How Trump Beat the Media & Academia
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What Trump has done is put a down payment in not only Paramount CBS paying $16 million, you forget back in December, ABC and George Stephanopoulos had to pay $15 million. He's 30M in the black just based on settling disputes with the corporate media. It's so funny. It is hysterical. Because, I mean, it is... It's one thing, like, I...

Trump would not have any difficulty fundraising for his presidential library, but to have his enemies have to fund it is just, I mean, that's probably the most Trump thing possible. It's like, no, I want my throne to be the skulls of my enemies. It's amazing.

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It is your favorite day of the week here on Thursday because the Roofless Variety Program is coming at you on our favorite day. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial as always. We talked a lot on Tuesday, which was prescient.

about what an incredible week Donald Trump was having. Republican Party conservatives throughout this country. Folks, it's only gotten a little bit better. It is really good fortune. What good fortune have we?

As the, what's the Nathan's hot dog guy? Oh, the announcer. Which he's coming up. He's got a big day on Friday. What's greater fortune? His whole run up that he had on Joey Chestnut. If you haven't seen that, it's legendary. No, he's a legend. You got to look it up. And the Nathan's hot dog contest comes up every 4th of July. And when they do that, they have this guy in the top hat and he is just a showman. Showman.

The kind that we really appreciate. We like a little pageantry. Yeah. We like to sing and dance and entertain, so we respect when we see folks putting their back into it, like he does. Yeah.

His line was, what greater fortune have we? Yeah. And that's, I feel like. To see Joey Chestnut compete. To watch a man eat 80 hot dogs. Like it's Michael Jordan doing the three-peat repeat. Splitting the atom. Or just jamming.

Lips and assholes down your throat 80 at a time. Yeah. I love it. But look, this is a fun time of year. It is for all of us.

heads up to the audience. We're going to do another show. We're going to do a 4th of July. We've done this the last couple of years. We're going to do it again. Another 4th of July. You're going to get fresh content on Friday as you enjoy 4th of July with your families because it means a lot to us. It does. The only thing we like more than politics is America. That's exactly right. And so we're going to, we'll give you a little something on Friday.

that gets you through that. But in the meantime, what a show. Yeah. We got a lot to talk about here, folks. A lot of really great stuff. It turns out that, well, the corporate media is funding

The entirety, what it appears to be the presidential library for Donald J. Trump. The irony of not of that notwithstanding, the manner in which he's doing it is completely hilarious. We're going to get into it. Lawsuits, lawsuits settled. This is now the second big installment into a presidential library that I find. I mean.

Fellas, it's good humor, if nothing else. Yeah, it's pretty much, I mean, as great a week, as great a month, as great a second administration it's been for Trump, it's that bad to have been an adversary of his. Yeah.

The guy is just collecting more pelts than, I mean, any fur trapper in the history of this country. Like Davy Crockett. Yeah. Davy Crockett's got nothing on this guy. He doesn't even need a barter system with all of those pelts. He can just collect them. There's another incredible victory for the conservative movement that happened beyond the Supreme Court stuff that we were talking about in that you penned.

with the feds, some litigation dealing with Leah Thomas. And as you recall, Riley Gaines came to prominence in conservative circles as a competitive swimmer who had to compete against this dude.

identified as a woman and the rules at that time as administered by UPenn and others allowed this dude to just like blow away the women's competition. He was like 492nd ranked male swimmer

And then the following year, he became the number one ranked women's swimmer. National champion. Yeah. And you're all aware of this story. She's been on the show a couple of times, but you've also seen her on Fox and everywhere else telling your story. She's really led a movement in this regard. But through the courts, this has actually gotten to a place where there's justice involved, which is a conservative movement.

In the political arena? Yeah. Boy, that is... You got to celebrate it when you get it. Yeah, not often seen. It's just not often seen. Well, I think often as a conservative...

Like you're operating under like the idea, like you're never actually going to get even like at most you can get people to stop doing terrible things. Because you win the political argument. Right. Because you win the political argument. Or it makes it unsustainable to do the nefarious things that they're doing. Exactly. What's unique, I think, in the conservative movement in the Trump era is we're not just being, uh,

We're not just standing pat. We're actually winning. Right, because usually the conservatives make the intelligent argument and all of the smart people in the country are like, you know what, they're exactly right. And the libs are like, wait a minute, nobody's paying attention to our idiotic talking points anymore. What do we have to do to change it?

And then they go defecate on the street and all of a sudden everybody's like, oh, yeah, no, these guys are too much. We're going to have to just like settle all this down. It's conflict. It's concerning. This is a divisive. That's, by the way, what happened. Somebody takes a shit on the street and like throws a flag up in the air and it pretends to be aggrieved and gets like 20 of their buddies. All of a sudden anything conservatives want to do is divisive. Yep.

It's concerning. Let's not bring all this up. It's a problem. We should seek to heal society, which is, by the way, part of the problem we have with the cuck element of the conservative party, too, is that when you play that game, that you have granted a premise that never should have been granted in the first place. Just live and let live. These people should apologize. And the cuck element of the conservative movement and the lib talking points is,

flourishing out there in conversation in America. It doesn't come from nowhere. It's obviously been delivered

ad nauseum by broadcast media over the last who knows how many decades and now because of their dishonesty that broadcast media is funding the victory wing of trump's golden library yes in a way that every school group will be able to see until the end of time study study is its greatness well listen they've got a lot of things that have happened this week they're going to go into that library where you get into it we're also going to talk about where the democrats are

Again, a repeat of Tuesday. Not good. Not good. Tough. Not good. It's a real tough. Wait till you see some of this stuff. You're going to get a kick out of it. Alligator Alcatraz. That was like kind of a tongue twister. It's an alliteration. It's an alliteration. Alligator Alcatraz, which is where Donald Trump went down with Ron DeSantis to visit where they're keeping some of the most dangerous. That's what, you know, my suggestion? Yeah, what's that? Gator Gitmo.

Gator Gitmo is much easier to say. It's much easier to say. I mean, President Trump's the king of branding, but... No, that's better. Gator Alcatraz or Gator Gitmo. Gator Gitmo is a lot easier.

Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't confuse with his previous announcement that he'd like to reopen Alcatraz, the actual Alcatraz. Gator Gitmo is much better. God, you're good at this. Great idea. Just trying to help. You're good at this. It's almost like you make your living branding things online. That's incredible. Anyway, we've got a big, beautiful bill update, obviously. That is the cornerstone of the Trump agenda. And we're on the precipice as you're listening to this about whether or not that is going to be...

The 4th of July deliverable from Congress to President Trump. And then we're going to play a game. It's King of the Hill. It's Thursday. We play King of the Hill on Thursday. We're going to also talk about the Diddy verdict, which I mean, I don't know if you guys follow this or not. It's certainly going to eclipse the moon in terms of what

pop culture and news media. So you're going to be inundated. You might as well get the fellow's take on that. Yeah. I think like the greatest crime he committed was forcing me to have to read up on this bullshit. Yeah. Just discuss it. Because I have done everything in my power.

to not learn about this trial because I find all of it reprehensible and disgusting. And the only time I'm exposed to it typically is when my wife puts on Good Morning America. It's all over it. It's all over. Yeah. And it's filthy and I hate it. But you also said something poignant this morning, Michael, in that, um,

You're like, I'd like to see who all was involved in this nefarious behavior. And I think that much like the Epstein thing, there ought to be an element of transparency to it. If you're bringing charges or whatever, I understand you've got to build a case or whatever. But the public ought to know. Unless it's Carl Winslow. If it's Carl Winslow. I know.

If it's Carl Winslow, it's going to destroy my childhood. I don't think it was him. I believe in him. So for those of you who are not OGs, if for those of you who are not OGs to the Ruthless Variety program, we covered, gosh, several months ago, a discussion that some like,

rapper had done on some random podcast where he was talking about all the nefarious things that Diddy was involved in and he's like, and he even banged Carl Winslow. Now, Carl Winslow was the dad on

on Family Matters. That's a rare condition. It's a rare condition. It's a rare condition in this day and age to read any good news on the newspaper page. Yeah, exactly. Love and tradition. And also, it was like a father figure to many of us of a certain generation. Yes, he was. Where you really looked up to that guy. Good dad, cop, you know.

Yeah. A sex idol he was not. No. And so that news struck us as particularly alarming. Very alarming. And now he had since come out immediately afterwards and was like, I don't know what that dude's talking about. I've never met Diddy. I've never been there. But the mere mention of his name, it concerned the Ruthless Variety program enough that we...

It's stuck in our head like a brain worm. Yeah. It's hard. Like, I don't want that. Yeah. Nobody wants it. More than Diddy being guilty, I want him to be innocent. I want him to be exonerated once and for all. Yes. Because Carl Winslow doesn't deserve this. He doesn't. He doesn't deserve this.

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What happened first was a very significant verdict of Paramount and CBS, the parent company of CBS, settling a lawsuit with Donald J. Trump for $16 million.

over an argument about what they did with their 60 Minutes product in interviewing Kamala Harris. The allegation from the Trump campaign, and I guess the library, because they were the recipient of the settlement, was that it was selectively edited to provide for

a better public image than what normally would happen just during the course of an interview with Kamala Harris. Now, they had good reason to stand on some allegations. And then if you watch the interview, succinct, snappy, quick answers, periods at the end of sentences. If you've watched Kamala Harris speak for like, I don't know,

one time, you would say that that is a virtual impossibility. Well, right. Because like if you would have listened to the edited version of the interview that 60 Minutes put out, you would think that like snappy answers, punctuation at the end of every sentence, no run on or any of these sorts of things. But like if you watched actual the visual presentation of the thing, there were more jump cuts than a TikTok video. Yeah.

And so it left you as the viewer watching it and thinking to yourself, well, I'd love to see the transcript of this. Felt like a Diddy music video. But it comes at a very difficult time for CBS News, who everybody knows has taken a complete bath this week. The new second quarter numbers came out. Fox News, at least as far as linear television is concerned, Fox News has surpassed CBS News in terms of audience.

Broadcast station. No surprise. It's a huge fall from where Bill Haley and the founding fathers of CBS... Edward R. Murr. Yeah, where they started the network, and today's network hasn't sort of lived up to that legacy. And so not only are they paying Donald Trump, but they're also...

playing second fiddle to Fox News. And, you know, speaking of Fox, I remember this, like, 60 Minutes Kamala interview. It was, like, in close range of her super disastrous interview with Fox where... Yeah, with Brett Baer. Yeah, with Brett Baer. If you'd seen that, you're like, wow, she's just not ready at all. Well, not surprisingly, Fox and Brett only does this, but Fox only does this, too, which is...

They're just going to tape it and show it to you. They're not the arbiters of what it is that the voter ought to see. They just show you it and like you make your decision. And I understand that they've had a magazine format on 60 Minutes for years, but they didn't used to in the last –

before the last 10 years, get to a point where they selectively edited to make things look good or bad. I've had this experience on the press side with Republicans where you can sit down for an hour and a half and the most salacious thing that you could say or the most confrontational component is always in there. And the part where you are

are telling the audience the facts that they should be aware of, that would inform them as citizens of this country are omitted. I've seen it with my own eyes. And so the Trump campaign actually had a good sense of what they were going into when she did this interview. And she did it, and then all of a sudden, despite the previous five interviews that she'd done, including the view,

And like the most sympathetic places on the breakfast club, the most sympathetic place. She shat the bed every single time and run on sentences and like got herself into trouble and everything. And all of a sudden she goes on 60 Minutes and she's like providing perfect breakfast.

diction and punctuation for everything. And they're like, what's up with that? Let's see the transcript. Completely ridiculous. But the problem for 60 Minutes, I think, goes a little bit deeper than that. For anybody from our generation, the ticking clock of 60 Minutes has always been synonymous with the end of fun that you had watching the NFL Sunday every single weekend. It's like, okay, the weekend's over. The fun is gone. Yeah.

Got to start Monday. CBS 60 Minutes is coming on. I'm going to have to change the channel. Son, why don't you come in here and learn a little something about our world? Exactly. Exactly. At least that's how my house went. That's exactly right. So they have a brand problem that is very, very deep that I don't know if they're going to be able to fix.

And it's a shame because they are capable of incredible news. I'm a fan of 60 Minutes, not in this current... I just got to say, I saw the special they did with Alex Smith and how he recovered from that. Oh, dude, incredible. It was incredible. Here's the thing. They're capable of it. They have talented people there. No, they don't. I hate it. It's horrible. Listen, most of the talented people who work for CBS work on the sports side. CBS Sports has...

Excellent coverage of golf. Excellent coverage of football. Even their sports coverage is trash now, man. And I watch AFC games. I disagree. I watch AFC games. They do a bad job, but 60 Minutes especially. What a horrible, it's unwatchable. Morley Safer has gone completely out of his mind. He's dead. All their talent has gone crazy. He's crazy.

He's been dead for years. Dude, if you see Morley Safer on television... At the end of Morley Safer's tenure, he'd lost his mind. He'd gone full left wing. There's no talent left at CBS. And how about that Ed Bradley, huh? What a disaster. And here's the thing. Who do they replace these people with? You're seeing like Margaret Brennan. What's her name? Who used to be on The Morning Show. The Six O'Clock. I think that's the problem. All the nutjobs...

All got packed into 60 minutes. That's my point. They need to take the talent from CBS Sports and just transport that over to the news site. And where has Andy Rooney been? He's been on vacation for about 15 years. See, Andy Rooney was the only good thing they had going. That was a great thing. Andy Rooney was the only good thing they had going. Never wonder why. It's so good, dude. Comes on and gets pissed. I love that you're like, where's Morley Safer? Yeah, I think part of the problem, you put your finger wrong.

It was 2012 when 60 Minutes changed. Ever since then, they started veering further left. Well, you had Mike Wallace. You had Morley Safer. You had Ed Bradley. You had these like titans of industry,

where they could get any interview that they wanted. And real quick, this is not like in isolation, because remember, they tried doing this to W. Like, there's a history. Dan Rather. Dan Rather. Dan Rather, which is when it changed. Which is when it changed, because they did 60 Minutes 2. It's when they did 60 Minutes 2, which is where that thing ran. That's where it all... They had these titans that were very interested in...

In telling a story to the American people that they thought they ought to hear. I'm not saying that they weren't biased. I'm sure now knowing what we know about news media was probably more biased than we recognized at the time. But there was a moment in time, and it was that Dan Rather situation that he did with W, where they took basically a DNC research doc.

and aired it live under the cover of 60 Minutes to try to pretend like it had the same gravitas of what Ed Bradley and Morley Safer and all the legends had done for years. To pretend like this is a story that is grounded in fact. And then you found out within six weeks that

that it was all a lie. Like everything about it was a lie. And they've been chasing it ever since. And then as these people have died off, they've replaced them with people who've been trained up in, and I don't even think they're necessarily bad people in a lot of ways. It's like they're trained up in a culture that has bred them to be antagonistic to one ideological point of view.

And so that's what they pursue. Those are the stories that they pursue. And this is the reason why I think they should start moving CBS Sports into people into the CBS News slots because the CBS Sports people— I'd love Jim Nance to give me the news. That's my point. It's like this guy won and here's how. You know, and told you the story about how this guy won, not like what he dislikes about the person who won. It's all fact-based. Have you ever met Jim Nance?

I've never, never in my life. I met him one time down at Pinehurst. Couldn't have been a nicer guy. I mean, just exactly what you want him to be.

You know, like just he enjoys golf. He's there with his bros. He's hanging out. Gives you all the time that you want and more. Like he wants to have a conversation. It's not like you're imposing upon him. It's just like interested in the game. He's a 10 out of 10. I'm more of like a football than like a golf and country club kind of guy. Yeah, but you shat all over them too. I bet you guys love that shit, so. But you shat all over them too. You know, honestly, I feel bad because I wish Fox had AFC games too because their coverage is actually decent. I can't stand CBS.

Okay. Terrible. Well, listen, it's a valid point. And you know, I don't think this settlement's enough. I think they need to lock them up. It should be criminal, not civil. These journalists are criminals. The upshot is they are now paying them $16 million, and by them, I mean the Trump library.

Which anybody who's involved in politics at any different level, you understand that there is a presidential campaign that raises a bunch of money. And then you try to raise a bunch of money for the midterms. And then towards the end, if you're lucky enough to serve two terms, the last two years, the president and all of his apparatus are interested in raising presidential library money.

money, right? So they go back to all of the donors that they've talked to, to try to get them to do some kind of a thing. And it takes time because these things are expensive. They're like, you know, seven, $800 million, maybe a billion dollar proposition. Obama still doesn't have one, right? Like, I don't,

He still doesn't have one. I would have thought that he would be able to lean on some of his Middle Eastern allies for that. But he hasn't. What Trump has done is put a down payment in not only Paramount CBS paying $16 million, you forget...

Back in December, ABC and George Stephanopoulos had to pay $15 million. He's 30M in the black just based on settling disputes with the corporate media. It's so funny. It is hysterical. Because, I mean, it's one thing like Trump would not have any difficulty fundraising for his presidential library. But to have his enemies have to fund it is just –

I mean, that's probably the most Trump thing possible. It's like, no, I want my throne to be the skulls of my enemies. It's amazing. There's a couple of interesting wrinkles to this, and then we'll get out of it. But the way that CBS and Paramount has tried to frame this thing is basically like they're victims of circumstance in that the people who own...

CBS, Paramount, want this merger to get done. They want this whole thing over with. They can't have hanging litigation against the president of the United States. Like they just want it over with. So if you believe their version of bullshit, it's like we just had to pay the till to make this whole thing go away, even if we didn't do anything, just because we want our larger business interests taken care of.

You don't, as a company that makes its living, assuring the American people that you are providing accurate information as best as you can and you are the best in the business. If that's how you make your living, you don't compromise that. You don't. The larger stories are probably afraid. They're probably a little bit afraid of what discovery brings.

They're probably a little bit afraid of what prolonged litigation looks like. Even if they thought that they could win, the reputational damage is probably pretty significant because you can wrap in – I mean look, discovery is whatever it is. You can go back and take a look at every Republican interview that you've had over the last 20 years. I've been a part of at least three with 60 Minutes where –

We've had an interview and what shows up on the show is absolutely no bearing on what the context of the interview was. It's a soundbite to validate a narrative they'd already built in the opening of the show with the ticking clock behind them. And imagine the idea that there is a way to do more reputational damage to their brand with...

with that information than the information they put out every single night. Because what they do in their evening newscast and what they do in 60 minutes once a week has done enormous damage. Nora O'Donnell, that's her name. Nora O'Donnell. Like, her tenure has ended at 6 o'clock, but, like, my God.

How did they let a person like that run that broadcast? And secondly, I mean, we also had happened at that VP debate when J.D. bodied balls, but it was like, no, Donald, Margaret Brennan. It's like the Twin Towers of the worst people in journalism. It's unbelievable. You know what I like more than anything about this? Forever, if you come at an issue from the center-right perspective,

immediately you're dive-bombed by litigation armies where you're going to have to pay the freight one way or another. You just have to make a decision one way or another of what is the least, what's the cost-benefit analysis of going to trial and doing all that. But that's the way you operate in conservative world. These guys have been living a free lifestyle, lying to the American people forever. It's the first time, in my view.

That's 100% right. This is actually turned to tables in any real way. Anyway, we're going to come up to another landmark legal victory that we talked about at the top, and it deals with University of Pennsylvania and the Leah Thomas Riley Gaines situation right after this.

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building a brighter future right here at home. Visit chevron.com/america to discover more. - Okay, so look, you've heard Riley Gaines on this show a couple of times. I'm sure you followed her in her comments. She was the swimmer from the University of Kentucky who was very competitive, who had the unfortunate set of circumstances of having to swim against a man in the ultimate prize in collegiate athletics, a man named Leah Thomas.

And she had a problem with that. She was the first athlete that I know of. I mean, maybe there was others that didn't have prominence, but the first one that I know of who was like, you know what? I'm not cool with this. I'm actually going to risk the full attacks of the left knowing that it's coming to talk about just how unfair it is to have a biological difference in the pool. That contact is so important because I know today –

It seems like, okay, good for her that Riley stood up.

But at the time, like it's easy to forget the world we lived in, this horrific world of where that's like you are now shunned. You know, the university is going to try to have a crackdown on you. The media is going to attack you and say that you are a bigot. And they did. And you will never get a brand deal. And the rest of your life, you're going to be hounded by left-wing activists who call you a Nazi. She entered this conversation at the height of cancel culture. Yep.

Right. Also at the height of like nil deals, you know, when that started to become a thing and like famous athletes getting paid to represent things. She's an attractive, accomplished athlete, a young woman with a great head on her shoulders. She had a lot to risk, but she decided to do it. I think she would say in retrospect, well worth it in large part because of what happened this week. Let's play clip two.

The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from competing on its women's sports teams. The agreement resolves a federal civil rights case centered on transgender swimmer Leah Thomas. She was on the Penn women's swimming team several years ago. And Penn says it will restore all individual records to female athletes who lost to Thomas as part of the agreement.

So here's the thing. I don't like making historical comparisons to things, and I certainly don't make comparisons to the civil rights movements and the heroes that we had, like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, folks like that. I don't think this is a historical parallel in any form or fashion. But what she did for women at a moment when it was very, very unpopular for women athletes to actually express their view –

That they couldn't compete with a woke culture that ultimately made men who just woke up and decided to be men, women, was really brave. You wouldn't see now, like, you know, in the past few months, you've started seeing these competitions where women will say, I refuse to compete because some guy has shown up.

Those folks wouldn't have been able to take that stand if it wasn't for Riley, who drew the line in the sand right there. What a sad indictment on our culture it took this long. Yeah. It's a very common sense thing. I don't think it's really a conservative thing. In fact, you'd find a lot of allies on this issue who wouldn't agree with you on anything else.

Yeah. But it took us all the way here to 2025 to admit the sky is blue. And years after the fact, the women who competed in that event will be rewarded. Do you imagine the difference, the psychological difference and the difference in their lives if they had been awarded at the time?

You can't put a price on it. I mean, we all know. Things happen in your life. You react. You carry on with life differently as a result of it. Some for the better. I would argue for Riley Gaines, for the better. She has become part of a movement that

that's trying to do the right thing for girls, even when women's organizations say that she is a pariah. You know? Because it's political. Right. No, it took a lot of bravery. You really have to salute her and her efforts. And, I mean, she is just a real hero. So, anyway, people are being rewarded. It's just a great piece of the story. And we thought we ought to cover it because it's like, you know,

Again, wins. Yep. That's the thing. Just wins. Appreciate them. Like we all have a lot to complain about, but when you get these Ws, like, hey, hats off, man. You guys were all a part of it. You all cast your ballots and changed the world. That's the thing. It really did. All right. So we have a question of the day. It goes back to our first segment.

What should Trump name the media-funded wing of that library? Such a great question. Because there's two pieces of this. For one, you know Donald Trump's library is not going to only be $30 million, which is what he's collected. So it's going to have to be maybe an exhibit in that library. What would you name it?

What would you name it? Great question. I'm looking forward to the comments for that. I want the creative caps on this. So let's work it out. Everybody, if you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety Program right there on YouTube and you put your comments in, we curate all of them. We take what we think are representative of your comments and then we read them the following episode. And we're going to do this on this. And I can't wait, by the way, to do that. It's going to be very, very fun.

Coming up, we're going to get to your comments from last episode, which we asked in a very tumultuous environment where it looked like the Senate was not going to pass the big, beautiful bill. Will we get this done by the 4th of July? Will they adhere to Donald Trump's deadline for the 4th of July? Well, we're a lot further down the road. We're going to get to your comments right after this.

You've heard us talk before about the effort by legacy media to stop you from accessing shows like this one. They do it by eliminating spectrum available to consumers like you to access shows like this one. They say it's a national defense issue, absurdly enough.

While Trump isn't buying it, neither is Senator Ted Cruz. In the big beautiful bill, Republicans have heard your voice and they're providing more spectrum. So what does that mean for you? It can reduce your monthly broadband bill and preserve your ability to watch, listen, and stream all the content that you choose, not what's chosen for you by some big cable provider. The sale of spectrum will also generate tens of billions of dollars to reduce our national debt. What's not to love about that?

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to the Ruthless Friday program. You've given us your comments and we read them. To do that, we always start with a voice. Okay, first one comes from Paul Rinaldi, who found it within himself to like and subscribe and decided to opine. And Paul wrote, "I do not think the BBB will pass both houses by July 4th, but I don't think it matters. It will get passed eventually, and that is what does matter."

I'm a Canadian fan of your program. Nice. And I want to offer my best frozen wishes to you and all the proud Americans for a great Fourth of July nonetheless. Hats off, Paul. And a reminder that while like today's tight but momentous Senate vote, the Declaration of Independence did not seal victory for the breakaway colonies. It took seven more bloody years. The Declaration was a necessary gauntlet thrown down.

Happy Fourth, guys, from the great white north. Paul Ranale from Toronto. You know, I mean, just when you're ready to give up on Canada. Mm-hmm.

Just when you're ready to give up.

anyone would ever know. I love that. That's very interesting. All right. Uh, dunks rocks comment to please. Uh, this one's from Earl Scott. Earl writes, there's no chance they will make the July 4th deadline because there are too many people not with the program. Some of the objections are principled, but we need to pass what we can pass and not a wishlist of every member. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. No, no,

My record on prognosticating political outcomes is not stellar, as evidenced by my Romney bumper sticker. I love that. Look, it's well taken because there is an army of people who fall into the category that a role does, including us. Like, you know, I thought there was basically no chance.

that July 4 was attainable. I looked at that debt ceiling component to it in the middle of July is like that. This is the drop dead situation. But as you're listening to us, man,

It's a possibility. It's a possibility. Gosh, they just hoist the sun back up in the sky over there. What do we got for comment three? Comment three comes from Brandon Blewett. And Brandon writes, question of the day. Yes, because like every other low-protein guy who hogs the leg press on Wednesdays,

25 pounds on each side, Rep Massey will make a sad face and cut everyone's way when confronted. Also, honored to get my news from a number one source that doesn't spike my blood pressure. Though 42 counts as young, I'm starting to think age brackets are as fluid as pronouns. Keep the laughs and facts coming. America.

I love this guy. That was pretty good. I love this guy. Dude, Blewett is terrific. Also probably finds himself in the category of people during high school that were working with their last names, a real nickname.

name yeah right that's tough sorry brandon like blew it is i think i i got that as a reference so let's go brandon that was my guess oh yeah well we all look at it that was so great but that was a fantastic 10 incredible comment very very smart very very funny thanks for listening brandon so um when you're in the minority particularly when you have absolutely no power

And no movement behind you because they're like where Democrats are. They're trying to like surf out of this disparate coalition that's nominating communists in New York City and like psycho pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas, which is now a constituency of the Democratic Party. Like they're trying to figure out how to manage all of these things.

And the only thing that, like, leadership in the House or the Senate, which is now, like, I guess the elected leadership of the Democratic Party can do, is just find a microphone and a camera and talk. Mm-hmm. Right? And they're just hoping something sticks. Mm-hmm.

Like someone's going to consume the thing, hope to make Democrats Democrats and Republicans, because they're just trying to just like fight out from no vision whatsoever. Right. What have they come up with? Clip seven, please. The doctor's caucus. The doctor's caucus. We're looking at a handful of Democrats standing in a hallway and regular Americans just walking past them. No one cares. No one cares.

The white coats. There we go. Nobody can even hear them. That's even more brutal. Like, the journals followed that guy. Yeah, and that guy, I couldn't tell for sure. The journals aren't even interesting. No, I couldn't tell for sure, but I think it might have been Hogan Gidley walking into that office. So they're asking Hogan questions.

And they're just blowing off these Dems in white coats. So for audio-only listeners, what you just saw, what the YouTube audience saw was four people who, I guess, have medical degrees, who are part of a House Democratic conference, none of which I recognize and none of which you would recognize, are holding a press conference, I guess, about the big, beautiful bill. Who knows? They didn't make that clear. I couldn't really hear it. And I couldn't hear it.

But they're doing it in a way where the tourists who are touring the Capitol are doing it between the camera and their podium. And they're all speaking and like having a good time and looking and enjoying whatever to a point where the journalists are more interested in the tourists than they are the actual people who are giving the press conference. And you can't hear a word these people are saying. I mean, this is another reason to subscribe on YouTube to see this because it's interesting.

laughable. It's pathetic seeing this. This is what they've come to is they're like,

They're trying to do some kind of like a publicity... That is Hogan. I'm like... No one cares about what they're doing. Good friend of the program, Hogan Gidley, surrounded by reporters who are ignoring these Democrats. That was amazing. I mean, did they do that press conference like at the Rotunda in the Cannon House office building? That is right... It's in the Capitol building. It is right outside of the Speaker's office suite. So it's on the outside of the Rotunda. But you're picking a place...

with a lot of traffic. It wasn't well... I bet that was like their thinking is they're like, oh yeah, everyone will already be there. Poor advance work. It wasn't well advanced. And we all heard our great president. I know we're going to talk about alligator Alcatraz here in a few minutes, but at his press conference, one of the things he drilled into everybody's head was that site selection matters. None of these Democrats listened to his word. But this is what they're selling the American people. That.

You imagine being a press secretary, by the way, going back and be like, well, here's our video, boss. Well, we'll have everyone's attention because we're all going to be wearing white coats. And everyone will look at us for leadership.

Don't worry about it, boss. All three broadcast networks and the two major dailies are going to cover it. And they won't mention the embarrassing. Shout out to the Daily Caller for getting that video, by the way. Because nobody understands Medicaid reimbursement formulas like doctors practicing medicine, right? I mean, it's just so, it's dumb in so many different ways, but I just absolutely love it. So Chuck Schumer, we love this guy. Yeah. I hope they never replace him. He's literally like a, he's like a comic book strip of

of how inept Democrats are on a day-to-day basis. Let's put a clip three. I raise a point of order against page one, lines three to five of the pending amendment, which violates section 313B1A of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. The point of order is sustained. The text will be stricken. So what he's trying to do is rename the big, beautiful bill. So, so...

This might sound arcane in what you heard there in that, you know, there's a bunch of jargon nobody understands. But but rather than making an improvement in the lives of his constituents in New York.

or anybody across America, which he is obligated to do as a minority leader in the Senate. What he's decided to do is raise points of order against the title. So that's the funniest thing of it to me, is like his team clearly looked at this from his office and they're like,

Body bag. You got him. Yeah, Chuck, you got him. We're renaming the bill. No, we can't stop a single thing. And Donald Trump is going to shove this entire bill down your throat. But we renamed it. They put out on social media that clip with like the closer, you know, logo, you know, animation because they were so proud of this. Yeah. Right. Like that. He went here and he changed the name of the thing.

It just tells you like how impotent the Democratic Party is right now. And in particular, Chuck Schumer, of all people who can deliver nothing, nothing except this. And then he has to run around and be like, look at me. Look at me fighting for you. I mean, so here's a little vignette, one of which Johnny and I were a part of. So back in like 2009, when Democrats were trying to do Obamacare.

You had to put a top hat and cane on to get Democrats to do, or journalists, to cover any sort of negative aspect of what it was that they were doing, because they just wanted to cover the process and how close Democrats were to just renovating the American healthcare system in a way. But they made a bunch of deals in order to get over the finish line. So Johnny and I spent an inordinate amount of time coming up for nicknames of the deals that they had to cut. You

You may remember things like the Cornhusker Kickback. I remember that. Right? Wait, no, wait, that was you? The Louisiana Purchase. Yeah, we did that. Ashbrook pulled that off. No, this was Holmes. Good work, Ashbrook. This was Holmes. The Gatorade. The Gatorade, the Louisiana Purchase, like all of these things. The UConn. The UConn, which was, I think, my favorite. Probably didn't get as much notoriety, but UConn was- Great work, Ashbrook, man. Coming up with all these. Ashbrook. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashbrook gets all the credit. Yeah, 100%. This was all Holmes. The Utah bench press. They traded some judge seat. What the fuck is that? So did the Cornhusker kickback? That is like all time. Well, it became like ubiquitous in American politics with like what an unsavory deal would be made. And it forever helped us taint what Obamacare was, which is a very inelegant institution.

deal that had no prospect of actually saving the American people any money whatsoever, providing more access to health care. All they did was expand Medicaid.

Turns out it made everything more expensive like Republicans did. Yeah, and like you look at your premiums. You don't have to listen to me. You just look at your health care premiums over the last 15 years. What? They went down, right? Yeah. I mean, they're like exponential. Every year your health care insurance provider comes to you and is like, well, sad to say. Wait, wait, wait. So the premiums went up, but certainly I can keep my doctor if I like him. Oh, yeah, no, no, no. I was told. What?

And Dems no longer have to run year after year saying that, oh, the health care system is broken in this country because they fixed it, right? So Chuck Schumer comes out with this bill and the deal that they made with Lisa Murkowski on Alaska, he tries to brand what? The Alaska –

I don't even know what the fuck it is. It's like some terrible alliteration component where he's trying to do what we did back in 2009. He doesn't have Ashbrook. If you don't have Ashbrook on the list, good luck. That's right. Nobody remembered. Exactly right. So like he says it into a – like it's a firecracker in a well. And like that's the state of the Democratic opposition. Right.

But it also goes to show like the thing that we've been talking about forever on the program. Democrats led by Chuck Schumer in the United States Senate, the political acumen expired in 2009. Like everything that he thinks –

is effective or not effective was what was effective in 2009. It has nothing to do with the last 16 years that we've dealt with in American politics. Just watch. Just watch. Everything he says, everything he does. And ask yourself whether or not that was going to be the talking point in 2008 or 2009. It is a perfect fit. I mean, he has no reason to wonder why his literal neighbors made

a communist, the flag bearer for his party. Well, and he was like, I've worked with him for years. That's amazing. Very, very, very smart fellow. We worked to fleece taxpayers out of... That's crazy. He said he's worked with him for years? Yeah. That's insane. Even Bernie Sanders was on Joe Rogan the other day and said, I never met the guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, he pretended like they were best friends. And Schumer's... I mean, this is... He's a piece of garbage. This is where Democrats are. Like we said, there's not a dime's worth of difference between any of them. And it's the differences. The guys like Mamdani or whatever he was in New York City has an ideological point of view that he wants to destroy you and your culture and everything about America. And then guys like Chuck Schumer believe in absolutely nothing, provided they can sit on top of that destruction. He's like, well, if my donors want that,

Yeah. No, for real. That's what it is. That's it. But in terms of Big Beautiful Bill, I know that you wanted to get to something that had been done, I think, by SLF or One Nation. Yeah, One Nation. Some polling. Yeah, One Nation put out a poll by Fabrizio Lee about the Big Beautiful Bill and how it's being received by the American voters. There's a lot of...

you know, consternation within media here in Washington about, oh, this is so divisive and all of this sort of stuff. Well, that's the last gasp of a losing campaign is to be like, well, it's unpopular. They're all going to lose their seats. Right, right. Exactly. So Republicans pass this thing and they put a poll in the field. And I think the results of it are exactly what we've said here on the show for the last couple of months. You look at an issue like here just from the poll on the Medicaid thing.

You know, Democrats will tell you, oh, my gosh, this is terrible. You're going to kick off all these people from Medicaid. Illegal immigrants. How will the voters react to that sort of thing? First of all, 66% of voters agree that there's waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid that must be addressed.

72% agree, and this is the thing that people were really shying away from, which was really disappointing. 72% agree that able-bodied adults should demonstrate they are looking for a job or are employed to receive Medicaid. You've been on this since that Wisconsin election. Years ago. That happened years ago that we keep talking about time and time again on this show, which is Democrats have bullied and the media has bullied conservatives for

into believing that somehow there's vulnerability in making able-bodied people go to work in order to serve taxpayer receipts to get federal benefits. Maybe the truly impoverished with dependents or people with some sort of disability should get Medicaid and not able-bodied adults who want to sit on their couch all day. 72%? 72%. I mean, that's just like this mom-and-apple-pie territory. Right.

It's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, this is the biggest no-brainer. The final thing that this polling doesn't go over that we know because we've done these sort of big reforms under the dome, it doesn't matter whether it's Democratic or Republican, everything repolarizes, right? Anytime you have a big fight where you've unified an opposition where you're not going to get any Democratic or Republican crossover votes, what you're dealing with are...

a split constituency with the media that's going to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt. But how it lands on the electorate, it just repolarizes the electorate. So you've got a bunch of people who voted in November and then you've got like 10 to 15 percent of people who may not have voted for Donald Trump. They voted for Kamala Harris or whatever for a variety of different reasons. But they're like, look, I want my country to succeed. But they're Democrats.

Or there are people like, I knew the establishment was going to let me down, Democrats. And they're not counted in the Democrat solidified vote or numbers one way or another. This kind of fight just re-solidifies people who are going to vote Democrat no matter what. In terms of independent voters, the risk in not passing something like the big, beautiful bill is so much more acute now.

and devastating to Republicans than any risk of passing. Yeah, because taxes would have went up under Republican control of both houses in Congress. And that's something, as a Republican, for your brand, you cannot allow to happen. Cannot allow it. Like, also here from the poll, 54 to 34.

voters prioritized locking in those tax rates that we currently have than worries about the debt or the deficit or the debt ceiling or any of those other sorts of things.

It's a political winner to say we're not going to let your taxes go up. And yeah, sure. So should we address all of those issues on the spending side? Yes, absolutely. And there's going to be five more packages here over the next nine months that Speaker Johnson came here into this office and talked to us about the rescissions package, the appropriations package, another reconciliation bill and all of these things. We're not going to solve them.

a problem of $36 trillion of debt in one reconciliation bill, folks, like that clearly is not going to happen. But don't wring your hands over the exact amount of spending reduction that we're doing in here. Again, it's historic what is already being accomplished. What the American people want when it comes to these midterms is their taxes not to go up. It's as simple as that. Lean into it. Run on it, Republicans. If you want a bumper sticker for all this, people for the last 50 years

have voted for Republicans for two reasons. They keep them safe and they cut their taxes. Yeah. I feel like we need a screeching eagle sound in the board when you say something like that. I mean, that's it, dude. It is? It's it. Like, you know, there's all kinds of different stuff that pops up in different eras that is important. But, like, look at the crux of what Donald Trump is talking about. The immigration situation, the border, that's a safety thing.

What he's doing in the Middle East, the safety thing. What he's doing with the big, beautiful bill. It's making sure that you're not going to get a tax increase. It's how you unify a center-right country to be on your team. And if you want some social engineering and DEI and all kinds of other garbage, you got another party. Imagine if you could go back to 2017. Yeah.

and think that you could get a reconciliation bill that not only gets taxes here at this rate permanently, it also funds...

the border wall, Donald Trump's number one campaign promise, and you could make that happen. Imagine looking that gift horse in the mouth. Imagine it. People would be over the moon. And we have fought all these years for this to happen, and we are at the precipice of that. I love it. Don't shy away from it. I totally agree. Republicans need to lean in on all of this stuff. Go out and sell it. Do your job. And make sure people understand that the alternative –

It's going to cost you a lot of money, and you're going to be running around in your neighborhood trying to stock up on Second Amendment goods. Trying to keep yourself safe. Second Amendment goods. All right, a little Trump update. Yes. Alligator Alcatraz. Oh, yeah. Love this. Gator Gitmo. Gator Gitmo. Smug. That was really good. Gator Gitmo. Can we get clip four, please? Alligator Alcatraz is the idea that it's not going to be delivered in 15. They just get eaten by an alligator.

Serpentine. Serpentine.

We're so lucky to be live. Dude, this is the content. We are truly blessed as the Ruthless Variety Program to get stuff like this. You're the President of the United States advising prisoners of alligator Alcatraz on a 1% increase on their ability to escape by running in a serpentine manner. God, it's so good. It's so good. He goes on. Clip five, please.

Hey, Biden wanted me in here. He wanted me. It didn't work out that way, but he wanted me in here. He's standing in alligator Alcatraz telling everybody what they already know, that Biden wanted to put him in prison in something like he was in.

It's just it's you imagine never let anyone forget that can you imagine what a surreal experience? It must be to be Donald Trump right now like in the context of all that that like he was with all these indictments and everything and then somebody tries to Assassinate him and now he's back in the Oval Office. It must feel so weird Yeah, and I also think like, you know, we all everybody listening to this you you encounter something in life Something doesn't go right at work

You get in a car accident. Like any little thing that's just like very difficult to deal with. And like it occupies a space in your mind. That you can tell it inhibits you from doing what you do best because it's occupying this space in your mind. He doesn't have that. Like somehow they indicted him 40 some odd times. And...

He just won the presidency. Yeah. And like now he's standing there at Alligator Alcatraz saying, well, this is where they wanted me. What a rewarding experience that must be.

Has to be. God. Finally, you're going to enjoy all of this. This is the governor of Maine. This is the lady who showed up at the White House. She was trying to shout down Donald Trump at one point many, many months ago, and he just put her in a body bag. Well, it turns out it didn't end there. Oh, no. There were some allegations, like 36-year-old allegations about her and her alleged use of cocaine.

that had surfaced. And it turns out there was an entrepreneurial cameraman who asked her some questions on that. Clip six, please. Is sniffing cocaine at work a human right, Janet? How much more does an eight ball cost with inflation? That's the best question. What's the price of an eight ball with inflation? Her reaction is, oh, what the fuck? Well, even better than that, though,

is it stopped her dead in her tracks. She had to stop walking so she could mentally process the question she was just asked. She's got these two aides, and when the question is asked, she falls behind by like three steps because she's just trying to process how she got this question. Oh my God, it's so good. It's just so good. Anyway, keep them coming, folks. Those are great, great clips. Shout out to that tracker, whoever you are. Yeah, that guy's earning his bucks. Doing the Lord's work. You know the difference in this game.

between a good tracker and a great tracker. You really do. That's a great one right there. We'd love to know who that was. It's time for a game, fellas. That's right, our signature game. It's Thursday. It's the signature. King of the Hill. I'm going to be judge. And I am returning champ with Sherry Jacobus. Yeah, Smug has the cheat code, but I'm bringing K-K-K-Kingsinger. Okay. I'm very excited. Okay. All right. Well, let's have at it. Let's go ringside.

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for Key of the Hill. In the red corner, fighting from who knows where, Adam K-K-K-Kinzinger. And now, in the blue corner, fighting from her own Twitter account and current champion of the world,

- Nice. - It's good every time. All right, Bailiff, I'll instruct you to administer the court. - Your Honor, we'll start with the champion, Jerry Jacobus. - Oh, he's already screwing it up. - Your Honor, I'd ask you to take note of that chirping from-- - Don't worry, this won't take long. - Unqualified challenger Michael Duncan. - Noted. - Exhibit one, please.

Sherry Jacobus commenting on a lot of Democrats were saying, boy, alligator alcatraz, it's not designed to withstand floods. It would kill the illegals there. And then Sherry's comment is, that's what Trump wants. It's cheaper than gas chambers. Oh, man. Okay. Among the most offensive things you could possibly say. I mean, wow. She used to be a Republican. Now she's just crazy. Oh, shit. By God.

Is there algorithmic reward? I mean, I really should have stretched before this. Can we get that? We may not have this. Can you put that tweet back up? Just, I want to see. Nope. It doesn't feel like there was a lot of traction on it. It's not for the fame. It's not for the numbers. It's for the love of the game. It's love of the game. Even the lunatics knew not to retweet something like that.

I almost find that that's an additional point. Isn't that something? Okay. All right, challenger. Well, when you go against Sherry, my Sherry, you really need to sort of stretch and be prepared for a presentation in order to compete. I am willing to afford counsel such a luxury. And that's why I appreciate you as judge. Good, sir. Everything with cook, cook, cook. Kingsinger has multiple levels. I think.

Being that he was an elected Republican, I think it adds something. And I think this was fun. Can we put up exhibit number eight, please? Spaghetti. Adam Kingsinger writes, imagine being a grown man waiting for Donald Trump to tell you what to do. Lol. Super beta. Here's the thing I love about it.

Every day, Adam Kingsinger wakes up reacting to what Donald Trump does. Super beta. This is a man with zero self-awareness of what his life has become. His entire life is reacting to what Donald Trump has done. If anyone's beta, pal, it's you. The call is coming from inside the house. Your Honor, if I could ask Spaghetti to put that back up, the other thing that defies

Is this an amicus or are you acting as bailiff? What I'm just pointing out is that he continues to have Slava Ukraini next to his name in his Twitter bio. Noted. That's a thoughtful amicus. I need to take a minute on this because there's a meta aspect. Do you need to go to chambers? Well, I'm not going to go to chambers, although I'd like to, if you know what I'm talking about. But, uh,

The meta aspect, look, Shere Mishiri hits you with the fucking sledgehammer every time out. Tough to beat. She's going to give you the craziest of the crazy.

The job of a judge and jury in this is, is it like what's the uniqueness to it? Is it more offensive or less offensive than your average rote Democratic deal? Knowing that it's coming from a former Republican, knowing that they're aggrieved and knowing that their brain damage as a result of that has affected many people in different ways. What a wind up.

The idea that she landed on gas chambers is amongst the most offensive thing. It's true. That I could ever even imagine. But it's also coming from somebody who is a nauseam on a weekly basis called somebody a Nazi. Compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Disgust Stephen Miller as if he's like Goebbels. It falls into a category of things that she's done that is, albeit, the most offensive things that I could ever even imagine. But the lack of self-understanding. That the literal words coming out of his Twitter account are...

exactly described himself and himself alone to me is a novel concept. Thank you. This is somebody who literally put these words down in no other order could they have perfectly more described his lot in life than what it is that he did here. And for that, I award round one to Duncan. Let's go. Okay, second round. We'll start with

the challenger. That was critical. I'd like to stay on theme here. Okay. I like to paint a picture. I like to tell a story with these selects. Exhibit number 10, please, Spaghetts, from Adam Kinzinger. This is in reference to the BBB, the negotiations between conservatives and moderates with what's ultimately going to end up in the package. Adam Kinzinger writes, please track

As a former moderate Republican, I can say this with authority. They always cave. Always. So what he's saying is... About himself. As someone who's been a cuck for my entire life, I know cuckoldry. I know it and I see it. They'll do it. And they'll do it. As one who spent a lot of time in that chair, let me tell you, the view is not good. Ha ha ha!

But we do it because we love it. Like imagine, imagine, imagine serving, you know, as a member of Congress and your takeaway in that is all of that time I was there was,

I did a shitty job. And that's how I know they're going to do a shitty job. Like you are so much in service to your new job as being a mouthpiece for the liberal left that you'll torch everything in your credibility. Your lifetime achievement. Your lifetime achievement of being elected representative of the people of the United States and your constituents. And you're going to say, by the way, I really sucked at that and I caved all the time. It is a persuasive case, Mr. Duncan. I will move on to the champion.

So we had earlier discussed that, you know, does Sherry not care about metrics? What's her thinking on that? Why does she do what she does? Love of the game. But she might, to a little bit, to a certain extent, care about trying to goose the numbers, try to become relevant, because you can't just, like, you know, shout into the ether. Well, Lord knows she doesn't have an employer that we're aware of. So what can she do for attention? Exhibit three, please. Ladies and gentlemen, feet pics.

What? No words. Just a photo of her feet at the beach. She's at the beach? And feet. Well, you know, honestly, I'm proud of her that she's getting out of her house. Whoa! It's good for her. She needs the vitamin D. It's a different genre, and it's one that I didn't expect. The last bastion of a demoralized coward, feet pain. The first exhibit that he provided...

in the first round. Can we pull that back up with some metrics? Yeah. I mean, that's a great comparison. So here's the thing is... All right, so that thing gets... This is where she... Wait, you're asking for Cherry Jacobus. That's Kinzinger. I'm talking about Sharon Mishary. Exhibit one for Cherry, please. This is where she talks about the gas chambers. So that got 6,370 views, right? Okay. And it got 15 retweets, I think, I see there. And then you throw it to exhibit three...

Nope. 2,325. So not even the feet are on the feet. And there's one retweet. But also, shout out to the shameless foot dude who smashed the retweet. He was like, I don't care. No, no, no, no, no. Not the retweet. The shameless dude is the guy who bookmarked

Oh my God. Oh, there's a book. There's one bookmark? We cannot confirm, of course, because of the algorithm, whether that was Rick Wilson. I don't know why I'm helping my friend here. No, but in the Elon X world, we can't actually tell who the bookmark is. We can suspect, but we do not know. The bookmark would have

Quentin Tarantino. Because that guy, I would have entered into evidence had I ascertained who that bookmark is, who he is, as part of my consideration. Well, that's the thing is that not being identified allows those bookmark dudes to do what they do. Can you imagine seeing Cherry Jacobus' feet and being like, hey,

Let's save this for later. Look, all I'm going to say is Adam Kinzinger said, I sucked at my job. That's how I know they suck at their job. And he got 1,700 retweets to that, which is remarkable. People were like, yes, you are right.

I want to see a round three and give it to Smug. Unbelievable. How do I lose to a foot pick with one RT? I just want to see a round three. Well, that seems unfair. Start with the champion. Should have been a summary judgment. Exhibit two, please. Okay. This is in response to... Bailiff, please. I'm competing under... Bailiff, please.

Jonathan Chait is like, what the hell? Why are Republicans should be terrified of all the blowback that they will face if they support Big Beautiful Bill? And Cherry Jacobus' take is,

Because they've been assured that there will be no midterms or that it's rigged for them. Wow. There will be, will cancel for the first time in 250 years. And I love that she gave herself the backup that like, but if there is a midterms, it's rigged. It's rigged no matter what. That's pretty hot. That's salsa. Okay, challenger. Okay. What do we got out of Kinzinger?

See, that's the problem is the depth. I mean, she's got depth and she brings stuff that, candidly, is tough to compete with. I want to note it for the record that after being admonished by the bailiff of this court, he requested a zin from me.

As tribute. As tribute. Unbelievable. It was more or less like a payment. A bribe. Was it a Cornhusker kickback? We'll see if the bribe works. Cornhusker kickback is in return. Spaghetti exhibit number nine. Okay, fuckers. Disagree with this one. Cash bill. Adam Kinzinger, again, as noted by the bailiff, Slava Ukraini, still in his name on Twitter, writes...

Let's be clear. Elbridge Colby has blood on his hands. Pentagon halting some promised munitions for Ukraine from Politico. Okay, so first of all, Slava Ukraini still being there. Hilarious. Number two, specifically calling out Elbridge Colby.

Like it's not an administration position that he's executing as a staff member. Not saying like the Pentagon or like even Hegseth or Donald Trump, the president of the United States, you're going to like tag him in this tweet and say, this guy's got blood on his hands. It's unique in how specific it is. Right. Right. I mean, I got to imagine in the X universe, they're like, who the fuck are you talking about?

at some level. But he's like trained guns on this guy. Yeah. Who is a wonderful guy, by the way. Yeah, he's been on the show. He's a good guy. We like him a lot. Can I see the first exhibit, please, from Sherry one more time? Exhibit number two. Don't. It's not.

It's over. Sherry wins. Wow. Rigged. Willing to play feet picks. You know who I think bookmarked that Sherry thing? I think Holmes did. I'm telling you. Unbelievable I lost that round. I am a sucker for the outside the box like feet picks.

I throw it to the audience. Comment. Remember, we played this years. Was it rigged against Duncan? He did it to himself. It was mediocre until he brought up that it was a bookmark. Yeah, well, I mean. I did it because I love my friend. I know, you did a good job. And I advocated for your tweet better than you did. Yeah. Dude, I thought, so after I was robbed in the first round, I said, you know what?

I got thief picks. I'm going to play him if I'm going to lose. In fairness, I feel like this was the most legitimate decision that I've rendered in a long time because... You agree with your own decision? Not only... I think it was a fair decision. You better hope next time you're up you're not going to see this court. Nobody disguises sour grapes more eloquently than the old man.

Okay, congratulations to Cherie, my Cherie, who is, as we know, the new queen of the Ruthless Variety Program's administration of King of the Hill. Last thing we wanted to cover here before we go, because you're just going to hear a lot about this, P. Diddy. Speaking of bookmarked guys and sickos. Oh, man.

So it turns out he largely beat the rap. Like all the really significant stuff, the trafficking and the racketeering and all of that stuff that would have put him away for life, he beat the rap. Innocent. He was found guilty of a couple of, and I want to get this right because I understand that we're in a litigious society, but he was found guilty of... I think the two prostitution charges. It was like transportation.

And then there were three counts that he was found not guilty. I believe it was on the racketeering, the more serious charges. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So what do we make of this, fellas? This is like captured the pop culture world for the better part of a year. Disappointing. There were a lot of rumors that have been going around because, you know, he's friends with Obama. Yeah.

and there was a lot of rumors about when this news first broke is when things started looking like they were on the rocks between Michelle and Barack. And subsequently, you see Michelle basically just attacking Barack whenever she's got a chance, being like, oh, glad I don't have a son. He'd be another Barack. We don't need that.

And was she, like, getting ahead of the verdict? Did she expect some more to come out? Like, I want to see names. This dude's traction is, like, another Epstein-type situation. Well, that's the thing we talked about at the top. The names are actually sort of important. So disappointing. That's kind of what everybody was getting at, whether or not P. Diddy went to prison for five years. Yeah, because, like, if he was facing life in jail, he would have probably then just, like, tried rolling. Yeah. Yeah. But we're not going to see that. Okay, can I say the obvious? Yeah. All right, so, like, the main...

thrust of this whole... So to speak. Yeah, I did that on purpose. You're doing the thrust thing. The main thrust of this whole controversy were these freak-off parties. They were like sex parties where they'd get male escorts there. And baby oil. Baby oil, right. I'm just throwing it out there. Do you think Diddy disliked prison? Do you think they have baby oil in the commissary? No.

I'm just saying, if that's his thing, they got that in prison.

I mean, my guess is that he probably was more interested in administering anything under his own control. It's hilarious if Diddy's like, no, I tried to throw the ultimate freak off prison and they stopped me. Please, not time served. Give me a couple more years. Amazing. That's a terrific take. Actually, probably the best take out there. Thank you. That's a hard take. I thought of it. I'm not sure we can improve upon it. That's a take Diddy was trying to have.

It is interesting, right? That like all these guys... You know it's good when Smug laughs? Amazing. Great take. And also when he's sort of offended. Yeah. Which is like, you know how hard that is? It's hard. For you listeners, you know what we're talking about. If you can actually get him to be like... It's tough. Yeah, I mean, look. A...

He's going to do some time, no question. We'll see what the sentencing looks like. Everybody kind of knows that he's a bad guy now. I kind of put that in the category of like Harvey Weinstein describing his hamburger genitals. Oh, gosh. Right? Which is like it doesn't really matter how much time he serves after you've described to the world that he's got a meat pie in his pants. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like you can't come back from that. No, it's a sentence worse than anything you can do in the hole. I'm just telling you like that's as a guy who trafficked in that world, boy, oh boy. So like Diddy, uh, you know, he tries to like, he threw himself out there as a self with dude. There's all these allegations of like, let's say less than alpha, uh, experience baby oil and the rest. And, um,

I think he's paid a pretty heavy price. Whether he goes to prison or not, this is a, shall we say, devastating last year of his life. Oh. Don't you think? I mean, I would not be surprised. It depends if baby oil's in commissary. That's all I'm saying. So the baby oil thing became kind of part of pop culture and how everybody's defined this kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

It wasn't eliminated to how the press characterized the reaction. If we can go to this clip with CNN, it's amazing. It's happening inside of a courtroom. No, instead, I kid you not, people are pouring baby oil on one another outside this courthouse. Baby oil having a very big play in the freak-offs we heard about. You have people saying, it's not Rico, it's Freako. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

How is this real? Michael, I think you've characterized it as a garbage society. It's a garbage culture we live in. Garbage culture. But you might as well enjoy the ride down to the bottom. If you can't, just have some laughs along the way. Just make sure it's lubricated by baby oil. My God. All right. Well, you know, we'll let you decide what you all think of that. But...

It's not bringing Tupac back, I know that. Yeah, Suge Knight was right about P. Diddy. I'm not convinced Pac is dead. I'm just not. God, the takes. I choose to believe he's alive. I mean, if he's not, I'd like to hear a tune or two. Yeah, I want a mashup. Jams back in the day. A mashup with an elderly Elvis Presley and Tupac Shakur. Oh, he's still around? Think about that. That would bring the house down. It would.

Maybe a number one. No question about it. Wait, is Elvis dead? He says that he's not dead either. Hold on. Yeah, 76. I don't think either one. He still thinks he's around. He had a heart attack on the toilet, right? That's what you think. They found a body. How am I just now finding this out about Ashbrook? Ashbrook is that it's a significant boomer take. I love it. Parents age where they're like, no, he didn't.

He didn't. Ultimately, you're taking someone else's word for it. Like he wanted to just escape. He wanted to escape public life. And so he faked his death. And of course, Smash is up on that. And then sometime in 2026, the two of them will appear together in a sellout crowd and no one will forget it. Okay. That's a hot take. My God. Save it for the Super Bowl. Yeah.

Okay. As a reminder to all of you, we're going to do a special 4th of July show tomorrow. So you're going to have to tune into that. With that, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode, gentlemen. Thank you so much to the Minis. Remember, question of the day. What should Trump name the media-funded wing of his library? Like and subscribe if you wish to opine. Go to that YouTube page.

Leave your comments. We'll read them in the next episode. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the lips. We'll see you tomorrow. Stay ruthless.