more excited about an answer than others. For you, number two is always something I dreamed of asking you, which is? Well, you know, look, you get to a point of success in your life, and you realize somewhere along the way you've encountered a whole bunch of different things and there was something you were really good at and you were really interested in. You just never had the time to pursue it and do it. And so if you could just sort of erase it and go back and do something entirely different than you're doing now. But you have all the benefit and the wisdom of the life experience that you have. Is there another job? Is there another vocation? Is there something else that you would pursue other than what it is that you have? Oh, wow.

[Leonard Leo]

Boy, that's a tough one.

[Josh]

Ted Cruz said I would be a basketball player, which is like, totally not something that's possible, but that. That gives you.

[Johnny]

You can think outside the box.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's the point.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, some. Yeah. Gosh, that's a really, really tough question.

[Josh]

It's tough, right?

[Leonard Leo]

I'm trying to think about people I admired. Right. Who did other things. Things other than me, and whether I would want to do those things. You know, I have to say something that I always. I love food and wine.

[Johnny]

Right.

[Leonard Leo]

And I have to say, there's always been this sort of. Every time I go to a great

[Josh]

restaurant, I think, I know where you're going.

[Leonard Leo]

I say to myself, boy, wouldn't it be nice to like, like, own and run a restaurant?

[Josh]

Yeah, like a high end, you know,

[Leonard Leo]

like be the lead chef or be the owner of the restaurant.

[Josh]

Plan the menu.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, I. I would kind of enjoy that.

[Josh]

Dabble in the sommelier.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah, just a little. The whole thing, the food and wine thing. Just have a nice little restaurant passion

[Josh]

project, you know, maybe get a.

[Leonard Leo]

Maybe get a Michelin star or two.

[Josh]

Lord knows he could lobby for it.

[Leonard Leo]

They're French. I'm not sure I'd have a lot

[Josh]

of you figure it out. All right, third question. Our view is that every successful person in this country, at some level, is motivated by one or two Things. It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it's not that anybody doesn't love to win, and it's not that anybody likes to lose. It's what motivates you to take the next step, to work a little harder, to get a little bit better at what they're doing, to ultimately achieve what they're working on. And, like, our prototypical agony of defeat person is Michael Jordan. Right. Somebody who had to invent slights against themselves in order to just take his game to another level. He had to be at least some impression that he was being downgraded in some way. He had to feel that anger in order to get to the next level. And like, we've always used Phil Mickelson to continue the sports analogy as somebody who is like, I'll pull the two iron from 260 over water when he could lay up, make a par, and win the tournament. But he's like, I hit the shot before I got to do it again. That's the thrill of victory guy. On the full spectrum, where do you think you find yourself?

[Leonard Leo]

I'm more thrill of victory guy.

[Josh]

Are you?

[Leonard Leo]

So if I am part of a winning.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

A winning venture, you take joy. I'm like, wow, this is great. This is a blessing. This is wonderful. How can I take that to the next level?

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

Right. So for some people, you're right. I mean, for some people, you win and you're like, okay, it's like, check that box. I'm done.

[Josh]

60, 50 split in our. In all of the guests.

[Johnny]

That's unique for most people in the legal profession. I say most people in the legal profession we have on are agony to defeat people because they got to plan out what the other side's going to do.

[Josh]

The idea that somebody sitting across the dais thinks that they can beat me.

[Leonard Leo]

Yes. And part of it also is that in the culture that they're in, much of the time, they're being hired because there's a crisis.

[Josh]

Yeah, yeah. Yep.

[Leonard Leo]

Yeah. Sort of like a doctor.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Leonard Leo]

So I'm a thrill of victory.

[Josh]

I'm not surprised to hear that, honestly. You know, there's a lot of people, I think, that would look at your career and immediately imagine that he's a agony of defeat guy. But if you consider the success that you built in the legal side and what you're now doing on so many different verticals, it's basically taking the success.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Being motivated enough.

[Johnny]

It's easy to be thrill of victory when you win all the Time. Save some for the rest of us.

[Leonard Leo]

We don't win all the time.

[Josh]

A couple of challenges, couple of speed bumps along the way. Just a couple.

[Leonard Leo]

Well, listen, car didn't get wrecked, but

[Josh]

we appreciate everything you're doing and we love to keep up through all of your folks on your day to day and what you guys are involved in because we continue to believe you are amongst the most effective advocates for conservatism that this country and certainly this city in D.C. has ever seen.

[Leonard Leo]

Well, I love what you guys are doing.

[Josh]

Oh, thanks, Leonard.

[Leonard Leo]

I mean, I think when you think about media and influencers and social media and you know, getting information and ideas out there, I mean, your podcast is great.

[Josh]

Thanks.

[Leonard Leo]

I was just having lunch yesterday with, with a very senior corporate official who was like, yeah, I listen, I mentioned I was going to be on here and, and, and she said, oh yeah, I listened to that, that podcast. It's like, really?

[Josh]

Oh wow, that's great. I wonder if she cut the JP Morgan episode from last week. Probably isn't quite as high brow. Anyway, thank you for your time. It is such a pleasure and stay in touch with you.

[Leonard Leo]

Absolutely. Thanks guys.

[Johnny]

Thank you.

[Leonard Leo]

Good to see you.

[Josh]

Good to see you. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe [e-mail]

[Duncan]

you know, one of the things you get from the Ruthless variety program are conversations with smart people you wouldn't hear elsewhere, conversations with experienced people you wouldn't hear elsewhere. And this fits the bill like no other I. This guy has seen more things in the development of the judiciary, in the development of the conservative legal ecosystem than almost anybody else who is walking the earth today. And I loved hearing his stories about Clarence Thomas. You know, he has a lot more, so I hope we can get him back to hear a few more.

[Josh]

It's a rare interview. Look, this guy doesn't do a lot of public appearances for a lot of reasons. Right. He's a total boogeyman on the left. They think this guy is the worst first person, which is such a badge of honor.

[Johnny]

Yeah.

[Josh]

But also like his relationship with President Trump is soured. And so like that's not a perfect relationship as it was in the first term of President Trump's tenure. So like regardless of one's politics, you gotta kind of listen to people who've actually accomplished the thing that we all say we want to accomplish, right? And I just find nothing but wisdom out of what this guy has to say. I'm so glad that he came on on. It's fantastic. Remember, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we ask you a question today. And when we do, we get back to you every single episode and read your comments. Our question today is, is there an heir apparent to maga? You heard our discussion. Be interested in your thoughts and get back to the very next episode without Fellas, I think we've done it.

[Johnny]

I think we did it. And don't miss Fun Time Friday. We're going to have King of the Hill on Fun Time Friday. And another special shout out to Comfortably Smug and his new baby boy, Smug junior. Although we need a real name soon.

[Josh]

Yeah, I'm demanding it. I tried to send a demand before the show, but I was un unresponded

[Johnny]

Hollywood hen to play us out.

[Josh]

Another banger of an episode, folks. So until next time, minions, keep the

[Duncan]

faith, hold the line and own the libs.

[Josh]

Sa.