Can The DNC Beat Hogg?
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The fact that we're talking about Hogg is one of my favorites, just because of, I mean, your greeting at White House Correspondents Association, his willingness to keep up the good fight. Yeah. Hold Democrats accountable. Hold them accountable. Hold elected Democrats accountable. You got to do it. Yeah. You did a nice job on that, Smug. But second of all, they can't just challenge the obvious fact that party resources that a member of its leadership committee argues should be diverting

to defeating their own versus Republicans is not a violation of their charter. It's the diversity issue. That's what struck me is you thought after the election of President Trump, they would get the message, you know, about the DEI stuff, about the very successful ad of like Kamala's for they, them, you know, Trump is for you. And yet the very first chance they get, the DNC is trying to cut off their hog.

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Good Thursday to all of you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial as always. The big question that is facing much of the Democratic Party this week is, can they, as Democrats, beat the hog? Yeah.

Open question. I told you it wasn't going to be the last time we talked about that. You got one show exclusively related to the hog, and I told you it was going to be reoccurring, but now this is like an each and every week. Some are scared of the hog. Yeah, well, there's big efforts to silence the hog and zipper him, if you will. Oh, Jesus. They're trying to keep him down. That's how we start? Yeah. That's how we started? Sorry.

Look at Smug just smiling and looking right at me. No, I got mine that I saved for this. Oh, you got your... Please. I've got one sitting in the back pocket for you. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. All right, so for those of you who haven't followed along lately...

Listen, we're going to cover a bunch of stuff here. David Hogg, the person who was elected vice chair of the DNC, came out a couple of weeks ago, said he was going to start primarying Democrats. Big faux pas in party politics these days. But you see a bunch of Democrats, whether it's Cory Booker or Chris Van Hollen or just your rank and file who have their name on a ballot, fearful of the Hogg because they don't want to be primaried. And yet they're trying to deal with all of this internally. There's a move from within.

the DNC to try to get rid of the hog. Some say they like the hog. Other people, fearful of the hog. Either way, the hog is still a topic of conversation here in Washington, D.C. We're going to get to all of that. Great interview this week by President Donald Trump with ABC. We're going to break all of that down. We've got some poll numbers you're going to want to listen to and provide. Yeah, the one thing that we do here on the

variety program. Not everybody does is we all have an experience in polling cross tabs, what it all means, directions, uh, you know, things over time that may be gleaned some insights beyond what these dumb ass newspapers print on the front page and say, here's what happened. And you know, I mean, they don't, they were never meant for news consumption. They're meant for practitioners, whether you're in marketing or politics or whatever. But, uh, so you're going to get a bunch of nonsense. We're going to straighten all of that out. Um,

We've got some variety, one of which is just completely insane. Big discussion online for the last week about Gorilla vs. Man. Yeah.

And this is right up our alley. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts. I mean, we're America's... We're the trailblazers on this subject. We're America's preeminent animal fighting podcast. And so we're going to weigh in on that. I'm told that we have some video. Have not seen it. Would like a real authentic reaction. So I don't think we've viewed any of this. No. But it's men versus a gorilla. And who would, you know, how many numbers it would take and all that kind of thing. We got that. And then King of the Hill.

He's back. Back, baby. With a vengeance. It's back. Remember, we take a hiatus over hack madness, and we're just now getting the whole squad back together on a Thursday, and so we will take care of that for you. A delight. And then we've got one of our favorite people for a variety of different reasons. You may remember him when he was the FCC chairman in the first four years under President Donald Trump, Ajit Pai. Great guest. Yeah, he's now the...

CEO of CTIA, which is a really prominent communications trade association in town that do a lot of good work. But he's got a lot to say, particularly in solving problems.

Solving problems for the Ruthless Variety Program, frankly. And that's the thing is, you know, the interview was terrific. I think everyone is really going to want to hear this. But it is so important, the work that they are advocating for, of how much it's going to help President Trump, of how much it's going to help the American people and how much money it's going to make for America. And I always love—oh, go ahead. He brought Whistlepig.

He did bring Russell Pig. So, obviously, he's cool. He's an OG, ruthless guy. I mean, he was one of our first guests we ever had early, like maybe early 21. Believed in us when nobody else did, other than Tom Cotton, who nearly mortgaged his career by coming on the program first. But I will say...

And the one thematic that we have with all of our guests, particularly in the policymaking area, is we like to ask what is in it for us. Yeah. And it turns out in this case, there's a direct applicability. Yeah. You, dear listener, while you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, the reason that you can get this and not just your horseshit...

CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC stuff is in large part because of the airways, because of wireless communications. He talks a lot about how the availability for all of that, very much in question with the scaling up of shows like this, unless they do something about it. The good news is they've got a bunch of champions. You heard a little bit from Ted Cruz when we had him on. Yeah.

And they're fixing to do something about it, including President Trump, who seems like a huge champion on that front. So all of that coming right at you. But we like to start with the hog. Mm-hmm.

It turns out there's a big piece in Simifor. This is that outfit with Ben Smith, right? Yeah, it's really growing. They had a big party in town. Everybody went. Did you go? I couldn't go. I had another. Look how excited he is he didn't go to Ben Smith, the big hacks party. Boy, that's what's mad about that, huh? But, I mean, everybody's reading it. He's hired a lot of really smart people, and I'm not surprised they have a scoop like this. It's a big scoop. The scoop is a Native American woman gets a chance to topple hog

Top of the hog. Wow. Yeah. You might say she's trying to get on top of the hog. Oh, my God. Well, she is. I mean, she's trying to become vice chair.

I mean, I'm just figuring it's not. This is going to be a great show. It's right there in black and white. Yeah, it's what it says. And so the candidate who failed to win the Democratic National Committee leadership roles, according to Sumifor, is challenging her defeat, the first threat to DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, since he vowed to keep backing some primary challenges to incumbents. The DNC's credentials committee will meet virtually on May 12th, so a couple weeks from now.

to consider a challenge from Kaylin Free, a Native American attorney and party activist who lost a chair spot to Hogg at the party's February 1 meeting in her complaint shared with Simifor by a Democratic source. It couldn't possibly have been Free herself. It's just a source. Yeah, just a source. It's just a source who just happened upon all of her information. Mm-hmm.

She argued that she lost a, quote, fatally flawed election that violated DNC charter and discriminated against three women of color candidates, unquote. Yes. And asks for, quote, two new vice chair elections. In February, after rounds of voting, the race came down to five candidates, Kenyatta Huffman.

and Hogg free and two other women, Kenyatta and Hogg, claimed the open spots. She says by aggregating the votes across ballots and failing to distinguish between gender categories in a meaningful way. So good. The DNC process violated its own charter and bylaws by undermining both fairness and gender diversity, argued Free.

She's a citizen of the Choctaw Nation. Here's my favorite part. First of all, the fact that we're talking about Hogg is one of my favorites.

Just because of, I mean, your greeting at White House Correspondents Association, his willingness to keep up the good fight. Yeah. Hold Democrats accountable. Hold them accountable. Hold elected Democrats accountable. You got to do it. Yeah. You did a nice job on that, Smug. But second of all, they can't just challenge the obvious fact that party resources that a member of its leadership committee argues should be diverting resources.

to defeating their own versus Republicans is not a violation of their charter. It's the diversity issue that is really going to be the one that takes him out. A little insight into how Democrats make their decision. And to me, that's the thing. So when I first saw this, that's what struck me, is you thought after the election of President Trump,

They would get the message, you know, about the DEI stuff, about the very successful ad of like Kamala's for they, them, you know, Trump is for you. And yet the very first chance they get, the DNC is trying to cut off their hog. Very first thing they can do within seconds after them electing it.

Cut off the hog, we're right back at it. Well, as you know, they found that a way to compete in a lot of different ways just by cutting off the hog. It's been somewhat of a... Kind of the way they like to compete. I got to say, I love the theatricality of this whole thing. This is like DEI coming for the Democratic Party itself. Yeah. And what it is, and Smug, you talk about this a lot, but it isn't an actual ideology. It's just about power. Yeah. And...

That's what we're seeing here. That's what this really is. It's just levers to use for power. Yeah. Like you read this story, you know, and you're like, oh, well, I mean, they're doing Democrat things. Right. Yeah. But like, actually, what this is, this is power politics in the Democratic Party. And they've done it forever to stop, you know, intra-party primary challenges in the Democratic Party. Yeah, that's why they're good at it.

how dare you attack me? I'm a left-handed lesbian African-American woman. And in reality, it's because like, you know, you're not far enough to the left, but they use women

They use this language of DEI to obfuscate to their base, which is far left of them, and use that to get out of a jam, which is this guy is going to go ahead and he's going to open up the primary process and challenge some incumbents. So how do we get out of this jam? Bingo. All right, we'll use DEI. We'll use this Native American woman to basically unseat a guy who actually threatens the power structure itself. That's 100% right. Yeah, I think that those are all very good points. But one thing that sticks out to me

is that I was told by Democrats for years that election results are sacrosanct. They're something you should never question. And then once an election is finalized, it's in concrete and you can never go back and even ask. I did hear that. And here we have in their own party, someone saying that's not the case. It's not the fair. Well, I mean, look, in fairness, they're trying to bury the hog. Right. They are trying to.

That's what's happening here. You just got to wrap your mind around it. They're trying to bury the hog because the hog presents danger to the rest of the community. You never know what was going to happen. If they remove him, it's going to be a premature evacuation from the DNC.

Well, you can see where we're going on the Ruthless Variety Program. Democrats are overwhelmed with hog at a time when they're least able to deal with it. New polling paints a dire picture for Democrats. We're going to tell you about all that polling because you've only read about the other side of the story on it. We're going to give you a larger picture right after this.

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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. Okay, while Democrats are staring at their hog, it turns out there's a bunch of new polling that's come out. Chances are, if you've seen it and not heard about it on the Ruthless Variety program, they're talking about it in context of Trump. Yeah.

Well, it's not great news for the Democratic Party. They're traveling to El Salvador and dealing with the hog, as we mentioned before. But it turns out, according to Fox News, the poll shows that Democrats are less popular than Republicans. Can we play clip one, please?

A Fox News poll shows their popularity has hit a new low. 41% of voters view the Democratic Party favorably. By contrast, 44% of voters view Republicans positively. The GOP topping their counterparts for the first time in a decade. The drop in positivity for Democrats fueled mainly by members of their own party who are not happy with how they've been leading.

Okay. I think that's critical too. That's it. That's an important point right there. I mean, look, we've talked about this a lot in that there is fair game.

to go for when you're dealing with opposition politics and the entirety of the job of leadership under the dome, which is where they're relegated to their power. They don't have the White House. They don't have the House. They don't have the Senate. They have leadership in a minority capacity in the House and Senate and then a bunch of stuff in the states. And the entirety of that role is to try to make sure you pick your spots in a way that align you with the majority of Americans versus where an incumbent Republican majority in presidency are.

Now, you could talk about the economy, you could talk about tariffs, you could talk about the lack of tax deals, you could talk about all those things, of which you would get to 50 plus one, if not much higher. What they've chosen to talk about is El Salvador, whether or not a gang member, as was said by two courts in a former ex-boyfriend now...

is somebody we ought to have coming back to this country as a Maryland man. You could talk about whether to save foreign aid projects. That's what they've chosen. Right. No, you're exactly right. And say what you will about the first quarter GDP, about the stock market and everything else.

But they are not providing an opposition to any of that. No, that's the thing. They are literally putting their insanity on full display on a daily basis. And, like, the story on this guy, the Maryland man who went to El Salvador, it continues to unfold poorly for them. There was a brand-new Fox report that came out just as we were recording this show about another restraining order against him where the wife is quoted that he was saying he would kill her.

And nobody could do anything about it. A United States senator traveled to El Salvador to ensure that this man had the capacity to come back and live in our communities. That's what they've chosen, right? You're battling...

battling your own hog and traveling to El Salvador to get a gang member back here. And along those lines, also, you know, it's not relegated to simply this individual Maryland man. It's like they are in this weird pattern of they're trying to defend the absolute worst people possible. There was a story of...

Multiple judges now who are essentially just like aiding and abetting illegal aliens who are also gang members involved in horrific acts. There was this one in Arizona where they like unsealed the evidence and whatever. And so they go to this judge's house and they collect this illegal alien who the judge has had living with him and his wife. Oh, New Mexico. That was New Mexico. New Mexico. Yeah.

And like they're trying to be like, what kind of evidence do we have that this guy was like a gang member? And they're like the judge. This is this is almost so insane. It's unbelievable. The judge destroyed the illegal aliens phone, which had images of him. Come on. Committing crimes. They had on his phone. He had images of enemies of the gang getting beheaded.

And they arrested the gang member with a gold chain that said killer. How do you get yourself into a corner where you're like, well, the guy with the chain that says killer might be okay. Well, I'm an administrator of justice. Let me do that. This killer is now our killer. Put him in our au pair suite. Yeah. Put him in our au pair suite.

But of course not, right? Because your rich sort of effete Democratic Party as it is today does not have to put them in their au pair suite. They make them go live with the rest of us. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I think the other thing that you got to look at is the rest of this poll. If you look at some of what Fox is reporting, it shows that the president's approval has taken a hit.

And what I don't understand about what Democrats are doing is why they're doubling down on the stupidity with El Salvador and all of the lunacy, David Hogg and the infighting when it seems like they have they have real opportunity here. Yeah. On the economy, on tariffs, on things like that. Can we put up graphic number one, please?

Yeah, so this is Donald Trump's approval in a host of polls here. We have ABC News, New York Times, CNN, Reuters, Pew, AP. And you see 42% approval, 55% disapproval, 42, 54, 43, 57. You get the idea here. And that is...

It was that parody a couple months ago. It was. It was. But people are getting nervous about the economy. Look, this is the reason why they elected Donald Trump, was to fix the economy. But the fact that Democrats are not talking about any of that shows the fundamental disconnect between their entire party and normal people out there who are like, I'm done with Democrats. This stuff is happening organically.

Right. Right. They're not doing anything to try to amplify this message whatsoever. I mean, they're talking about stuff that the American people are well on the side of Donald Trump on, but they're not amplifying that this stuff is happening over economic anxiety. You can see it in consumer confidence numbers that came out. I mean, obviously, the GDP numbers that came out like people. There's a time of economic anxiety and a lot of that is happening because he's sort of in the first stage of his economic plan. The one thing I'll do to put this in context a little bit.

I'm not surprised that his poll numbers have slid. He's told us it's going to slide. He told us the economy is going to have some issues as we transition. If you did absolutely nothing with the economy whatsoever—

You know, if you like literally just took the keys of the White House and did what Biden did, which is basically sat there, not what Biden did and that he allowed a bunch of left wing lunatics to jam through trillions of dollars of spending and put us into inflation hell. But but rather just nothing did nothing at all. American economy would be OK. You'd have very modest growth, but it'd be growth, very modest job creation, but it'd be growth. You'd have very stagnant wage growth.

But it'd be growth. And that's the status quo that much of corporate America, Wall Street, the punditry class appreciates because it's consistent. It's consistent mediocrity. And Donald Trump never ran on consistent mediocrity. What he ran on was a fundamental change of this economy that was growing jobs at a rate that we hadn't grown since the Industrial Revolution and having a GDP that was not 2%.

It was 12%. And having revitalized communities across the middle of this country that had a new generation of manufacturing and everything else. Now, you don't flip a switch and do it. Energy policy, trade policy, tax policy, a whole bunch of things that he's been announcing over the last... They all have to kind of come together to do it. And if you look at just isolate two, the tax policy and the trade policy, all of us can say...

in regards to tariffs makes us nervous. It does. It makes me nervous. I've never been a huge fan of it. I've always thought of it as like sort of a lefty union Democrat point of view. It's like the idea that you could just erect economic walls around the United States and we'd be okay. It's just, it's never been the case when we have an international economy. I mean, our exports are a big deal. But if it is a means to get a better set of deals,

where you have manufacturing capacity in the United States to actually export to places that aren't allowing our products in, you've fundamentally changed what that economy looks like. Now, does anybody think that the international community is going to agree to that overnight? Absolutely not. They're not. They're just because nobody's ever even threatened it before. They're like, I don't know. Let's see if we can wait them out. Maybe public opinion will go low enough in America where he can't actually hold it up. Now, I understand they've come to the table, but

But that is going to take time to get those things done. For all of the people who have been talking about the tariff policy and how it's ruining the economy and pointing to the GDP numbers in Q1, wait until Q3.

If this dude announces some significant deals, say with Japan, say with the EU, say with India, say with a couple of like really formidable economies. I doubt China's first. I'm just saying. I just don't think that's going to happen. But say that happens coupled with Congress actually reenacting these tax cuts.

You could see an October in this country that looks like an economic boom, the likes of which we've never seen. And that is, I think, for those of us who are maybe questioning whether or not tariffs are the right tool or not.

are holding powder because if those two things get done and you unleash that in the third quarter of this year, boy, I'm not sure that in my lifetime we've seen an economy that will rebound and soar like that.

And then restructured in a way that doesn't leave behind all the people that the president said that he wanted to help. I mean, when you're talking about like marginal growth and little by little by little and everybody in D.C. and in the establishment is like, yes, this is exactly what I want.

it little by little overlooks a whole host of this population that the president ran to help. And so if he can deliver the kind of economic growth that you're talking about with a little bit of a different structure that creates more jobs, better paying jobs for people in flyover country out there who've been forgotten for decades, I mean, that's a very – that's a transformational situation. It is. I mean, just remember, like –

The street loves certainty, and they love certainty in a lot of ways, a lot of reasons, because you can plan far ahead and you can make capital investments one way or another. And they have a tendency of having predictable growth over time. They like the predictable growth they take fees on. Fundamentally, what you're talking about is a group of people who are making money off of trading your money.

Right. That's it. I'm not saying there's a it's a bad thing. No, that's just how it works. But that's just how that works. And so they don't want any sort of like fundamental restructuring. I mean, you have to go back to the drawing board and an awful lot of that if that is the business model. And that's why they're so upset is because there's a business model change here that they're going to have to go to the drop back to the drawing board. Now, they're perfectly capable people. The reason they make hundreds of millions of dollars is because they can figure it out.

Like they will figure it out one way or another. The question is whether the economic environment around it is such that allows for this sort of rapid growth. But if you can do that in the context of actually doing real new next gen manufacturing jobs, revitalizing communities, having real wage growth in this country, that is a it's a fundamental principle that Democrats actually don't understand. Like liberal Democrats do not they cannot wrap their minds around.

around what a true market economy means in this country. Everybody's always a victim. They can never actually put their finger on how economic growth has helped

communities around this country. And it's part of why they have such frustration and consternation in understanding why the working class of this America voted for and supported Donald Trump so much when at the same time you look statistically after President Trump's previous cut, cut, cut, the TCGA, how the greatest capture of benefits and the greatest wage growth was among the bottom quartile. The working class in this country benefited the most from

Yeah. So, I mean, look, you look at Trump's poll numbers in comparison to where they were in February and where they were right after the inauguration. They're down. They're down a lot. And it's exclusively related. I know that they're like, you know, going to go across issue and talk about immigration and talk about my experience in 20 years of doing this is everything is related to your economic anxiety. You're going to find problems with all kinds of things if you think somebody's screwing up your pocketbook.

And if that changes, so too does everything else. I mean, remember Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton historically, for the first time in like four generations, lost a House of Representatives that had codlocked Democratic control. They tried to get Hillary care and all that shit.

that shit. Hey, Ken came to the table and did a deal with Newt Gingrich and all of a sudden they'd had a reform of welfare programs and a whole bunch of different things. The economy responded and you had this dot-com boom that happened in the late 90s.

Well, nobody cared about Monica Lewinsky. Yeah. You know, nobody cared about the stupid bullshit of a day-to-day basis of the Clinton administration in large part because their pocketbooks were – it was working. They kind of started ripping. They could see it. America started doing good. And that is, I think, the key to what we're looking at. So, like, you could snapshot this thing and it would be a warning sign to the Trump administration to say, like, look, what's going on right now is not sustainable over a long period.

term period. But I think they already know that. I mean, if you listen to Besson, you listen to Lutnick, you listen to all of the folks within the administration, what they're saying is this is a tool for us to be able to bring the world community back to the table for the first time since 1945 to actually renegotiate what is a good deal for American workers. If that is the premise...

And if they are working towards those deals and you couple it with tax reform, I mean, Katie, bar the door. We're in a really good – these numbers, we're going to laugh about this. We're going to laugh about it. And it would be like –

The economy is ripping. Everything is good. Like the approval rating goes up. All of those things go up. And then you'll see like a number of his handling on Israel or Russia or whatever. That similarly would be up and you'd be like, what changed? Well, nothing other than the fact that people feel pretty good about where they're at. And that's the essence of politics. I mean a macro level politics. It's different when you get local. But like that's national politics in a nutshell. Anyway, just wanted to give you some –

Just a little bit of thought. Huge congrats to the audience for getting that for free. That's some good info. So that's my take. But the congressional, I think the question for all of you in our question of the day is what do you think gets Trump back above 50? We were there. We've slipped. You heard our thoughts.

Be interested in yours. That's our question of the day. You've got to like and subscribe to the YouTube channel. We read all of your comments. And after we do that, we put them here on the show, pick some representative examples, and we always do that with some flair. With some flair.

When we come back, we're going to talk about our last episode when we asked what's a real reckoning for journos. We talked about the White House Correspondents' Dinner, you two assholes, and just making a mockery of the whole thing. I would say handsome assholes. Handsome? Yeah. Corrected. Give us our flowers. Yeah. No, handsome assholes, but assholes nevertheless were there at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And what is a real reckoning for these journalists as they're awarding themselves for other people's work?

What does it look like? Is it like just bankrupting the thing? Is it, I don't know. Your thoughts right after this.

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Okay, we asked last week, or Tuesday, I guess. Yep, Tuesday. We asked, what's the real reckoning for journos? When you like and subscribe, we read all of your stuff. And when we read all of your stuff, we always start with a voice. Okay, first comment comes from Nanku.

Nanku writes, a true reckoning for journos? These people are true believers, and the more you push or punish them, the more they will dig in and will be convinced they are correct. I do not disagree with you on that, Nanku. I think we just need to keep telling the truth. Make it attractive or entertaining if possible, and eventually enough people will come to our side and simply leave those lefty journos irrelevant. That's it.

That's Nancy from Orange County, California. Orange County. You got some real ones in Orange County. It's like the Alamo. Yeah. You're right there. The crazies are right at the gates. Light in the desert. It is. It's like the one place that's sort of held like a shining city on a hill. Yes. The gates of Thermopylae. They are the brave 300. They really are. Comment two. This is from Chris, Chris, Chris.

I would love to see each of them held accountable for all their lies. Biopic of each reporter with each story they covered that was false. Yes. A central database of everyone who calls themselves journalists with every fact they left out, lied about, or twisted, or maybe tagged on every article or television story a community note. If it's on TV, it should run across the bottom of the screen like sports scores.

Or maybe we should all smarten up and separate facts from opinion on our own. It's difficult since all the facts reported are pre-tainted with opinion for our indoctrination. Just the facts, ma'am, used to be the journalistic standard. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic. That's really good. I like it. Fantastic. Thoughtful. Smuggler, you got third.

This is from Donald S. Quote of the day. Gitmo. Straight to Gitmo. From your lips to Donald T.'s ears. That was, I think, a suggestion that you may have proffered. Yeah. I mean, El Salvador, you know, they clearly have a good thing going. I think a lot of journals would benefit from that. You know what I'd like?

I realize some of this is subjective, but the stuff that's not, that's just like objectively wrong, like the Russian disinfo stuff, the Hunter Biden laptop stuff. I'd like there to be sort of some kind of a database, not a government held base. I'd like like...

if journalism wanted to revitalize itself, it would self-govern itself in like one specific way. Here are things that the various outlets that are a part of our community, say White House Correspondents Association, have reported that we now know are demonstrably false. Yeah.

And you can't get off that list until you've publicly apologized for it. Well, here's the other thing. You could make baseball cards. And on the back of the baseball card every single year, you have every lie that was told. And then if they want to get a better baseball card the following season, just start telling the truth. It's very simple. I like that. Maybe a not-so-glossy photo or something.

It's up to, you know, maybe Topps, Upper Deck, Don Russ or Fleer. Maybe they could do it. Get on it. It's an idea. This guy's trying to get into Pete Rose. I know. He wants it. He's trying to get so bad. Won't do it. Won't do it. Won't do it. We're not doing it. Anyway, thank you for your comments. Just like the Baseball Writers Association.

Like and subscribe when you do. We do all of your stuff. And remember our question of the day today. When we come back, Donald Trump went toe-to-toe with ABC News. Now, this is sort of a rare thing. They don't do sit-downs with the fake news very often, much less, you know, your traditional nets. But they did more with ABC. We have the clips and analysis right after this.

The next phase of our plan is to pass tax cuts for everybody. President Trump won on a promise to cut taxes to keep American businesses competitive. So why are some Republicans pushing to raise taxes? Our tax rate is already higher than communist China. The current BESOF plan is a tax hike on American business. And when business taxes go up, workers and families pay. Tell Congress, make the Trump tax cuts permanent.

Stop the B-Salt assault. So you may have seen the big rally in Michigan, which was nice, by the way. Great rally. To see Trump back on the big stage doing the rally thing. Crowd seemed to be... People forget why it's so fun. And it is. I mean, it is amazing. It really is. It's a big cultural experience. And he did two events in Michigan. One was an event with the military where they're announcing some things. He dragged old poor Gretchen Whitmer. Hmm.

Which I do have to do an aside on that. You guys, we didn't really cover it on the show, but you remember, was it like a month ago where she went into the Oval Office to talk to Trump about something? Yeah, but when the photos started going up, she put the binder over her face? Yeah, she literally covered her face with her folder so she would not be photographed with Donald Trump. Hilarious. And my take, I think probably, we didn't talk about it, but your take at the time was like, once Donald Trump sees that...

He sees a weakness. Yeah. And like, it's only a matter of time before she, she's treated like a blue ribbon retriever at the Westminster dog show. And he's going to trot her back out for everyone to see. And like, sure enough, that happened in Michigan. And she wasn't expected to speak. And he was like, Oh, come on out. And had her address the thing. Yeah. Because it's like a hilarious thing.

juxtaposition of a Democrat, hugely ambitious Democrat, who thinks she's the next president of the United States, that knows that the base of the Democratic Party can't be seen. Well, Trump likes to see people like that have to squirm. It's so good. It's so good. It's such a high level of

Political acumen. And the irony of it is, like, everyone paints Donald Trump as this just, like, egomaniacal child asshole who's like, no, what he's doing right here is putting political acumen in front of ego because he's like, to the grassroots Looney Tunes Dems, I am a kiss of death. Let's bring Gretchen up here and just poison the well. And you know what? He knew she couldn't say no. Do you know how?

Because she was wearing a camo hat. Anytime a Democrat puts on a camo hat, they want to be seen. He sees the camo hat, he's like, ah, she's not avoiding the camera. She's coming out. Well, anyway, as a part of that trip, he sat down with ABC's Terry Moran, which is somewhat of a rarity to sit down with one of the major networks because you know how they deal with these things. A few clips that we want to highlight. Let's do clip two, please, if you don't mind. Spaghetts.

That was photoshopped.

That was Photoshopped, Terry. Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay. But you're not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed. We'll agree to disagree. I want to move on to something else. Terry.

It can be interpreted. No, no.

He had M.S. as clear as you can be, not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe the news, because it's fake news. When he was photographed in El Salvador, they aren't there. But let's just go on. They aren't there when he's in El Salvador.

They're there now, right? No. They're in your picture. Terry. Ukraine, sir. He's got MS-13 on his knuckles. All right. Okay. We'll take a look. It's such a disservice. We'll take a look at that, sir. Why don't you just say yes, he does, and, you know, go on to something else. It's so great. It's amazing. It's amazing that, like,

This is, again, this is where, this is the hell they've chosen to die on. Yeah, I mean, it just goes- But they are trying to just, like, gaslight people into being like, well, listen, just because the tattoos say he's a gang member and there's affidavits saying he's a gang member and a previous judge has confirmed that he's a gang member, it's like-

You have elected Democrats flying down there to the point that like Hakeem Jeffries has to send out a note that gets leaked to the press of being like, stop flying down there and seeing the gang member. Yeah. Yeah. You know, everybody, everybody watches this interview and they think they're watching Donald Trump dunk on some other journo anchorman.

But what I saw was the end of the intro to Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. And at the end of that intro, you have the very last video footage of Civil War veterans marching in town squares. And every time I see the legacy media get bodied by Donald Trump, all I can think of is those last few Civil War veterans. And we are seeing the footage real and in person. So...

Just take it all in. It's a special treat because it is the end of an era. I think that's a really good segue to the next clip, actually, because I think this sets it up with clip three, please, Spaghetts. You have 100% confidence in... I don't have 100% confidence in anything, okay? Anything. Do I have 100%? It's a stupid question. Look... It's a pretty important position. No, no, no.

You don't have 100%. Only a liar would say I have 100% confidence. I don't have 100% confidence that we're going to finish this interview. We will. Let's go. This is just next level. To take the point you were making to the next level is Donald Trump's ability in real time, the EQ, and Duncan, you and I have spoken about this a lot,

To listen to a question and that that, by the way, is something like Kamala Harris can't do. Obviously, Joe Biden couldn't do. But I don't think there's really anybody. Maybe Josh Shapiro, you know, a handful of Democrats could maybe entertain components of it. But listen, really listen to a question and not be formulating the talking point.

But seizing on something that is a weasel word that the Democrats have used for decades to try to pin Republicans in to an answer. In this case, do you have 100 percent confidence in Pete Hegseth? Now, what they – an omission of yes, I have 100 percent confidence is, well, he has doubts. He has doubts. He has doubts.

When like what Trump said is he pulls this out is saying like nobody has 100 percent confidence in anything. Yeah. Like a guy could get hit by the bus tomorrow. Yep. I have 100 percent confidence in nothing other than what I'm trying to do on a day to day basis because that's what I control. The remarkable thing is Donald Trump's been on the political scene for almost a decade now. And for whatever reason, these network news people.

haven't figured out how to interview him. They think they're going to put him to the wall on something by asking these bullshit questions and using this framing that they always do. I mean, how much tape do you have to watch of Donald Trump disassembling questions to think, boy, if I want to make news out of this, I better approach it a different way. So this is the point. And look, you get some of this in the Ruthless Variety program when we do interviews.

is the whole point of news media when they do interviews with notable public figures is try to extract information

that you wouldn't ordinarily get. Get some thought and insight into their process. Have them explain and make the people understand what it is that they're doing and how it impacts their lives. But ever since, like, Richard Nixon, every single journalist looks at any opportunity with a Republican president as though it's Frost-Nixon. They really do. And so it's like, oh, here's my chance.

to go knee to knee. First of all, the setup. I mean, get the fuck out of here. To chair, like in what concept of life

Would you have two like fold out chairs sitting knee to knee staring at each other asking questions? Like the inauthenticity of all of that, which the media does, it adds to the complete show that it is. That's such a good point. And the genius of what he does, which you always say, Duncan, he reveals the theater. He reveals the theater of the thing. He breaks the fourth wall with the audience.

And especially when he gets those questions and he's like, all right, pal, we're going to do this. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to go ahead and disassemble all. This is a big shot for you.

And you're blowing it. Yeah. You know? He backbroke him when he was like, I don't think I've ever heard of you, but okay, let's do this. What a stupid question that is. And he's not doing that. Like, people think Trump is doing that just to be a jerk. It's not. It's because once he starts to hear those questions and the formulation, the way they're trying to put him to the wall on something with a 100%, 100%, you know, like...

He's a student of media. This guy watches a lot of television. He understands how questions are formed to be a gotcha question. He doesn't appreciate that. He was in the 80s tabloid media environment in New York City. If you come up through that, you are bulletproof. And it's not exactly... If Terry Moran thinks he's going to show up and get a pelt...

He just got thrown over Trump's knee. But he's not a guy. I've never heard of him. You're about to get spanked and let's do this. It's like Trump's not a guy who's trying to hide the ball at all. He's the most accessible president in the history of our republic. Totally. He will talk constantly. But if you're going to approach him incorrectly and do it in a BS way, like he's going to call you on it. But you want, I mean, let's just take the question, right? They're talking about this guy that we've talked about. It's just endlessly the Democrats have seized upon him.

But the real question is whether or not he feels any sense of responsibility for anyone, not just this guy, but anyone who had been unjustly deported and whether or not he's very confident that none of that has ever happened.

But they have to frame it in a Frost-Nixon way. So Terry Moran comes in and he's just throwing this dude in his face and is like, well, we have questions about the MS-13. We have all of these things. And then the Hegseth thing is like, well, do you have confidence? Do you have 100% confidence? Another way of getting at all of that is, do you think that was a mistake, the Hegseth thing? Right. You could make news that way. I heard that you talked to him about it. Do you think that was a mistake? Stop. Stop.

stop, let it breathe. You don't need to prove a point. Let's get his answer. He's perfectly capable of giving you an answer and he's more than willing to do it. More so than any politician that we've ever seen in American politics. Right? On the El Salvador situation.

Are you like, how do you feel about, you know, whether it's not this guy and you've made a case that it's not, this guy's not wrongly deported. But if there is someone even in the future that is deported, that had like a legitimate right to be here and somehow was denied due process. And now he's sitting with a bunch of gang members and else over. Do you feel a sense of responsibility for that? That's an interesting answer. That's the wildest thing. It's an interesting answer. You are so right on this is it is such an opportunity to,

If you were acting in good faith as an actual journalist to, I mean, you've got the president of the United States and to ask questions like that, that are questions that you let breathe, that gives space for an actual answer. Because the sad thing about it is,

These journalists aren't looking for answers. They're looking to put up points on the board because they're like, I want my team to think I'm cool. I want a book deal. Because they're playing to their boys. That's it. It's so sad. Right. It's sad. It's everything we talked about on Tuesday's episode. It's everything to do with the fact that the journalism isn't for you, the American consumer. Mm-hmm.

It's for each other. It's for the Georgetown cocktail party. It's so like, you know, whoever the hell they have hosting the nightly news on NBC this week. I don't know who it is. I've never known that guy's name. After Lester Holt left, it's like feels like a. But that's what's become of it because of this. Yeah. But but like it's for that person to be like, hey, hell of an interview. Yep. Hell of an interview. And like, you know, some old timer to be like, ah, you really went toe to toe. You held his feet to the fire.

And it's like except for the fact that no American got any new information, which is the whole purpose of your fucking job to begin with. You literally had one job. It just blows my mind that they don't have – you don't have to have an antagonistic set of questions to elicit incredibly revealing answers that, oh, by the way –

provide some insight into what it is that you're asking about. It's novel. At this point, it's crazy that that is like a novel concept. You get access to the president of the United States, but you do not ask a single question that could actually provide any insight whatsoever. It makes no sense, but that's the world they live in. That's why I say we're watching the end.

Yeah, you're right. It's not interesting. They're not providing an actual service to anybody. It's literally the only service it is. The media is going to change because of it. The only service that it is...

Is those of us who get joy of watching Donald Trump body the guy that's sitting there asking questions? And that's the thing is, what the hell are they going to do when Donald Trump isn't on the scene? Right. He makes the whole interview. Yeah. That's why you watch. I mean, I wouldn't give a shit about that. Imagine that interview with Joe Biden. It would be like five clicks. I mean, nobody would watch that. It would just be ridiculous. Yeah. But it's not Frost-Nixon.

Like we're in a different era. Like people, we got millions of you watching this on Ruthless Variety Program, not ABC. We don't have 75,000 employees here. We got Spaghetts and we got Wolf. But you're listening to it and you're getting real information and they're not providing that. They're just not providing it. So what do you get instead? Like clip four. Do you think, I'm going to ask you if I may, do you think the reputation of the United States...

Exactly.

So what is it? What do you get out of that? Yeah. What did you get out of that? You heard the first three sentences of that, which were terrific, by the way. And I really salute his ability to do it eye to eye. Yeah. He alpha'd him. And if you notice at various points during that interview, once he was asking the questions, he was sort of looking up.

Moran. Yeah, up and off from Trump because Trump was laser in on it. And he just got completely bullied. Yeah, totally. But the first three sentences of it were the campaign stump speech he's been doing for six months. And then the last one is, you are fake news. So what's the takeaway as a viewer? Donald Trump's kicking the shit out of this reporter. What have you done here by framing a question to this president? I would say any politician.

But particularly this guy, has the world lost confidence in America as a result of your presidency? Yeah. Like the framework in and of itself tells Donald Trump.

offense only here. Yep. I'm going to kick the shit out of this. Yeah. Right. And it's to your point earlier, Holmes, of like how you could ask that question differently in illicit news. Like you could frame it and say, you know, Mr. President, you say we're more respected in the world. We haven't ended the Ukraine-Russia war. You haven't announced these trade deals yet with Japan or India. So if we're more respected in the world,

When are we delivering on those things? What's a timetable you think the American people can expect? You might actually make some news out of framing it that way. But coming at them with both barrels and being – it's so stupid. It's sad because it's – well, because that is – what Duncan said should be the most obvious thing ever.

Like you don't need to go to journalism school to know that like that's just like how you ask a question. Right. Well, the problem is journalism school teaches you the Frost-Nixon approach with a Republican president. And if that's all you learn, then you're going to show the world the difference between a boxing match between two people and one guy hitting a speed bag.

I mean, that's exactly what we watched. Trump working out. And I have a feeling we're going to get to see a whole lot. Just working out. Like literally just testing the jab. I love that visual. You know, that is what it was. Right. Incredible. Well, listen, we're going to get a lot more of it. And I hope he still grants these things. I mean, I understand it's probably not like his favorite day at the office when he has to deal with all this shit. Yeah. I think he will.

By the way, I think he's going to keep doing it. They're not learning the lesson. They're not. They're not. And he always takes every interview, and if it's stupid, he lets them know it's stupid. But this guy has never backed down from an interview. I watched the 30 for 30 on the USFL.

And the guy who did, I don't know if you guys have seen this, the guy who did the interview with him was very testy. And Trump, this was before he was president, but Trump, he was the same guy then as he is now. And he called the guy out. He said he disagreed, but he did the interview. Yeah, I mean, he always does the interview. It's either a chance for him to body somebody or...

Or, you know, have a real conversation. And the fact that we're still – the incentive structure of the journalistic community is in the entirety of the same place of the Democratic Party, which is you've got to be antagonistic or we're not rewarded for it. And what you get is no answers from the American people. Pretty soon we're going to ask for a Trump interview, and I can assure you you're going to get more information on a –

than you ever will out of any of these things. Yeah. Just by virtue of having a cordial conversation, we can actually talk about things rather than be like, you're a crook. Explain yourself. It's unbelievable. You know? It's really unbelievable. The dumb fuckery involved in all of it is just unbelievable. All right. So we got to, dude, we have a game. Yeah. We got a game. It is finally back. And I know many people have asked.

And, you know, we had some travel and stuff, and we had Hack Madness, so it slipped a little bit, but it's back. King of the Hill is here. And I'm the defending champion. Oh, geez. Who do you have? Rick Wilson. Wow. And it was sort of perfectly timed with Hack Madness, because I don't know if you recall. Yeah, he didn't make the field. Well, he...

He got, like, a 30-day ban from X for, you know, threatening the assassination of Donald Trump in some sort of way. Sort of tongue-in-cheek. Did he get back on? He's back on with a vengeance. Oh, so it was perfectly timed? Yes. I thought he was going to be permanently banned and we were going to have to do some violence. He's going to be in jail. Yeah. No, I know. Seriously, like, what...

I thought we had secret service. Forget the game, you think of being in jail. Yeah. And so who is the challenger? I'm going to take Smoke and Joe Walsh. Wow. You know, look, in the history of this game, there have been moments where people rise and people fall. For a long time, Matt Dowd was a big, you know, one of the real guys that we used to go to. It's not as great stuff. Like Jennifer Rubin, she's been terrific throughout. This guy...

In recent games over the last couple of months, he's really shown that he belongs in that upper echelon of competitors. Yeah, no, I agree. Well, let's go ringside. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. It's time for Kidd in the red corner fighting from who knows where, the smoking Joe Walsh.

And now, in the blue corner of hiding formerly from the Daily Beast, currently from a freshly reactivated Twitter account, and current champion of the world,

Rick Wilson! He really dug deep. He gave me something extra. I appreciate that. Thank you. That was good. There was a real guttural move on that. Yeah, it was nice. I liked it. Okay, let me go ahead and pull up my takes here. And for the new listeners, King of the Hill, we've got mostly these Never Trump clowns. Everyone gets to drop two takes. Best of three wins.

Godspeed with you. Godspeed with you. Yeah, the whole premise of the game, for those of you who are new, are these are never Trump clowns. They're people who made a living for decades being, quote, unquote, conservative Republicans that in the era of Donald Trump have become progressive liberals. And it's not enough to just make fun of Democrats on a day-to-day basis. These people outdo them.

Yeah. And that's why we chose this game, because you choose that subsect and you're going to get some specials. Well, that's the thing is there's no zealot like a convert, right? Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right, Smug. I think I just got to start with a nuke here. Spaghetti, can we put up exhibit number 10, please? Rick Wilson has a black and white photo of some hangings. And he tweets, happy Mussolini ending up where dictators belong day.

He rolled back with this. He's right back at it. He's right back at it. It requires zero explanation. Good luck, my competitor. What is this? Cash Patel, if you're listening, bro. Can I ask, what is the date? That is wild. What is the date on that? I don't know. The 28th. April 28th. Okay. Holy moly.

Yeah, and I just would like to also point out, he got over 1,000 RTs on that. That's the thing. It's like not only are they dropping very thinly veiled threats, it gets wide distribution. Yeah, nearly 5,000 likes. I have a choice to make. That is a difficult play. Yeah, you could fight fire with fire, but then if you lose your best take in the first round, that's bad. You could throw the round.

Well, I'm not going to admit to anything. I'm just going to play what I'm going to do. This is exhibit number two, if you don't mind spaghetts. So he's quote tweeting Sam Stein, one of the annual competitors of Hack Madness, who's basically saying in his tweet that members of Congress haven't done anything significant to sort of oppose Donald Trump. Mm hmm.

Right. Okay. When Republican members of Congress took their oath of office on January 3rd, they all raised their right hand. And instead of swearing to defend the Constitution, they all swore to defend Donald Trump. They abandoned their independence and instead joined the King's Court. Now, what I find so fascinating about this.

It's like Joe Walsh was a Republican congressman who rode in on a Tea Party wave who was more than happy to just go along to get along while he was here. He was just like an average run-of-the-mill Republican guy who got thrown out on a rail because he had all kinds of scandals and whatever. Reinvented himself as a Democrat, and he's now concerned of the independence movement.

I mean, that's the wildest thing, right? Is that like you can do anything, but if you drop a take in the media of like, hey, guys, Trump bad. It's like, OK, you're back in the fold. It's OK. Scandals are forgiven. Right. Trump bad. And, you know, we'll give you some ink. And especially coming from a former Republican congressman who got so dramatic in that final clause of that final sentence, however.

It is not a threatening to murder the sitting president of the United States. And for that reason, Rick Wilson wins. It sure isn't. Let's go. And there was a strategic choice. I noticed it. I didn't want to spike the football, but I noticed maybe you weren't giving it your best effort. I just thought if we're going with Mussolini, I got to be strategic if I'm going to get to two on this deal. But I'm confident I can with this next take in Exhibit 1.

Trump and the people who work for Trump are the world's biggest crybabies. Incredible. And with that, he links the social contract, It's On Us, a new weekday show with Joe Wolf. Amazing. Oh, I love it. I love it. Where you won't be surprised, and I've clicked on it and briefly listened, a lot of crybabies. Man. Man.

They're crying babies. Now listen to me cry into a microphone for 45 minutes. Oh, that's great. What have you got, old man? It's a good one. It's a good one. I think I'm going to stay on theme with Smoke and Joe Walsh with exhibit number nine, Spaghetts.

Rick Wilson writes, the Trump gimp suit strategy. And then this is my favorite sort of content on X, you know this. It's just an absolute misuse of the internet. Is Rick Wilson just goes full boomer and he's trying to link to his sub stack. He puts a link that has a bunch of

you know, parameters, you know, UTM parameters in the link. And so it's so complicated. It doesn't unfurl. And it's just a super long link. That's open substack.com backslash pub, the Rick Wilson, Gimsu Trump. And then it's like, R equals one N E two D. Yeah.

The one thing I appreciate is that the and show welcome on share equals false. So I don't get a pop-up at least. Yeah, it's very funny. But it's an absolute boomer move that doesn't unfurl. And like the Smoke and Joe Walsh social contract, um,

you know, thank you, Nikki Spaghetti, for actually going to that sub stack and reading what Rick Wilson had wrote, because I wanted a little thumbnail of what that is. And trust me, it is absolutely deranged. Lunacy. I believe that. I do believe that. Spaghetti, can we put that Walsh tweet back up? The first one?

Because as bad as Rick Wilson's misuse of the internet may have been, and as stupid as his lead-in to that may have been, and as deranged as his sub-stack might be, the idea of...

Joe Walsh calling Republicans and Trump people crybabies when he links to 23 seconds of his own stupid show where he's crying into a microphone. I just don't think that I just don't think that can be beaten in this round. He's literally made a career change out of being the world's biggest cry. That's the thing. It is like literally the definition of what his job is. Crybaby.

He's like, we lost, so let me cry about it. Right. It's an incredible juxtaposition. I appreciate it. The thing is with folks like that is I never know whether I'm cynical enough because it's like, are they stupid or are they such like...

corrupt scum that they're like, you know what? I'm washed. Someone will buy this. Someone will give me money for it. Like, I'll just dance and do this bullshit for some money. I find myself in the same way in that I don't really... I really hope no one's that horrible. I constantly question whether my 2025 skepticism is up to speed.

You know what I mean? It makes me feel so bad. It's like, man, are these people that scummy? Yeah, it's like, are they that dumb? Or do they know that there are people that dumb? There's honest jobs in this country. Yeah. Don't have to do this. It's an everlasting question that we grapple with on the Ruthless Variety Program every single day. So the match stands at one to one. One to one. And we head into the final round. Okay. But the champion first. Spaghetti, can I get exhibit number seven, please?

Okay, so this is Rick Wilson. There's a misspelling to start this tweet. Oh, God. I think he wanted to say, oh, but he wrote on, oh, so we're arresting judges now? Good to know. And this is, of course, about that judge who was letting the illegal immigrant escape justice, you know, the one who was accused of...

I guess it was beating up a girlfriend or something like that. What a bad faith. What I love about this, the bad faith is the component here, Smug, which I think is incredible. This is a guy who cheered on every indictment of Donald Trump, wanted his political opponent put in prison for the rest of his life. He goes on to X every day and prays for his assassination. And this is beyond the pale for you, Rick Wilson, this judge, this

who was not doing justice. I love it. I mean, that's the thing is they know that they're on the wrong side of the argument. So they have to bullshit the characterization of it. It's insane.

Okay, now to the challenge. I was going to play something different, but I think our listeners deserve on genre. I like on genre. It's a nice little extra flourish. Yeah, it's a tete-a-tete, if you will, amongst competitors where they stay on the same topic and whose is more deranged. So I'm going to stay on this. I was going to go in a different direction of which I think is very, very good, but I like this. Okay. It is Exhibit 5, please, Spaghetti. Okay.

To everyone shouting, no one is above the law, referring to that Milwaukee judge, we have a criminal in the White House. Amazing. A guy who has proven to be utterly lawless.

And you're perfectly fine with that. So take your no one is above the law bullshit and shove it up your ass. Oh, it's pure cinema. That is pure cinema. Pure cinema and a healthy flourish all throughout. And I think Joe Walsh wins round three. Congratulations.

I love it. I think I kind of have to agree. It was good. It was good. I was going to go in a very different direction, but you did such a good job of elevating the judge debate that I felt like the modern listener would think of that and be like, that's a very persuasive case. And I was like, well, I'm going to piggyback on that. Well, luckily you had the whole thing written out for you. I had to do the hard work. I'm going to surf the wave that the old man hath built. Yeah.

I love this game so much. It's so good. It's so good. All right. So we got to get to some more variety. You guys will absolutely love this. We have not seen it yet, but there's a big debate going on in the internet. You may have seen it about how many gorillas it would take to defeat a man. We've talked about this a lot. You don't fuck with monkeys.

You just don't do it. These are like strong things. I think people know like monkeys, like your orangutans are such are like 95% muscle. Yeah. Like 5% body fat. Such. You know, like they're up there. They're shredded. They are. Shredded. And they've got six times the strength of an average human. They look small. Chimpanzees do. I'm not sold. Small brains. Okay. Well, you're going to, apparently we've got clips. Can we play clip five? And this is a simulation of a hundred men fighting one gorilla. Clip five.

No. Oh, it's moving, though. And they're playing the Donkey Kong country music? Dude, it's got good... Oh, what taste. Oh, do you see the overhand right on that thing? Yeah, that's an ender right there. You catch one of those to the grill? I don't believe this simulation. Everybody's just standing there watching. You got to use your numbers. See, that's the thing. It's like the guy's in the back, like, what are you doing? So for those of you who are audio-only listeners, this is a simulation of a gorilla fighting 100 men...

And the men are all kind of running around. But this gorilla is systematically... Oh, my God. That guy flew like 50 yards. Like, that's what I don't get. The simulation is trying to make it like a fair fight. Oh, did you... He just tossed that dude. Oh, my God.

I mean, the number of overhand rights that have gone into, I mean, it's clearly a right-hand dominant gorilla. Oh, it took three out in one. Oh, the last guy got it right to the mug. Oh, he's got more, though. And none of them are, like, hitting the gorilla from behind. Nobody's on the back of the gorilla. I don't believe this. So I think this simulation, first off, you know, like, it's been raging on the internets.

A hundred men versus one gorilla question. I think it is in that movie Sinners. There's a scene about this or whatever. These simulations don't work because it shows essentially the people rolling up like one, maybe two at a time. Did you see him seek out the last guy? Bro, he even got some airtime on that. He did a jump drop on the shot. Yeah, so that's my problem with this is it's like a Jackie Chan movie where all

of the bad guys line up one at a time to fight Jackie Chan. And like, that's not actually how this would happen. The men would work together. Bad simulation. Bad simulation. We would form some sort of circle around. We would enclose this gorilla. But let me ask you, I mean, just on the premise, because we've got more here. On the premise of 100 men and one gorilla...

You're convinced that with the right strategic framework... Men would win. Without question. Without question. When I thought about this, like, 100%, like, you know, if this is, like, in Gladiator or something where you're, like, all in the pen right before they let you into the Coliseum or whatever, I'm trying to pep talk the guys. Mm-hmm.

Of being like, listen, you don't have anything to worry about. Yeah, strength and honor. Strength and honor. If everyone rushes the gorilla at once, it's not even going to be able to swing its hands, but it takes, like, all of us rushing at once. And then you go to the back? So then I can, like, chill in the back and make sure...

Because if you let the gorilla start swinging, a lot of people start losing heart. You know, they see like some dude just got his head caved in. A lot of people aren't doing the rush. But it's like, guys, the plan is we have to rush. You got to keep going in. You can't kill all of us as long as it's all of us, you know? But you got to, you have to get people pumped up enough that they're like,

Right off the bat. Because if the rush falls apart, that's when you see what happens. A real team sport guy right there. Yeah. Well, you have to inspire, you know? I think there's no question. First of all, 10 out of 10 take. That's how it is. 10 out of 10 take. But I think there's no question here. The first guy to encounter the gorilla is not coming home. Maybe. Maybe.

It depends on how he approaches. But you're looking for your knucklehead. You're scouting him out. You're like, you, you right here with me. We're going to be the first in there. I'm going to make sure. Smash, you go for it. I know you go for it. Nope. It depends on how the guy approaches. Most gorillas like this have been trained for sign language by women at zoos. So if the guy walks up and starts doing sign language, it freezes the gorilla. It thinks it's home. You think so? All the other guys bum rush and take him out. Nobody gets hurt.

That's a wild gambit. That's wild. To be like, I'm gambling on this dude has learned sign language. I have a pretty formulated opinion on this. I have a pretty formulated opinion, but I want to watch the other simulation we have as well before I give my take. Okay, let's watch the second one. This is 10,000. Gorillas versus 1 million men. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

So I'll be honest. I've seen a bunch of these. You know, like you name the situation. If it was like could one team of Navy SEALs defeat. Yeah. You know. Oh, my God. Look at this. It's like a Braveheart-like scene where the 10,000 guerrillas are running. Oh, my God. Air time, bro. The men are flying in the air. Every man is 50 feet in the air. Yes.

Oh, this is a real bloodbath, folks. You wouldn't want to... I mean, this is tough. You can't show the kids, I can tell you that much. And see, this is where the coaching is more important than ever. Right. Because this is when you got to get the fucking... You got to flank them. You got to get the block. Oh, wait, hold on. There it is. There is some strategy here. They're circling. They're circling.

of whether they can formulate a circle completely around, because look at the... I mean, the men are still flying in the air. Yeah, I know. They're losing a lot of people here. Yeah.

They're losing a lot of people. I honestly think the odds are far worse when it's 10,000 versus a million than 100 to 1. I think it's far worse. Is that right? Because it's easier to organize. Because I think there's a lot more opportunity for people to lose heart. You know? Because you've got to convince the dudes. You're going to see the first four lines go down. The knuckleheads, you've got to get your guys, your Italians, your people.

Whatever. For the front line to go in there and make the sacrifice to take one down. You're dumb if you show up empty-handed. Every guy should have a banana injected with antifreeze. Oh, my God. You throw it at the gorilla, it's going to eat it, it's going to pass out. Okay, well, that feels like cheating. I don't think you're allowed to drug. This is a hand-in-hand. This is a hand-in-hand. This is a hand-in-hand. I would never do a 10,000 to a million. Like, I think a million people would lose to 10,000 gorillas. I think 100 men could defeat one.

Yeah, so I've got a strategy here. I'd love your guys' thoughts on this. Does it have anything to do with Diane Fossey, as our colleague has discussed? The woman who used to do sign language to gorillas in Africa? It doesn't. Is that a traitor to the human species? So what I would do... Where are you going to find the gorilla? Probably from a zoo. I would do the circle, right? The circle around... At a safe distance from the gorilla with the hundred men. But...

The attack is going to come from behind. We're going to have some guy who's going to be goading the gorilla. But what if they're circled? Focusing his attention. How would they be circled by the one gorilla? What if they go back to back? What if they go back to back? Oh, you mean just one gorilla versus the, oh, okay. Versus the hundred. I got you. Right? And then I'm going to find, you know, some guys, the sturdiest guys, the biggest guys, the offensive linemen. And you would think, like, I'm going to use them. One of them gets the ground. To attack the gorilla, but I'm not. What?

What I'm doing is I'm finding the lightest guys, and those guys are going to toss them in the air like a cheerleader. And they're going to come down from behind the gorilla from the air. Elbow drop. That's so risky. With elbow drops onto the head of this gorilla. That's so wild and risky. No, you do that. In doing so, you're attacking the greatest strength of the gorilla, and that is the shoulder and head area.

Well, it's a thoughtful take. I think if you go that way, you could incapacitate the gorilla before the fight even really started. Wow. So you're launching humans into the air. Into the air with the people's elbow. With a Jimmy Superfly snooker off the top rope. Was that Randy Savage's move? Or was that Leg Drop? No, Leg Drop was Hogan. I think Randy Savage was the elbow drop. A lot of people used it because it worked.

Do not erase Jimmy Superfly Snooker, who invented the top rope, and that's the elbow drop. I think that was before my time. For the boomers, you might know that. I'm a Randy Savage guy. If you're a wrestling guy, you know what you're talking about here. But that, I mean, it's an interesting thing. My thought is that it doesn't take a whole lot of lateral movement for the gorilla to pop you back into the air like a Mike Trout fly ball. That seems so risky. I really think you've got to find the ten Italians.

And the thing is that Italians physically can't get concussions. I've heard a lot about this. I'm serious. I've heard this. They're impervious to concussions. Sorry.

So that's your front line, dude. You get me 10 good Italians and I can beat any gorilla on this planet. And they probably have a chain. They can use that chain. The best part is that Smug has inserted himself in this situation only as a strategic advisor. He's to the 99 that are going to be fighting said gorilla. He's like the foreman on the job site. Everybody else has to do the hard work and he sits back. It's so true.

If we ever do this spaghetti, you're going to have to take a sick day because it feels like you're going to be on the front line in that situation. All right. Coming up, a really big interview. We love, love, love this guy, Ajit Pai, president and CEO of CTIA. Well, I want to welcome to the program an old friend.

And one of the world's greatest villains, if you guys don't remember. This is a man who's allegedly killed millions. Yeah, deep cut folks who remember net neutrality and how we were told by the media that, like, millions will die. There will be no tomorrow. This is the architect of that policy, which actually was a very good thing. Who would have guessed the media was wrong on that? Ajit Pai, how are you, sir? Hey, good. Great to be with you guys again. Yeah, first I failed my mom by not going to medical school. Now I failed the country by not destroying the Internet. Add it to the list.

It's just a real disappointment that so many are still alive. It's terrible. As you recall, former FCC chairman, and he's now got a great role.

as the president and CEO of CTIA. Yeah. You're like back in the fight, pal. Yeah, it couldn't come at a better time. It's a critical moment for the wireless industry, for the American economy when it comes to innovation. So I'm really lucky to have this position and great to reconnect with you guys several years after the fact. One of the earlier guests, as I remember. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. One of the OGs. Total OG. Yeah.

Also, I had to question your communications advice at that point that you came on the Riddle is Variety program that early. We were a little untested. I think my comms team was a little nervous. Like, who are these guys? I was like, hey, don't worry. Nothing's going to happen. Well, you control the internet. You can just cut us off, right?

Right. Exactly. He's like, have no fear about any of that. I think you worked with my wife at some point in the Senate. Way back in the day. Senate judiciary. Yeah. She was in the fight defending the chief justice and Justice Alito. Yeah. Obviously, she did a great job. And yeah, yeah. Falling into footsteps. You trusted her judgment maybe more than ours.

Yeah, no, I have to say, over time, I've come to appreciate you much more. The impressive thing you've created, this is unbelievable. I mean, look at this. Compared to when we did it last time, it was incredible. It was like USB mics into the side of a computer over Zoom, if I recall. Did you ever even get the conference table treatment? No conference table. It was all Zoom. Amazing. That's incredible. Certainly no whiskey, no swag. I mean, we're really making it.

- I, this is, congratulate, this is the American story. You guys need to be front and center. - This is what you envisioned with communications. - Oh yeah, this is what I'm gonna tell my kids. You know, if you really work hard, someday you too could grow up to be comfortably smug.

No, they've got to be doctors. You've got to carry it back. You never let go of that. You've got to focus on Ashbrook instead. You can ask a question to the White House press secretary or run a successful firm. Smug is also disappointed in his parents in many regards. But you've got to carry it forward. The grandkids can be doctors. You've got to tell your parents that. That's right. Exactly.

It's been a long time. Have you become a Chiefs fan over the years? Are you still with the Broncos? Still with the Broncos. You're throwing darts all over the place. We get along so well. This is just the one little minor area of disagreement. I side with America. He sides with ISIS. But it's all good. It's fine. It's totally fine. We all make our choices in life. It has been tougher to be a Broncos fan. I mean, the Chiefs have been doing terrific, especially since they've been on the show. But at least we didn't have to show up to the White House. Yeah.

For a missus supporting an enemy team like Holmes did. How did I catch a straight? This is like a war between division rivals and all of a sudden I get shot. Okay, all right, all right, all right. So listen, for those of you who don't know, Ajit's sort of record on things.

This is the OG communication FCC guy who sort of understood at a base level what President Trump was trying to accomplish in many fashions in the first four years. That's why you were the chairman and you effectuated much of that policy. You left, went on to big things. Now you've got this massive job at CTIA. The issues remain. You've got quite a successor now.

in the second term that I know you're very close to. Just tell us where you think things sit because like communications as it turns out pretty important to us. - Yep, oh it's tremendous. I mean if you think about where the technology is going, everything is moving wireless. And as I was telling you guys before the show,

Every time the show drops, I get a ping on my phone. I download it if I'm at the gym or on the go. I'm using a 5G connection to listen to it. And that's, I mean, multiply that by 330 million times the number of apps that are out there. You can see how much wireless interaction is important to us.

And to me, at least, it builds on the legacy of the first Trump administration, where the president set a marker. We want America to lead in 5G. We want to beat China when it comes to innovation across the board. And we want to make sure that we're delivering for the American people. And that's exactly what he did. The spectrum options we held at the FCC generated over $100 billion of revenue for the Treasury. Wow.

It's incredible, isn't it? That's a lot of money. The most successful government program that actually generated money instead of taking money. Can I stop you on that just for a second? Just for those of you who haven't followed along closely or listened to some of our previous episodes, Spectrum.

increasingly important. And we're talking about 5G and how you access content. We've all been highly critical of the fact that we've had this pre-packaged content for so long and it's become so bad. Think about your MSNBCs, your CNNs, you're not being specific, but your cable package is just basically force fed to you. And what's changed with the Trump election is

is that people are no longer listening to that as a primary source of information. There's places like the Ruthless Variety Program. You've got a whole host of conservative voices, independent voices where you get different stuff, but you actually can't access it without more spectrum, invisible airwaves that at some point are owned by

federally that have to be auctioned off in some way to keep our infrastructure for people to get something other than what's prepackaged for them. Absolutely. To me, this is the real abundance agenda. This is the difference between when I was a kid, when you got three broadcast channels, if you were lucky in the daily newspaper and maybe a wired telephone in one room of your house. Yeah.

Now, because of wireless, everybody is able to access whatever content they want on whatever device they want. And they're able to generate their own content, too. So it's had a real democratizing effect. And as you pointed out, the critical input in that is the airwaves. All of this stuff is traveling invisibly through the airwaves. And it's important for the government to stay ahead of the curve. And that's one of the great things about the president's agenda in the first term.

is that he set a marker. We are not going to fall behind China. China has seen this as a major priority. They've made massive investments in 5G, in addition to using wireless to help their military, which is a critical issue as well. And so we kept up. And that's, I think, what I'm really gratified to see in this term, that the president, Chairman Carr, and others, Senator Cruz has been heroic. I know he was on the show recently. Just really seeing where the puck is going and making sure that America doesn't fall behind that curve. Yeah.

Because once you're behind, as you guys know, talent and capital and innovation is going to flow elsewhere. And we don't want that to happen in the United States, certainly not when it's in the hands of a foreign adversary like the communist Chinese. But you also mentioned that the first time President Trump did this,

It raised $100 billion for the federal government. So if he does it again at a time when they're looking for money to raise to offset tax on tips and everything else that the president wants to do, you've got to think that it's very attractive as an option. Oh, absolutely. I mean, on its own, it's a worthwhile program to auction off some of these airwaves that are typically unused or underused.

But especially when it comes to these policy tradeoffs that senators and reps and the president himself are going to have to make, this is one of the few things you can get on the table that's almost guaranteed to generate tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. So I'm really encouraged by all the leadership that he and his administration and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. This is not a partisan issue necessarily. So I'm really excited to see what could happen going forward.

And I have to say, by the way, sorry to interrupt, but six years ago, he and I held an event in the Roosevelt Room where we announced the 5G fast plan, and we put a marker. Look how far we've gone since then. It's just unbelievable. And so we want to make sure we maintain that momentum. I always say or said when I was in government, inertia is one of the most powerful forces in the public sector. It's so easy not to do anything. And taking action has risks. People are going to criticize you, and things might not move quickly, and you end up

blah, blah, blah. But there's always investment on the status quo. Yeah. Right. I mean, who are just going to be dead set to try to stop you no matter what, because that's what they've invested in. Right. Exactly. And that's why I always channel Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back. Remember what he's telling Luke, you know, always with you, what cannot be done. There are always going to be naysayers in D.C. Yeah. One of the great things that the president has shown is a willingness to cut through not just the red tape, but just the backward risk averse thinking that is inhabited too often. Some of these policy debates. Yeah.

And also about the policy debate is I think one thing that really didn't get enough attention, especially when you were at the FCC, is the benefits that come to rule America. Like there's such a fundamental misunderstanding, for example, of what modern farming is like today. You've got these massive combines. Well, if they can get a signal and become more efficient and they can start running this –

to give greater margins to our farmers, to make them more competitive globally. This is a huge story. Like, you got none of... I feel like you should try and get some credit for what you pulled off. Hey, I mean, look, if you guys want to focus every show on this, I'd be more than happy. Let's just discuss it.

No, this is a part of what I mean, everyone focused on net neutrality and hot button, things like that. But as I traveled the country and I'm pretty sure I was the first chair to travel to all 50 states and a couple of territories. I made a point of visiting farms and ranches, potato farms in Idaho, farmers in rural Virginia. And these folks were relying on wireless to get the job done. And even beyond agriculture, think about telehealth and telemedicine, all these rural hospitals that are closing. I heard a ton about that when I was in the Senate.

Oh, it's huge. It's a huge issue. And even public safety, 90-some percent of calls to 911 are over wireless phones. And I've been in rural communities, tribal reservations, where people don't have the ability to make a 911 call. So it can literally be the difference between life and death. And that's one of the things I try to highlight is wireless is not just TikTok videos or whatever it is. Could be. It could be, yeah. I'd like to see you do a dance or two.

Unfortunately, I think Chairman Carr might have some broadcast adjacency rules to apply to that. Yeah, I don't know if that's good for the kids. It's probably not. But I think, you know, I look at this in terms of just, you know, as long as we've been around and the difference in communications is,

Not just in how you consume news and information, but just calling people and whatnot. When I started in this line of work, people still had the landline. I don't know anybody generationally that has one.

The only people I know that have a landline is because a security company that runs their security system demands it. Other than that, basically everyone has a wireless phone. And it's important at some level for people to understand infrastructure can't keep up with that under like a 1996 view of the world. It has to grow. You have to accommodate a changed economy. And if we don't,

Somebody like China will. And the problem with that is not that like, oh, China can talk more freely on their airwaves. It's that the rest of the world will adopt the technology that they're able to create with this new ability that we have self-limited ourselves on.

100% right. And that's one of the things I think people often take for granted because we live in the day-to-day. We don't notice the changes over eras. But 25 years ago, you were happy if you could make a voice call on a StarTAC. 20 years ago, you were happy if you could send an email over your BlackBerry phone.

15 years ago, you were happy if you could watch a video. Now, you would just expect to be gaming or doing other... Streaming. And so one constant in the consumer experience is always expecting more bandwidth. And that requires, again, more spectrum, more wireless infrastructure. Broadband doesn't grow from trees. And so it's important for government and industry to stay ahead of the puck, make the investments, make the tough choices to keep the consumer as opposed to the government in charge of the wireless experience. And...

I use this story often. It seems like I'm dating myself here. But back in the 80s, when we would call my relatives in India, they would have to reserve a 10-minute block of time at the post office. No way. Oh, yeah. And the time they would get would always correspond to 2, 3 in the morning in Kansas, where I was. And we only had one phone in our house. So at 2 in the morning, my parents would wake me up and my sister.

We would get a 10-minute block of time. Each person got two and a half minutes. We would say our piece. And literally in our language, there's a word that literally I'm putting down the phone because we wouldn't have time to have a closing statement or whatever. You just like put the phone. It would just end. Fast forward to today, this past summer, we had a 5G-enabled video call with all my relatives around the world, India, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, U.S.,

And we didn't even think anything of it. It's just within one generation, you're seeing that leapfrogging in technology. So voice calls are much more than just a voice call. It really enables connection. And to me, that's the best thing about this industry. It's always finding new ways to connect people.

And generate benefits for the American economy while we're doing it. You Indians have a real commitment to the family discussion, don't you? Yeah. I mean, good Lord. Especially if you don't become a doctor, you've got to put in the extra work, right? If my grandparents called me at 3 a.m., I'm not sure I'm picking up. Oh, my God. I know, right? And the echo was atrocious, too. Oh, my God. Yeah. I just remember my meeting. Hello? Hello?

Hello? Did you spin the rotator? Did you do it? That was about the extent of my conversations. Life is rough up north in South Florida. Yeah, it was. It was, you know, hard scramble up there. Hard scramble. Well, I mean, Dunks, one of the things that we've talked about a lot just in terms of content, and one of the reasons we started this show was because of the flaws that we saw in media and what was...

ultimately given to the American people as fact and truth and just increasingly over many years has just not been factual, not been truthful. But if it's monolithic in how it is presented to the American people, they don't have alternatives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the benefits for everybody else, but brass tacks, what's the benefit for us? Like this spectrum sale, the competition, people being able to get it on their phones and stuff, that means they're getting more Ruthless Variety program, right?

of them. Without question. I mean, look, this is all about getting a multitude of distribution platforms out there. Now it's up to the people like you, the true American innovators, putting content out there that people want. But no, seriously, your story is a great story. You are providing something that people want. And can you imagine 20, 30 years ago, there

you can talk to a few people in the DC area, but you're never going to be able to reach millions of people. And now because of the airwaves that are out there that are available for anybody to use, you're able to reach people wherever they are on whatever devices they want, when they want, you don't have to sit there. The, some of us who are a little bit older, you know, 8 PM on Sundays, you have to tape the love boat. Otherwise you're going to miss it. This is VHS that double yet hit the play and record at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like a smug as somebody, some, uh,

No rewind fees, dude. Blockbuster. Accounts receivable somewhere on Blockbuster. I was just watching this documentary about Blockbuster and it just really made me think that this must be the fastest movement in a generation. Because I remember like, oh, you go with the family on like a Friday night to Blockbuster and you pick a video and now like...

Can you imagine trying telling someone under the age of 16 that, like, listen, we have to go, and then we have to get the video, and then you come home. And they're like, you mean I'm not instantly watching it on Instagram or TikTok? And if you go too late on a Friday and all the new releases are gone, then you've got to watch it. I may seem like a little bit of a Luddite on this for saying it, but I miss that experience a little bit.

Like the blockbuster thing on a Friday night. Like when you were in high school and you went there with your boys and like you got two movies. Like one you really wanted to watch and then some terrible horror movie that you know was going to be like...

on at three in the morning when you wake up and you're like getting like a blockbuster and then you're getting like signs of the lambs or something like that but like that friday night was great because that was the gossip mill at least at our high school it's like you found out who was dating on friday night when like a girl and a guy walked in that block well there's good news for you michael because if uh unless what ajit's talking about here uh comes to fruition you'll be back

into the Blockbuster. But you know what was the worst part? The worst part about Blockbuster? That's amazing. The worst part about Blockbuster, I don't know if your dads did this, but like when you had those late fees and you forgot to return them, he'd put it there on the island, the kitchen island. Yeah.

Oh, really? And he'd be like, we're going to talk about this. We ran up such high late fees that I distinctly remember my dad putting a letter on the refrigerator door and he wrote in his own hand, kids, I canceled the Blockbuster. Is that right? Yeah.

Good for him. The kids are all like, well, video updated is that. Amazing. Switching it up. Remember there was always the one local store that was off-brand? Oh, yeah. They just had the trash ones. They probably taped at a movie theater. Right.

Different kind of innovation. So listen, it sounds to me like obviously there's a huge hurdle because what we're talking about in terms of spectrum and spectrum auctions is entirely either taken care of or not taken care of in the context of this tax reform discussion. And that is like on the horizon and everybody's pushing hard. How do you feel about prospects? Where do you feel like we are?

I'm pretty excited. I think the key is, number one, to get the FCC's auction authority back. So it actually lapsed, believe it or not, despite the successful Trump administration program on Spectrum. That authority lapsed a couple of years ago. So that's a key part that I think most people agree with. And then we also want to get a pipeline in there of Spectrum that we can auction during a time certain, because I think the worst thing would be for us to just

punt the ball to somebody else and say, oh, you guys run with it. And so we're hopeful that Congress can get that across the finish line. Auction authority plus some pipeline of spectrum. And then, hey, Chairman Carr with the help of Senator Cruz and, of course, the president will be off to the races. Yeah, it's amazing. So...

Let's get just like a global look. Say this gets done, right? Say tax reform gets done. Say we're doing deals. Say spectrum auctions happen. Companies that are operating all of this wirelessly are able to invest and create more. What do you think the future holds?

Where do you think it goes? Because I ask this because every single time where I feel like I've got a handle on it, like two years later, I'm like, wow, we're doing that now? You know, like Netflix used to send us the CD in the mail. And, you know, less than 10 years later, like I tell people about that and they're like, what?

I think I still have one or two. I've got to meet with some of those execs, get them to give me a pass. I'm talking about late fees. But no, I think, so to me at least, as I mentioned, the future is going wireless, but I think it's also going to incorporate AI in all kinds of different ways. I don't know if you guys use it now, but I use AI wirelessly all the time. It's unbelievable. It's incredible. So I was out west hiking with my kids recently in Utah, and

And they were asking, hey, you know, we need to find we want to find this kind of restaurant we want to eat. And so I just plugged it into to Grok and a couple other engines. And boom, we're off to the races or they wanted to stay in a place where they could see the Milky Way. And so I was like, hey, find me, you know, places in southern Utah that are dark sky. Come on. It was unbelievable. Really? It's that good. It's that good. And so there's one we're using to plan a trip this year.

And I plugged it in. I kid you not. I put in, show me all the options for a trip to this place for seven days with a 13-year-old and 11-year-old who like these kinds of activities. They don't want to stay in this kind of place. They do want to stay in that kind of place. And it gave me a full itinerary. It's mind-blowing. It's unbelievable. So to me, at least wireless and AI are kind of the two pillars for innovation going forward. Totally connected. Oh, it's huge. It's going to be tremendous. But to your whole point, it requires bandwidth.

It requires energy. It requires all of these things. And people don't think of that side of it. No, I mean, it's like magic dust. It's magic dust. I just type into the box and the thing gets done. And it's like, no, we need to make strong strategic investments to be ready for how big this is going to be in five years.

Oh, absolutely. To your old point of like, there were CDs from Netflix, and then the whole world changed. It's going to change with AI. Oh, and the Chinese see it that way. Right. They see all of these technologies, 5G, AI, cloud. I mean, they have such a coherent worldview. It's not a worldview I share, obviously. That's why I want to beat them. But that's, I think, where the puck is going. We need to think in terms of where the consumer is going to be in a decade, where the country is going to need to be in a decade. And

to me, we have to support those technologies, in particular 5G and Spectrum. That's amazing. Well, listen, I hope nothing but the best, actually the worst for your Kansas City. You're still bitter over the Super Bowl? Super Bowl 4? Come on! Super Bowl 4, I'm still holding a grudge. Pre-birth.

Pre-birth Hank Strom. Oh, my God. Yeah, right? Exactly. Hank Strom. Those were the days. Oh, man. Well, listen, it's so nice to have you in here. And I mean this genuinely. When we talk about innovation and where things are headed, you're one of the very few that is A, relatable, but B, has clear vision path on how you go about doing it. I mean, I think so many, not just on the conservative side, but just the industry in general, it's

It's sort of like industry speak, and it kind of flies over everyone's head. You've always had an ability to digest this stuff and interpret it in a way that we just had a conversation about it. Everybody who's holding a cell phone listening to this understands, which I greatly appreciate, absolutely.

Thanks for doing it. Well, and likewise, congrats to you. I mean, look, as I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate a lot people who create something out of nothing. It's not easy. You guys know that, right? I mean, you're not, you know, it might have happened accidentally or in a way you didn't expect. But I mean, that's the American story. And so to me, at least, it's just great to see you guys thriving. That's so kind. That is such a kind thing to say. I was on the show so long ago, you were calling it the program.

back to the program. That's an OG. Just to see how far you've come, it's been great. That is an OG. Oh, man. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Where can everybody keep up with your work? So assuming the internet still exists, I haven't checked over the last 20 minutes, but

Add to Cheat Pie on X. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can just Google me and figure out all the stuff I'm up to. Someone told me today, oh, I read your Wikipedia page and I immediately got a shiver. You're like, oh, God. Yeah, I can't imagine what's on there. You're a mass murderer. Yeah, exactly. But no, I pride myself on being accessible, including to, you know,

Folks out there who are never going to have a chance to visit D.C. So, yeah, just hit me up. One of the really good guys in this line of work, Ajit Pai, president and CEO of CTIA. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, and I promise next time to dress up. I had no idea this was the new dress code. Listen, no, it's not. It's crazy. They made us have a photo shoot today. Well, you can't hide this much beauty in one. You've got to put it on paper. We had to class it up a little bit. We should have given you a heads up. All good, all good. Thanks for having me on, guys. Thank you so much.

Man, he is such a good dude and so smart. You know, they're very lucky to have him. Well, he just does such a nice job of – it is – I remember when I was in the Senate, every time this set of issues like Spectrum came up.

And it was like, I was like, I don't even know what the hell this is. You know, like, how does this I understand there's airwaves that need to be worked through or whatever. And they're auctioning. But who owns these things and how does it like it felt like everybody was selling air at some level. And then you talk to a jeep for like two minutes. Yep.

And he's like, well, if you want to farm, and if you're interested in content other than ABC News and Terry Moran giving the Frost-Nixon treatment, pretty important that they do this kind of stuff. You know, oh, by the way, it pays for your tax cuts. That's the thing. It's like it does so much for the country. There's so many benefits, and it gets a little attention. Yeah. Just a great guy. We're going to have him on a lot because he explains all of this. And it feels like in this administration –

They're doing more to try to correct the misuse of American airwaves over the last 10 years than I ever remember. And I don't even know that they could do this stuff.

But the Trump administration is really doing good work, and he does a better job of interpreting what it all means than anybody else out there. So thanks to Ajit for all of that. Remember our question of the day, which was, how can Trump get back to 50%? A lot of ideas there, but you heard ours. You've got to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll read all of them and get back to you next week.

Tuesday. With that, fellas, I think we've done it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you so much to the Minions. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube channel, hit that subscribe. It's more fun in video. So, until next time, Minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you Tuesday. Stay ruthless.