Why Did Dem Politicians Storm An ICE Prison? Arrest Details Revealed

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary
Title: Why Did Dem Politicians Storm An ICE Prison? Arrest Details Revealed
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Hosts: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook
Guest: Joe Concha

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Introduction

In this episode of the Ruthless Podcast, hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook delve into a recent controversial incident involving Democratic politicians storming an ICE detention facility. The discussion highlights the underlying issues within the Democratic Party, the impact on their political strategies, and broader implications for American politics. Additionally, the podcast features an insightful interview with guest Joe Concha, who discusses his latest work.

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Main Event: Democratic Politicians Storm ICE Prison

The episode kicks off with a heated discussion about Democratic Congress members conducting an "oversight visit" to an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey. Hosts express frustration over what they perceive as Democrats targeting convicted criminals without just cause.

• Josh Holmes [00:03]: "But I watched some of the cell phone footage of these criminals being moved into the facility by members of ICE..."
• John Ashbrook [00:49]: "He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress, Chicago Senator Dick Durbin."

The hosts criticize the actions of the Democrats, suggesting hypocrisy and misplaced priorities.

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Analysis of Democratic Strategy and Party Impact

The conversation shifts to analyzing why Democrats appear disorganized and ineffective in opposing Republican agendas, particularly those championed by Donald Trump. The hosts argue that Democrats consistently choose the wrong battles, which undermines their ability to mount a strong opposition.

• Comfortably Smug [04:18]: "Given the choice between an 80-20 issue, they take 20 every single time without fail. It's insane."
• Josh Holmes [10:08]: "It's important... Nobody is above the law."

They highlight the incident at the ICE facility as symptomatic of broader strategic failings within the Democratic Party.

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Trade Deals and Economic Policies

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on recent trade developments, particularly the historic trade deal between the United States and China. The hosts commend President Trump's approach to using tariffs as leverage to negotiate better terms, contrasting it with previous administrations' handling of international trade.

• Michael Duncan [37:16]: "If you just look at what we got out of this thing and what they got out of this thing, it's a net positive."
• Josh Holmes [48:54]: "We cannot ignore the fact that Republicans are making progress where Democrats have failed."

The successful negotiation led to both countries reducing tariffs, resulting in a positive reaction from the stock market.

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Internal Issues within the Democratic Party

The episode delves deeper into the internal turmoil within the Democratic Party, emphasizing the lack of clear leadership and cohesive messaging. Hosts discuss how attempts by younger Democrats to redefine the party's identity have led to further fragmentation.

• Comfortably Smug [15:31]: "Truth is nebulous. It's my truth, my truth that I'm sharing..."
• Michael Duncan [22:36]: "There's no cohesion in that. There is no leader and no followers."

This disarray is portrayed as a critical weakness that prevents Democrats from effectively countering Republican strategies.

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Guest Segment: Joe Concha on His New Book

The podcast features an interview with Joe Concha, a prominent commentator known for his work on Fox News. Concha discusses his latest book, "The Greatest Comeback Ever: Inside Trump's Big Beautiful Campaign," offering insights into Trump's resilience amid legal challenges and public scrutiny.

• John Ashbrook [87:22]: "You've written an incredible book. You ought to buy it anywhere you can because it's very entertaining and very accurate."
• Joe Concha [90:06]: "I wanted to show the country that this was a movement that was not going to be stopped no matter what."

Concha shares anecdotes from his interactions with Trump, highlighting the former president's charisma and strategic maneuvers during tumultuous times.

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Legacy and Future Implications

The hosts reflect on the long-term implications of the discussed events, pondering the future trajectory of both the Democratic Party and the Republican-led administration. They express optimism about the Trump's administration's policies while remaining critical of Democratic leadership.

• Josh Holmes [99:50]: "Do your job and stop pretending as though the American taxpayer is somehow responsible for your inability to cut spending everywhere else."
• Comfortably Smug [105:38]: "This is awesome. We have to see it here."

The episode concludes with a reaffirmed stance on maintaining conservative values and pushing back against what they perceive as Democratic overreach and inefficiency.

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Conclusion

This episode of the Ruthless Podcast offers a comprehensive critique of recent Democratic actions and internal struggles, juxtaposed with a positive portrayal of the Trump administration's policies, especially in trade negotiations. The insightful interview with Joe Concha provides an additional layer of analysis on political resilience and strategic campaigning. Overall, the discussion underscores the persistent challenges within the Democratic Party and the ongoing efforts by Republicans to shape American political discourse.

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Notable Quotes:

• Josh Holmes [00:03]: "But I watched some of the cell phone footage of these criminals being moved into the facility by members of ICE..."
• Comfortably Smug [04:18]: "Given the choice between an 80-20 issue, they take 20 every single time without fail. It's insane."
• Michael Duncan [37:16]: "If you just look at what we got out of this thing and what they got out of this thing, it's a net positive."
• Joe Concha [90:06]: "I wanted to show the country that this was a movement that was not going to be stopped no matter what."

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, promotional segments, and non-content sections to focus solely on the substantive discussions and analyses presented in the episode.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

They just like criminals. Like, I don't know how else to say it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

But I watched some of the cell phone footage of. Of the, you know, these criminals being, you know, moved into the facility, you know, by members of ice, and you have all of these liberal white women shouting at the police officers, being like, have you shown him a warrant? Have your rights been read? And it's like, what the hell is wrong with you? These people are convicted criminals. You know, it's just like.

[Michael Duncan]

Also, what. What is it? Also have no right to be here in the.

[Josh Holmes]

In the. Care about them the most. They don't care about their fellow citizens. They don't care about the people in North Carolina, the people in California. What really gets their hair on fire is convicted criminals from foreign countries being deported.

[John Ashbrook]

He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in.

[Josh Holmes]

Congress, Chicago Senator Dick Durbin.

[Michael Duncan]

And now Dick Durbin has a new.

[John Ashbrook]

Scheme, a takeover of your credit card. Today, consumers have thousands of choices in.

[Michael Duncan]

Credit cards, all with equal, strong security. But Durbin's plan is less competition and less security, and that means more risk.

[Josh Holmes]

For your credit and your identity.

[Michael Duncan]

Tell Republicans in Congress, stop Dick Durbin's.

[John Ashbrook]

Takeover of your credit card before it's too late.

[Michael Duncan]

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Comfortably Smug]

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

[Joe Concha]

It's time for our main event.

[Michael Duncan]

Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. We've got an awful lot for you today. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan. John Ashbrook, left to right, across your radio dial. We're going to get into an awful lot here. We've got Dems in disarray, which in large part explains why Trump continues to dictate the pace of play on almost everything. We're going to give you an update on all of the things that we talked about last week in terms of trade deals, taxes, all of those. Turns out we're right. Weird.

[Josh Holmes]

We love being right.

[Michael Duncan]

Weird.

[Comfortably Smug]

Happens so often.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, my gosh. Strange. We've got all that, some fun new stuff, the new Air Force One, all of that. We're going to put that into context. Little House Freedom Caucus issue that we will take. And in variety, Tim Walls still around. He's got some stuff that we're gonna talk about. And there's a woman, well, she's a lesbian who has had an encounter with her lover involving nacho cheese that I don't think you're gonna want to miss because, well, we didn't want to miss it. So you're not going to want to either. We also have a great guest, Joe Concha. You'll recognize him from Fox News, all of his writings. He's written a new book. It's terrific. He's going to talk a lot about that all in one show. Folks, you've come to the right place. This is just fantastic. I think we should start with Dems in disarray.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's always the best news and we've been getting a lot of it lately.

[Michael Duncan]

We really have. And I think one of the things you've been seeing on cable news that has played out here over the last 72 hours or so, which we now have clarification on for you for the first time here on a Tuesday morning, is exactly what it is that Democrats have chosen to fight about. And we know that according, you know, Fox News printed up this helpful piece about Newark Mayor arrested as Dem Congress Members storm New Jersey ice Prison ice, meaning, you know, they're border Patrol folks to conduct a quote, unquote, oversight visit. Now, you've seen an awful lot of this on FOX over the last few days where they're trying to add context to this. I think we've got, you know, somewhat of a definitive view you recall that we've talked about. One of the reasons why Democrats have been so ineffective at opposing Donald Trump is because they choose all the wrong battles every time.

[Comfortably Smug]

Given the Choice between an 80, 20 issue, they take 20 every single time without fail. It's insane.

[Michael Duncan]

And this one is particularly egregious in that, you know, you've seen them. El Salvador. Right. What's his name down there?

[Josh Holmes]

Abreco Garcia.

[Michael Duncan]

Abreco Garcia and Van Hollen. They're trying to spring this guy who I think very clearly at this point has been identified as a, as a.

[Comfortably Smug]

MS.13 gang member, human trafficking gang member.

[Michael Duncan]

Right. So that like wore off a little bit. And they're like, well, I know they house them in New Jersey. So we're going to go. So 75% of or more of these have been of people that are incarcerated in this ICE prison in New Jersey have been convicted.

[Joe Concha]

Convicted?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Convicted of violent crimes. Violent crimes. So naturally they're going to head on up there.

[Josh Holmes]

It's a core constituency, the Democratic Party. Criminals.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's play a clip just to get this started. Can we play clip one, please? Okay. These are members of Congress trying to storm in to this facility. A chaotic scene there is pushing and shoving with law enforcement officials, federal law enforcement. You can see members of Congress actually throwing elbows and trying to get through. And look at this nonsense. You've got a woman in a red coat. She's allegedly a member of Congress. I can't believe anybody elected this person, but she's allegedly a member of Congress who's. Who is not having it very upset.

[Joe Concha]

Far be it from me to provide a description, but it appears they are obstructing an official proceeding.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wow.

[Michael Duncan]

Interesting. Interesting. Well, that could be an interpretation in one regard. Perhaps there's local officials that could expound upon that. Do you think so?

[Joe Concha]

No, I do. And you know, I often wonder how people might react to this sort of thing. And, you know, there was a mayor involved in this situation. And it was just wild to me to watch these Democrats rough up federal law enforcement in their effort to try to draw attention to themselves.

[Michael Duncan]

So why don't we play clip 2 just to get an explanation from the mayor who was, I guess, arrested during all this. Nobody stormed anything. Those folks, when I got there, they were already inside. Escorted inside by GEO and ICE to.

[John Ashbrook]

A booth to wait for Homeland Security.

[Michael Duncan]

Folks to come and give them a tour.

[Joe Concha]

So they were escorted inside to receive a tour of a federal facility. Where have I heard this before?

[Michael Duncan]

You know, guys, do you remember anything in the last few years?

[Josh Holmes]

Kind of sounds like January 6th.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, my God. So you've got an altercation with pushing and shoving, as we see on our screen, with elbows being thrown and somebody very, very upset, of which one of the people who were arrested was saying, well, we were escorted inside and simply given a tour.

[John Ashbrook]

Huh.

[Michael Duncan]

Amazing how that worm turns, isn't it?

[Joe Concha]

It's wild to me, dude. It is wild to me. And now you have Democrats going on their favored network, cnn, to plead their case that they are the victims, that the law enforcement is not the victim here. And it is just a full turnabout. I mean, smug. I know you agree with this.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the thing is I always say that Democrats don't care whatsoever about hypocrisy. Like you can point out 100% that boy, you know, I was told that attacking law enforcement officials, assaulting them was a bad thing. You know, interfering with official proceedings. I was told that was a bad thing. I was told this is an insurrection. It doesn't matter how frequently you point it out, because Democrats don't care. Care about hypocrisy.

[Josh Holmes]

I saw a really funny tweet about this. I can't remember who tweeted it out. So my apologies. But, you know, one of these Democrats that was involved with the scuffle with the ICE agents was Rob Menendez Jr. Oh, yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

And. And the joke on Twitter was that he wasn't going in there to free ICE prisoners. He was looking for his dad.

[Michael Duncan]

Of course, that's in reference to his father, Bob Menendez, who, after, I don't know, seemingly dozens of different indictments at a federal level, was finally convicted over the last year, had to give up his Senate seat, and now resides somewhere in one of those facilities.

[Comfortably Smug]

And my takeaway from this whole thing is we don't need to point out any longer that, wow, can you believe that Democrats are doing this? The time for pointing it out is over. I want Kristi Noem to throw these people in prison. I want President Trump to throw these people in prison. I don't care if they're members of Congress. This is clear cut. They're attacking police officers, they're attacking ICE agents, they're storming a building, they're trying to lie about it. I mean, this is like when we had, what was it? Jamaal Bowman caught red handed on video pulling the fire alarm. Like, if the more you give the message to Dems that lawlessness is okay, the more they do it. I mean, that's. To me, perhaps the greatest lesson from the Biden years is all the left wants is lawlessness. More than anything, they want lawlessness and they want to be allowed to do whatever they want. Whether that's legal, whether that's illegal, whether we point it out as being hypocritical or not, they're gonna do it. Until when you hit people in the face with consequences, that's when behavior changes.

[Josh Holmes]

It's important. Smug. And I learned this from Joe Biden and all those Democrats when they were charging Donald Trump with all those indictments in four jurisdictions in 2024. No one is above the law.

[Comfortably Smug]

Bingo.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, that's what we were told and.

[Josh Holmes]

We intend to prove that's exactly right.

[Joe Concha]

And Rachel Campos Duffy with Fox News was at this facility on Monday morning, and she saw posters where there was a number that anyone inside of the facility could call to receive $1,000 and a plane ticket back to where they came from. They don't have to stay in there. There's an opportunity funded by the taxpayers to go back to their home country.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's all you gotta do is just get out. It's not asking a lot. Just get out. You came here illegally.

[Michael Duncan]

Get out. To put a finer detail, so Rob Menendez, the son of Bob Menendez, along with Watson, Coleman and Lamonica McIver.

[Josh Holmes]

McIver was the one throwing bows in there. In the red.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, she looked actually like she could move some furniture.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, she looks like a first round edge prospect.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Joe Concha]

She's an undressed free agent.

[Michael Duncan]

You see her as a swing guard and like as a linebacker, you're gonna probably get low.

[Josh Holmes]

Get low.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In the free technique.

[Michael Duncan]

She's got a lot coming at you. Anyway, all of it is to say that they entered Delaney hall detention facility in Newark, according to Fox News, and were held up inside the first checkpoint. The Department of Homeland security spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin told Fox News. In a press conference later, Coleman said the ICE was out of control.

[Joe Concha]

Certainly appeared that way from the video. I didn't think it was the congressmen who were out of control.

[Michael Duncan]

Well. Or the polling guard in the red jacket. McIver said the three lawmakers had waited for more than two hours to gain access to the facility to conduct an oversight visit.

[Joe Concha]

So they were gathering outside of the federal facility before they went in.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, it's really important you notice that all of these people have conducted oversight visits for people who commit murders and like rapes and things like that. It's only when illegal immigrants do that where we've got now all of a sudden an oversight capability. So here we are. They're going to do all that. They waited for more than two hours. She said all three of them were also assaulted. Oh, she made them. They were.

[Joe Concha]

They are the victims.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. No, she now, she is the victim along with her two colleagues, our victims by ice, who decided in the best interest of not only them, but the prisoners and all of it, that maybe people just running through the gates of a federal mass prison was not a terrific idea.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm just a. Lock her up. I'm so tired of this. I am so tired of this.

[Josh Holmes]

The thing that really strikes me, I don't know, we talk about it a lot, but just for emphasis here, I saw a lot of the, like cell phone video footage of all of this. And I think it bears mentioning that, like, what these protesters did is waited for a, you know, bus or, or some sort of caravan to leave and then they basically broke through the chain link fences.

[Michael Duncan]

No, it's like it was for a full Shawshank, but, but they like, they.

[Josh Holmes]

Just like criminals, like. I don't know how else to say it, but. But I watched some of the, the cell phone footage of, of the, you know, these criminals being, you know, moved into the facility, you know, by members of ice, and you have all of these liberal white women shouting at the police officers, being like, have you shown him a warrant? Have your rights been read? And it's like, what the hell is wrong with you? These people are convicted criminals. You know, it's just like.

[Michael Duncan]

What is it? Also have no right to be here in the first place.

[Josh Holmes]

In the first place. And they care about them the most. They don't care about their fellow citizens. They don't care about the people in North Carolina and the people in California. What really gets their hair on fire is convicted criminals from foreign countries being deported. That makes them mad.

[Michael Duncan]

I understand an argument that we've had in the last few years. I understand, I don't agree with it, but I understand an argument where the over incarceration of America and you want to go into these prisons and figure out like, you know, which is a lie, redeemable component, and like, we ought to make sure that we have a rehabilitation system or whatever. That's an argument.

[Josh Holmes]

Sure.

[Comfortably Smug]

I don't think so. I don't describe it. I think we've lived through that argument. We've seen the results of that. We have a but you're serious under incarceration problem. Serious, serious, serious under incarceration problem.

[Michael Duncan]

But like, as a baseline, you're talking about Americans. That's not what we're talking about here.

[Comfortably Smug]

And that's the thing is the left has captured on this idea that, well, justice is a nebulous thing. Truth is nebulous. It's my truth, my truth that I'm sharing, you know, my lived experience. The more you try to bring people out of the reality of black and white and you try to create these gray areas and make morality a nebulous thing, and there's no longer any right or wrong, that creates a vacuum where they have their control and their power.

[Joe Concha]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Because all of a sudden they're like, yeah, listen, the guy quite clearly entered the country illegally. That's black and white. But is he a criminal? Is it an imaginary. Did he, you know, just because he's committing assaults here in America, didn't the Statue of Liberty say, you can come here and stab people up.

[Michael Duncan]

His tattoos don't mean that it says.

[Comfortably Smug]

Murder across his neck. He could be a nice guy.

[Michael Duncan]

He could. You never know. Well, listen, if you feel like the Trump administration is driving an agenda day after day, it's in large part because of things like that. They can't get their act together. When we come back, we're gonna talk about the other side of this, about how Democrats are now demanding that Joe Biden go away.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

And if you didn't see the view at the end of last week. Boy, oh boy, do we have a treat for you. Frustration grows around the Democratic establishment, shall we say? And it's like infiltrating the Democratic establishment in a lot of ways. We're gonna get to all of that right after this. The Biden fill penalty is crippling the development of life saving drugs for cancer, Alzheimer's and other deadly diseases. It's already slashed funding for pill based medicines by 70%. Thankfully, President Trump is leading the fight to end the Biden pill penalty. President Trump's plan will unleash innovation, lower costs, and save American lives. Call Congress, tell them to stand with President Trump and include a repeal of the Biden pill penalty in the budget reconciliation bill. So Politico wrote a piece entitled, quote, it's time for Joe Biden to go away, quote, unquote. Democrats are triggered by Biden's return to the spotlight. Okay, all right. Well, is it for the right reasons?

[Josh Holmes]

I just love it.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know. But let's play. Let's just set this up with clip three, if you don't mind, just to give it a little flavor. There's nothing to sustain that, number one. Number two, you know, think of what we're left with. We're left with a circumstance where we had an insurrection when I started. We did not sense a civil war. We had a circumstance where we were in a position that we. Well, the pandemic, because of the incompetence of the last outfit, end up over a million people dying. Million people dying. And we're also in a situation where we found ourselves unable to deal with a lot of just basic issues, which I won't go into.

[Josh Holmes]

Mostly because he doesn't remember them.

[Michael Duncan]

And we got it done. And, you know, one of the things that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, you know, one of the things.

[Michael Duncan]

I think is that the people who wrote those books were not in the.

[Comfortably Smug]

White House with us.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, dude. So if you didn't, if you're not up to speed on this, we did an episode with Megan Kelly last Thursday where we talked in detail about all of this. About it, like a place for mom and like, hospice care and all these things and like, how weird it was. This was an expanded clip that ultimately Jill Biden got into where she was basically sitting there talking next to the patient as if he didn't exist as.

[Comfortably Smug]

A president, as if Joe Biden's inanimate object. Here's Dr. Jill. Shut up.

[Josh Holmes]

I have power of attorney here.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was the wildest thing. And it turns out like even Democrats in their sort of altered state in many ways came to similar conclusions, that this was not their best stuff. And so this piece by Politico was basically like, this is not good. Like, the line that I'll highlight here is, if he was expecting a worm reception, he is not getting it. Many in his party are desperate to turn the page on Biden's presidency, craving new leaders, fresh faces as Democrats look to find a way out of the political wilderness. I think it's a good jumping off point in a lot of ways, because, look, they have no identity. You've got this young group of folks that we just covered, the New Jersey contingent and also many others going to El Salvador and everything else. They're picking, like, every wrong battle. And so now you've got this guy who's supposed to be sort of a statesman, as, like, ex presidents typically are usually held in higher regard than your rank and file House member.

[Josh Holmes]

Right?

[Michael Duncan]

In many ways. And he shows back up on the scene of the View, and they're like, no, like, not that either. Like that. That might be worse than the insurrectionists at the New Jersey prison. And so the identity of Democrat opposition is so compromised because, A, they picked the wrong battle, and B, the folks who are sort of like the spokespeople and the old guard when they show up completely compromise any ability to sort of counteract a Trump administration message.

[Joe Concha]

And I find it very interesting that Politico is writing this story because let me read you a headline from July 15th of 2024, entit Biden Defends, quote, pretty damn good mental acuity in testy interview.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think what Ashbrook here is highlighting is important, is that there is a tension between the turning the page and preserving the legacy. Right? Like, that's the thing, is the reason why Joe Biden is out there is because he knows all these books are coming, and they have come already. And everybody knows that his brain is applesauce, but he has to be out there to defend the legacy of who he was as president. And the Democratic establishment also, they don't.

[Michael Duncan]

Want to even talk about it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right, they don't want to talk about it. They just want to sweep it under the rug. And meanwhile, you have these people trying to blaze a new path, get a new identity.

[Michael Duncan]

They're like, I know, I know, I know.

[Josh Holmes]

I'll storm an ice facility.

[Michael Duncan]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Holmes]

You know, and so they're entirely rudderless. But that is the tension in this is the preservation of legacy and trying to blaze a new path. I think that's 100%. What I find very funny about all of this is that time really is a flat circle. We began Joe Biden's administration saying, fuck Joe Biden, and now at the end, it's the Democrats saying it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, let's go, Brandon.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah, but here's the thing. The rewriting of history that the left is trying to do with Joe Biden is the same thing that the left tried to do during the COVID pandemic. You know, they're trying to pretend like, oh, well, we never wanted to close schools. Oh, well, we never wanted to shut down business. We always thought Joe Biden was bad, and now we're telling people the truth, right? Like, the left is trying to rewrite history once again, and nobody's buying it, but there's no.

[Michael Duncan]

There's no cohesion in that. There is no leader and no followers. Like, they're just splintered. You've got people going to El Salvador, people storming ICE facilities. You've got folks like David Hogg who are out trying to primary older Democrats. The message that he's had for his very young political career stands in stark contrast to what he's talking about now. And, like, there's no two things that are similar.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I think this, you know, part of the vacuum of leadership in the Democrat Party, I think, can be explained by looking at Joe Biden right there. Like, yes, it's apparent that the man, you know, probably has dementia or, you know, whatever elderly kind of affliction has affected him. It's extremely clear. He does the crutch thing of where he's like, well, you know, I won't get into it. Or he says, like, I don't want to say anything too bad. And then, like, now, because he's got Jill right there on the side, that's the cue for her to like, okay, save me. She starts talking. But more importantly, the motivation Joe Biden has to do this, the reason he's doing this, when it's incredibly clear he's incapable. He's physically mentally incapable. He can't do it. He just can't do it. So why is he being brought out there? Because he's surrounded by these greedy, greedy people. And that's the problem is Biden Inc. Is a group of grifters. And that's apparent. That's. That's why there's so much tension between the Obamas and the Bidens.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, this is what we were. Because it was all a rude. Yeah, but now there, if there ever was proof that it's not a ruse, it's. You're dragging an old octogenarian out of bed long past his prime to try to be relevant again when it benefits him politically or his party. Not even a lick.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's the thing, is there's no benefit to the party for Joe Biden to get out there anymore. It's clear. I mean, he was harmful when he was running. When he was the candidate, he was hurting the party. There's no benefit to the party. There's no benefit to. To the left's causes. The only benefit is Biden, Inc. They are trying to grab some money. They're trying to save some face. They can't. You think. You think Joe Biden, he has speaking engagements. The guy can't finish his sentence. They're not gonna pay him to speak anywhere.

[Joe Concha]

So one of the things he said in the View interview was that he thinks he could have won the 2024 election. He understands that Kamala couldn't win. And I want to ask you guys, do you agree?

[Michael Duncan]

No.

[Josh Holmes]

No, he couldn't have. But I do recall, Holmes, when we did that episode. This is the Black Swan media event.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. Where everybody was starting to percolate about, I don't think Joe can do the job. This is after the debate. And I think it was just me and you that did the episode. And the one thing I said to you is the greatest part about this, the greatest part about Kamala being the candidate, will be Joe Biden claiming he would have won.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

If she loses.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And that's 100% this, because he's just this dementia patient Irishman who can't help but have a chip on his shoulder and think, I would have done it. He never would have done it.

[Michael Duncan]

Obviously, she couldn't close the sale in large part because she was injured.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. To him.

[Michael Duncan]

To him.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

But she never would have been in the position to make the sale if not for him. If not for him. Right. There's no way that she ever would have been in the conversation as the Democratic nominee if not for. Put it on the ticket in 2020 by Joe Biden, who limited himself to, I don't know, a black woman. And there would happen to be only standing on stage. She was it. She got on it, and then she was a disaster throughout. And like, this conversation from the Democratic side has been a disaster of their own making from the very, very beginning. And now he's trying to get out from underneath that and pretend like, you know, I probably would have won now, could have like a 2012 version of Joe Biden won this election foreseeably. A lot of more relatability there in the center of the country than she ever had who stood on a stage and said, you know, open the borders and give everybody free health care and I'm for socialist medicine. I'm for, you know, all these sort of things that disqualified her from the electorate in and of itself. And then she couldn't talk herself out of a paper bag during the last 30 to 60 days and said she would do nothing different. You know, I mean, this is like a worst possible candidate, but it is what it is. Like, this is the. This is what they're left with. And then you have these, like little insurrective pieces within the Democratic Party. You've got different ideas. What I find so fascinating is that some of them have like a brief moment of reflection where they're like, maybe this was a bad idea. And then they say it despite, like their entire record of being part of the problem beforehand. But they're trying to, like, steer the party in a different way. Let's take hog. Show me your hog number four.

[F]

So what I'm trying to do with this initiative with leaders we deserve, the organization that we're working with is to challenge Democrats that we feel like are failing to meet the moment in safe congressional seats that don't risk us losing the House and say to them, look, nobody is entitled to their position of power because ultimately the positions of power in this country don't belong to any member of Congress that is out there. They belong to the people that vote them into office. And the people are showing us right now, with our record low approval ratings that they're not happy with us. And what I'm trying to do here is show that we're trying to bring in a new.

[Michael Duncan]

Ok, ok, hey, listen, show me your hog buddy.

[Comfortably Smug]

You're kind of not allowed to say, he said it, he said it. The guy was being honest. He's spitting over there. I mean, he's not lying, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And immediately Dems are like pissed off.

[Michael Duncan]

But also coming from a guy whose neck deep in the. Biden.

[Joe Concha]

This is what I was going to say. What he's saying now is very, very different from everything he said leading up.

[Michael Duncan]

He was like, joe Biden's brilliant. You should see Joe Biden behind closed doors.

[Joe Concha]

Right?

[Michael Duncan]

He's doing backflips and, you know, pirouettes and like now all of a sudden he's like, no, we need a younger generation. These old guys got to go. Okay, all right, so he shifted personally. What else has he got?

[Comfortably Smug]

That's real quick. Just one second. Hopefully none of the Democrats listening to this pay attention to it because we just explained why they have no credibility. It's because they already spent all of an election lying to the American people. Doesn't matter if your candidate's younger or older or if you get a black woman on the ticket or if you got David Hogg on the ticket or who David Hogg likes. You guys spent an entire election cycle lying to people, and they don't forget that shit.

[Michael Duncan]

David Hogg himself is lying.

[Comfortably Smug]

He is.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, the very premise to it is a lie. Like, it's one thing to come up with the right message, which he's trying to do. And you'll see this in this next clip. It's quite another to have an authentic take that you can actually believe it's nonsense because they've worked against that the whole. Let's see the next clip, please.

[F]

Right now, what I think happened last election is younger men, they would rather vote for somebody who feels, who even if they don't completely agree with, they don't feel judged by, than somebody who they do agree with that they feel like they have to walk on eggshells around constantly because they're going to be judged or ostracized or exercised. Communicated revelation. What's interesting about this moment is it feels like the two parties in some senses have flipped where, you know, Republicans used to be the judgmental assholes in many ways. And since many Democrats, despite us, I would say for most of us coming from the right place of wanting to do the right thing, we've created a culture where we say, well, if you say the wrong thing, you're excommunicated. And that's just not how human beings work. Nobody is perfect. But ultimately, what we have to do here is figure out how to bring people back in and work towards the bigger goal of advancing the future of this country and helping young people especially get by so that they're able to focus on their lives and, you know, getting with a young woman or something like that. Instead of how are they going to pay their rent, for example, or how are they working their two jobs, young people should be able to focus on what young people should be focused on, which is how to get laid and how to go and have fun.

[Michael Duncan]

How to get laid and have fun. What a sensible message out of the young man. If you weren't part of the Me Too movement. What a sensible message. If somebody who didn't dedicate his youth basically to try to get rid of freedoms for the very population that it is that he's talking about. Like, this is a guy who's just sort of flipped. I'm not saying that his message is wrong. If you listen to that makes some sense.

[Comfortably Smug]

What was the name of the influencer kid that got in trouble? The one who was the Navy SEALS concubine?

[Joe Concha]

I don't remember.

[Comfortably Smug]

Because here's the thing is, in secret, Harry Sisson. Harry Sisson. He got in trouble for exactly that. Because the thing is that they. That's the thing is with the Democrats, the hypocrisy is one thing. It's the hierarchy thing. All the folks at the top, like, Bernie, he's taking PJs. He's gonna tell you to, like, go read Marx. It's good stuff. You know, like, the rich are getting away with too much. Now I'm hopping on my pj. But don't worry about that, folks. The same way the Harry Sisson, like, all these kids who are toeing the line who are like, I stand with women. Stop being such toxic masculinity. Attacking Republicans for being like, you don't stand with trans rights and you misgender people. And behind the scenes, man, they're doing exactly what that kid is saying. They're just trying to get laid. He was using his TikTok.

[Josh Holmes]

Same thing on Twitter just to get laid.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it's the same thing. But that's where, you know, where the true battle bankruptcy is in a political party, when you've got young folks like that who are smart enough to figure out where their true deficits are, but yet have dedicated much of their adult life to work against that bankruptcy, where they, you know, they talk about how there's a war on women within the Republican Party in large part because you're not monolithic on abortion up to the ninth month, right? And then they show up and they're like, oh, yeah, we should probably listen to young dudes who wanna get late. I mean, it's not about getting late. It's about young dudes being canceled from the Democratic Party from moment one. But there's people like David Hogg who've literally dedicated up to this point a substantial part of his life and trying to do just that.

[Joe Concha]

This is an entire political party that just makes things up to achieve. That is their intent from start to finish. This is not a man. It's actually a woman. We're Making that up so that we can get power. You know, like, they. They lie and lie and lie, and everybody's gonna see right there.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's also a very convenient lie to do when you're in a position of power and can tweet out. You and Harry Sisson can tweet out how, you know, we gotta reelect Joe Biden. Right. And, like, when you exist within that power structure. But now he's going to stand up and he's got a new voice. Oh. And we got to change things. We got to turn the page and all of those sorts of things.

[Michael Duncan]

Inspiring in many ways. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I guess what I would say is, like, safe now. Super safe now to say that. And, like, where the fuck's Dean Phillips? That's what I want to know.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, the one guy in the Democratic Party who actually put his name on a ballot and was like, I don't think this guy can do the job. How did he get rewarded? He didn't get rewarded.

[Michael Duncan]

He's nowhere.

[Josh Holmes]

No. Kamala Harris got to eat shit and fucking lose. And now you've got this dipshit zoomer millennial who wants to take all of our guns away, being like, I want to turn the page and make a new Democratic Party. Go fuck yourself.

[Michael Duncan]

As he was a part of the very base of the all of the lies that the American people ultimately made his decision about.

[Josh Holmes]

Excommunicated this guy. The future.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, when we come back, we're to get to your comments, but I do think it's worth a question of the day here.

[Joe Concha]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

Because you've heard a whole bunch of messaging.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

None of which makes any sense. And you've heard about, you know, sort of the end of the Republic as it. As in terms of the economy and, like, what, Trump? We're gonna get to all of that. But, like, that's an additional piece of our question is, what message will Dems ultimately come to? Like, what's the message? If you were a political strategist, what is it that you think they're gonna land on that has any hopes in the midterms of garnering them majorities? And when we come back, we're going to read your responses to last week's questions about trade right after this.

[Josh Holmes]

You did all the right things. You worked hard, you worked your way up, and you invested your money in a 401k or other retirement plan. Your future is all set. Right. Wrong. The retirement system as we know it is currently under attack from misguided policymakers in D.C. the Trump tax cuts are set to expire this year. Renewing them will be a big fight in Congress. Right now, the tax code protects 401ks IRAs and other plans that help you save. Some people want to change that. Your representatives in Congress must protect the tax advantages that more than 100 million Americans rely on to save for retirement. You deserve policies that build on the current retirement system to secure your financial future, not jeopardize it. If Americans know one thing, it's resilience. To stay resilient, we need immediate action from our leaders. Head to helpusretire.org to take action and reach out to your representatives in Congress. Today. Help Us Retire is sponsored by the Investment Company Institute, representing asset managers serving individual investors.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay, so our question of the day from last Thursday was which country will be the first to announce a trade deal? Now, the funny thing is, well, there's a lot of action over the weekend. And I'll remind you that the Variety program talked in great detail over the last couple of weeks about tariffs, about the Trump strategy, and about our reluctance to come down one way or another because it may be a part of a larger plan. We recall that there was on one side sort of a Peter Navarro articulated argument, the tariffs are good and that they will create wealth here in the United States. And then there was what seemed to be a larger contingent within the Trump administration that said they're a tool to try to get us a better deal with a whole bunch of countries of which we subscribe to. And it seems like the president has subscribed to it as well. Your answers are coming up and we.

[Joe Concha]

Always start with the voice first comment comes from Jim Doc USA and Jim Doc writes qotd, the news today already shows a deal with the UK So I will refrain from saying the UK and try to guess the next one. I believe it will be either India or Japan. And the chairman commercials make Charman. I'm sorry, the Charmin commercials. Yeah, the Charmin commercials.

[Michael Duncan]

Toilet paper. Right. Too.

[Joe Concha]

Okay. The Charmin commercials make the dad look like a complete moron who doesn't know how to wipe his own ass. So I have boycotted that brand of toilet paper.

[Michael Duncan]

Peppa father doesn't know how to wipe his own ass.

[Josh Holmes]

It's very important. People don't realize this, how many negative portrayals there are of fathers in media.

[Michael Duncan]

It's ridiculous.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't appreciate it. We hate it.

[Joe Concha]

It's been going for 40 years.

[Michael Duncan]

We hate it. But the point is pretty good. One, the UK One came down at the end of last week, very, very important to this country. I think the one thing that we may not have fully understood is that the China talks, which I think we were. Well, we were hopeful that it would be an understanding and a de escalation turned out to be more of a deal than an understanding in that it substantially reduced things, which is important. Comment 2, please. Dunks or unks.

[Josh Holmes]

This is from Brock Hendrickson. Well, the UK is first, but I think the next will be Japan, then India. Japan needs income for factory growth to keep pace with other East Asia countries. And India needs the income for their Pakistani conflict. Thankfully, Donald Trump has also solved that with a ceasefire between.

[Michael Duncan]

We're getting to that, too. Yeah, we're going to get to that too. You got a great show and how do you. But great, great point.

[Joe Concha]

But here we have multiple listeners suggesting Japan or India was next. I don't think in anybody's wildest dreams they would have thought China.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, because everybody consider that apart. Right. Like, everybody considered that as like the great white buffalo.

[Joe Concha]

I know we're going to get to that in the next segment, but I think it's noteworthy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no question. All right. Smug.

[Comfortably Smug]

This comment comes from the homestead journey. They write. My hope is that the first trade deal is with the Herd island and McDonald Island.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

Damn. Penguins have been taking advantage of the US for far too long.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes. This is the uninhabited island. Well, not uninhabited.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it's inhabited by penguins.

[Josh Holmes]

Penguins.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Those little tuxedo smug.

[Josh Holmes]

Tuxedo smug Tuxedo rich cat fat cats taking advantage of the United States for too long.

[Michael Duncan]

That's exactly right.

[Josh Holmes]

Exactly.

[Joe Concha]

Every one of them should be on a plate next to potatoes and asparagus.

[Michael Duncan]

I wonder what a. Like a penguin breast.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you think it tastes good?

[Comfortably Smug]

It's gotta be.

[Josh Holmes]

I think so.

[Michael Duncan]

It's gotta be a little gamey.

[Josh Holmes]

No. Well, can I give you my pitch on it? They spend a lot of time just standing there over eggs.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, so you think it like. It's like a high fat.

[Josh Holmes]

They have to have a high fat.

[Comfortably Smug]

Content and to survive in the cold.

[Josh Holmes]

The whipping wind and the cold and everything. So a high fat content, not a lot of movement, a lot of standing.

[Michael Duncan]

Probably something you want to do over a slow cook. Yeah, you gotta melt that well, you.

[Josh Holmes]

Want to render that fat.

[Michael Duncan]

A render it.

[Josh Holmes]

Render it right on up.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. No, it's important. I mean, think about that. A hot grill probably not, right?

[Comfortably Smug]

Smoke them, have some pulled penguin.

[Josh Holmes]

Do you think you're old penguin? You can do that in the green Egg.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh yeah, we can get that done.

[Josh Holmes]

You think so?

[Michael Duncan]

We can get that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can we get penguins?

[Josh Holmes]

No.

[Comfortably Smug]

There's gotta be a way to get penguins.

[Josh Holmes]

Think so.

[Michael Duncan]

Can we eat penguin?

[Comfortably Smug]

That's insane. We smoke that.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, do we know if, if penguin is something that's impossible to eat, is that like a. Something that's off limits?

[Comfortably Smug]

No, it's not like eating brains. Not like it's a felony.

[Joe Concha]

It's a. Are you kidding me?

[Comfortably Smug]

No, no, there's too many.

[Joe Concha]

They're all over the place.

[Michael Duncan]

They're all over this island.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

For starters. I don't know. We should look into that. Anyway, listen, when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about that historic trade deal with China that we told you was something that you ought to keep your eye on. I mean, let's just listen to the Variety program. Every you get the mainstream news, you get this corporate press, it's like, oh my God, the economy's over. Like bury your savings in the backyard.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, because they're rooting for America to fail.

[Michael Duncan]

They are. And then we're like, ah, I don't know, like there's a couple important meetings here, like you need to check out this stuff and maybe the dominoes start to fault. Well, we're going to tell all about that right after this. Hard working Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done.

[Joe Concha]

Now is the time to unleash our.

[Michael Duncan]

Nation'S energy to create jobs, secure our future and make life better, more affordable and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Okay, so late breaking information on the penguin front. Much like marijuana, illegal to acquire, not illegal to eat.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh.

[Michael Duncan]

With the penguins. So if you have it, enjoy it. But if you have to acquire it in any form or fashion, very illegal.

[Joe Concha]

It needs to change. I mean, put simply, that needs to change. It's a food source. There are people who are hungry and they deserve to eat. Penguins. I don't know how else to say it.

[Michael Duncan]

A penguin coat, like a tuxedo made of penguin would be something.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I would love to see smug in one of those.

[Michael Duncan]

I would too.

[Comfortably Smug]

How big are they in real life? What's the average height?

[Joe Concha]

Bigger than you think.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like the emperor emperor penguin. That's gotta be like a yard tall, right?

[Josh Holmes]

I think they're probably three and a half feet.

[Joe Concha]

I mean plump and ready to, ready to cook.

[Comfortably Smug]

If Someone is listening to this, like, you know, in Alaska or something.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a rug. It's a rug play.

[Comfortably Smug]

You throw this thing with some dried ice and you ship it here because it, you know, there's no transactions allowed. It's one of these ridiculous kind of.

[Josh Holmes]

Like laws you're trying to make people commit.

[Comfortably Smug]

If you bag it, you put it in some dried ice and you ship it here, I say we just smoke the thing.

[Josh Holmes]

Please don't do that.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, we're going to find out here shortly. Thank you for indulging all of that. Listen, here's the trade deal. I think we suspected there was a very important meeting in Switzerland over the weekend of which Treasury Secretary Bess was sort of a lead to discuss with China this escalating problem that we've had where we increase tariffs, they increase tariffs, where it became basically an embargo, which is not something anybody voted for or wanted. And it had a major impact on the economy. You could see the stock market reacting as a result. But they achieved somewhat of a historic deal. The United States and China will each lower tariffs by 115% as a result of the discussions over the weekend, while retaining an additional 10% tariff. Other U.S. measures will remain in place. Both sides will take these actions as of May 14th. So it's happening imminently. China will remove retaliatory tariffs it announced since April 4, 2025, and will suspend or remove the non tariff countermeasures taken against the United States. China will also spent suspend a 34% tariff on the United States it announced on April 4, 2025 for 90 days, but will retain a 10% tariff during the, the pause. I mean, I think the bottom line is if you just look at what we got out of this thing and what they got out of this thing, it's a net positive. It's a net positive, but also something that President Trump's critics said was an impossibility.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah, but on the ruthless variety program, we pointed toward this all week last week, I mean, if you look at the way that the, this president has used tariffs, he's used them as leverage as a way to get something out of these trading partners we have never gotten before. And right now it seems like he is making progress. And who responded yesterday? The market. A thousand points on the Dow, nearly a thousand points on nasdaq. These semiconductor companies based in Taiwan went through the roof. So if you look at what has happened as a result of what this president is doing on these tariffs, it's actually working out.

[Josh Holmes]

I think the only loser in this entire deal is the American media that rooted against Donald Trump in the United States.

[Comfortably Smug]

We were told shelves are going to be empty. Folks, it's all over. Your retirement accounts are hitting zero. Everything's ending. It's over for all of you.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't think I've seen anything so insane since COVID Yeah, like in those early months of COVID when the American media was like, actually, you know what? I think China, China has beat the virus and you need to wear green forever. And they really did say that. They're like, you know, actually, I think China beat this virus.

[Michael Duncan]

But it's funny, I mean, if you look at the discussion that's been happening here, I mean, there is the element of rooting against any policy that has a setback in the market. Only when Republicans are do it, by the way. You know, when Democrats do it, it's like, oh, well, you know, I mean, look, the market doesn't respect the working man.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's it.

[Michael Duncan]

You know. But when President Trump does it, it's all about like, well, he's ruined.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, you had Tim Bowles out there talking about Tesla stock, like, yeah, it got really unhinged fast.

[Michael Duncan]

It got really unhinged fast. But if you look at where things sit, it seems as though they took all of this very seriously from the China perspective, wanted to de escalate it themselves, which they have now. And we're in a position that is much more advantageous than we were going in. Again, flashback to the last four episodes of the Ruthless Variety program where we said there is an inherent debate that's going on that I understand why you're confused by. Because you get the Peter Navarro side that says tariffs are good, it's going to make American workers and everybody else a lot of money. And then you had a whole bunch of folks who were like, it's a tool that we use to get a better deal for the American worker and the American taxpayer. And our take was, I think the latter is what they're working with here. And you just have to let this take some time to sort of work its way through the system. And ultimately, you could see a scenario where that and tax reform, where you're cooking with fire at the end. That's what we said.

[Josh Holmes]

One other thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Am I missing something like that?

[Josh Holmes]

One other thing I would say on this is hate Donald Trump. Love Donald Trump. At least he's fucking trying. Yeah, at least he's fucking trying. I, you know, I say this Republican administration and Democratic administration, nobody has really tried to tackle China in the way that Donald Trump has, and I appreciate that. I just do. And I hope we get a better deal here in the end, and I hope it's greater for American workers and everything. He had a conversation with China that no American president had previously tried to do, and that's just a fact.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, it's ongoing, too. I mean, this is the opening salvo. I mean, the important part about all of this is that everybody sees it as a static conversation where you believe in isolationism versus, you know, international marketplaces. We all know you can't grow as an economy, as a static, isolationist economy. He understands that. And that was our point on the variety program. Like, I don't know where this thing's gonna go, but give the guy a little bit more credit, right? Then, like, your Navarro talking points that are like, yeah, if we just build big walls around the American economy, it's all gonna be okay. Like, nobody thinks that. There's not a single person who thinks.

[Josh Holmes]

That Donald Trump has properties in foreign countries. Like, he knows the importance of international markets. Like, you have to be able to take our power and our economy out into the world. That's how it works.

[Michael Duncan]

And. And listen, I think that he's well served, you know, in this sense, Besant. I mean, talk about some good work over the. You know, put in work. Put in work, guys. Good stuff.

[Joe Concha]

Just incredible.

[Michael Duncan]

All right, so another big thing that's kind of roiled the Washington, D.C. situation, which, you know, I think we've got like a. We'll have to see how this whole thing plays out in terms of what he's trying to do with pharma and most favored nation. We're going to have to see. Exactly. He's given it 30 days to have a negotiation with big pharmaceuticals within the United States about getting to a place where, in his view, the American people are afforded the same price for prescription drugs than is being offered internationally. A lot that goes. This is a very, very complicated issue. Is everything to do with, you know, intellectual property, research and development, a whole bunch of things that. And not to mention just the outright theft of the international community into all this stuff. But that's what the negotiation is about.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's it. So I know there's a nuance taken there. You know, great points. It's like, you know, you want to make sure that domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers are motivated by having their IP the number of years until their patent expires so that, you know, they charge whatever they do, but I don't care. I don't care anymore. I don't care. We should get the cheapest price. I agree with Trump. I don't care about hearing any nuances of any argument. Why is it cheaper for any other country to get the pharmaceuticals that Americans are paying more for? And here's the thing is, for so long, America has had to. America has taken this position as like a benevolent angel for the entire planet of like, oh, you know, we come up with all these life saving technologies, we come up with these life saving drugs, and we come up with everything. And you know what? We'll sell it to every country for cheaper. And all the world has done is just abuse us. We've taken. Every country has been sending the dregs that prisoners to this country has abused the United States, taken advantage of the United States has dumped their cheap goods on our shores, has dumped their drugs on our shores and meanwhile just taken and taken and taken and lived under the Western hemisphere, has lived under the umbrella of America's might as like, well, we know there's not going to be a war. People aren't going to be slaughtered. We were safe because America is here. And I'm done with it. I'm done with it. They've abused us. They've had the benevolent angel, let them have the superintendent who's like, okay, now you got to pay me. You got to pay me, pay me.

[Josh Holmes]

I think the issue is that what happens when these foreign countries rip off all of the investment that the United States has put into pharmaceuticals and they just take it. What do you do?

[Comfortably Smug]

They express their factories.

[Josh Holmes]

We've done it before.

[Michael Duncan]

No, but. No, but honestly.

[Comfortably Smug]

Pharmaceutical.

[Michael Duncan]

But honestly. See, what you're talking about is a big hangup.

[Josh Holmes]

It is the thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Right on the thing, it's. The whole thing is you can come up with life saving, life enhancing prescription drugs that people get that they're willing to steal. If you have an administration who's willing to enforce the intellectual property, which we might for the first time be discussing, like all this stuff again for the first time under Trump, it might be worthy of a discussion. Now. It's very complicated, very complicated. And I think we're gonna get into that. But here's what's not complicated. The way of Trump framing this thing. Can we play this clip, please? I mean, I'll tell you a story. A friend of mine who's a businessman, very, very, very top guy, most of you would have heard of him. Highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight. And he takes the fact the fat shot drugged him and he Called me up and he said, president. He calls me. He used to call me Donald. Now he calls me president. So that's nice. Respect. But he's a rough guy, smart guy, very successful, very rich. I wouldn't even know how we would know this, but. Because he's got comments. President, could I ask you a question? What? I'm in London and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take. I said, it's not working. I just paid $88. And in New York, I pay $1,300. What the hell is going on?

[Joe Concha]

He's a national treasure.

[Josh Holmes]

He is.

[Joe Concha]

He is a national treasure. And he finds a way to put color on an issue that people find so complicated. You know, there's a data point that the White House has said over and over again that Americans represent 5% of the world's population, but they pay 75% of pharmaceutical company profits. And the way that he said that put so much color on it, that has really just like. Yeah, I think he's hilarious.

[Josh Holmes]

But, like, put it. Put it in the context of this show, right? Like. Like, let's. Let's look at it like this show, right? So 75% of the profits of. Of pharmaceuticals are paid by Americans. What if. What if somebody ripped off our show Ruthless, right? And they put it on a Chinese version of YouTube or whatever, without the ads, whatever. We don't see a dollar from any less handsome individuals. Right? But they still showed the thing, and they're like, well, people in China get to get this for free. They'd still be ripping off R and D. They'd be ripping off the cost of these lights and these cameras and all of these sorts of things, and it'd be paid by everybody who's watching in here and still has to watch the ads. I'm sorry, you do, but that's how we pay for all of this. Yeah, that's sort of a microcosm of the problem with American pharmaceuticals is like, the America. Like, it's not America. It's. It's. The rest of the world is ripping off the cost of these pharmaceuticals, and we pay the freight.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah, yeah, we.

[Michael Duncan]

That's right.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah, the royal we. Because a lot of people pay that freight. But, I mean, I. Josh's point, I think, is the right one, that, like, if. If the president is going to be so tough on so many things, you got to think he's going to be tough on enforcing intellectual property.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can I. Can I point out one thing real quick that's so critical here is you see Trump, I mean, we're all witnesses to absolute. Like, this guy is a legend. There will never be someone who can drop a press conference like that. Never again are we going to see anything this good. You know, I hope everyone gets to watch as many of them as possible. We're never gonna see anything like this again.

[Josh Holmes]

The fat shot, he's pretty overweight.

[Comfortably Smug]

And that's the thing is, like, so.

[Michael Duncan]

Like, he takes a hard line of the fats, which we appreciate here program.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, the fats are just a little bit of shaming.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

It's good for all of us.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, we need to have a conversation about the fats.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's part how you make America healthy again. But, like, you have David Hogg who's like, trying to figure out that, like, how are we gonna make Dems relatable to people and be like, well, you know, we gotta get dudes back. And we're gonna act like this to try to get dudes back to vote for Donald Trump to a guy who's like a billionaire. Calling him. He's like. So I started taking the fat shot to his buddy. Trump's like, well, it's not working, bro.

[John Ashbrook]

It's not working.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's how dudes actually act, you know?

[Michael Duncan]

Yep, yep.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, you cut on your buddies. Well, it's how real, so natural how he drops the dudes, like, it's not working. It sounds like a billionaire calling him, talking about farmers getting owned.

[Michael Duncan]

But he's talking about it the way real people.

[Joe Concha]

That's exactly right.

[Michael Duncan]

You know, this isn't some esoteric thing, and neither is this next one. This is hilarious. So you may have read an awful lot over the weekend about this ABC News story where all of a sudden, Donald Trump is accepting a $400 billion gift, some airplane that he's going to be Lux. And by the way, the way that they phrase it, even in the questioning in this press conference on Monday, was like a luxury plane, right? Luxury plane that he's accepting. And they made it seem as though he was getting it personally. And they made it seem. And this is from a gift from Qatar, right? Qatar. Very controversial situation. Has had many ties to Hezbollah terrorism over the years. Like, difficult. Been an ally in many ways, been an adversary in many ways. Like, it's a. It's a work in progress. Like, it's a very, very difficult conversation from international diplomatic standpoints. But they offered to give him one of theirs. And, you know, you look at that, just sort of a precipice. Like, just what do we think about that, like Qatar is giving a very big plane that could double as a Air Force One to the United States. Well, it's sort of offensive in some ways, like why would you take a country that has had ties to terrorism, anything from them as a gift? Well, the backstory, which was not reported by abc, was that Donald Trump, and I remember I was in the Oval Office not long after he made this order and he was talking all about it. In fact, he had a model that he showed me and a couple of others who were in the Oval Office of this plane that he'd ordered from Boeing in 2018, said this is going to be the new Air force one in 2018. Well, here we are in 2025. It's not showed up. Now, as Donald Trump explained in his press conference, the previous administration had made a whole bunch of different changes, none of which made sense. That delayed production, whatever, that was part of the delayed production. But the fact of the matter is, is that they told Donald Trump, they being Boeing, there's a chance that you're not going to get, get a delivered Air Force One that you ordered back in 2018 before the end of your term in 2028. That's a 10 year cycle for one fucking plane, right? And like that's an insane thing. Now the other backdrop of this is, I don't know how many of you knew this, but the current Air Force One was George H.W. bush's airplane. And this is a 40 year old airplane, beautiful, no question about it, flies quick, it's got all the bells and whistles, but it's 40 years old in comparison to the modern technology that is in all of the aircrafts that many American adversaries have basically conditioned for state leaders. It's like an, it's like a flying Model T. And so his whole point was, I don't know if they're gonna give us that. Give it to the Department of Defense, not him, by the way, not him. Give it to the Department of Defense, give them some time with it to make sure that there's no like espionage components, that there's nothing that's involved in the airplane that has any way of spying on America. And then retrofit it for our specifications to make sure that it does all the things that an Air Force One should do, which is obviously very different than what they would do for Guitar. And that takes several months. But if they're going to give it to us, I'll take it. And the moment that Boeing actually gives us the plane that they said that they were going to give us in 2018. I'll decommission the thing. They'll go out of service. And the way they reported it by ABC was he's getting this plane like for his personal use.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. Like a birthday present.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And he's just gonna fly around on it. And so you have to question his motives and his alliance with Qatar or whatever.

[Joe Concha]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

Which, the best part about this is that the story in and of itself about what he was intending to do with this plane that Qatar was offering to give him was reported by the Wall Street Journal three weeks earlier by Josh Tawsey. That provided all of the context that we're talking about. And then broken news over the weekend by ABC under the auspices that he was just getting some like massively inflate like incredible jet first personal use. I mean this is what's wrong with media, fellas.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah, no, they miss it. They all, they always do. And I will tell you that ABC focusing in on the gift aspect rather than the security aspect shows you everything that you need to know about the organization. They are a Democrat run and Democrat staffed organization that thinks that it's their job to provide a counterpoint to what the Republican President is doing. Not to question in a normal way the way that other people who are not like necessarily partisan would question something. They're trying to, they're trying to get to him rather than get to the actual issue. I think it's, it's valid to question the safety. It's valid to question. The Qataris are sending this over. The Qataris have funded terrorist organizations that killed not only Americans but our allies. What are they trying to get out of this? The answer to that question was presented in the Wall Street Journal article that Josh Dawsey wrote that the Defense Department is going to go through it with a fine tooth comb and make sure that their terrorist allies are not going to be able to get into the plate. My point is that ABC missed it yet again.

[Josh Holmes]

I think the only real story out of all of this is that Boeing can't deliver a plane for the President, United States, 10 years.

[Michael Duncan]

In 10 years.

[Josh Holmes]

What does that say? Dude, that's crazy.

[Michael Duncan]

Dude, it's wild. It's wild.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, do you just care about the United States and the President? United States, how do you not put.

[Michael Duncan]

That on the front of the line?

[Joe Concha]

Yeah, it's a great.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know how long it takes to make a 747, but how is it that this is not the first and last thing that you do every day until you get it done.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's a shoddy company, it's a horrible company, horribly run company, but it's because they are a greedy little pig at the trough of the taxpayer. No one ever asks, you know, why is Boeing allowed to get government contracts before they have an actual finished product to show? They're like, oh, you know, we're going to have a new fighter jet or a new missile program, right? Here's what you're gonna do. The US Government is gonna pay us, let's say, a trillion dollars, and we'll have it in five years. And without fail, five years later, we need another trillion. It's gonna be another five years. And they get away with this over and over and over and over again. And this is like, such a glaring example of it. And to me, it feels like Boeing sent their PR people out to have this story be like, President Trump accepts a birthday gift of a Qatari PJ to get away from the truth that Boeing is failing America yet again. When they're not falling out of the sky with these shoddy planes, they're failing the President, United States.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, at least they're not giving them a three, a 737 Max.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. But we have a little interesting. It's a callback from segment one and two about the Democratic reaction. Now, they handle these things. If we can put up graphic number one, please. Okay, so this is Ruben Gallego, newly elected senator from Arizona, who said, this is pay to play pay, and plain and simple, Trump isn't making decisions on what's best for you. He's selling out US Policy to whomever gives him the biggest jet. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, well, you're a new member. Like, maybe you don't have a full set of circumstances, but we're in the House of Representatives. What did you do then? Graphic two, please. Oh, who is that? Okay, well, here's a shirtless Ruben Gallego along with Eric Swalwell. Eric Swalwell in a photo in Qatar, riding camels, two Democratic congressmen, as, according to business insiders, shirtless and smiling with their wives, sat atop camels in March in a Persian Gulf shimmered behind them. Photos obtained by the insider.

[Josh Holmes]

Can I just say something? They're very lucky their wives were there because this is not a heterosexual boat.

[Michael Duncan]

Can we put up that picture?

[Josh Holmes]

Put it back up. What is that?

[Michael Duncan]

Look at these fucking.

[Josh Holmes]

You look like a fucking cheerleader.

[Comfortably Smug]

It says. It says here. This is. The other thing is, while they were Both advocating to shut down all U.S. businesses. They did this during the. The pandemic, they said during, it says, a pandemic era excursion. It was a trip funded by the US Qatar Business Council, a trade group that spent more than 84,000 on that.

[Josh Holmes]

A little bit of a junket.

[Michael Duncan]

He said he was worried about pay.

[Joe Concha]

To play, but fact finding mission, they were just there to find facts, as you can tell from that photo.

[Michael Duncan]

He said he's worried about pay to play.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he's going to root it out there on that camel. He's gonna snuff it out.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I don't know if there's any Chinese spies, but that would get seriously worried, you know, if Swalwell's involved. I mean, Jesus. Anyway, so that's. That'll give you a little sense again. The disarray. The disarray.

[Josh Holmes]

There's a lot of it.

[Michael Duncan]

They don't even know how to talk about this stuff. They're just completely insane. All right, so here's a transition for you. A tax bill has come out. We've talked a lot about the importance of the domestic agenda intersecting with which President Trump is trying to do internationally in terms of the economic agenda to ensure that taxpayers and workers get a better deal. We've talked a lot about how they need to get one done here. Couple of concerning anecdotes. Well, first of all, they. They released base text out of the House of Representatives. It is what it is. It is what it is. Like, it's redoing, you know, a lot. An awful lot of the TCGA, the 2017 tax cuts, and they had stuff that Trump talked about in the campaign trail. Fine. It's fine. They're trying to deal with salt. State and local tax deduction of people who reside in states that tax the shit out of their people and their ability to actually deduct all that. I've got firm opinions, but it is what it is. They're trying to get to a point where they can pass this from majority standpoint. There is a basic problem in the way that the House of Representatives is looking at a tax bill. This, by the way, everyone's talking about this in terms of tax cuts. If they don't act, it's just a tax hike. There's no tax cut in any of this shit. It has everything to do with whether or not you have to pay higher taxes is a result of inaction. But somehow these dudes have wrapped their mind around all of this to say, like, current policy needs to be paid for, for with a Bunch of. Now, I'm not saying that spending doesn't need to be cut. It does. But wasn't that the whole point, Duncan.

[Josh Holmes]

Of Doge, the entire point of Doge, we found hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse in this government. We did this the whole first hundred days of the Trump administration, exposing all of these things. And then there are members of the House of Representatives in a Republican majority who are talking about raising taxes. I mean, which is like, just fucking wild to me, that you could have the entire exposition of the failure of government for the first hundred days of Trump's administration and turn around and ask for more money from the taxpayer. It's a fucking absurd proposition. I just don't understand it.

[Michael Duncan]

It's completely crazy. Embodied perfectly by clip 8. Tell me about this 40% tax bracket. So what we would do is. What we would do is, as you.

[John Ashbrook]

Know, Maria, before the Tax Cuts and.

[Michael Duncan]

Jobs act, the Highest bracket was 39.6. Yes. And it was.

[John Ashbrook]

It was less than $1 million.

[Michael Duncan]

Ideally. What we could do, again, if we can't find spending reductions and say, okay.

[John Ashbrook]

Let'S restore that higher bracket, let's set.

[Michael Duncan]

It at maybe $2 million income and above to help pay for the rest.

[John Ashbrook]

Of the President's agenda, which is, of course, no tax on tips and potentially other tax cuts.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is. This is 100% a Democrat trap that they would love.

[Michael Duncan]

It's a Democratic.

[Josh Holmes]

How are we floating this?

[Comfortably Smug]

It is. It is there. It is. Such a Dem game plan to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't. You can't find any more cuts.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, we just went through doge finding how much USAID alone was, how much taxpayer money alone at usaid they were lighting on fire. But setting this trap of being like, well, you know, we'll just have to raise taxes on some folks.

[Michael Duncan]

Raise taxes.

[Comfortably Smug]

We can't find more cuts. You can't cut any more of our sweet little government programs for a Republican to go out there and say, well, we can't find any cuts to the federal budget.

[Josh Holmes]

He's the head. He's the head. That guy is the most conservative of the House Freedom Caucus.

[Michael Duncan]

They're the people that hold the right side down.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And what they're saying is that the conservative position on taxes is to raise them, raise them to spend for the welfare state. That's what they're saying. Because they don't want to address the welfare state. They actually just want to try to find spending cuts to sustain it, you know, and like to, to accept the argument that Democrats have made for 20 years, by the way, that every tax cut results it a negative revenue to the American government is belied by every single tax cut Republicans have done.

[Josh Holmes]

It's belied by TCJA, where CBO said it would cost $1.5 trillion and they were wrong. It raised revenue into the federal treasury that we cut taxes. I hope every Republican who's listening to this House Freedom Caucus, I hope you're listening. We raised revenue into the federal treasury when we passed tax cuts.

[Joe Concha]

And not for nothing, you don't need CBO to tell everybody that the money does not belong to the government.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes, yes.

[Joe Concha]

This entire government runs on the consent of the governed. It belongs to the people who earn it and the government steals it at gunpoint every April 15th. And now you have a Republican saying he wants to take more. It's outrageous.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, so we won little one little battle at the end of last week. And I think the variety program contributed to this and that President Trump said, like, I think it's a bad idea to raise taxes. Right. I think it's a bad idea to raise taxes.

[Joe Concha]

He did.

[Michael Duncan]

So they, in the draft that they submitted, it didn't include the tax cut that these guys are talking or the tax hike that these guys are talking about. My bigger problem is in the negotiation that goes on, it's a symptom of a larger problem in that you think that reducing taxes on the American people is somehow a net net with preserving the welfare state, that somehow your obligation is to the welfare state. As a Republican, as a conservative Republican, we've got a party that's cut taxes at our DNA right from the very beginning, at least since Reagan. And their view is that that is a net net proposition. We have to preserve the welfare state at some level and we have to make sure we balance the books on you, the American taxpayer.

[Joe Concha]

Outrageous.

[Michael Duncan]

And then what makes it even worse is that what they're targeting is they say people making a lot of money.

[John Ashbrook]

Money.

[Michael Duncan]

It's the rich. We're not taking it on you, the middle class taxpayer. We're taking it out on the rich. Okay, well, let's talk about that for a second. How many rich people do you know to pay W2 taxes? How many people? How many? It's actors, athletes and small businesses that pay W2. Everybody else who has any money, it's because they already have money and they're paying investment income. They pay it at a 21% rate. They don't. They're not. They don't they don't give a shit about marginal rates. And one of the promises that you have in the United States of America is you can be born into absolutely nothing. And with a commitment, a work ethic, smart and just a drive, you can change your lifestyle. I'll tell you how that happens. That happens of people who work in that marginal rate stratosphere. It's not like everyone who grew up and like, shows up post college as Henry Ford or Thomas Edison or Zuckerberg or everybody. Like, not everyone's gonna revolutionize the world, but there's plenty of people who are gonna work their ass off to provide society with meaningful good and change their family's standpoint as a result. As they're going to do that, they're going to do it within the confines of a marginal rate discussion. You're not taxing the rich. If you're interested in taxing the rich, you're talking about investment income, right?

[Josh Holmes]

The 21%. Not, not the small business owner that you're talking about that's already paying like 47, 48% of their money into taxes.

[Joe Concha]

Right. A guy who runs an H Vac company in the Midwest.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

But that's particularly. The guy who runs an H Vac company in the Midwest is a perfect example. You scale it to size, you manage it well. People are happy with their product. You make a lot of money as a result. You're thinking of expanding beyond the one city that you're in to maybe a regional deal, but you're still paying that tax. You can't do that when you're spending 53% of your income in federal and state taxes.

[Comfortably Smug]

And then Congress says, thank you for your work. We're going to rob you because we.

[Joe Concha]

Can'T find any more.

[Comfortably Smug]

We can't find the, you know, we love our government program.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Doge put out all these, you know, things we should cut and we can't put that.

[Joe Concha]

Oh, the judge, the judge says we have to keep funding the trans and Tanzania, therefore we need to raise your taxes.

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Joe Concha]

Beat the judge, for crying out.

[Michael Duncan]

But also that guy who's looking at the trans studies in Tanzania is also looking at the people who are actually rich, aren't considered, like, they're not concerned about this at all. They don't give a shit because they're paying 21. Nobody's even talked about. You know, I mean, like, it's the. If this is about. If the American dream ultimately is about fundamentally changing your family's status within this country, that is the biggest Prohibitor I can think of. And the fact that you have Republicans discussing this as if it's a revenue raiser, as if this is something that has to go pay for another round of Medicaid hikes or to supplant whatever the Obamacare thing that we've now ingested into our fucking system, all of that shit. Like, we've got to go do that. That's where. You don't have to look at that. You don't have to look at the expandment, expansion of the entitlement state. You don't have to look at now the baseline of Obamacare. You don't have to look at any of that stuff. What you have to do is make sure that the most productive people who are actually trying to change their lives and invest back into their communities are paying a higher tax rate. Like, where the fuck does that go through your head? How do you get to a point where you're a conservative Republican, get the fuck out of our party. Like, how in the world can you think of yourself as a conservative at any level? If you think that 50% of the income of people who don't have money to invest and pay a 21% rate are people that you want to raise.

[Josh Holmes]

Tax got to squeeze them.

[Joe Concha]

It's just not conservative. There was a time when the Freedom Caucus and when conservatives in the House would pull the majority of Republicans to the right. And that time has come and gone, apparently. Like, I think we need to get back to the day where the conservatives in the House are actually pulling the body of Republicans to the right rather than towards Democrats.

[Michael Duncan]

And by the way, you're going to be, you're going to get, no matter what you do here, if your concern is, oh, Republicans are gonna pass tax cuts for the rich, I'll be honest with you. If you just did tax cuts for the people already paying 0%, which is the bottom 40% of American taxpayers, if you were to just say they're paying zero and just codify that, they would still say it's tax cuts for the rich. You're not going to avoid their argument. Just be a man. Just do your job. You were elected to reduce taxes. You were a Republican. And this tax package, I'll be honest, pretty modest. Pretty modest. In my lifetime, I dealt with 0103. We had to try to figure out how to save those in the 2010, 2013 standpoint with Obama and a democratic government. And then 17. Like, those are, those are my. All of them. When you had a Republican government, drastic reductions in Both the rate, the marginal rate, in Trump's case, the corporate rate and then huge components to like child tax credit and other things that benefited a whole bunch of people. This doesn't. It just renews basically what it's in 2017. And these guys are like, oh, I got an idea. Let's raise taxes on the quote, unquote, rich to pay for what we've already done. Yeah, seven years ago.

[Joe Concha]

Insane.

[Michael Duncan]

It's insane. Like, they're gonna have to get this done. But if they're looking for aid and comfort out of the ruthless variety program for just doing your fucking job, you're not going to get it. You're just not going to get it. Do your job. Do your job and stop pretending as though the American taxpayer is somehow responsible for your inability to cut spending everywhere else. Like, it's not our fault that you have just decided that all of the entitlement state of America is off limits or, or somehow redefined what it means to be middle class in this country. Like, that's not our. That's not our fault. Like, do your job.

[Joe Concha]

Well said.

[Josh Holmes]

That felt good. I like that.

[Michael Duncan]

I just.

[Josh Holmes]

I like it.

[Michael Duncan]

Makes me really mad.

[Josh Holmes]

I like it.

[Michael Duncan]

Last story. There's a woman. This is according to Como News.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

In the Variety piece of this.

[Josh Holmes]

I've been waiting for this.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Can we put up our mug shot in Graphic two?

[Joe Concha]

Oh, boy. Does not look happy.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't want her digging in my pants.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, you might have to get it. So late night snack turned into violent. It turned to violence. It did in Port St Lucie as a woman allegedly shoved cheesy nachos down her wife's pants.

[Joe Concha]

Oh, my goodness. Are you kidding me?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is Port St. Lucy.

[Josh Holmes]

Is that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Is that.

[Joe Concha]

It's in Florida.

[Josh Holmes]

Florida.

[Joe Concha]

Just north of Tampa. Did.

[Comfortably Smug]

Isn't Como the San Francisco ABC or something? Come on.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know.

[Joe Concha]

Well, yeah, well, it's not good.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, either way. What happened to. According to a police report, according to the Como folks, is the incident began when a woman who was on her phone with a friend heard her wife physically assaulting her. And upon arrival, officers reported contacting Alison Swann, the suspect. I think that. Is that the woman we saw, Wolf. That's Allison Swan, who insisted that everything was fine and claimed that her wife was in a drunken rage. Whose wife? I mean, it feels like there's multiple.

[Comfortably Smug]

Wives going on here.

[Michael Duncan]

There's a lesbianic confusion.

[Comfortably Smug]

The lady who is in the mug shot is claiming her wife. The lady in the mugshot, the one Who I guess was hitting the other woman, is claiming that the other woman was drunk.

[Joe Concha]

Lady in the mugshot is being accused of shoving the cheesy nachos down her wife's pants.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I've heard of that.

[Michael Duncan]

There was another woman on the phone who somehow wife was attributed, but doesn't seem to be applicable here. But anyway, upon arrival, officers reported contacting Allison Swan, a suspect who insisted everything was fine and claimed that her wife was in a drunken rage. Officer spoke with the victim, who shared that while she was preparing nachos in the kitchen, Swan, 39, made comments about her eating late and her weight. A weight comment? A weight comment. Well, I can see where the rage ensued. This led to a heating or heated argument during which Swann allegedly grabbed a handful of nachos and shoved them down her wife's pants. The affidavit continues to state that the victim left to change her clothes. And the report claims that Swan pulled her wife to the floor by her hair in addition to the nachos. Yeah, so it was nacho first, then hair pull and forced. Boy, I don't know. Can I get into that?

[Comfortably Smug]

She slammed her head into the floor multiple times.

[Michael Duncan]

This isn't bit much.

[Joe Concha]

This is crazy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah. Police noted the victim had nacho cheese in her pants. My God, there was nacho cheese in her pants. That much we know. And, officers, this is a horrific situation. So Swan has been charged with battery and causing bodily harm. Listen, these things happen, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

They really don't. They really don't. They really don't. Holmes, I've heard of hot wax as a bit of foreplay.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

But not hot nacho cheese.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, Good. Yeah. Well, the nacho cheese down the pants, I mean, you could. You could see where it was going one way and perhaps going the other. It seems like an argument ensued, maybe.

[Josh Holmes]

Perhaps she was inviting a meal.

[Michael Duncan]

Jesus Christ. You never can tell. We live in a dynamic society.

[Josh Holmes]

You decided to read the story, so I'm just providing commentary.

[Michael Duncan]

Smuggy, got any takeaways on this?

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, it's Florida first off, so it's like, okay, that's like your baseline. You knew it was going to go ham right off the bat. And to me, the surprising thing is that it's the lady who remarked on the other woman's weight being like, why are you eating nachos so late? Who then goes on to attack. You'd expect it the other way around. That, like if you told somebody, hey, you're looking like you're getting some weight while you're eating those nachos. You think the lady you said that to is the one who, like, goes off, but no clue. There's an aggressor here. I guess she's the one that's locked up.

[Michael Duncan]

So it is what it is. Hell of a story. Let's get to our interview. Joe Concha. Well, you've heard him here before, folks. Good friend of the program. He's written a new book. We want to hear all about it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

Joe Kancha. How are you, sir?

[John Ashbrook]

I love being back in D.C. as a former terrapin. It's going to be an I street, which is spelled I, E, Y E and I.

[Michael Duncan]

And I. Yeah, yeah, Both ways. Because it can look like a one.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

If you just put it on an envelope. So sometimes you have to spell that.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like before the pronouns, thing was she and her and he and him. There was I and I. So go figure. But thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of the. Can I ask you a question? I know you're supposed to be asking questions.

[Michael Duncan]

No, let's start with that.

[John Ashbrook]

Where does program come from?

[Joe Concha]

Great question.

[Michael Duncan]

We're a big fan of affectation. It started years ago where we felt like there was like a certain kind of class of Americans that deliberately mispronounced things and like John Kerry, Genghis Khan. Right. And then. But like, it extrapolates itself out into a whole bunch of different words.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

Around. Around the country. But then it like narrows down. Like program, for example. Like, it's a southern college football.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Thing.

[John Ashbrook]

Sec kind of thing.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, they call it a program.

[John Ashbrook]

A program.

[Michael Duncan]

So we started with that and we were hijacked, by the way. By McAfee. Yeah.

[Joe Concha]

Stole it.

[Josh Holmes]

Really? Well, I don't know if he actually stole it. It might have been parallel thinking. I got to defend him because he's from Indianapolis.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, here we go.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[John Ashbrook]

A Viking spunter stole program. He's jacked anyway.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, I would. I would have thought he would have some hometown allegiance there, but, you know, it is what it is. Listen, you've written an incredible book and this is not your first. You are a best selling author.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. New York Times. I made this time.

[Michael Duncan]

Go figure.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Trump endorsed the book. That kind of helps.

[Michael Duncan]

It does help. Yeah, it does help. But, you know, a lot of you recognize Joe from his work on Fox and been one of the few people who have understood from the very beginning what media is doing and what sort of this Jack narrative that everybody's trying to extrapolate upon the American people like you kind of got it from the very beginning. We're speaking truth to power, even when it was unpopular. Fox gave you a voice for that. But now you've written a great book. The Greatest Comeback Ever. Inside Trump's Big Beautiful Campaign.

[John Ashbrook]

I wanted a longer title.

[Michael Duncan]

Did you?

[John Ashbrook]

The Harper College.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Cause you don't have Moby Dick anymore. You know, War and Peace. It's gotta be a whole paragraph. So I wanted the Greatest Comeback Ever Inside Trump's Big, Beautiful Campaign Ellipsis unburdened by what has been. And they're like, we don't know we're gonna be able to fit that, Joe. It's a little clunky, so I just call it that anyway.

[Michael Duncan]

You just write it around.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah. I said we could put it on the back, you know, so. So that was that. But the back of the book is the best part of the book.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh, yeah, tell us about it.

[John Ashbrook]

All right, great. So everybody usually puts in the back of the book, like, all these accolades from. People buy this book. It's awesome. Even though no one actually read the book. But they'll say it anyway. Right here. I take all the predictions from Democrats and Republicans as far as how the election was going to go. So this one was Rick Wilson, who was a big part of the program, obviously a winner many, many times. Trump's going to lose. He's going to lose badly. He's going to get wrecked. Nikki Haley. I love this one. Donald Trump will not win the general election. There will be a female president of the United States. It will either be me or it will be Kamala Harris. That didn't age well. Like milk in a sauna. This is my favorite. Nancy Pelosi. Trump can't last as president for four years with his brain deteriorating at the rate that it is.

[Michael Duncan]

My God, she's got the wrong guy. And the best part of it is that she herself was like a primary instigator of. Of the ultimate brain deterioration.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly. She shipped Biden off the cliff and she said that. But Bill Kristol, also another favorite of the program, I'm sure. You know who's not going to get the credit they deserve? Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and tens of millions of women who will be responsible for defeating Trump. I mean, read the last prediction on there. Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

The last one is from Joe Concho.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

And he says Trump wins this quite easily. Save the tape, play it back. If I'm wrong, this is how it's going to end. Boom. Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you. Media Matters for letting that up. Saying I was, I was just pushing propaganda and I didn't know what I was talking about. And the reason why I said that on Hannity, it was October 2024, is because the Teamsters and you guys talked about this. There are two polls that came out. One was Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. This is rank and file. Biden's up 10 points on Trump. Okay. He's Mr. Union Scranton, Joe, whatever. Fine. They put Kamal in Soviet style install.

[Josh Holmes]

Boom.

[John Ashbrook]

They do another poll, rank and file. Trump by 30 over Kamal. I'm like, they don't have the Teamsters. They don't have United Auto Workers. They don't have U.S. steel, they don't have restaurant workers. Black voters are leaving. Latino voters are going to Trump. Yeah, how's she gonna win?

[Michael Duncan]

Base Democratic institutions.

[John Ashbrook]

That's the three. Three parts of the stool. The only part of the stool that's left were the childless, you know, cat ladies. Can I say that now? Is it cool?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

All right.

[Michael Duncan]

With chardonnay, I might add. Yes, that's an important.

[John Ashbrook]

So that was, that was the whole ballgame. That once I saw that. And then you saw Trump was leading in the early vote, which was so smart that he pushed people to do that this time. I didn't see how she won. And sure enough, there's there. We are popular. But I didn't see coming, though.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that a regular Nostradamus.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah. He saw it from the beginning. And I know you got a lot of vignettes in this book, and it is a very, very good book, but I wonder if you will talk about your favorite.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, when I interviewed Trump, I want to know more about the first assassination attempt, because I got to know. I know myself if I'm hit and I, you know, blood on my face and five guys and a girl are on top of me, right? I'm like, oh, this is like College Park. But no, I'm actually shot now at this point. So do I do there? I'm gonna. I'm gonna jump onto a stretcher probably and just say, all right, get me out of here. I'm gonna stay low. Get me in a car, right? And I asked Trump, I go, what made you want to re. Expose yourself when you don't know if there's a second shooter? Yeah, you know, and he's taller than all the Secret Service people, so he was above them. And then that's when he did. Fight, fight, fight. And he said, well, I knew my son was watching. I knew that my wife was watching, the family was watching, the country was watching. And that if I just stayed down then that would look weak. And I wanted to show everybody that, no, we're going to keep fighting. We're going to keep moving forward. It's not how hard you get hit, it's how fast you get up and keep moving forward. I think he took it from Rocky 6. That's fine. No, not a problem. And, and I just wanted to show the country that this was a movement that was not going to be stopped no matter what I'm like. So I want to be thinking that way.

[Michael Duncan]

So. Yeah, so. So part of it is just assuring his family. Yeah, I'm fine.

[John Ashbrook]

Especially Baron. He specifically said Baron. I knew he was watching and I want to make sure he's a 20 year old kid. Right. So he was thinking unselfishly in the moment, but he always knows where the camera is too, even in a moment like that. Right. And then I gotta watch about the media before MSNBC two days later. Right. I literally sat on the air, I told Ari Melber to go to hell. Right. Which I don't talk that way very often. Provocative look for the soundbite from, you know, to get a media type of thing. And. But they were talking about how they weren't sure whether Trump was shot or not. It was Michael Steele and it was Ari Melbourne. And then they're talking about how Trump was really just wearing an ear bandage because it was a prop because he wanted sympathy.

[Michael Duncan]

I remember that.

[John Ashbrook]

Maybe the guy just got shot. Yeah, right, yeah. And no fact check. Found a teleprompter, shards of glass, none of that sort of thing. But even after the second assassination attempt, then we heard that Trump really needs to tone down his rhetoric or else he's going to Trump's fault. It was Trump's fault.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

How short was his skirt? You know, like that. Right. It's like, let's go ahead and blame the victim for what happened to them. The most incredible thing. One thing I want to do though is take you back because the assassination attempt, of course, the fall campaign and all that, the switch out with Kamala, but like, I don't think this greatest comeback starts there. It starts at the law fair component of all this. I, there were many times where I remember reading all the headlines, looking at all the charges and all these different cases and thinking to myself, there's no possible way. How is he going to get out of this? How is he like with all these different jurisdictions and these Dem prosecutors, you know, convinced that they had a case that was dead to rights. You know what. What was going through Trump's head during all this? I can only imagine.

[John Ashbrook]

94.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Felony charges. Right. We're not even talking about the civil cases as well, like Eugene Carroll. And you think about where all these trials were supposed to take place. One did take place in New York, but one would have been here in Washington, D.C. or another one down in Florida. Another one down in Atlanta, Fulton County. Right. So I was with you. I said, I don't know how he survives this, because all it takes is one of these cases. You would think anyway.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

The weakest of the cases ends up being the one that he gets charged. The 34 felon counts on.

[Michael Duncan]

It was first out of the gate. Actually did him a hell of a lot of good favor.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. He came out every day to the cameras.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And they made the case for him that the justice system is being weaponized to go after your political opponents, and they're played out in real time. And people saw that case, and they said, wait a minute. He said that Mar? A Lago was valued at. No, no. They said Mar A Lago was only valued at $18 million. The parking lot is valued at $18 million. I was there. Trust me. So, yeah, that made him the victim somehow.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Isn't that amazing? And then I went with the McDonald's photo because.

[Joe Concha]

Great photo.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. Because everybody thought, what photo? You're supposed to go with fight, fight, fight. Right. I'm like, that's almost out there. Too much.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[John Ashbrook]

So I'm like, McDonald's, that's the whole. That's the whole race.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, for those political observers who've spent time in the game, there's genius and then there's real genius. And this was a moment in time where he obviously was beginning to get a COD lock in working class America.

[John Ashbrook]

Yep.

[Michael Duncan]

And of course, the backdrop of all this is the Democratic Party trying to coordinate somebody they'd castigated for three and a half years, and she was now, you know, hopefully weaning in on. On that working class. He shows up at McDonald's. I truly believe that is a seminal moment completely.

[John Ashbrook]

Because he accomplishes two things.

[Michael Duncan]

A.

[John Ashbrook]

At last check. Hitler never worked the fries or the dry Cruisers. Right. At McDonald's. So there goes that caricature. But then he knew, like, we all knew, Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald's.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

And the reason why, you know, this is she wrote two books about her life memoirs. There is not one mention of McDonald's. No. Never.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Ran for president five years ago. Never mentioned that. Ran for the Senate. Never mentioned it. Never mentioned it while she was vice president. And you're telling me, let's put it this way, if I became president or something big, my manager at Friendlies, which is kind of like a McDonald's except with ice cream, would say, oh yeah, I remember Joe worked for me and Barack Obama when he worked for Dunkin Donuts, he had a pay stub. The manager said, oh yeah, he worked for me. Right. He had proof.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, you remember one person came forward. You remember if someone worked for you who went on to become vice president.

[Joe Concha]

Of the United States, you're talking about it.

[Michael Duncan]

Something that, you know, I think you would recall.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. You'd raise your hand and be like, nah, trust me. I remember working with. No one could.

[Michael Duncan]

So it simultaneously highlighted a made up story.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

That she. And re solidified his ability, which he looked totally comfortable doing, by the way.

[Josh Holmes]

And he had all those people coming through the drive through talking about how great he was. And Trump did, like my favorite part of the whole McDonald's thing was Trump. He's obviously in control in all those scenarios. And like you, you'll see all those clips on social media when he stops by a diner and all this sort of stuff. And he's great, he's like, hey, I'll buy everyone food. But like the McDonald's component of it was fantastic because he did all this commentator Trump stuff where he was like working the fries and he's like, never touches the human hand. Look at it, look at this. Never touches the human hand. Can you believe it? The guy, like, if he was, wasn't president United States, he could be on QVC selling anything. Literally anything.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. And then at one point he says, Now I've worked 15 minutes longer than Kamala Harris ever has me done. Genius. I think one of you guys said it. You said, you know, who's winning by who's having a good time in the campaign.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

And it was so true with him. And then the Al Smith dinner completely encapsulates that.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

And that's in New York. And that's, you know, obviously the bluest of the blue. And Kamala Harris decides, you know, or at least her campaign, which was run by Obama people, David Plouffe, Steph Cutter, Jenna Malley, so on, said, no, we're not gonna send her because A, we know she can't do comedy, B, it humanizes him. And they just decided that it wasn't a big deal, the Catholic vote. So they Molly Shannon, who said the real Molly Shannon, not Mary Catherine who, you know, wipes the armpits and everything, said that Catholicism is a cancer in our society that needs to be eradicated. And that's the person you choose who was relevant 30 years ago. Right? And then Trump had the best lines that people always remember. Kamala didn't go, but the lines he had that night, he says, you know, Democrats are trying to convince me that there are two genders. And I didn't believe them until I met Tim Walls first. I've been in Manhattan in years where I wasn't served a subpoena. You're like, is there a two drink minimum in this place?

[Michael Duncan]

What's going on?

[John Ashbrook]

So that's when you're like, it's. It's over. Like, nobody's.

[Michael Duncan]

Nobody dunks.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like, he does.

[Josh Holmes]

No, dude. My favorite, My favorite joke he told when he's. He talked about white dudes for Kamala and he's like, that's okay. Your wives and your wives boyfriends are all voting for me.

[John Ashbrook]

Or they told me I got to say something self deprecating. So here it goes. Nope, nothing's coming to mind. So we own the news cycle for like three days, and she's doing like, you know, speech at the Ellipse that people forget. In five minutes, she's going on Oprah. But Oprah's worth over a billion dollars and her production company still charged a million dollars for the interview. If you're trying to defeat Hitler, doesn't it Oprah say, hey, this one's on the House.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Good on the cause, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Totally.

[John Ashbrook]

But my favorite was the Washington Post headline after Trump was shot. July 13, Trump leaves rally after Loud noises erupt. Right.

[Joe Concha]

Was that really the headline?

[John Ashbrook]

The Post and the Associated Press, like, even here, guys, you can't just let it go.

[Michael Duncan]

Ridiculous. These are the authors of. What was the. When we killed the terrorists, it was.

[Josh Holmes]

Like a. Oh, oh, Austere scholar.

[Joe Concha]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

Played soccer as a child.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, yeah, an austere scholar. So listen, you get involved, you interviewed people, you talk about a whole bunch of things as it relates to the campaign. Big part of this is issue selection. Right. And the fact of the matter is, is that Trump, when you presented the electorate a set of choices in October, there was not a one of them that Kamala Harris was on a 51% footing on.

[John Ashbrook]

You're right about that.

[Michael Duncan]

Tell us, give us a little sense.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, so she's asked, remember after she is coronated for six weeks, she doesn't do one interview. Like even the View calls, no, we can't do it. Right. Rachel Maddow, sorry. They kept her completely behind a teleprompter for all that time. And then finally she does an interview with Dana Bash, which was very interesting. It was at a cafe in Savannah, Georgia. Bad lighting. Dana Bash, You've met her. Not very tall, right, Kamala? Not very tall. Then they have the goofy 80s sitcom dad Tim Walls there for some reason, and it looks like a parent teacher conference.

[Michael Duncan]

He doesn't speak.

[John Ashbrook]

He's just like kind of towering over everybody. And Dana Bash, of all people, has to ask twice, what are your plans to fix the economy? And Kamala keeps going with this, well, it's going to be an opportunity economy where we're going to give a $25,000 tax credit to first time homeowners, which applies to 0.004% of the population. And plus, it's a giveaway. So she never had an articulate thought as far as how she was going to fix the economy. But the best part about the book, I think, is the fact that the View did take down Kamala Harris ultimately, because they asked her, what would you do differently from Joe Biden over the last four years? And she looks to the sky as if she never prepped for this question before. The one question said, no, nothing's really coming to mind.

[Michael Duncan]

Which everything up to that point was about how she was going to distinguish herself from the administration that she served. And then she shows up and she's like, no, it's all the same. Same. I found it fascinating that last week when Biden, they pre prefaced the question, he's like, I wouldn't have told her to say that.

[Joe Concha]

The one lucid thought he had in the entire conversation was distancing himself from her answer.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. And the best part, during the campaign, there are a lot of best parts, apparently in my head. But when Ron DeSantis handled once again a hurricane that hit Florida perfectly like no governor we've ever seen before. And Kamala's about to do a speech in Nevada, and Biden decides for the first time ever, he's going to go to the James S. Brady briefing room and just walk up to the podium and talk about how they're singing from the same sheet of music. Oh, yeah, they are in lockstep with everything, which is the last thing the Kamala's campaign wanted to hear. And then when he's talking about DeSantis has done a great job. I gave him my personal number. He never sounded more loose Lucid.

[Michael Duncan]

And he was.

[John Ashbrook]

He was 2012 Biden all over again. Just for, like, a minute, just to shiv Kamala.

[Michael Duncan]

An extra B12.

[John Ashbrook]

Yes, B12. And then Dr. Jill Biden on election day, wears the reddest of Maga you could possibly wear, all the colors in the color wheel, on the rainbow and the tricks bowl, and she chooses red. So I asked him about that. I go, you think they voted for you? He goes, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Michael Duncan]

Let me ask you this. Just sort of 50,000ft. You've reported this book. It's great. You ought to buy it anywhere you can, because it's very entertaining and very accurate. How much of Trump is just Trump himself, right? I mean, we have this whole host of issues that we litigate in a partisan way and everything throughout the country, but how much of Trump is just distinct in volumes and, like, nobody can replicate?

[John Ashbrook]

He works a room like nobody have ever seen, and he makes it feel like he knows you and knows you for a long time. And I'm not saying this is, like, sycophantic, buy the book type of thing. He invites us down to Mar A Lago after I interview him, my wife and me. That's not an invitation that you turn down. And besides, I needed some photos for the book, right? As far as, like, standing with him, because when I interviewed him, it was by phone. So we get down there, and they say, all right, you're at table 72. We're like, table 72. We go back. It's all the way in the back of the room. Like, at least we're in the ballroom. That's nice. Somebody comes up to my wife and me and says, you're at the wrong table. We're so sorry we gave you the wrong number. You're actually at table 25. I'm like, oh, table 25.

[Michael Duncan]

Let's go. We've got 50 up. Yeah, let's go.

[John Ashbrook]

50 up. It goes 24, 26. I'm like, where's. By being punked. Like, where's 25? 25 is the Trump table, right? So imagine this, like, D list cable news guy, wife across from me is Mrs. Musk. All right, Jordan Peterson. Then Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Usha Vance, JD Vance, hilarious. Joe Koncha, hilarious table. So then during it, and I sent over to Lee, your producer, video of this, and I'll be happy to show you after. After we were done, Trump at one point's doing the ymca, right? And then Elon looks over like, oh, maybe I Should do the ymca, too. So he stands up, and then Trump looks over at my wife, not me, at my wife, and blows a kiss like I've never seen before.

[Michael Duncan]

How'd you feel about that?

[John Ashbrook]

I'm just like, honey. She's just like, you would allow it? I go, yeah, probably. That's all right. I got a European model.

[Michael Duncan]

Do we have that clip? Let's. Let's play this clip. Oh, put. Bring this thing to life.

[John Ashbrook]

All right, good. This is awesome. So that's from my phone. Now watch Elon. He's like, yep, that's kind of cool. Looks back. Oh, okay, I'm going to get up.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh.

[John Ashbrook]

He's like, I guess I got to get up, too. There was a kiss.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Did you see the kiss?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Joe Concha]

President doesn't miss.

[John Ashbrook]

Nope. But that was a big one. I was like, it was a big one. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

He really pierced to the lips? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

But what? But to answer your question, when he met my wife, he remembered during the interview, we bought up men playing against women in sports. And my wife ran track at Georgetown in Division 1, hard right. And. And she never really was involved politically all that much, but that once she saw Leah Thomas.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Killed her.

[John Ashbrook]

University of Penn.

[F]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And she's like, can you imagine, like, Division one, how hard it is to get there? Then I'm in the blocks and I look down and I see somebody who has legs like Saquon Barkley. I know I'm gonna lose. And she goes, that pissed me off to no end. And I'm just, wow. And I brought that up to him. And he's like, oh, what did she run? I'm like, oh, she ran the 600 and the 800. So when he met her, he goes, is this the runner? I go, the interview was weeks ago by phone. He's done a thousand things since. And he remembered. He's. I wouldn't want to race against you. Looks like you still run every day. I'm like, all right, enough, okay.

[Michael Duncan]

This lady's getting a blown kiss. No question about it. You're like, oh, all right. That's good. It's a good photo.

[John Ashbrook]

It was a good photo we got on the plane also, which was cool. The Trump plane.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Wow.

[John Ashbrook]

And you sit down and I hadn't eaten breakfast. I'm like, what are they gonna serve? Like, steak, lobster tips? Wendy's?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Did you get the triple stack?

[John Ashbrook]

I got they. It's. It's a pre selected meal, so. Cheeseburger, Tater tots, French fries, Diet Coke.

[Josh Holmes]

And You're eating more of a spicy chicken guy.

[Joe Concha]

You are.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

That is a good meal.

[Josh Holmes]

It's delightful.

[John Ashbrook]

I was looking for a fish filet, but they didn't have that.

[Michael Duncan]

Joe, listen, go out and buy this book, the greatest comeback ever. It is. It's full of different vignettes, all kinds of stuff that you would know and enjoy, but also for people who know you, watch you on Fox. It's fun.

[John Ashbrook]

It's exactly. We have some fun with it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And my. My son asked me. He's nine years old. He goes, why will anybody buy the book when they know the ending? I'm like, boy, he's good. I'm like, I better. I better be able to answer that question when I go on Ruthless.

[Michael Duncan]

And.

[John Ashbrook]

And the answer is. Okay, we all watch Titanic too.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

We know when shit goes down. We don't know the hows and the whys necessarily.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And the behind the scenes. So no chase.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is why Joe at the end is doing the full Titanic at the top of it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but it's a good. It's a good point. It's like that's kind of what our show is in so many ways is, you know, we talk about politics and it's tough and it's difficult. We have difficult conversations. But you got to enjoy winning. Sometimes you gotta do it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, and sometimes it's nice to take a little break and be like, boy, and we did it. Let's laugh. Let's have a good time.

[Michael Duncan]

Have a couple yucks.

[John Ashbrook]

Because things move so fast.

[Josh Holmes]

They do.

[John Ashbrook]

You forget a lot of the things until you read it in the book. So thanks for the promo and everything. This is awesome. I gotta go coach my kids Little League team now.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I mean, I was not. You got a Cubs jersey on.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, they're just a banana. Bananas, though. So I gotta go into my yellow bananas. We're Tick Tock followers in the Yankees. Go figure.

[Michael Duncan]

I love it. Joe Koncha, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining us.

[John Ashbrook]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[Joe Concha]

Man, that guy is so funny. I absolutely love him. I. His book is just going to be so good to read and I can't wait to. To do it.

[Michael Duncan]

Can't wait to do it myself. Fantastic interview. Good guy. Glad to have him on the program with that smug. I think we did it.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much to Joe Concha. Thank you so much to our listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube, hit that subscribe button. It's more fun and video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the lid. We'll see you Thursday. Stay Ruthless.

[Michael Duncan]

Marketing is hard, but I'll.

[John Ashbrook]

Tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host.

[Josh Holmes]

You seek it out and download it.

[Michael Duncan]

You listen to it while driving, working.

[John Ashbrook]

Out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion.

[Michael Duncan]

And this is a podcast ad.

[Josh Holmes]

Did I get your attention?

[John Ashbrook]

You can reach great listeners like yourself.

[Michael Duncan]

With podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads.

[John Ashbrook]

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[Michael Duncan]

Favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com.

[Josh Holmes]

That's L I B S Y N Ads.

[John Ashbrook]

Com.

[Josh Holmes]

Today.