Who’s Behind The ‘No Kings’ Money Grab & Why Do They Hate Their Own Supporters?

Summary

Ruthless Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode: Who’s Behind The ‘No Kings’ Money Grab & Why Do They Hate Their Own Supporters?
Date: March 31, 2026
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan (John Ashbrook out on assignment)

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast takes aim at recent “No Kings” anti-Trump protests, lampoons left-wing dark money astro-turfing efforts, and dissects the internal fissures within the Democratic Party, especially regarding radical activists like Hasan Piker. The hosts provide a trademark mix of irreverence, inside-baseball political analysis, and light-hearted mockery. Key segments include a deep dive into the “No Kings” rallies, a pointed discussion on left-wing division and anti-Semitism, debates over Democrat influencers, and coverage of the hosts' signature March tournament, Hack Madness. The show also highlights government innovation efforts and AFP’s “America 250” campaign celebrating the nation’s upcoming semiquincentennial.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Cold Open & Podcast Philosophy

• The episode starts with characteristic banter about Democratic demoralization and a recurring joke: “Be the pack mule” for paid protests.
• Hosts emphasize their refusal to regurgitate “hot takes” on topics where they lack unique insight:

  “If we don’t know it, we’re not going to tell it to you, right?” (Josh Holmes, 04:40)

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2. The "No Kings" Protests: Delusion, Aging Boomers, and Astroturfing

Timestamp: [05:41–17:16]

a. Who's Actually Protesting?

• Smug observes small, mostly elderly crowds of protestors blocking VA roads.
  • “I don’t think I saw a person below the age of 70… Basically the worst person who could grab the mic at a PTA meeting.” (Smug, 06:32)
• Holmes notes neither he nor his politically-connected family friends had any idea these protests were even happening.

b. Astroturf and Paid Participation

• Hosts mock the professionally-printed banners and claim the protests are orchestrated by dark money groups:
  • “All you are is a photo op for an end of year funding document for Open Society.” (Smug, 06:30/16:58)
• They play and ridicule a clip from a “No Kings” organizer explicitly telling supporters to “be the pack mule.”
  • “There’s brilliant minds… you need to be the pack mule in the fight.” (Clip, 14:32)
• “What a perfect illustration of the worldview of the modern left. ‘Be the pack mule. Shut the fuck up. We’re gonna tell you exactly—’” (Holmes, 15:35)

c. Protest Messaging and Hypocrisy

• Protesters’ signs proclaim “Respect the Constitution” and “We believe in free speech.”
• Hosts call out hypocrisy, citing leftist efforts to shut down conservative voices.
  • “You don’t believe in any of that shit. What the hell are you talking about?” (Smug, 13:57)

d. Protests Co-Opted by Radicals

• Communist flags and explicit calls for “Communist Revolution” crop up, alienating liberal boomers.
  • “Nothing but communist flags. Like, okay, just really winning over the hearts and minds …” (Holmes, 18:00)
• The group compares this to LaRouche activists hijacking past rallies for media attention.

e. Conservative Counter-Trolling

• A biplane flies over a protest with a banner: “Not a King, He’s Your Daddy” (20:41)
  • “Incredible owned you.” (Smug, 20:41)
  • “Worth the investment.” (Holmes, 20:49)

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3. The Hasán Piker Dilemma: Anti-Semitism & Democrat Identity Crisis

Timestamp: [21:09–38:16]

a. Mainstreaming the Fringe

• Politico’s “Dems’ Piker Pickle”—A piece documenting discomfort with Hasan Piker’s rise as a far-left influencer.
• Hosts argue Piker was embraced for his online reach but is now a liability due to his radical and anti-Semitic stances:
  • “They excused it. We always joke… it’s a Michigan problem.” (Holmes, 33:02)
  • “He said the United States deserved 9/11, sympathized with terrorists…” (Duncan, 27:16)

b. The Michigan Problem & Liberal Hand-Wringing

• Discussion of Democrat efforts to court radical and anti-Israel elements, especially in swing states like Michigan and Maine.
  • “Their problem is that he might make them unelectable.” (Holmes, 34:17)
• Outing specific politicians who won’t share a stage with Piker (Booker, Gallego, Slotkin) and those who will (Ro Khanna, Gavin Newsom, Rahm Emanuel). Many key Dems are noncommittal.
  • “Aides to [Dem governors] said nothing…” (Duncan, 35:55)

c. Media Enabling, Late Alarm

• Media attempts to launder, and now distance from, Piker and the radical left are lampooned as “hand-wringing.”
• “Permission slip” for the radical left is given by selective media scrutiny.

d. Anti-Semitism in Dem Politics

• Discomfort with candidates like Abdul El Sayed, who refuses to comment on the killing of Iran’s Khamenei due to sensitivity with Michigan Muslim voters.
  • “What are we doing here, folks?” (Holmes, 39:23)
• “Victory lap” for Ruthless's long-running prediction about the “Dearborn problem.”

e. Contrast with Democrat Campaigning

• Routine of running moderates like Abigail Spanberger while hiding radical elements:
  • “They’re trying to hide the shit stain in their underwear the whole time.” (Holmes, 38:01)

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4. Interview: Scott Cooper (Office of Personnel Management) – Government Innovation & Next Gen Talent

Timestamp: [44:58–61:06]

a. Making Government “Cool”

• Cooper discusses new early career initiatives to attract and retain young talent into federal service, especially in tech.
  • “I just think we’ve lost the service ethos in the country… I don’t need you to come here for 40 years, come for a couple years, learn.” (Scott Cooper, 47:28)

b. Demographic Crisis Highlighted

• Only 7% of federal workforce is under 30 vs. 22% general workforce, with half over 50.
• Government is overly reliant on expensive outsourcing vs. building in-house talent.

c. Innovation & Efficiency

• Removing unnecessary degree/tenure requirements for federal jobs.
• Example: Department of War and Energy leading AI adoption; emphasis on building in-house capability.

d. Call to Action

• New portal for early-career applicants: earlycareers.gov
  • “If you go on my Twitter feed… you’ll find it. If you go to Smug… you’ll find it there.” (Cooper, 59:10)
• Notable quote: “Can the federal government become the finishing school for training for all really smart people?” (Cooper, 59:36)

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5. Hack Madness: The Elite Eight

Timestamp: [63:16–66:17]

• Signature Ruthless tournament crowning top left-wing media “hacks.”
  • “Only one former champion at this point, Oberman… a new champion this year.” (Holmes, 64:13)
• Matchups include Don Lemon v. Mehdi Hassan, Keith Olbermann v. Hasan Piker, Stephen Colbert v. Jake Tapper, Abby Phillip v. Mika Brzezinski.
• “These are people who got fired… brain damage weaponized against an audience.” (Duncan, 64:24)

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6. Chocolate Heist?! – Light Segment

Timestamp: [66:35–71:13]

• The panel cracks up at a reported theft of 12 tons of Kit Kat bars in Europe.
  • “How do you liquidate that much chocolate on the black market?” (Smug, 67:26)
• They imagine OCEAN’S ELEVEN-style planning, fat criminals, and authorities’ clumsy effort to police barcodes.
  • “It’s a dumb heist.” (Josh Holmes, 70:21)

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7. Celebrate America: AFP’s “America 250” & Liberty Bracket

Timestamp: [71:14–90:57]

a. One Small Step & America 250 Toolkit

• AFP’s Daniel Basale joins to discuss grassroots events celebrating America’s 250th—with a focus on individual action and reflection on American exceptionalism.
  • “There’s all this negativity out there. The 250th...is a moment for reflection on what is great about America…” (Basale, 72:24)
• Examples of “One Small Step” actions, such as founding new schools or local civic involvement.

b. Liberty Bracket: America’s Champions Face Off

• AFP created a March Madness-style “Liberty Bracket” of 64 American champions. Current “Eagle Eight” includes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, MLK, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Antonin Scalia.
• Spirited debate among hosts: Washington vs. Jefferson; Lincoln vs. TR; Reagan vs. MLK; Scalia’s influence.
  • “You just kinda don’t have a republic without [Washington].” (Smug, 80:47)
  • “He took the words of our founding fathers and applied it, expanding those ideals to all Americans.” (Basale on MLK, 87:17)
• Notable moment: Smug tries “oppo research” on MLK (“He flirted with some of that stuff…”), adding levity to the debate, and the hosts settle on George Washington as the winner.

c. How to Vote & Get Involved

• Listeners can participate at a250-bracket.com
• Events, stories, and toolkits at a250toolkit.com

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8. New Ruthless Merch Announcement

Timestamp: [90:58–93:13]

• Unveiling the “America 250” Mount Rushmore-inspired T-shirt and minimalist patriotic gear—available at RuthlessPodcast.com
• “If you’re thinking about Fourth of July, you’ll want that. Lot of families do the coordinated party outfit.” (Holmes, 92:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Modern Left:
  “What a perfect illustration of the worldview of the modern left. Be the pack mule. Shut the fuck up.” – Josh Holmes (15:35)
• On Leftist Protests:
  “You don’t understand, you dumb shit. All you are is a photo op for an end of year funding document for Open Society.” – Smug (16:58)
• On Democratic division:
  “Their problem is that he might make them unelectable.” – Josh Holmes (34:17)
• On Government hiring:
  “Can the federal government become… the finishing school for all really smart people?” – Scott Cooper (59:36)
• On the Liberty Bracket finale:
  “It’s George Washington.” – Holmes & Smug (89:36–37)

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Segment Timestamps (MM:SS)

| Segment | Time Range | Highlights | |---------|------------|------------| | 1. Show intro / Meta-political take | 00:44 — 05:14 | Show’s approach, uniqueness, “not humiliating ourselves” | | 2. No Kings Protest Breakdown | 05:41 — 17:16 | Elderly protesters, astro-turfing, “be the pack mule” | | 3. Hasan Piker/ Dem Party Crisis | 21:09 — 38:16 | Media laundering, Michigan problem, anti-Semitism | | 4. OPM Scott Cooper Interview | 44:58 — 61:06 | Early career hiring, tech force, merit-based reform | | 5. Hack Madness Update | 63:16 — 66:17 | Elite Eight, left-wing media hacks | | 6. Kit Kat Heist | 66:35 — 71:13 | Chocolate hijinks, black market musings | | 7. America 250 & Liberty Bracket | 71:14 — 90:57 | AFP’s campaign, “Eagle Eight”, host bracket debate | | 8. New Ruthless Merch | 90:58 — 93:13 | Mount Rushmore shirt, patriotic gear |

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Tone and Overall Feel

• Irreverent, sarcastic, and deeply informed.
• Hosts dissect news and left-wing activism with biting humor, pop culture riffs, and inside-baseball knowledge.
• They ridicule both fringe and establishment elements (especially those seeking to posture as grassroots but are astroturfed).
• Frequent callbacks to Orwell, political history, and in-jokes about the policymaking/media world.

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Episode Takeaways

• The "No Kings" movement is depicted as an ineffective, astroturfed, elderly-driven spectacle, providing fodder for protest industry jokes.
• The left's internal divisions, particularly over radical anti-Semitism and influencers like Hasan Piker, are painted as a real electoral danger, which only now the party establishment and media are willing to address.
• The episode weaves in substantive discussions about public service and merit-based hiring, while maintaining its trademark comic edge.
• Listeners are invited to participate in bracket voting, government career innovation, and celebratory patriotism, all with a wink and plenty of snark.

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For more on bracket voting (Hack Madness & America 250), visit RuthlessPodcast.com and a250-bracket.com. For early-career government opportunities, see earlycareers.gov.

Transcript

[Michael Duncan]

Democrats are so demoralized and divided and it kind of felt like the dark money groups were kind of like, we're sitting on all this money. Let's try to make people remember we're still doing something.

[Comfortably Smug]

It reminds me of like Orwell's Animal Farm and all pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others.

[Josh Holmes]

Sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

Very much an Orwellian vibe.

[Josh Holmes]

That is 100%. What a perfect illustration of the worldview of the modern left. Yeah, Be the pack mule.

[Comfortably Smug]

All you are is a photo op for an end of year funding document for open society. According to a report from Senator Grassley's office, UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest insurer, quote, appears to be gaming the Medicare Advantage system, siphoning off taxpayer money to turn a steep profit. Experts say practices like these are increasing overall Medicare spending, which in turn raises part B premiums for everyone on on Medicare. That means millions of seniors, many living on fixed incomes, are paying hundreds of dollars more each year for the Medicare they need, adding up to billions in higher costs for seniors. And that's in addition to the trillions of dollars that taxpayers have already paid. Big insurance. It's a clear example of big insurance putting profits ahead of patients, taxpayers and seniors. Learn more about how Congress needs to rein in big [e-mail] In America, parents

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[Daniel Basale]

ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Michael Duncan]

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

[Comfortably Smug]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety program. I am Josh Holmes along with Comfortably Smug and Michael Duncan. John Ash Brook out on an assignment today. So you're just going to get the three of us? Listen, I feel like there are. There are some times of the year where the political discussion is just not totally productive and My guess is that most of you have tuned into this program because you want a little entertainment, you want to have some fun, you want to have some laughs, you want to get to know some things that are going on that you're assuredly not getting through the mainstream media. But you know, I look around and it's like Iran, I don't know, you've got like everything we've got on this. It's not like we've got some, you know, intel sell that we know how this whole thing is going to end other than what it is that you see in your newspapers and news. So like what value added are we just like ruminating on what everybody is looking at? You've got like much of the podcast sphere just humiliating themselves on a day to day basis over what their take, the hot take on all that is. And like we're not eager for self humiliation. I feel like that we're unique in that regard and that we just don't. Well, if we don't know it, we're not going to tell it to you, right? And then you've got this whole Department of Homeland Security thing, of course the Senate somehow magic tricks, some thing through the Senate that went by unanimous consent at the end of the week because, you know, people are pissed about waiting in TSA lines, which isn't breaking news to anybody. And then the House is like, oh yeah, we haven't talked about this in like eight weeks, but now we've got a hard opinion on it. And because it didn't fund ICE and because it didn't fund border security, we're not on board with it. And then Trump steps in and he's like, well, we've got some leftover money from the big beauty that was authorized that we can fund TSA agents who are not going to have like, you know, a civil war in America's airports. So like that largely take. And like if you want, if you tuned in eagerly anticipating a full throated discussion about cloture rules and TSA funding and the House reaction, like, I, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, this is going to be a fun episode.

[Josh Holmes]

Like I just can't. I literally don't have it in me.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, and also John Ashbrook is out. So that means I have the soundboard and I'm gonna be pretty active. I'm just warning everybody watching, I'm gonna be pretty active on the soundboard today, but there.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm glad to hear that, Michael. That is alarming.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, the crowd, the crowd, the crowd. Goes wild. They're so happy.

[Josh Holmes]

It's alarming. It's alarming that you have unfettered control over the audio of this show. But I will say there are a couple of things that happened over the weekend that I found hilarious. Everybody found hilarious. The first was this no Kings rally. I didn't know this was still a thing.

[Comfortably Smug]

I had no idea.

[Michael Duncan]

It isn't really. You know, the Democrats are so demoralized and divided, and it kind of felt like the dark money groups were kind of like, we're sitting on all this money. Let's try to make people remember we're still doing something.

[Josh Holmes]

But I thought they had, like, an internal discussion over there, like, well, the King's thing's not our best thing. Like, I'm not sure that that actually is what were our argument is. I mean, it seemed like they tried to reset their. Their paid protest.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I mean, I kind of thought the whole thing went away until I was driving around Northern Virginia this last weekend, and it seemed like on every major thoroughfare, there was, like, about the same. Like, 25 to 50 people who were kind of walking back and forth between these thoroughfares. I don't. I don't think I saw a person below the age of 70. First of all, it's all like, this the same. You know the type. It's basically the worst person who could grab the microphone at a PTA meeting. Like, their kids graduated 20 years ago, but they got strong opinions. Yo, 100%, you know, and these people are the worst people on the planet. And their signs were terrible. And all they did was inconvenience me as I was trying to run errands.

[Josh Holmes]

Imped your errands?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Makes you kind of wish that you had Tiger woods living in your neighborhood. I mean, I'm just saying.

[Comfortably Smug]

Poor guy.

[Josh Holmes]

Can we talk about that for a second?

[Comfortably Smug]

I'd love to.

[Michael Duncan]

He's back.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, okay. Because I know you've got a hard opinion about this, about how he was on his game when he could do what he wanted to do.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing. His first wife ruined the poor man. He was on the greatest chair. We would have seen him win 20 more majors if his wife hadn't ruined him and attacked him. Like, so the thing he's.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, he did sleep with 21 other women.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's like. So this is the thing. It's like tiger's medicine. You know what I know. You know what I mean? Like, some people are inspired to greatness through tragedy or. Yeah, you know, you have to push yourself.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Like, the poet needs to be a dark.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, and. And I think. I think Tiger did that. And, you know, maybe it was a couple Waffle House waitresses, but then maybe that's what got. Sunday Tiger was Sunday Tiger.

[Josh Holmes]

I think it was Denny's.

[Michael Duncan]

Denny's. You know, the guy. He's a diner kind of guy. He found inspiration through that. And for his wife, it's like, listen, look at this beautiful house you're in.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, God.

[Michael Duncan]

Everything's taken care of. We got a good thing going.

[Comfortably Smug]

Fidelity is okay.

[Josh Holmes]

A little Moons Over Miami.

[Michael Duncan]

And. And it's like, that's the rocket for the breadwinner. That's a rocket fuel. He needed to be a champion. And then. And then, selfishly, she takes that away from him. And he has to go through, like, a decade in the wilderness of, like, there's no majors and every guy is rooting for. They want the Tiger woods comeback.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

You know.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And then he starts getting it going again. Things seems like, you know. But he's not the same Tiger.

[Josh Holmes]

He needs it.

[Michael Duncan]

It's because he needs the medicine.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. You know, he's gonna drive his car off the road until he gets the medicine.

[Michael Duncan]

And the thing. I don't. I mean, that's the thing.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think medicine's kind of the problem, if we're being honest, you know, because he blew triple zeros, but he was clearly impaired.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, they arrested him for a dui. Now we'll see how that adjudicates itself one way or another. But you're right. He blew triple zero. And, you know, typically, you don't arrest somebody for a DUI if they've passed the sobriety test. They did. And we haven't heard anything more about that. But he's also a national treasure. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And.

[Josh Holmes]

And I just feel. I feel like if, you know, this DHS and nexus, back to what we're talking about at Capitol Hill, if this DHS bill is going to contribute one

[Comfortably Smug]

thing,

[Josh Holmes]

it should be a rider to provide drivers for our national treasure, Tiger Woods. Like, he. I understand this has been a difficult process for him. It was at 4 major car. Car wrecks at some level in the last 15 years. It's derailed his career. I feel like the federal government, it's like, what will you do for Uncle Sam? You know, I mean, we provide. Dude. We provide a secret service for Hillary Clinton. Yeah. We provided for the kids of former president. Is there not an American that is more worthy of protection?

[Comfortably Smug]

And Tiger Woods, I agree with you. Clearly, the funding mechanism is not the problem. It's a willingness to use it.

[Michael Duncan]

That's what I.

[Comfortably Smug]

Because, I mean, Ubers exist, Waymos exist. I mean, also, the guy's nearly a billionaire. He could have a personal chauffeur if he wanted.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing. I think he is a billionaire, like, you know, needs to be forced upon his own. I've heard he listens to our show occasionally. If you're listening, Tiger, why isn't your money manager getting you a driver? If you're. If you're net worth cracks, like 100 mil, get a driver from a strictly liability perspective, dude. Because, like, let's say you get into a fender bender that's not your fault. Someone's going to sue you for $50 million.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, my neck hurts.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Get yourself a driver. Anyone who cracks that level gets a driver. Because it's only prudent. Like, I don't know who's running his money. You need to pull him aside and be like, you're not driving anymore.

[Josh Holmes]

I think that's fair. But did you see. So he flipped a Range Rover, Big Boy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Sideways.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you know fucking hard it is to flip that thing? Yeah, like, you can drive them straight up a mountain. I mean, like, in terms of their wheel balance.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This is about, like, other than maybe a tank or some kind of a military vehicle. It's about as hard a thing to flip on its side as it can come up with. But he figured it out.

[Comfortably Smug]

Tiger's known for trick shots.

[Josh Holmes]

That's exactly. He can shape everything.

[Comfortably Smug]

He can shape a shot.

[Josh Holmes]

It can shape a shot. There's no question about it. Well, anyway, that's a aside. We'll get back to the no King situation, which I had no idea. I had a family member that was coming over, and he was like, oh, I could barely get here. Because of, you know, the 50 people you encountered, apparently, in our neighborhood. It was like I had to, like, take all kinds of back roads into it because they were, like, blocking streets or whatever. And, like, you have to understand how funny that is from our perspective. We do this for a living. I had no idea that this thing existed, but there's, like, a protest in my own neighborhood that I didn't know existed. And yet they keep showing up like time after time. So I'm kind of laughing about this whole thing. Well, then I realized it's a nationwide deal. I mean, did we know that? We didn't know. Like, it didn't seem like there was a Lot of fanfare leading into this. Maybe you all were listening, encountered, like the stray boomer on the side of the street with the sign or something.

[Michael Duncan]

It's essentially, this is what happened to the Woodstock survivors. They lost their minds and now they. They do this shit with their time.

[Josh Holmes]

It kind of feels like it, right? Because it's like, I took a glance and I didn't agree with you. I didn't see anybody that was like less than 65. And it was all whites. It was all the whites.

[Michael Duncan]

I just don't understand the purpose of this happening where no kings, where you have President Trump, who not only won the Electoral College, won the popular vote, had a mandate to lead. And it's the exact same group who was lecturing us years ago on learning to accept election results. Now it's because they don't actually believe in anything except just being a menace.

[Comfortably Smug]

A perfect illustration of that smug. I'm glad you pointed it out. Is some of the signs I saw that they had. In fact, they had clearly, this was, you know, paid for out of one of Those dark money 501c3 organizations on the radical left, Soros's network or what have you. They had some of these, like, big banners that they hung over, like the walking bridge.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, sure. Anything over a major thoroughfare. Right, sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

And it said stuff like, respect the Constitution. We believe in free speech. And it was like, you don't believe in any of that shit. What the hell are you talking about? You know what I mean?

[Michael Duncan]

Like, before Elon bought Twitter, they're trying

[Comfortably Smug]

to, like, hunt conservatives down and silence their speech and get people fired and all that sort of. And believe in the Constitution. Well, the people who want to pack the court and all that sort of stuff, they believe in. It's all bullshit.

[Josh Holmes]

To wit. To wit, we have a clip about that. Oh, and it turns out organizers had a very similar point of view to the one that you've just expressed. Clip 1.

[No Kings Organizer]

And the nation is watching the stream. I want people to know that if you want to act like Minnesota or you think Minnesota is a mod, what can I do? Well, you can check your ego about what you want to do and listen to the leadership. And when they tell you what they need done, you do that. And you pay enough attention to the amazing organizers who've been on the ground, who actually have the information, who've already done the work instead of starting your own. Oftentimes you're like, who's doing it? It's like someone. You just need to learn who. And then you need to be the pack mule in the fight that they have been doing and organizing. Because let me tell you what, what we need is pack mules. Because there's brilliant minds and brilliant leaders in this community who oftentimes are putting up the folding chairs when they should be literally strategizing because that's their strong suit. Be the folding chairs people. Be the outbring donuts people for the brilliant minds who are actually making this train run.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, that's amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

What a perfect illustration of the worldview of the modern left.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Be the pack mule. Shut the fuck up. We're gonna tell you exactly the way. Hey, Constitution. Everybody's like, yeah, we hate the Constitution. Like shut the fuck up. We're about the Constitution. Everyone shut up.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I just. Every good grassroots organization is extremely top down and tells everybody exactly what they're supposed to do at all times. Because again, these are brilliant minds. It reminds me of like Orwell's Animal Farm. All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others.

[Josh Holmes]

Sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

Very much an Orwellian vibe.

[Josh Holmes]

That is 100%. And you know, just the idea that like, well, there's brilliant minds.

[Comfortably Smug]

Brilliant.

[Josh Holmes]

As if there is a single brilliant mind that has ever encountered a mass no Kings protest and decided that this is where they're going to apply their craft. Right? This is. I am brilliant. I understand things that nobody can understand. But I'm gonna pick a random Saturday in March where I'm going to apply my craft in a way that none of you could possibly understand. And all I ask is for you to simply stand there like a potted plant and yell every once in a while.

[Comfortably Smug]

They're like, you don't understand, you dumb shit. All you are is a photo op for an end of year funding document for open society. Exactly. That's all you are. We don't need your ideas. You don't have to come up with anything to strategize. Just stand there and smile for the picture. So we can get $100 million. That's 100% George Soros son in December.

[Josh Holmes]

It's 100% it. But you know, of course, because it's the modern left, we've talked about how it devolves from like, hey, save our icebergs. We, we eat trees. No war. And then someone's hate the Jews. Like it always has to go like a sideways.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like a moth to flame.

[Josh Holmes]

It always has to go sideways. So clip two starts going sideways.

[Daniel Basale]

Solution.

[Josh Holmes]

There is only. Look at this flag.

[Daniel Basale]

Communist revolution.

[Scott Cooper]

There is only one solution.

[Michael Duncan]

There is only One solution.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's time Square.

[Josh Holmes]

Nothing but communist flags. Like, okay, just really winning over the hearts and minds of the American people with a straight hammer and sickle.

[Scott Cooper]

I love that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Because then the other, like, boomers who are there to show up to do their lib brained, no kings thing, that's just. Just crickets, you know, and if you've been in the D.C. area, perhaps you've seen this over the years and, you know, we've lived in the area for a while, so we've seen a lot of it. Do you remember back in the day, the Lyndon LaRouchers? Sure. They would show up nearly. It didn't matter. The issue didn't matter. The side of the aisle, what you could have been. It could be Save the Whales. It could be a Tea Party event. Larouchers were showing up.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, because what they wanted to do.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Is basically to show up because they couldn't get attention because their ideas were bad. Piggyback is to piggyback on the thing, be as close to the reporters as possible and then maybe get a little bump in your own message. But like, imagine being one of these, like, lib brained, you know, vote blue no matter who, Boomer libs. And you're like, there, do your no kings thing. And you turn around, you're like, holy shit, I'm a part of that.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. But I also wonder if there's a. There's like somebody with a clipboard where they see the cameras or whatever and they're like, oh, the communist guys get six minutes. Like communist six minutes. And they're like, okay, save the whales. You're in for six minutes.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, they got it because they believe in free speech now.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right. And then they're like, you're out. You're in, you know, like a coordinated fashion. They're like, all right, is our anti Semites ready? Like, where's our Hitler Youth? Are they. Are they here? Are they ready to go?

[Comfortably Smug]

The Hamas chapter, the Hezbollah, Are they here?

[Josh Holmes]

God, they're always late.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's, you know, somebody page him real quick.

[Scott Cooper]

So,

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, think about the humor in that. Yeah, but I think that that's got to be a part of, like, if you have organizers, that's got to be a part of the program at some level. Anyway. There are a few of us out there, conservatives across the country, who did get wind of this, probably because it was happening in their own neighborhood. And they were like, they saw the flyers or whatever because, like, from a national media perspective, I saw Nothing. Yeah, I saw nothing. But there's a few people who want to get out in front of this. Clip 3 Here is a biplane that is going over one of the protests with a hilarious message, the kind that you see it like a beach where the plane flies over and it reads, not a king, he's your daddy.

[Comfortably Smug]

Incredible owned you.

[Josh Holmes]

Can you imagine? Just the internal rage of your average liberal.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

With that, well worth the investment in whatever that was.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, they're actually pretty affordable. I recommend more people do that.

[Josh Holmes]

More flyovers.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, flyovers.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, it's not a terribly expensive situation, you know, you don't need a

[Comfortably Smug]

grant from George Soros.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, listen, as no Kings reaches for more relevance, another part of the far left is causing a much more pressing issue for elected Democrats. When we come back, prominent activists and candidates are dividing the party and they're not quite sure how to deal with it. We've covered all of this and there's a lot of like, if you know, you know, because you've listened to the program coming up right after this. For over two decades, the Tunnels to Towers foundation has been there for our fallen and catastrophically injured first responders, military and Gold Star families. Born from The Tragedy of 9 11, Tunnel to Towers provides mortgage free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children and builds specifically adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. The foundation also offers scholarships for college, trade school programs and for children of Gold Star families, fallen first responders and catastrophically injured veterans. And Tunnel to Towers is committed to eradicating veteran homelessness and helping America Never forget September 11th. To learn more about the foundation's mission and their impact and how you can support the Nation's heroes, visit t2t.org okay, so listen, you know, we're hesitant to put any thumbs on the scale when it comes to hack madness, but every once in a while there's something you just can't look past because the mainstream media has decided that they're going to descend upon a particular person at a particular moment in time and like, we would do you a disservice as an audience member of somebody that we've talked about a lot. If we just like blew past it and we can't get back to it in a month. So Hasan Piker, this guy, it's really something. But the media has now decided he's a liability. And let me ask you this. So Politico wrote this piece that was basically about how Hasan Piker, although extremely relevant and extremely Prominent in Democratic podcasts streaming world. He become like a massive surrogate for everything off the left. And they're not totally comfortable with that. And there's an article where there's like six or seven different references from Democrats saying they're like, he's not quite Nick Fuentes, but he's right up to the Nick Fuentes part. And that's their vernacular for saying like, this guy, we gotta ignore him, meaning mainstream media stop talking about him. But before they do that, they obviously

[Scott Cooper]

have to cover him.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. So Politico does their level best. Can I ask you a question, Wolf? Is Dem's Piker Pickle their headline? They came up with that. Dems Piker Pickle.

[Comfortably Smug]

I like it. They're going for like a New York Post type of thing.

[Josh Holmes]

It's better than Piker's Pickle.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which I don't think it would have much of a constituency on our show, but it may in the Dem circles, to be honest with you. But Dems Piker Pickle is the name of that. So let's play clip six. Let's talk about our favorite flags.

[Daniel Basale]

Oh, like overall, what? My favorite flag. Yeah, Hezbollah. Look it up.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not even kidding.

[Daniel Basale]

It's actually a dope flag.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, straight up.

[Comfortably Smug]

Look how uncomfortable they are.

[Daniel Basale]

It's. This is a.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know what?

[Josh Holmes]

I'm gonna be brave. My favorite flag, it's got an AK

[Michael Duncan]

on it and a fucking hand holding it up.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow.

[Comfortably Smug]

Son or Hassan or.

[Scott Cooper]

We might have to cut this.

[Comfortably Smug]

We might have to cut this.

[Josh Holmes]

I love. The rest of them are well adjusted enough where they're like, dude, you're not really gonna do the Hezbollah first part.

[Comfortably Smug]

My favorite part is if you're audio only. There was a pride flag on the desk.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, but it was the tranny pride flag. It was like they added the black stripe to it in the triangle. It's not the gay pride flag.

[Comfortably Smug]

My favorite flag is the people that want to murder everyone on that flag.

[Josh Holmes]

And all of them are like, eh, what a col.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a big tent. It's a big tent.

[Josh Holmes]

You watch that tent collapse on that very show with four members of it. So they wrote this whole piece and this is the premise, basically. According to Politico, Hasan Piker's new role as a midterm surrogate and potential influence on the 2028 presidential race is driving a wedge in the new Democratic Party. News first reported in Playbook that a far left political streamer with millions of followers and a record of what critics like center left think Tank Third Way. You want to talk about a bunch of bitches? By the way, like, Third Way is the classic hand wringing crew where it's like, oh, we're totally aligned with the left until you get Hasan Piker. And then it's like, oh, my God, I can't believe that this happened when we all just ushered in a bunch of anti Semites.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, well, because, I mean, the reality is the reason why Hasan Piker is getting on these podcasts and he's got his popular stream and he's at Zoran Hamdani's party and he's getting invited to speak at Senate candidates events is because that's where the energy of the base of their party is now. It's a very small radical left. Eight percent, probably of the Democratic base. But they make all the decisions.

[Josh Holmes]

They do.

[Comfortably Smug]

They do.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you see it happening in Congress. I mean, they're making those.

[Comfortably Smug]

And Third Way is like the tip of the spear on talking about how bad Hasan Piker is. But in reality, it's like there's probably 90% of the leadership under the dome in the Democratic Party who's extremely uncomfortable with Hasan Piker. But they could never admit it.

[Josh Holmes]

They never want to say it.

[Michael Duncan]

And so the whole thing happening here is, I think Third Way is essentially trying to just like launder the optics of this, because the mainstream media for, for years now has been platforming Hasan Piker. You have like the New York Times, GQ doing profiles of him. And then he was like a huge surrogate for Zorn Mumdani. He was there at their victory party, and he's already become a huge presence when it comes to the progressive movement because he is what they support, this insane radical left wing agenda that's steeped in anti Semitism that he said years ago, and it's brought up constantly, and it has not caused any of the left to have an issue with him until the midterms arrive. He said the United States deserved 9, 11. He's made multiple statements sympathizing with terrorists. He interviewed a Houthi on his streaming show and was telling his audience, this guy's cool. It's just like one piece. You know, all the kids like that pirate show. This guy's essentially just like one of those pirates. So the problem is he's stumping with Senate candidates. That's what's become a problem, is we're seeing right now whether it's in Maine, whether it's in Michigan, there's the Progressive Bernie candidates versus the mainstream SchumerDem candidates. And this is one of the ways that Schumer tries to have some semblance of control, is he tries to shape the mainstream media coverage.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you got to get the stenographers out doing the work.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's what Politico's doing here.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's what they've done. And so they write. Piker's rise as a Democratic influencer and surrogate coincides with the party's long search for a path out of the wilderness, particularly in recapturing young men. Okay, because the tank top and the LGBTQ plus flag is. I mean, where do I sign? Where do I sign? But it also comes as both the Republican Democratic parties ask fundamental questions about how big their tents should be. Interesting. An interview with Playbook. Piker downplayed accusations that have been leveled against him. I mean, this is classic. He's, like, doing fucking mainstream. It's like in other news, you know, I mean. Yeah, what's the ayatollah thing? Such as the center left think tank Third Way, who's later penned a Wall Street Journal op ed decrying the streamers past. Com. Dude, Third Way. First of all, the fact that Third Way can even publish in the Wall Street Journal blows my mind. I mean, this is a utterly irrelevant organization in so many different ways. But the fact that they took to the pages, the Wall Street Journal to write an op ed about Hasan Piker. What are you doing? Except for promoting Hasan Piker, like, 95%, I guarantee you that like 99.9% of the people listening to this program, unless you've heard him on the show, have never heard of him before. And they're like, wall Street Journal, let's go to the highly, most highly circulated national publication and write how we decry this man.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I think it goes back, though, to Smug's earlier point. Like, there's been plenty of mainstream media that's tried to rehabilitate Hasan piker after the 2024 election and make him a legitimate mainstream voice for the future of the Democratic Party. I remember listening on one of the New York Times podcast right after Charlie Kirk died. Times podcast right after Charlie Kirk died, where they were trying to, like, basically have him explain, like, why he actually said on a stream that we need to start murdering these people as he was talking about Republican politicians.

[Josh Holmes]

Contextualize.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, explain that to me. You know, give me your thought process. I mean, there has been a concerted media effort to mainstream this guy.

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, just to give you guys context on this. I mean, we came from a world where they had to cover us because we were a part of government in some ways, and we started the ruthless variety program. We're a little bit more controversial than they wanted, so they had to stop covering what it is that we're doing, which is why you can only get this information here. But somebody like Hasan Piker, who is literally an avowed, like, Hezbollah supporter, he loves their flag. Dude is the old Gray lady podcast is like, hey, can you contextualize and give us maybe give us something to think about, about how you thought other Republicans should perhaps be killed in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination? And he's like, oh, no, no, I'm happy to do it. Where do I start? I mean, that's what you're dealing with in the full flow of information from corporate and broadcast journalism these days, right? It's really remarkable. So now. But they're lamenting this, guys. They're lamenting it because they were trying to like, well, we're a failing organization. We don't have much clicks, so we got to get a click guy in there. And now they got the click guy in there, and they're like, oh, shit. Turns out he hates Jews. That sucks for us, because two thirds of our population that subscribes to our newspaper happen to be Jewish.

[Comfortably Smug]

And for the Democratic Party, it's a problem now because it might actually impact electoral politics in Maine. In Michigan, they didn't care when Hasan was being mainstreamed into the Democratic Party. Didn't go to victory parties. But now, when you've got, like, battleground states at play now, like, the Schumers and the establishment are actually like, all right, enough fucking around. This guy's a lunatic.

[Josh Holmes]

And let's be clear about that. We've talked about this a lot on the show, but there's a permission slip that is given to the radical left based on your mainstream media, which used to serve at some level as a check and balance on just political conversation at any level, but when it only became focused on what's unacceptable on the right, they totally lost focus of anything on the left. And then as it became more prominent, they excused it. And we always joke about this on the show is a Michigan problem, right? Every single time. The issue of antisemitism was raised in the context of Democrat national politics and their unwillingness to sort of go down the road of supporting Israel. Post October 7th. It was always referred to as a political issue, one in which manifested itself in Dearborn, Michigan, and therefore the state of Michigan. But it was Never really talked about in terms of, like, well, I don't know, you have a hate group in the United States. And so therefore, people like this kind of get a foothold where now they're looking around and they're like, well, how do we reconcile this? Their issue is not that he's a hateful dude who's like, you know, doesn't care a lick about Chuck Schumer or any of the Democratic Party or Jewish people or anything else. Their problem is that, like, he might make them unelectable.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right? That's it.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's what, you know, when you speak of the Michigan problem, that's where it gets interesting is because what Playbook also reported in this is that he's going to be stumping with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed next month. And that's what led to, okay, hold up. What's going on here? A lot of Democrat candidates started getting nervous because they're like, are we gonna start getting associated with this guy? And so I think out of a place of trying to help out the Democrats, Politico puts this out there. Then they reach out to a bunch of Senate Democrats and they're like, would you agree to be with this guy on a stage? Would you do a show with him? And this is the no column. Cory Booker said no. Reuben Gallego from Arizona said no. Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan said they wouldn't go on his stream. They said that their spokespeople, the yes, Ro Kutna said yes. California Governor Gavin Newsom said yes, and Rahm Emanuel said yes. And this is what I thought was extremely pathetic and sad. Aides to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said nothing. Andy Beshear spoke, said nothing. Kamala Harrison said nothing. Pete Buttigieg said nothing. Mark Kelly said nothing, Pritzker, nothing. And Wesmore nothing. And it said, note, Ocasio Cortez, AOC has already appeared.

[Josh Holmes]

She's like, I can and I have. If asked, I will serve. But so, you know, this thing is replete with a whole bunch of hand wringers who are like, oh, he's not good for us. He's not good for. Meanwhile, like, the media is just sort of glossed us over and actually enabled the whole rise of the Hassan pikers within the the Democratic Party. But it just reminds me of what we've talked about throughout this program, which is, what is the Democratic Party today? Is to Abigail Spamberger, you, dude, that's it. The problem that they've got here is that this is catching a touch more attention than they'd prefer they don't want it. We don't need to talk about all that. What we need is a nice, clean cut white woman from rural parts of the state that you're from who may have a law enforcement or intelligence background, talks about their willingness to work across party lines and is all serious about, like, you know, being normal. And then you find out, like, I don't know, four days into the fact after they've been elected that they're like the Communist Manifesto.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Was like an inspiration document.

[Comfortably Smug]

I can tell you because I've seen so many of those campaigns. Those campaigns will feature prominently three types of ads. Number one, the ad at the kitchen table.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, totally. Hey, things are too expensive.

[Comfortably Smug]

Add two, sheriff with a mustache talking about how they're tough on crime.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, she just so good on crime. I can't even believe how good on crime she is.

[Comfortably Smug]

Ad number three includes a ripped from the headlines of some local paper declaring them the most bipartisan in Congress.

[Josh Holmes]

The Washington Post calls her the most bipartisan.

[Comfortably Smug]

And those are the three ads they run to fucking lie to you.

[Josh Holmes]

True. And then you have to do the contrast ad where they're like in there with Donald Trump.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but Trump says, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, dude, it's just so predictable and shitty. But this is the entire framework that they're working with in a midterm election. They're trying to hide the shit stain in their underwear the whole time.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

They're like, no, you don't see that. We're going to Abigail Spamberger this thing.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. But then the Free Beacon.

[Michael Duncan]

This is insane.

[Comfortably Smug]

Follows along here in our show with a wonderful piece of journalism.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just great stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is a quote. There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad. Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El Sayed Smug was talking about earlier, the guy who

[Michael Duncan]

Tiger's going to go stump with said

[Comfortably Smug]

he needed to stay silent on Khomeini killing.

[Josh Holmes]

This is the ayatollah we're talking about

[Comfortably Smug]

because many of Michigan's Muslim voters are sad.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, well, it's a Michigan problem once again. Let's take it. Check out the clip on this clip.

[Scott Cooper]

4, so this is going to destabilize region. I also want to remind you guys

[Josh Holmes]

that there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are still sad today.

[Daniel Basale]

So, like, I just don't want to comment on Khamenei.

[Josh Holmes]

Khamenei at all.

[Scott Cooper]

Like, I. I don't think it's worth

[Michael Duncan]

even touching that that guy's running for U.S. senate.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

What are we doing here, folks?

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, victory lap for the old variety program. Because we'd be talking about the Dearborn problem for three years now. And then you hear it directly from a candidate's mouth.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Comfortably Smug]

Entirely captured.

[Josh Holmes]

If you were just rewind the tape. Like two and a half years ago, when we talked about why it is that they put Kamala Harris in charge of trying to court young voters around a Michigan problem, what it all was about is these anti Israel protests, anti Semitic protests in college campuses around the country. And they were like, they're going to get on top of that. And everybody else around the country was talking about it's a very niche, like, paid for thing that are happening with crazy college kids. And like, this isn't widespread within the Democratic Party. We posited here on the ruthless Friday program. This is a very big part of the Democratic Party, one that is trending highly in the direction of them just like straight up becoming Hitler youth in their intolerance for just Israel, Jewish people, whatever. And they. So much so that they had to put the vice President of the United States in charge of it. And then you looked at the vice President of the United States when she became the presidential nominee, and she's got basically two choices. She could go with a person who happens to be Jewish, who resides in the most important state that Democrats have to win, who happens to be governor of that state and have a 68% approval rate in that state. Josh Shapiro. And they can't not win it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Nope.

[Josh Holmes]

Can't not. There's no path to win.

[Comfortably Smug]

Gotta get it.

[Josh Holmes]

Unless you win that state, it's even better.

[Michael Duncan]

Remember in his book, he was like, her campaign reached out and asked me if I work for Mossad.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. And then he, like, he. He aired the dirty laundry on that after they're like, so how Jewish are you? Basically? No, they're gonna go with the, you know, alleged. Well, I don't. Tim Walls. I'll just say his name.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'll just say everything he is.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, every and every. All the glory that he is. Hello. Anyway, so they went with Tim Walls. Why? Michigan problem.

[Scott Cooper]

Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

But this is what this whole thing is about. If you listen to the program, you are like, two years ahead of this. You're two years ahead of this. But it's playing out in page after page in which like, almost like the mainstream media has gotten to a point where they're like, who. They might actually have a problem there. This might be an issue. There's something to focus on maybe because Democrats are like, oh no, let's let Third Way speak to it though. Because Third Way, they're not a partisan organization. The Third Way they can talk about that kind of thing. It's pathetic, it's sick, it's disgusting. But that's where we're at. That's where we're at in political politics and the Democratic Party these days.

[Scott Cooper]

Okay,

[Josh Holmes]

that's good.

[Comfortably Smug]

I promised a lot of board.

[Josh Holmes]

It's good. It's great board work. When we come back, we're gonna have a heck of an interview that I think smug. You've got thoughts on.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. We'll hop to break and then I'll tell everyone about it on the other side. I think they're gonna love it. Okay, so this is a very exciting announcement for me. I was speaking about this a while back on X, where I feel like there's this like cloud of doomerism and black pilling out there. Especially when it comes to America leading.

[Josh Holmes]

I've been talking about that a lot.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

America leading the world when it comes to technology, when it comes to AI. And I started getting the feeling where it's like foreign adversaries are doing their best to demoralize Americans. Black pill them on innovation, black pill them on AI because they want to lead the world in all of that.

[Josh Holmes]

No question. There's always a psyop when it comes to trying to get America to the top of the Hebrew. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, we don't want America to innovate and they're gonna tell all these lies about how it's gonna ruin your life and all terrible things.

[Comfortably Smug]

And they have willing allies on the left who love to demoralize America and say we can't do anything anymore.

[Michael Duncan]

That's it, 100%. So I came up with the idea and we all worked together on making this happen.

[Josh Holmes]

This really is your baby, though. It's a good one.

[Michael Duncan]

Super excited about it. It's going to be a 10 part interview series called American Innovators. I'm going to be talking to some of the leading voices in technology and President Trump's administration about how America's going to lead the charge in AI, how we are going to innovate, how we're going to grow prosperity in this country

[Josh Holmes]

and what it means.

[Michael Duncan]

And what it means.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. I mean, it's not like just choosing memes.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And it's not robots taking your jobs.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

Like there's a lot of in between here going on that needs to be explained by people in the Industry on what they intend not only to invent and do, but then in this case, how to utilize it.

[Michael Duncan]

And one of the concerns is about jobs and what are jobs going to look like. And I thought I'd start this series. There's no one better than Scott Cooper, Office of Personnel Management. They are trying to hire as many young people as possible. He was here to talk about the tech force before and now he's got an exciting new program. We partnered with Build American AI on this series. And let's get right to that interview. Scott Cooper,

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I want to welcome a gentleman who's been here previously on the Ruthless Variety Program with an update on what the Office of Personnel Management is doing. Scott Cooper, how are you?

[Scott Cooper]

I'm doing great. It's good to see you guys again.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I'm glad you're able to come on. I know you guys have a huge initiative that you're rolling out now, trying to develop a pipeline of younger talent into government as part of this larger innovation agenda that I know is so important to the Trump administration. So tell us, what do you guys got going on there?

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah, so we got a couple of things going on. So today we're launching a broad early career hiring focus. You recall we talked about techforce at one point in time, which is very focused, obviously, as the name implies, on technology jobs. What we've now done is we've said look like we think there's an opportunity to broadly look for jobs across government that would be perfect, like entry level jobs for people in a bunch of disciplines. So HR is one area, financial analysts, procurement, which happens to be a big thing in government, believe it or not. Technology jobs generally and then program management, which is another big area. So what we did today was we launched a whole early career website. We've got these five job areas there. And what we're asking people to do is take a look at it. If it has any interest to you. We're going to try to make the process really easy for applicants. So instead of the applicant having to know, I've got to research 50 different departments, figure out what's going on. We've tried to bring it all in one place and we're going to try to make sure that the interview process, the recruitment process is actually really seamless for folks.

[Comfortably Smug]

So what drove this? Like, I'm curious, you come in here, huge successful career, the private sector, you know, what made you tackle this as part of your portfolio? What is it that you saw in government where you were like, okay, this has to change yeah.

[Scott Cooper]

So there's a couple things. One is just we have like the serious demographic problem in government. So if you look at the under 30 age cohort in government, we have about 7% of our federal employees are under 30. Yeah. And just so you know, the listeners know, if you just look at the whole US workforce, there's about 22% of the workforce that's under the age of 30. So by a factor of three to one, the government is just, I'll say under indexed is the polite way to say it, but basically, like, we've done a terrible job is the honest answer of recruiting early career people. And then on the complete other end, close to half of our employee base is over the age of 50. Wow. So just like, if you just forget about anything else and we just said, look, if we wake up 10 years from now, you're going to have an enormous amount of people retiring from the government. And I think we're all kind of small government people, but we're probably not no government people. And so like, at some point we will need actual people in government to do the work of the American people. So that's kind of thing number one, it's just like we've got to solve this problem. Two is as a result, there's also skill gaps that are really important to have kind of fresh perspectives on. So technology. Obviously, not surprisingly, given the pace we were talking about it, of how quickly AI is changing. You want to attract people who are coming out of school who are really well steeped in this stuff. And so there's areas where we've got these skill gaps that we have to solve. And the third big thing for me, which is really, to answer your question, this is why I wanted to come here, is I just think we've lost the service ethos in the country. And I think it's unrealistic for us to say, hey, come to the federal government and commit a 40 year career. Like, I mean, I just don't think anybody does that anymore. And so part of what we're doing with these programs is we're trying to kind of dispel that dichotomy and just say, look, I don't need you to come here for 40 years, come for a couple years, learn. Let the government be the kind of training springboard for your career. And then quite frankly, if you want to go to the private sector, that's great. Like, we should facilitate that opportunity as well. And this way, what I'm hopeful is, look, we'll get a constant stream, hopefully of like young people who will be like, wow, I can work on really cool problems, really hard problems, and I can do some good for the country. And you know what, some of them will decide to stay and they'll love being there and others will say, great, I'm going to go back. And then on the other end, you know, we haven't launched this yet, but one of the other big things we got to work on is more generally making it seamless for people to go back and forth between government, private sector. So it doesn't need to be just a one time thing when you're coming out of college. It can also be when you're 40 years old and you're like, hey, you know what, I want to spend a couple of years doing something different.

[Comfortably Smug]

What's the impediment to that?

[Scott Cooper]

Well, there's a bunch of them today. So I mean, clearly, look, compensation is a problem right now. We're not going to solve like the compensation dollar problem. But what we can solve is a couple things. One is many job requirements in government have like minimum degree requirements and minimum tenure requirements. And so the compensation system is based on, you know, if you haven't been in this role for 10 years, yeah, we can only pay you at, you know, this level basically.

[Comfortably Smug]

So the gsa GS.

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah, exactly. Right, yeah. So that's one thing we're doing at OPM is we're going to eliminate, we're rewriting all the job description government to eliminate every, every degree requirement and every tenure based requirement. Okay? So this way at least look, if you're awesome and it turns out, you know, whatever, you're a 19 year old high school dropout, but you can work at the level of like a GS14, which would mean you could, you could make 160, 170,000 bucks a year. Now we can actually hire you at that level, whereas before we could only hire you at the GS5 level and pay you 40,000 bucks because the minimum requirement was you had to have a college degree. So think of it as like we have proxies for merit that don't actually measure merit. And so we want to get rid of all that stuff. So that's thing number one. Thing number two is, as you can imagine, all the ethics lawyers worry about, they're like, well, you know, you've got your Palantir shirt on today, right? They're like, well, you know, you get this Palantir guy and then he comes to the government and then he's going to go back and he's going to disproportionately make sure that Palantir wins every government contract. And, you know, my argument to the ethics guys, which sometimes they listen to me, is like, first of all, we got to balance the risk with the upside, which is, look, okay, there's always some risk of bad behavior, but, like, what's the upside to the opportunity, in my mind, to have people go back and forth in government, private sector will be amazing because we would inject just some new DNA into our thinking here. And then, look, the honest answer is, like, there's ways in which we can regulate against that. So, yes, like, if you come in, we say, hey, okay, don't be involved in a procurement decision with respect to Palantir. Like, that's fine. So we just. The problem is, like, everyone gets. Everything gets painted with a very broad brush. Right. You just have to actually understand the nuance of these things. So. But. But those are the two big things, most of which I think we can solve.

[Comfortably Smug]

Got it.

[Michael Duncan]

One of the things that I think the Trump administration has really made a big deal of is how exciting government service has become and the ability to actually move the ball and accomplish things and, like, make a name for yourself. Like, you see the things that are happening at the National Design Studio. We're talking about that.

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah, it's awesome.

[Michael Duncan]

Incredible.

[Scott Cooper]

What Joe's doing is amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And that's the thing is, I think feel like the reputation for doing government service, especially in this administration, is really changing to what an opportunity presents, the skills that you can pick up. Last time you were here, you announced the launch of the tech force, which was a tremendous success. Like, every single department in this government was trying to fight and get that talent in there. What are the skill sets that you see the government's really out there looking for, especially for, like, parents who are listening to this. Your kid just graduated. You know, it's a job. There's a million places that they're applying to. What skill sets are you guys looking for specifically that to quickly onboard?

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah. So there's five categories, basically, that we launched today that are all have a bunch of hiring happening. So tech, obviously, is one for sure. Okay, So I won't belabor that one. But yeah, look, if you've got a student who's studying computer science or artificial intelligence or data science, they can write their ticket anywhere in the government. Quite frankly, we would be grateful to have that kind of skill set in government. So anyways, technology for sure is a big one. The other big categories are financial analysts, basically. So the Government hires a lot of people who graduate from business schools or other stuff like that, who can work on the budget, work on other stuff like that. So that's a big area we're hiring. Human resources is another big one. And then project management would be the third big one I'd highlight. So basically those types of skills. So it's pretty much across the, the board. And the approach we're trying to take is say if you look at those jobs, there's a lot about those jobs that are very similar. Whether you do that at the IRS or you do it at Social Security, you do it Health and Human Services. So let's figure out the 80% of those jobs that are kind of common and we ought to be able to interview centrally for that at OPM and basically kind of, you know, give then the agencies basically essentially a set of qualified applicants. Exactly right. Like go do your last, go interview the last 20%. That specific to the IRS. But like if we can actually create top of funnel, screen it down to a qualified set of applications, we can make it a lot easier for the agencies to do this. So part of the reasons I think why we haven't done a great job in early hiring is one is we've had a bad message. I think you and I talked to this, right? The message is not like, come to the government so that you have, you know, you know, full time employment for the rest of your life. Like it's got to be what you said, which is we're doing cool stuff, we're working on hard problems. We've changed the nature of, you know, all the bureaucracy and all the stuff that grinds you down every day. We've tried to kind of clean a bunch of that up. And then we also have to make sure the agencies kind of see that process working for them. So we're trying to match both things. Which is basically what we said today was I wrote a blog post on this. We're trying to create a network, right? On the one end of the network is hopefully all the best and brightest people coming out of high school, you know, in the country. And on the other side is every single agency kind of in the government. And if we can kind of, you know, create a much more seamless process and eliminate that complexity, I think we can make it better for both people.

[Michael Duncan]

And also one of the huge upsides to working in this government right now is the experience that you can build in cutting edge technology. I know the Department of War has it's famous how much they've embraced the use of AI. How much are you seeing that across other departments? How much is OPM using that and leveraging that tool?

[Scott Cooper]

We're getting better, I would say, like, for sure. I would say Department of War is pretty far ahead. You know, Energy, for example, is pretty far ahead too. Right. Because they're doing some really, really cool stuff at opm. We're getting there. So, like, you know, we run a retirement system, as you probably know. So we have a call center that is completely people driven, manual, like no technology. So there's a great opportunity in customer support to use AI to help improve the quality of service and actually drive down the costs and stuff like that. So we're making very good progress on it. I would say, like across government, the biggest impediment right now is do we have the right skill sets to be able to advance this stuff? And that's why things like Tech Force and why this broader CLEAR program are so important. Because we've just got to get the right seats. The right people, sorry, in the right seats.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I have to imagine you look at, you know, a department like the Department of War, which is incredibly complicated and does a ton to your point earlier on procurement and things like that, that technology has to be able to play a huge role in making efficiencies in that entire process, not just in Department of War, but across government. Because I mean, like you said, a huge part of what government does is procurement. Right?

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

So explain to me because again, you talked earlier about like limited government, but not no government. How does all of this technology and bringing in these younger people help make our government more efficient for the taxpayer?

[Scott Cooper]

So I would say a couple things. Number one is, and when I talk about efficient, by the way, sometimes I think this gets taken out of context. I'm not saying cutting costs for the sake of cutting costs. What I'm saying is, look, we are stewards of taxpayer dollars for everybody. And so anytime we're doing something, we should think about, can we deliver a better service for less money? Like, it's pretty obvious. It's hard for people to argue about this, despite the fact that I was just in Congress last week. I did my first hearing and of course, like people want to argue with me about that, but. So first of all, it's just, look, if we can use technology, there's no way that there's no question that you can deliver a better service and the marginal cost of that service is just lower.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Scott Cooper]

You know, again, call center, very obvious thing. Right. Today. It just means there's some number of calls that a person can answer. And if I can give them technology to make their job more efficient, they can, you know, double, triple, quadruple the number of calls. Like, that's better for everybody and it costs less money. So that's thing number one. The other thing that happens is in government today is in the absence of having the technical skills here, we are heavily, heavily reliant on outsourced talent, basically. And there's nothing wrong with outsourcers as long as we're using them the right way. But instead what's happened is we spend. This will blow your mind. We spend $750 billion a year on outsourcing in the government.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow.

[Scott Cooper]

We only spend 250 billion on actual full time employees. So the 2 million full time employees, we spend about 250 billion. We spend three times that amount on outsourcing. Now some of that is just stuff like, okay, we're never going to build up the skills. Some of that is short term stuff with makes sense. But a lot of it, quite frankly, is a shadow full time employee base of people who've been there 5, 10, 15 years, 20 years, where every time we pay them, we're paying them 25% to 100% more. Because that's just the way the market works.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right, right, right. Because it just, it becomes this muscle reflex of like, oh, it's easier to do.

[Scott Cooper]

That's right. It's easier to do outsource things than

[Comfortably Smug]

building up the institutional knowledge to actually have.

[Scott Cooper]

That's exactly right. So this is a muscle now that we got to flex better in government, which is we got to figure out, okay, every time we're thinking about outsourcing something, could we recruit that talent in house? And if so, let's do it. All the benefits you, you get of people being part of the team, you know, they're embedded in the culture. So there's kind of two sides of the coin here. One is just like, how do we get better service delivery, period? And then two is the major efficiency game. Over time will come, we might even grow our number of full time equivalents, which is fine with me. If it turns out on a unit basis, it's less costly than it is in outsourcing everything.

[Michael Duncan]

So when you did launch the tech force, like I said, it was a tremendous success. I'd heard stories from many different departments of how they wanted to get their hands on the folks that you were bringing in. Is this NOW program that you're announcing today an extension of that success and how you built up with that track record that, okay, I can find a pool of talent. There is a young pool of talent in this country that wants to join this administration, get involved with serving their country.

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah. What we found with Techforce was if we tell people the right message about the exciting things that are happening in government, there is an ability to actually attract that type of talent. So, yes, I would think about the early career is now the broader umbrella. That's not just technology, but as we mentioned, it's human resources, financial analysts, it's procurement and contracting is a huge area, as you mentioned. So that's the whole push basically is we got to take that 7% number and get it to something more reasonable over time. If we don't, I think, like, we are at risk of just missing the ability to actually deliver services in a very, very effective way for the American

[Michael Duncan]

people, and especially in that early career stage. Because with the rise of AI over the past couple years in the private sector, there's been this uncertainty in hiring. It's starting to thaw because there's more of a realization that AI just means I can work better, not that I'm not needed to work. It's a tool, it's not a replacement. This opportunity, it feels like when you see so many folks in Gen Z saying they're trying to find a way to apply their skills and parents are like, I have a son or a daughter who's just graduated. This seems like a tremendous opportunity for those folks. How do they get involved? What's the website? What's the process?

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah, so we launched a website today. It's earlycareers.gov so it should be very easy for you to find out it. If you go on my Twitter feed, which is at Skupor, you can go to our OPM Twitter feed @USOPM, all those things will have it. I think you were kind enough to retweet something so that people can go see smug and find it there.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a great. Honestly, for young folks, this is such a tremendous opportunity. You want to get involved. It's a great opportunity going on right now.

[Scott Cooper]

Look, this is the vision in my mind in the perfect world would be can the federal government become, quite frankly, the finishing school for training for all really smart people. Right. So, you know, I love. I'm actually going, you know, to see some friends over at places like McKinsey and BCG and Goldman Sachs and Jay Morgan. I love those places. But if we could do such a good job that we basically put the analyst programs out of business in those places. And we say when you come out of school, or even if you don't go to school, come to the government for two or three years instead of going to be an analyst at JP Morgan or being an analyst at McKinsey and then you have this massive private sector career in front of you. Like, that would be nirvana. Like, the country would be so much better off if the default motion of every smart person coming out of high school was like, go spend two or

[Comfortably Smug]

three years in college, a little apprenticeship serving at.

[Scott Cooper]

Exactly.

[Comfortably Smug]

I love it. I think this is a great idea. It's earlycareers.govearlycareers.gov exactly.

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah. And so I'm going to give you guys, if we're wrapping up here, give you guys two gifts. So one is I'm going to give you a tech Force hat which hopefully you guys can proudly wear when you're going doing your neighborhood shopping. And then if you remember, we coined this very, very unique phrase, make government cool again. Magaca is how you pronounce it. And actually this one is funny enough. So I'll tell you a funny story. So because it's a play, obviously on maga, you know, you have to kind of go to the White House and make sure that, you know, you're not either violating any copyrights and of course that it's, you know, kind of, you know, consistent with messaging. So these are officially ordered through the same vendor that you get the red MAGA hats from. So, you know, seal of approval. We want to make sure you have a little bit of a swag to

[Comfortably Smug]

go along with your stuff.

[Daniel Basale]

Awesome.

[Comfortably Smug]

Scott Cooper, thank you so much, buddy.

[Scott Cooper]

Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

[Michael Duncan]

Thanks so much.

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[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, it's a great interview.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And he's a great guy. And it's really like it goes to show you, when you bring in people from the private sector who have a track record of success, like they find innovative ways to improve government you know, I mean the stat he was telling about, you know, just like half of the work workforce being over the age of 50 and a lot of these government jobs and you, you can understand why you don't get change in government, you don't get innovation, you don't get efficiencies because everyone's just checking their GS rating and figuring out when they can retire. And that isn't to say everybody in government is bad, it's just, it doesn't reflect the private market at all.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, there's no change agent unless you force it. Because, you know, I mean, I think like, look, even the well meaning people, they just don't know how. Right. There has to be somebody in there like Scott who is saying it's important for us to get into the leading edge of this technology because otherwise, I mean, look, you're in a job, it's not your whole life, but it is the way you make a living and you're going to do what you're going to do and as long as people are comfortable with it, you just keep doing it.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's, I'm so thrilled of the way that Scott is leading this, of how they're bringing in young people to government, how like Department of War has already been the tip of the spear when it comes to using AI. Department of Energy, he said he's really excited about seeing the AI use that's happening there. And this is going to build up a tremendous skill set for the young folks who get involved with this. The future looks bright.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. I love it. Great interview, fellas. All right, we got to do some hack madness.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

So for those of you who followed along, hack madness, of course, our signature tournament happens every March, follows along the contours of March madness in a 6014 bracket of the biggest liberal hack journalists in Washington D.C. and we worked our way through smuggles. Where are we at?

[Michael Duncan]

So we are at the elite. Eight queens rising to the top. Only eight folks left. There it is, the brackets on screen right now, matchups that are going to be live that you're going to be voting on. When you see this, when you hear this episode on Tuesday, head over to my X account, fortably smug to vote. And these are the matchups we've got. In the liberal activist Don Lemon versus Mehdi Hassan. Way too online we've got Keith Olbermann versus Hassan piker, former champion. In establishment we've got Stephen Colbert versus Jake Tapper. And in fake news we've got Abby Phillip and Mika Brzezinski.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, man. So only one former champion at this point, Oberman. Yeah, in any. So, you know, I mean, there's a decent chance that you could have a new champion this year.

[Michael Duncan]

And again, it goes back to, like, we look at, for example, the liberal activists. We've got Don Lemon versus Mehdi Hassan. These are people both of them lost their job at, like more mainstream publications, started up their own shops. That's essentially just like brain damage being weaponized against an audience. And that's it. Like the story, I think this year a lot of it is the folks who got fired started up their own shops and that's what the left wing media landscape has become.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I mean, it's 100% true. There are some surprises here, though. I mean, Mika Brzezinski in the 11.

[Michael Duncan]

Incredible.

[Comfortably Smug]

Making like an incredible run. It's like UMBC coming in here to the elite eight. You know, a lot of other chalk here with Colbert, with Abby Phillip, with Don Lemon. But then, you know, like you said, Olbermann coming in with an eight seed.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, they've been beating some good competition here. It's. It's going to be an incredible finish of the tournament.

[Josh Holmes]

So when does this next round of voting commence?

[Michael Duncan]

It is currently underway. While you're hearing this, while you're watching this on YouTube, go vote Comfortably Smug on X. It'll be going through. The voting will continue until late Tuesday night.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, that's great.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I've been following along with the prediction bracket for everybody who submitted their brackets. It's refreshed in there. Or our personal brackets.

[Josh Holmes]

Any perfect brackets from everybody?

[Comfortably Smug]

No, we had. We had some perfect brackets after the sweet 16.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

No perfect ones now, but some really stellar scores.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you have any update on us internally?

[Comfortably Smug]

Ashbrook and I are tied for first. You're in second, Smugs in third.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow, interesting.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's all really tight.

[Josh Holmes]

This is where the rubber meets the road.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's true. All of us are spread by like two or three points.

[Josh Holmes]

Our internal champion will be crowned in the next week.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's true.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I love every second of it. All right, so tune into all that at Hack Madness. You can go to our website@ ruthlesspackpodcast.com and get directed to all of that. You can follow along it at Comfortably Smug on X where you can vote and participate. Participate in the process. Want to just a touch variety, fellas.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes, always.

[Josh Holmes]

So it turns out there was, according to CBS, 12 tons of kit Kat bars that were stolen in a chocolate heist in Europe, Nestle says, huh. A massive 12 ton shipment of Nestle Crunch KitKat bars was stolen in a chocolate heist that risks causing a shortage in stores. But right before Easter, KitKat, owned by Swiss food giant Nestle, told AFP on Saturday that a truck transporting 413,793 units of its new chocolate range has been stolen in transit in Europe. The shipment disappeared last week while it was heading between a production and distribution location. What are you going to do with that?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, it's not like you're stealing gold, you're not stealing cash. How do you liquidate that much chocolate on the black market?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I guess if they say

[Comfortably Smug]

it's, you go door to door, you're like, hey, we're selling Kit Kat bars.

[Josh Holmes]

They don't really say where it's, they just say Europe. Me, I guess chocolate moves in Switzerland. Yeah, you know, you could maybe, but it's Kit Kats.

[Michael Duncan]

How does this go down? I want like, I tried looking at more information on this story, like what exactly happened here? Do we have like dudes and motorcycles roll up and pull an Uzi on the truck? Being like, pull over. And did they know? It was like Kit Kat was this like, we're gonna do the greatest Kit Kat heist in history, gentlemen, let's roll. Or was this like a we're gonna take down a truck and be like, let's see what we got.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like aiming for the lowest rung on the Guinness Book of World Records.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

The biggest heist of, I don't know know, KitKat bars.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. This is like the Lufthansa heist, but for chocolate.

[Michael Duncan]

That's the thing is like, cuz like you could hit a truck from like De Beers or something in Europe, you know, and then you'd have, then you'd have a lot of people looking in, but it's like, so you took the KitKat bars. I think in Europe this is still like a serious crime. I mean basically anything's going, it's like a war zone out in Europe these days. But did these people specifically target the kid? Like that's my question is do the

[Josh Holmes]

people who did this robbery gotta have the kick ass?

[Michael Duncan]

Know what they're like, yeah, like what's the motivation here?

[Comfortably Smug]

It's not like you're robbing a Brinks truck here, it's just, it's just a truck. And you know, I know the Europeans, they like to take a lot of breaks. They don't like to work very hard.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, you think somebody just Got in.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think the truck was just there.

[Josh Holmes]

I noticed a lack of detail about the heist itself.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think maybe the truck driver was having one of his classic European three hour lunches and a cigarette break and somebody just got in the cab and took the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

I do like the authorities just give away the game, by the way. You know, like, typically if you're an investigator in a major heist, like you withhold some information in from the public in order to actually.

[Michael Duncan]

So you're getting tips from them that like, oh, only someone would know that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And they're like talking about the scanners on the Kit Kat bars.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, the barcodes.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. You're like, if a match is found, the scanner will give clear instructions on how to KitKat, on how to alert KitKat and who will then share the evidence appropriately. They're like. They're basically like, just be real careful with these KitKats.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, why did they let. That's the thing is they let the thieves know. You can't sell this to someone who can scan it.

[Scott Cooper]

You can't do that.

[Michael Duncan]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

Why would you do that?

[Michael Duncan]

Why would you get. Why would you tip them off? No, no, no, you don't understand. We've got this clever mechanism to catch them. And here's how it works. Thieves just don't get. Don't scan it. You'll be good to go. Like, we would be so screwed if you guys were to scan this. So keep that in mind.

[Josh Holmes]

A dumb heist.

[Comfortably Smug]

Dumb heist.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a dumb heist. I do. I would love to get like just a window into like where it's at now, wouldn't you? Yeah, like where it's just a mound of 400 calories.

[Michael Duncan]

Is it going down like Goodfellas, where maybe this was just like a bunch of fat dudes who pulled this off and just started to like kill each other.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just nothing but diabetics. Just Washington.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like one guy at the end is going to end up with the truck of KitKats. He's going to live in that fucking thing.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know. Huge Kit K fans. Okay, so you've heard him here before. AFP's Daniel Basale. He's talking a lot about America's 250th birthday and everything that they're doing. We wanted to get back to him on the latest up. Are you stuck staring at your W2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO. The fear of messing up the fix using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app date. Alright, so one of the things that I hope everybody is doing because there's a lot of news and a lot of negativity and a lot of shitty stuff out there, it's just celebrating America's 250th birthday. I don't think I've seen it more than 10 times. In a corporate media standpoint, you gotta kind of live in the conservative universe. And if you do that, AFP is everywhere and they've made a very, very big deal out of America 250. We were happy to be a big part of a kickoff in Philadelphia back in January on that. I know that you guys have been to all kinds of different cities and you're doing all kinds of different stuff. America 250, very big deal for you guys.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah. We have so far had five major events. We're rocking and rolling thousands of attendees. We've gotten tens of thousands of people engaging with our toolkit site, America's.

[Josh Holmes]

Turns out people are proud of the country.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah, it turns out people are proud of the country. And we wanted to make the point that, you know, there's all this negativity out there. The 250th anniversary, that's a moment for reflection on what is great about America, what makes us exceptional. And it's those founding principles and it's the people that carry those principles forward. So we had Americans for Prosperity have been so excited to take that message out. And it's been received really, really well.

[Josh Holmes]

That's awesome. I mean, look, we had a great time with you guys in Philadelphia. And I've seen the video of what you've done in Nashville. You were in D.C. here, Illinois, I think you did.

[Daniel Basale]

Springfield, Illinois.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And you're to continue to do all of these across the country, get people involved and just sort of, hey, man, it's America's birthday.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah, it's America's birthday. But if it's just fireworks and hot dogs, it's not really going to do anything.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Daniel Basale]

We're going to celebrate it. It's going to come and it's going to go. This is a time in American history where we can actually reflect on those principles in a really relevant way and carry that forward. Because the truth is, if we lose sight of what makes America special, what makes us extraordinary, then we're going to lose the will to fight for those things. So the freedoms we have, the opportunity, the dignity, rule of law, the civic duty that we have to embrace, that's all part of One Small step in the message we're taking forward. And people are really responding to it. They're thinking about their own One Small Step, what they can do in their community. And it looks different for everybody. We're hearing a ton of stories. I think we've got like a thousand stories.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because we will admit this. Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah. At a250toolkit.com you can go. You can share your own story. You can see stories of other people. You can find out where the nearest One Small Step event is coming to your state. It's a. It's a great tool.

[Comfortably Smug]

So the thing that I like about what y' all are doing is, you know, you're kind of utilizing American history and all the stories of what came before us to sort of inspire people to do something right, get involved in their community in some way. One Small Step. Could you share some examples from these events you've done or stories you've heard of people who are getting involved?

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So one example, Joel Enge, I love to refer to, was a public school teacher who didn't feel like he could service his community in Texas as well as he wanted to. So he decided his one small step, he was going to start a school, and he started Kingdom Life Academy.

[Comfortably Smug]

And that's a big step.

[Daniel Basale]

That's a very big step. That's a very big step. There are some small steps along the way, but, you know, he couldn't reach the number of students and families that he wanted to. There were people who wanted to bring their kids to school and just couldn't. And that's where Education Savings accounts come in. That's where education freedom that we advocate for at Americans for Prosperity comes in. So he partnered with our AFP Texas team, raised his voice, got a ton of traction because his voice was so strong as a. As a teacher advocating for this and what it would mean. And he ended up, you know, taking many, many steps, and found himself at the bill signing, speaking in front of the governor. Governor Abbott was there. Everyone's there. And that's just a full circle moment right there where you're like, how did one teacher make such a difference and end up on such a public stage? It just takes one small step.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you know, it's interesting, right, because you got one life to live. And somebody like that's decided. Okay. I'm going all in to try to make a significant difference. But a part of what you're doing is just an education process. Right on. Individuals throughout our history who have done grand things that have brought us as a country to where we are today.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Part of what you're doing is this Liberty Bracket challenge, which I found fantastic. I mean, we've done hack madness here. It's a little.

[Daniel Basale]

That's right. We can't let you guys have all the fun with the brackets.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, March Madness is March Madness. And. And for six years we've brought you the negative side of all of that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which we do. Well, you're unruthless. You decided to highlight some positivity.

[Daniel Basale]

That's what I'm trying to do. You know, I'll let you guys have the negative space. It draws a lot of eyeballs for sure. We'll stick to the positive stuff.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. So you had 64 champions of freedom in your Liberty Bracket. You've broken them all down a 250-bracket.com.

[Daniel Basale]

that's right. And you can still vote at a 250bracket.com.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Okay.

[Scott Cooper]

All right.

[Josh Holmes]

You can still do it. You can still get in on it.

[Daniel Basale]

We're still live. We've actually advanced to as we'll get into the. The eagle eight. You know, years are there IP. So we're calling it the eagle eight. Our final eight champions. But you can still go to a250bracket.com and vote and pick your champion of liberty.

[Josh Holmes]

So. All right. So you go to that website you ch. Let's take a look at what we got going on here. Because this is not. This is not like names you haven't heard of.

[Daniel Basale]

No, no, no.

[Josh Holmes]

These are. These are.

[Daniel Basale]

We're talking maybe when you're at the round of 64. And that's the educational part. To see all these people who contributed to the country that we have expanding freedom and opportunity. But now that we're at is a blue book.

[Josh Holmes]

Blue.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah. You should. You should be able to recognize all these folks. If not, we're going to have to get some more civic education resources.

[Josh Holmes]

We're going to need a lot more guys from Texas. Graphic 1. If you want to pop this up, this is the Eagle eight that we're dealing with an incredibly astounding group of individuals. Undoubtedly. I mean, anytime you got Ronnie Reagan involved, I feel like you're favorite. Yeah. I feel like you're dealing with some good stuff. Antonin Scalia, personal Favorite. I think I would. This would be a tough vote for me.

[Comfortably Smug]

They're all tough. We got George Washington going against Thomas Jefferson.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, so right in the Declaration of Independence, across in the Delaware first president. I mean, that's.

[Josh Holmes]

That.

[Comfortably Smug]

Those are blue bloods.

[Josh Holmes]

Pretty, Pretty tough stuff. They're pretty tough stuff. And then Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. You got MLK and Dwight Eisenhower.

[Daniel Basale]

I mean, broad spectrum of people.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

And it just shows. It can come from any direction. You can make a big impact. But what I, what I was surprised by, you know, Antonin Scalia is, you know, obviously within the conservative movement, a hero, but it's not a household name.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally.

[Daniel Basale]

He rose through.

[Josh Holmes]

People have reverence.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah. People have reverence to what he contributed. Originalism. And then also Dwight D. Eisenhower had a crazy path to the, to the Eagle 8. He had to go up against the Wright brothers, who were my dark horse. They were a 10 seed.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

I thought being first in flight was going to get there.

[Josh Holmes]

It seems like a pretty good accomplishment.

[Daniel Basale]

People really appreciated what Eisenhower did for the country.

[Josh Holmes]

The good general.

[Daniel Basale]

War, too. The good general. And then he also, I mean, if that wasn't enough, he went up against Neil Armstrong. The flight wasn't enough. We went up to space and he still knocked him out.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like taking a lot of Ls.

[Daniel Basale]

It was a hard, hard path to get there.

[Josh Holmes]

Flights taken out, flights taken. I can only imagine the Ohio had something to do with that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. They're used to the else.

[Josh Holmes]

They do. They love the else. So then you get. You break it down. Your freedom 4. And then in a champions liberty bracket, like, tell them, tell me, walk me through some of this. Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

So let's go through this. You know, as we were going through, we actually are not basing this on ourselves here. This is the people's vote.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

So we've had.

[Josh Holmes]

And you have the largest grassroots organization throughout the country.

[Daniel Basale]

That's right.

[Josh Holmes]

Got literally thousands of people that.

[Daniel Basale]

Thousands of people have come onto the site and they're deliberating. There have been more than 88 hours on site so far. So when people come. These are tough matchups. These are tough questions to answer.

[Comfortably Smug]

You need a message board where everyone can argue.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah. Oh, I don't know if I actually want to see that.

[Comfortably Smug]

You don't, you don't.

[Josh Holmes]

The Internet is good. Yeah. No, you can see some ugly stuff.

[Daniel Basale]

But let's take it out. What do you guys think? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, what do you think about the matchup? Who would you put?

[Josh Holmes]

I'm a bri. I'm a big GW guy here, and I. And I. I have a hard time getting anybody that's actually going to defeat him. I mean, he's kind of founding father. The founding father here in a lot of different ways. That's where I'm headed with that one. Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, you look at the whole body of work, General. Yeah. You know, and first president established the eight year term.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

You know, I mean, transition of power.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You just kind of don't have a republic without him.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Like, I appreciate the guy who held the pen.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But that seems. It seems to me like the first guy in the house.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think TJ's like the founding father. I would have wanted to be like the guy with the great house and the collection of wine who they're like. They only call you in when you gotta write something. Smart.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

Spending your summers in France.

[Scott Cooper]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. But a touch of scandal out there, too, to just keep things going, you know?

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, he's a Renaissance man.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly. No, it's good, but you gotta look around the corner and make sure that you're relevant. It's important, but, you know. Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You.

[Josh Holmes]

I think that's where we come down on that. And then you got like, Abe Lincoln,

[Daniel Basale]

kept the country together.

[Josh Holmes]

How are you going to. I mean, look, I love a good Teddy Roosevelt. And I'm, by the way, I'm afraid to make a pick on that one just because we've got, you know. Burgum.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Up there in North Dakota.

[Comfortably Smug]

Big TR guy.

[Josh Holmes]

And we're doing a big unveiling of a Teddy Roosevelt thing in North Dakota this summer.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, really?

[Daniel Basale]

That sounds fun.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, he's. He's doing his part for America. 250. So I feel like if you pick against him, Bergam's gonna show up. He's gonna be pissed. Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm going to abstain.

[Josh Holmes]

Are you?

[Comfortably Smug]

I feel like I have to.

[Josh Holmes]

I think you do, too.

[Daniel Basale]

You guys can abstain, but the truth is.

[Josh Holmes]

Tell us where we land on.

[Daniel Basale]

It's got to be Abraham Lincoln.

[Josh Holmes]

There we go.

[Daniel Basale]

I mean, there were some impressive victories that TR had. And you want to talk about Renaissance man. That's a Renaissance man. But if you give your life for keeping this country intact, you got to give it to Abe. So you guys, you don't have to go on the record. I understand your political reasons for not wanting to. We'll go ahead and speak for the people.

[Comfortably Smug]

People.

[Daniel Basale]

Abe in the.

[Josh Holmes]

Abe is the guy. Freedom4 yeah, I know you can feel that. And then you got Ronald Reagan, Anton and Scalia. I have a feeling that the people will speak loudly for Ronald Reagan, who is in my view, one of the greatest presidents in American history. I just like, this is where I can kind of do the departure of like just the. When you spend enough time thinking about the impact that Antonin Scalia made on this country and continues to make on this country in terms of originalism, in terms of his legal thought, we have a Supreme Court that is derived almost exclusively from a medium he almost self invented. I go Scalia, everyone else is going Reagan. And that's hard one for me in terms of all of them. That's tough.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, you can find solace in the fact that he made it to the Eagle 8 for a reason.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[Daniel Basale]

That's not a bad accomplishment. The folks at Duke right now can give themselves the same, the same pat

[Josh Holmes]

on the back, Duke on it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

But when you face a juggernaut.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

Like Yukon was, some tough things happen at the buzzer. Tough things happen. Duke has the yips. Gotta say, it's Reagan going to the freedom 4.

[Josh Holmes]

There's no question about this. MLK and Eisenhower Look, I think that generationally people are going to look at this thing differently in that if you are a boomer and you are a silent generation, like the reverence for Dwight D. Eisenhower is omnipresent. Everyone loves every single second of what. And they should because he was just an incredible figure in my lifetime. What I grew up with is MLK and the clarity of conscience and the words that he spoke and the mission that he had and how it's relevant every single day of our lives. And you can look at things like dei, you can look at the perversion of a civil rights movement. You can look at all of these things that just fly in the face, face of the words that he has so eloquently spoken during the time that he was at the forefront. And I just find lessons every single day from MLK in a way that's got to give me. He's got to get the W from me. But I just don't know. I mean, I think like if you got some boomers out there, I know where they're headed.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, Eisenhower beat the Nazis.

[Josh Holmes]

You're going with that?

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm going with Eisenhower.

[Josh Holmes]

You're going with Eisenhower. Well, I mean, look it again. We're dealing with a rarefied air.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's tough. I mean, I'm most disappointed that I Didn't make the cut, if I'm being honest.

[Daniel Basale]

Oh, you're the.

[Josh Holmes]

You're Michael.

[Comfortably Smug]

I just think, you know, when. Once you get to 64, you should

[Josh Holmes]

have been in this.

[Michael Duncan]

64.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think at 64, I might have had an outside shot. I might have been a bubble team.

[Daniel Basale]

I think you were in the. The first four, Justin. Make that catch one of the first final 68, maybe.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I think the toughest part was the clip was you in a singlet.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And I think people look down upon that. And you didn't make the final cut. It was ecstatic. Mostly.

[Comfortably Smug]

I thought that would have been a plus.

[Josh Holmes]

Depends on how wide the frame was. You know, you never know. I'm sorry we're ruining your bracket. But if you look.

[Daniel Basale]

I mean, look, this is why people spend so much time on the bracket.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. You got to think about all this stuff. 88 hours, you got to see. You know, you think about this inglet.

[Daniel Basale]

You know, when you look at it between MLK and Eisenhower, if. If the whole premise is who's a champion of liberty.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

The. The big thing is, yes, defeated the Nazis, but also in this country, expanded liberty to a population that hadn't seen it and received it and created that system of justice and civil rights. So you gotta give it to mlk. I think we've got our freedom for our consciousness.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a consciousness, in my view, that is more applicable than anything else in terms of, like, just the enduring lessons.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Because it goes. Each and every. Each generation's got a different perversion of. And it's not even just racial reconciliation so much as it is, who are we as a society. And the words that that guy spoke to it were just. It's the right thing to do over a period of time.

[Daniel Basale]

And he took the words of our founding fathers and applied it.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, exactly.

[Daniel Basale]

Expanding those ideals to all Americans.

[Josh Holmes]

I completely agree with you. It's fantastic. So where are we headed here?

[Daniel Basale]

So we got GW versus Lincoln in the semis.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Daniel Basale]

It's. It's tough. Founder of the country, kept the country intact. Got to make a call, though, guys.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm still going gw. I. He's my guy. I'm going to ride him to the wheels.

[Daniel Basale]

He was the overall 1 seed.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's where I'm.

[Michael Duncan]

All right.

[Comfortably Smug]

No brainer.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Daniel Basale]

And then what about Reagan versus mlk?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, man. Again, I go MLK on that in that I just. I do think that there is.

[Comfortably Smug]

I disagree again. I mean, Ronald Reagan, an inspiring, singular force in American politics at a moment in which we're fighting communism, defeated communism,

[Josh Holmes]

the end of father of modern conservatism.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, MLK flirted with some of that stuff towards the end of his life.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, I think he'd been conservative Republican. If it were today, you look at

[Comfortably Smug]

the end of MLK's life, he flirted with a lot of communism is what I'm going to say.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so you're going to the FBI files on.

[Comfortably Smug]

No, I'm going with the public record, a history book.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so you're going drop an oppo.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow.

[Comfortably Smug]

Ronald Reagan wins this thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. Do we want to get into Nancy?

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not going to talk trash. Don't worry, folks. I'm not going to talk trash about Nancy Reagan. I love Nancy Reagan. But I did. You provoked me a little.

[Comfortably Smug]

Reagan wins. I mean, I don't know.

[Daniel Basale]

I did not expect oppo research to be dumped as we were talking. See, there you guys go again. I'm here for.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is why you need a message board.

[Josh Holmes]

He's filthy. He'll bring anything up.

[Daniel Basale]

Okay, so GW versus Reagan in the finals.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm just a ride or die GW guy. I just. I am. And I feel like this is somehow because I've picked against Reagan in multiple rounds. Going to lend itself to some idea that I'm anti Reagan. I'm not anti Reagan. I love Reagan.

[Daniel Basale]

They put him in the finals.

[Josh Holmes]

I love Reagan. I think he's absolutely terrific.

[Scott Cooper]

It.

[Josh Holmes]

But I just feel like we're talking about George Washington. That. I mean, that's my take.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's George Washington.

[Josh Holmes]

It's George Washington.

[Daniel Basale]

George Washington. Agreed. And I gotta say, I was hoping for this outcome because as a George Washington University graduate. Don't judge me.

[Josh Holmes]

I have not really been asking us to endorse that. No, no. That's gonna be quite.

[Daniel Basale]

Quite literally the opposite. But I've never really seen my team have any success on the basketball court. So I had to invent a game where George Washington could actually win in March.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. That's terrific. This is great stuff. I appreciate you coming in and doing it.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Daniel Basale. Where does everybody go to get this again?

[Daniel Basale]

You can vote on a 250-bracket.com and if you go to our site, you'll be able to see where we're going to have all the next events. We're going to Greensboro, North Carolina, next. We're also going to roll out our April theme around innovation. We'll have another Debate on which state had the greatest invention. So be prepared for another game. And we're excited to roll that out.

[Josh Holmes]

Nothing like celebrating our unity by pitting states against each other.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's part of the fun.

[Josh Holmes]

I love it. It's what we do here. We're Americans.

[Comfortably Smug]

We like competition.

[Josh Holmes]

So a 250-bracket.com ruthless, you can go to all of that and get all of it. And we're going to keep up with everything you guys are doing for America's great 250th birthday. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Daniel Basale]

Thanks for having me on, guys.

[Josh Holmes]

You got it. All right, we got some new merch that we want to talk about. We first want to ask you when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Friday program. We read all your comments and we welcome all comments on this show. In particular over the hack madness, we ask ask you to, like, break down the brackets and where they're at. Give us your picks, give us your thoughts. Who should win, who should not. When you like and subscribe, we read absolutely all of them and get back to the very next episode. All that being said, boys, we got some new merch out here. Graphic five. Toss this thing up. Yeah, this is something. The new Mount Rushmore America 250 collection.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, I got, I got a shout out to Sarah on our team for coming up with this idea. Yeah, I mean, look, look. Phenomenal. It's America's 250.

[Josh Holmes]

Yep.

[Comfortably Smug]

We've seen a lot of memes of Donald Trump being added to Mount Rushmore.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I think that was probably the inspiration for this little number.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's out there and it looks like a nice looking shirt. And I can attest to the quality because we know that our very own Michael Duncan puts his fingers to work on each, each and every stitching.

[Michael Duncan]

Those things.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's right.

[Daniel Basale]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Holmes]

We got another one. Graphic 6. If you want to take a look. This is the America 250 collection where you're just celebrating our country along with the Ruthless variety program.

[Comfortably Smug]

Something more minimalist in case you don't want to wear a billboard of our faces on your chest.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know why you wouldn't want to do that.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, I know my mom will be buying one.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, 100.

[Comfortably Smug]

But this is a more tasteful, just

[Josh Holmes]

an American flavor for an individual one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

No, but I get it. But this one, this one, to pop that up one more time. So you got the flag, which everybody loves. It's a great hat. It's a great shirt. It's a great koozie. Yeah. If you're thinking about Fourth of July, you'll want that. Lot of families do the coordinated party outfit.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

This seems like a good way to go.

[Michael Duncan]

That's an easy one.

[Josh Holmes]

Like that and you could be a real hero at the party you're going to.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, some party favors.

[Josh Holmes]

You show up with all of that, you go to RuthlessPodcast.com, go to the merch store and you will find all of that and like and subscribe to the YouTube while you're at it, while you do. And leave comments. We read absolutely all of them. Well, fellas, I think we did it.

[Michael Duncan]

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

[Josh Holmes]

sa.