How Trump is Battling the Liberal Media w/ Karoline Leavitt
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We announced the new media seat in the briefing room on day one. We've brought in the Ruthless podcast. Yes. You know, people like Sage Steele, who were at a legacy media outlet, ESPN, forever, and now left that world because she saw the bias within those institutions. And, you know, we've had outlets like Axios and Semaphore, who have incredible reach in this city, but also outside the Beltway, and they don't have a seat in the room. Like,

why? But our decision to determine which reporters get the most, to be in the most privileged spaces of the American presidency in the Oval Office on Air Force One, WACA has controlled that for decades. And it's unfair to real people, real journalists who care about truth and accuracy and facts and want those opportunities. We finally beat Medicare.

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Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Just a catch of strays over here. You're in for a hell of a show. Keep the faith. Hold the line and own the libs. It's time for our main... Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes with one of my co-hosts, Michael Duncan. It turns out... Yeah.

We have a couple of missing components to this, which we'll get to in a minute. But as we always do on the Ruthless Variety Program, we try to enhance your experience as the viewer and listener and try to make things better, even if it's just... Well, yeah. I mean, we've had sort of an outbreak of the flu here at the Ruthless Variety Program. And selfishly, I don't think it could be better timed because we have such an amazing guest. It's something. And it's pretty incredible. Yeah.

And like, if you're just going to aesthetically improve the Ruthless Friday program, I can't imagine you could do that better than our next guest, Carolyn Levitt. Thank you, guys. How are you? White House press secretary. Yes. I mean, you seem like you're having the time of your life. I am having the time of my life. We all are having the time of our lives. It's so much fun. At the risk of sounding like I'm just completely blowing sunshine at this point, like, you know, I've been around a little bit. I've watched...

a number of people in your position inhabit that position and do, you know, different things. Different people, very good at different elements of it. Like Dana Perino is one that I remember being like really good at just getting facts to people, working with press and doing whatever. You're terrific. Thank you. And we get this from all of our listeners all the time. Everybody's like,

Wow. I can't believe what a good job you're doing. Thank you. They told me you were going to compliment me, so that's why I came here. Thank you. I love my job, and I love Dana, and I love all of my predecessors. Dana, Ari, Sarah Sanders, Kaylee McEnany, of course. Oh, Sarah Sanders is another one. Terrific. Kaylee was my boss. I love them all. They've all been very generous with their time in giving me advice before I took this job.

You sat down with people and asked them? Oh, yes. I keep in touch with all of them. Were they all pretty generous about giving you some tips? Very much so. Absolutely. Had more than an hour and a half phone call with Sarah, had a lunch with Kaylee, had a dinner with Dana, spoke to Ari, and keep in touch with all of them. Sean Spicer, too, who was in my office yesterday. And it's so great because there's only so many people.

Totally.

It's basically you telling the American people what you're doing based upon the campaign promises that President Trump laid out. Right. And there's no nuance. No. There's no bending of the truth. This is what we're doing. Mm-hmm.

And that has to be sort of like self-reinvigorating in a job as hard as yours. Yes, it is. And my job is just to find the facts. I read the news both left and right and every outlet under the sun and figure out, OK, this is what's being reported. Let me go to my colleagues inside the building, the policy experts, the National Security Council, and find out what the facts are.

what the BS is, and then it's my job to go out there and articulate that. And obviously, most importantly, checking in with the president to see where his head is at on the news of the day. So sometimes I feel like I'm an internal investigative reporter because I'm calling people and I'm like, is this BS or is this real? What's the truth? So I can bring that to the briefing room. That's amazing. So like, look, a lot of us who've been in this line of work for a while,

have had some frustrations with the corporate media. Is that so? Yeah, it turns out they don't always... How much time do you have to talk about these frustrations? They always don't, but there's several just structural things that we've always had a problem with. Yeah. That...

I think have been contributors to the group think in the leftist drift of journalism over the years and how they report out facts to the American people. Like for one, you know, everybody kind of hangs out together. You understand that when you're doing like press pools and things like that, they all hang out together. They bump narratives against each other. Yeah. It's a club. And like that part, just kind of anthropologically you understand, um,

What has always made less sense to me is the White House Correspondents Association and like how it is that this unelected sort of unappointed group is

has entirely controlled the information flow all the way from who they appoint to pools to cover the president to who gets what chairs to do who does what. And you just pulled the pin on the grenade and rolled it in the middle of the...

A briefing room? Like that had to... I mean, for people like us... Keeping your promise to the American people, right? That like in 2025, the White House...

you know, press room should reflect the United States of America. Yes. You know, not like three broadcast. Yes. You know, network news stations like this is 50 years ago. And these people are, you know, Edward R. Murrow. Yeah. You know what I mean? Crockett ain't walking through that door. And so, I mean, selfishly, we benefited from that. We benefit from that. When, when John Ashbrook got to ask that first question and his head grew five times in size, we're going to get to more of that in a minute, but, but, but,

Like, look, this is something that you and your team talked about, obviously, and then actually took the step of doing, knowing that these people would set their hair on fire. For sure. The moment that you threatened any of it. Oh, we knew. We were prepared. Look, first of all, this goes back to the nontraditional media strategy that Donald Trump owns.

and won on the campaign trail, sitting down with podcasts and influencers, comedians, and owning that space because no other politician has ever done that before. 100%. And he was able to reach so many people across the country who otherwise would have never heard his honest message and who he really is as a person

because the coverage of him has always been through the bias of the legacy media. So he ran in that lane, and I think in large part he won the election because of that. So many reasons he won the election, obviously, but that's one of many reasons.

And we felt it would be irresponsible of us not to continue that media strategy when we were elected. Why would you stop talking to the people who elected them? Who just helped us get here. Right. Right. So, you know, we announced the new media seat in the briefing room on day one. We've brought in the Ruthless podcast. Yes. You know, people like Sage Steele, who were at Legacy Media Outlet, ESPN forever, and now left that world because she saw the bias within those institutions. Yes.

You know, we've had outlets like Axios and Semaphore who have incredible reach in this city, but also outside the Beltway. And they don't have a seat in the room. Like, why? And also nonpartisan. I mean, we're talking like nonpartisan.

The way that the White House Correspondents Association would like to project upon your decision-making here is that somehow you're just trying to get people to just sort of echo a MAGA message. What you just said, I mean, axio, semaphore, I mean...

critical coverage at times. It's not about trying to get people to be sort of yes-men. The argument that we are trying to create more favorable coverage of Donald Trump or the administration or that we're afraid to take questions from legacy media is laughable because the legacy media is still in the briefing room. I take questions from CNN just as much as I take questions from our great conservative friends who don't have seats in that room that have to stand on the sides for hours just to have a spot in there.

And look at what President Trump is doing. I mean, the man hosted a more than hour long press conference with his entire cabinet and took questions from everybody that was in the room. So, you know, their argument that, you know, this is about the First Amendment and democracy and this and that is completely ridiculous. This is the most transparent administration. We are not afraid to take questions from anyone. But our decision to determine which reporters get the most

to be in the most privileged spaces of the American presidency in the Oval Office on Air Force One. WACA has controlled that for decades, and it's unfair to real people, real journalists who care about truth and accuracy and facts and want those opportunities. And we've heard from...

Wow.

But also, I mean, look, it sort of pulls the mask off what the whole motivation for this group has been all along, which, like you said it best, you go into a cabinet room meeting and he answers questions from every single person. There are two or three times a day where President Donald Trump...

tells you exactly what's going on. Elon Musk goes in, tells you exactly what Doge is happening. We had like eight questions over three months that were answered by Joe Biden. And that is the grand irony of this whole thing is you've got the White House Correspondents Association, you know, talking about a threat to democracy and the independent press and all this sort of stuff. Have you learned nothing? Right. Nobody listens to you. Like, oh, Donald Trump wants state media in the room, you know, and it's like,

There are people in that room that covered for the fact that Joe Biden couldn't do the job. Right. And they did it for four years. Most of them. And they didn't tell us anything about it. And if they want to know why they have no power and the American people don't listen to him as much and like shows like this and like the people that you've had in that chair are important is because they're

We were telling them the truth. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, that's it. But again, when they say it's a threat to democracy, it is a, you know, inhibits the flow of information. Okay. Well, either you can get directly from the spigot. Mm-hmm.

With the president, with you, with your team, with Elon Musk, from all of the cabinet secretaries. Either you can hear with your own ears what exactly is happening on a literal hour-by-hour basis, or you can filter it through the interpretation of eight self-elected, 12 self-elected people who have controlled information access for decades.

since the beginning of politics, basically. For more than 100 years. Yeah. I mean, the White House Correspondents Association was established in the early 1900s because the president at the time was not doing enough press conferences. I don't

think we have that problem anymore and i think everybody would agree right and so again this is and i was very clear yesterday the legacy media will still have their seat at the table there will still be a rotation for those outlets but it's time for new voices to be included and in order for those new voices to be included you know you have to go through this whole vetting process with waka and all

We said, no, like they're here. They're showing up. They should have, you know, be able to come in the room. So. But it's really an unmasking because it's. Yes. What they hide behind is the flow of information to the American people that

that they are the arbiters of truth. Which is funny. I mean, it's hilarious. But there's no element of that. They just want to be the controllers of the information. And you guys just walked in and were like, well, the hell with that. I mean, look, it takes balls. I got to tell you, in this town, and a lot of you who are listening to this across the country, it's hard for you to sort of comprehend. But when it's always done one way...

There is a serious ceiling that you need to crash through in order to make change. It's always hard. You guys did this. You did it relatively quickly. Thank you. Well, you're welcome. This is clearly a nontraditional administration. Yeah. And, you know, President Trump sets the tone with that. Whenever somebody says, we can't do it that way, sir, or it hasn't been done that way. He's like, why? Why? Why? Why?

And if you don't have a good reason for telling him why, you better run out the door. So the answer, the question is not, you know, why we can't do it. It's why we should do it. Right. And we're not afraid to, you know, shake it up. That's what we are. The president was elected to do. It's really just an admirable thing.

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I'm told that you like to have a lot of fun. I do. I think I'm pretty fun. We're fun. We're fun here on the Ruthless Variety Program. We like to play games. Okay. We have a game. It's one of our first. It's called Demerjourno. Okay.

And I feel like you're uniquely well qualified for this. I think I'll be good at this game. I don't want to get ahead of myself. Do you want to explain? So the way that the game works is four statements. I read four statements, three of which have been made by members of the media. Okay. One made by a Democrat.

And you and Josh have to determine who is the Democrat. It's a very difficult game. So it's a head-to-head matchup between myself and Josh. Good luck. No, I feel terrified. I've never actually felt like an underdog here, but I'm definitely an underdog. Yeah, you have an expertise, particularly on the subject that I'll get to later. But first, we've got to play that music. Let's do it.

Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Yeah. Was this song created for this game? You know, it's kind of like, I'm a fan of Miley Cyrus. She has these like backyard sessions she does that are sort of acoustic.

That's ruthless acoustic right there. That was beautiful. Was that you guys singing? We recorded that four years ago in this conference room when we didn't have all the fancy stuff. As you can tell, the microphones were a little different. Yeah, a little bit of an echo. Thank God we didn't have cameras.

But, yeah, you know, and Smug contends that it's a stanza too long. A bit, yes. Okay, so we have agreement on that. We'll have to fight back. It's time to refresh it. We'll have to refresh it. So I themed the four statements today on all of the attacks, frankly, on you and the administration from the White House Correspondents Association. This is unfair, Michael. Yeah, it might be a little unfair. Do you think she's not going to know what's an attack on her? Well, she's a good guest. Okay.

We'd like her to come back. And I just want to assure you that, you know, the White House correspondents like John Ashbrook might be attacking you. But people like us, we stand with the administration. Well, we've asked a lot of questions about why he's not here. And we thought now that you've entered him into the White House correspondents, perhaps, you know, he's just showing solidarity with these people. If that's so, he is not welcome back. I'm just kidding.

Okay. Oh, I love this. I heard he has the flu. Yeah. Feel better, John. This is the long time. He's going to get him one way or another. I had to get retribution. Okay. All right. So statement number one. Okay. Donald Trump's White House kicked a HuffPo reporter out of the pool of journalists set to follow the president on Wednesday, breaking with decades of precedent and insisting they have the ability to pick and choose which reporters cover the president. Okay. Okay.

That's statement number one. So we have to, okay, just remember, three of these are journos. Yeah. One of them is a Democratic. Do I say it now? No, no, no. Wait till the end. Are you taking notes? I have to. I'm up against the best. Nobody gave me a notebook. Well, I have the printouts here. I'm going to give them to you at the end here. Okay, let me just. I need an advantage, Michael. I need an advantage. She's like Rain Man when it comes to this stuff. Okay, statement number two.

Let's be clear about what this means. Donald Trump is handpicking the reporters that cover him and his administration. This is straight out of the Kremlin playbook of intimidating reporters and manipulating press coverage, and it should alarm every American. She already knows. You don't know that one? I think I do.

I'm so eager to say it. When do I get to announce my answers? We'll get there. It's a slow fuse. It's part of building the pageantry of the game. You know how we love pageantry. We do. Statement number three. Unimprecedented seizing of control over coverage of the American presidency by an administration. Free speech advocates expressed alarm.

Over what it could mean for democracy. The tell is the free speech advocates. Yes. She is entirely right about that. She gets the game intuitively. You said like Rain Man. This is it. Anybody who's ever been in press on a representation standpoint. It's my favorite thing. Yeah. They email. Caroline.

Ethical experts are saying this. And then you say this. This is Stephen Chung, my great colleague, our White House communications director. Love him. We write back, which experts? And then they send the names and we Google them. And they're like Democrat donors funded by George Soros. And you're like, we copy and paste their Wikipedia. We're like, these experts, asshole. This is not a real story. These are not.

A real story. It's so good. It's so good. The tell of any liberal reporter. Isn't that the magic of this game? Yes. If you've done this. You get it. You know the weasel words. Yes. Because they're saying what they want to say, but they're like, well, the experts are the ones that are saying it. Not me. It's the experts. The experts. Statement number four. Trump White House on the way to establishing its own version of a Kremlin press pool. Approved media only.

So we've got two references to the Kremlin here. Oh, wait, hold on. Yeah. That's four, right? Four statements. That's all four. All right. So three of them are journos. One of them. Okay. So I'm going to give these to you. Okay. I have it in my brain, but I'll take another look. She doesn't need, she's the White House press secretary. She does this without notice. I don't know if you've noticed, but she's had no binder.

The binder's in my brain. She just does the binder in the brain. But, you know, we can give her paper if you want. We're giving you a little. Okay. All right. So we're looking at this. My thought is that the three is completely a journo. And that's unquestionably a journo. You would obviously agree with this, Carolyn. How do you want to sequence this? Should we have her?

Give her a thought. She's just going to know the answer. You think she's just going to know the answer? I think so. I mean, she's that good. You've seen her. Okay, let's do it. Okay. You've seen her? Yeah. Okay. I'm dead here. Okay, so you don't want to talk it out? No. You want to talk it out? It's a game. You can't forfeit. Yeah, no, I'm not going to. All right. So...

I think number one strikes me as a journo because breaking with decades of precedent is the clause by which the rest of the statement lives within. Okay. Right? So what they've said here is something that absolutely nobody could disagree with. But the breaking with decades of precedent is where they live under, and that's kind of what the journos do. Okay. So I'm going to say that's a journo. Okay.

What do you think? It's clear that this man has spent years and years, more years than I, or than me in comms, because I would agree with his rationale. Where I'm stuck is the two Kremlins...

Look, just by virtue of the way that it's constructed, the fourth one is so simplistic. The beauty of the reason why journos have existed before you taking control of the White House press office is because they add enough sort of flowery bullshit to present to the American people something that it's like, maybe that could be true. Mm-hmm.

They add language, as you said, flowery language. It's a good way to put it.

in between their lies to make it sound like they know what they're talking about. And you really have to carefully read and parse out what they're saying. But unfortunately for us, the average American who's living their lives and working their businesses and raising their kids don't have the time to analyze every word of crap. So that's how they do it. They get by with this flowery language. I love the way you said that. So, I mean, I think...

I think I'm going to go with four as the Dem as a result. Okay. You believe it's number four. But, I mean, I'm just waiting to get beat on this. I hate to just see like I'm agreeing with you, but I am agreeing with you. Okay. Um...

This is definitely a journo, as we already said, the experts, the free speech advocates. Now, there was a journo who made reference to how it reminds him of his time covering the Kremlin. This was Peter Baker. Mr. Peter Baker. Yes. Whom I couldn't help but call him out for such a ridiculous statement. It was well done. But neither of these are his. So it looks like we have more people echoing this absurd absurdity. Yeah.

So I think I'm going to have to go with number two is the Dem. Wow. Okay. Wow. Okay. Here we go. Wait. No, no, no. You're good. You're good. Number four. Are you going with four? Wait. Yeah. Number four is the one that's the. Yeah. Number four is the Dem. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot of paper here, Michael. There is. Well, we've got a lot of, you know, just trying to provide. Four is the Dem. Four is the Dem. Okay. Okay.

Well, number one, correct, that is actually Brian Stelter. Oh, yeah, the potato himself. Very concerned for the Huffington Post. Yeah, a lot of thoughts and prayers for the HuffPo. Which, by the way, you don't have to tell me if it's true or not, but I need to talk about it because this is in my own head. When SV Date got the Super Bowl assignment...

Like I was, I was just so personally offended. And I know that like that you can't control that, that that's what they do. That I was like, I literally said it on the show. I was like, that's going to be the end of the White House Correspondents Association. Let me just say this. There couldn't be a less fun reporter today.

to enjoy going to the Super Bowl on a Sunday with the President of the United States than SB Date. And I say that with love in my heart. There are a lot of reporters who we don't agree with their reporting, but like,

They're pretty cool, normal people. Yeah. Who would have enjoyed a day aboard Air Force One going to the Super Bowl. It is not that serious. Well, like Ashbrook said, there's a ton of color in the room. There's a lot of stuff going on. A lot to report on. And his was like two lines. We had cabinet secretaries on board with their spouses. We proclaimed Gulf of America Day. Like, how much fun is that? Yeah.

And he just. No. What you should have done is you should have sent a playbook to the White House Correspondents Association and be like the first one to identify a cover three defense. You're invited. Oh, that's that's totally definitely would have lost. Yeah. If you watch the second of the game, it would have shocked me. But I think that's something the press are having a hard time with.

We are genuinely having so much fun. Yeah. And this is why you're seeing them obsess over Elon Musk and President Trump. And they're trying so hard but failing to drive a wedge in that relationship. Yeah. Because they love those sensationalist stories of trying to pin people against each other. And as staff and the president himself is having the time of his life. I mean, he loves doing these Oval Office press conferences. Yeah. He's a master. He's a master.

He was like, Caroline, get the hats. He comes back. I get that Trump was right about everything. Red hats. He's handing them out to the journalists. Like, they've never seen anything like this and they don't know how to do it. They're like, how dare you? They know he's funny. Yeah. And they know we're having fun. But...

Can't do it. They can't crack the smile, but we know they're secretly enjoying it. There's a few that are, for sure. All right, so what else? Well, I'm going to save the two Kremlin ones because I think you guys have correctly identified those are the pivot points. Number three. Can we go to number three, please, Spaghetti? That is Lori Kelman from the Associated Press. Wow. Wow.

Yeah, the free speech advocates expressed, which you guys correctly identified as the weasel words, you know, where they defer to the experts. It's the clause. Maybe I'll email and ask which free speech advocates she's referring to. I think that, you know. Probably somebody in the Arabella Advisors dark money network. I'll just add a federal judge did not agree with the AP. Sheldon Whitehouse, however, is an advocate that definitely thinks that way.

Well, here comes the bad news, folks. Oh, no. Let's put up number four. Oh, my gosh. Did we lose? Number four was Susan Glasner at the New Yorker. No. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. Its own version. You know what? I should have gone with my gut. Yeah. You were close. I was there. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Is she married to Peter Baker? Mm-hmm. She is, isn't she? Yes. It all makes sense. It makes sense. Look at that.

That's a real twist. That's a Shyamalan twist. We both lost. Yeah. I'm deeply disappointed. And for the record, number two was Senator Chris Van Hollen. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So... It's a tough game. It's the toughest game. That's why they say at the end of the thing, nobody knows. So sad. Why did I agree with you? I'm trying to be nice. Your gut was right, 100%. It was. You saw me. Yeah? I know. I had my two pies.

And then I tried to save you. I was like, no, too. I went against my own principle. Never go against your instinct. I've got one additional thing here. A dessert, if you will, for this game. Because number one was Brian Stelter. Again, very concerned. That was just the appetizer and the entree. It was a mousse bouche. And we had mains. And now we're going to the dessert.

And so for dessert, we have Brian Stelter expressing a very different opinion about whether it's okay to leave people out of the briefing room. Can we play that video?

There are, you know, these questions about Fox's as Fox radicalizes and as it becomes even more and more of a political tool. Zerwick, you wrote a column recently for The Sun about this saying Fox should be viewed as a political tool. And that raises a question. Should it be a part of the White House press pool? Should it be afforded the privileges that come with news gathering, even though they do have some news reporters at the White House? You're saying they're primarily a political tool. So so should that be reassessed, Zerwick?

Listen, I really do. I think it's a discussion we need to have. Look, you're not supporting democracy. You're not supporting the larger values of this country. They don't even stand up as an opposition party. But there's nothing journalistic in what Lachlan Murdoch said. And you know what? I say, hey, you know what? Let's take them at their word. Let's not let them on the plane. You want to let the Proud Boys on your plane on Air Force One? No, I don't think so. These guys are doing the same thing.

So that's what we call TDS. Yeah. I'm not sure if you've ever heard about it. I just diagnosed that man. Yeah. Shout out to Maze Moore on Twitter who found that clip. That's a great clip. I can't believe I haven't seen it. But to the arguments that you're fielding all day, every day, they were making it about a Biden administration. About the number one television network on the planet. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

more viewers than anybody else in the legacy media and that's the network he's talking about and you'd like do see asking a few questions about you know whether biden had the mental fitness to complete his term and next thing you know you get this the potato out there saying like they should be off the plane i am actually stunned by that clip i can't believe it and i wish i found it myself i'm gonna have our rapid response team go recycle that one for our social media but

just the Democrats and the, their allies in the media are the masters of projection. They point the finger at Donald Trump and Republicans and accuse them of something. You can always find a time in which they did that thing themselves. Right. Always. Yep. Oh, a hundred percent threat to democracy. They were the ones threatening our democracy for the past four years with the border invasion, with the wars that were breaking out everywhere, with the weaponization of justice. I mean,

Everything they say about Republicans, they themselves are doing. And that's no different. It's why it makes so much sense that you're doing what you're doing. Because you're not... They keep saying...

On repeat, this is about bringing in favorable coverage. It's not. Conservatives actually have real questions. As President Trump has fielded through nine years on the public state, I mean, really, like 40 years in public, but in politics, he takes all these questions and conservatives actually want to know the answer to it. Whereas we've been force-fed for decades a filtered trajectory

truth that can't actually ever get to the truth. And you've just said, no, we're taking all that off the lenses off. You can ask us anything. 100%. I mean, the day of the inauguration, the president is sworn in, takes the oath of office and

goes to the White House, is in the Oval Office, has a stack of executive orders that he's signing, as promised, and lets a group of journalists into the Oval and talks them while signing executive orders and talking. His color commentary, by the way. Which is incredibly impressive, by the way. You're like signing EOs and you're taking questions at the same time. It's like a skill not many could do. Joe Biden definitely couldn't do it. No, no. But...

But I mean, that is the most accessible president we've ever had. Ever. And it's a it's questions on every topic under the sun. And again, he did it with his entire cabinet sitting around him, the transparency and the accessibility. And they don't say it on the air, but they will tell you off the record that they are pleased with that. Yes. And we want to just it's a continuation of that effort to be accessible and transparent, answer questions on any issue under the sun.

And that's what we want. We want more voices in the room, not less. The legacy media will still be there, as we've said. But there are many other people in this country across the country who deserve a seat. You know, we had a local media row last week at the White House and there were local radio hosts and television hosts from across the country.

Many of whom I actually got to know on the campaign because I would call into local radio all the time. It's like the heartbeat of the country, right? Like people driving to work, listening to their local radio. So I've become friends with these guys over the phone. This is the first time meeting them in person. They were so excited to be at the White House and ask real questions of administration officials. We had cabinet secretaries go over there. They were just so honored by the privilege of

of covering the president of the United States so up close and personal. And I think a lot of journalists in the city, unfortunately, have forgotten that it is a privilege to be in the Oval Office every single day and aboard Air Force One. And so this is our reminder of, again, it's a privilege to be in that room. There is limited space. So why should a group of D.C.-based elitist journalists get to determine who enters and accesses that space? Listen, with President Trump...

With your help is running the absolute most transparent information flow of any administration in history. I don't even think it's close. Before you go, can I ask you a couple of personal things? Sure. When did you get into politics? In college. I'm from New Hampshire. Yeah. Which, you know, very political state. Granite state. Granite state. Live free or die. And first to the nation primary. I went to college, St. Anselm, which is they do polling and they have the primary every year.

And I just kind of threw myself into politics in school. And then one opportunity led to the next. I like this. Yes. Yeah. Didn't grow up in it by any means. Yeah. Family owned small businesses. But when I got to college, I realized I really enjoyed media and news and enjoyed getting in political debates in class and just found one opportunity after the next.

When you first got linked up with President Trump and he went to work, all of us who've ever been involved in this world who have been attached to a principle in one way or another knew there was like a moment or at least a couple of moments where you're like...

Yeah, this is going to work. Like, I really want to work hard for this. You recall sort of in the onboarding and the piece about you getting involved and more involved. And then ultimately, I mean, you're dedicating your life to this at this point, a moment where you were like this, I believe in this all the way through.

So I've been a supporter of the president since 16. I mean, I voted for him in the New Hampshire primary in 2016. So I've always believed very strongly in his message, but certainly working for him over the years, you know, you, as you said, when you work for a principal, you get to know them personally. Right. And so, you know, I obviously wholeheartedly, a hundred percent support everything that president Trump does and,

policy-wise and the agenda that we're enacting every day. And it was great to be part of that campaign. And now we went from campaigning to governing and we're actually doing what the president said he was going to do. And it's so incredible to watch that come to life. But I also have grown to know him as a person and seeing who he is personally.

He's like the best boss. He is so uplifting of everybody who works for him, always flattering everybody with praise. And you see that publicly too, right? Like this guy's from central casting or she's phenomenal. Like that's just how he is. And that's true. Like in front of the cameras and when the cameras are off,

And he tells it like it is. And he is hilarious. He's truly one of the funniest people I've ever met. That part is so underrated. I mean, look, I've never I obviously have never worked for for President Trump. But I had an occasion over a couple of years to every six weeks go in and and speak with him. And my only conclusion after like the third meeting was.

Was this guy's got to be the funniest public figure I've ever been around. I mean, I was in tears laughing almost every time. Yeah, he is. Stand up comedy level stuff. He has a great sense of humor. Yeah. And it's just fun to be around. And that's what I go back to what I said earlier. Like we are genuinely having fun. We're working our butts off. I mean, it's 15, 18 hour days. You got to love it to do that.

You have to love what you're doing and love the people you're working with. There it is. The president has put together a phenomenal team. The cabinet is great.

and everybody's friends. You look at the cabinet, they've all worked together in some capacity or campaigned for the president together over the past several years. And then the team that Susie Wiles has put together, whom everybody respects and admires and loves, is great. And many of us worked on the campaign together, so we got in on day one with a battle rhythm already under our belts, and we're genuinely all friends and want to see each other succeed. And the communication staff whom I work with, with

You know, Stephen, my direct colleague, and Taylor Budowich, who's our deputy chief of staff. Yeah, great guy. Great guy and just great visionary. And we're all in it together. And it's just a really great place to be. I mean, you can tell. Yeah. You can tell. I mean, anything in this line of work...

If you're going to succeed, it's because of the people around you and everybody enjoying and knowing that nobody's like searching. And coming from the campaign into the White House and like having served in the foxhole with all these people, you build that camaraderie. Totally. And it feels like this. And we talked to Bruce, it's about this, but like, it feels like y'all are running the permanent campaign.

Like you're moving at the pace of a campaign in the White House now. And just because like you've accomplished so much so quickly, you know, the fastest rate of confirmation since 2001, you know, and it's like you only get that sort of continuity when you bring in people who were like,

in that foxhole with you. Yeah. We were in the foxhole. I mean, the president has faced so much adversity throughout his entire political tenure. But certainly, you know, over the course of the last campaign, the trials and, you know, we sat in a dirty Manhattan courtroom for weeks. Oh, my God.

Watching Alvin Bragg just persecute your boss like that built some camaraderie amongst the team. And then, of course, the president almost nearly losing his life twice was something that we all endured together. And watching his determination through those moments to just

keep going and fighting and it totally fuels you. Good leadership, you know, it stems from the top and trickles down to the rest of the team. And that's obviously a stark contrast to the previous administration who had no leadership. And it, you know, it impacted the,

our country and people's lives. And, you know, it's all fun, but we do take obviously the responsibility of governing incredibly seriously. And the president is working literally around the clock. You know, he's negotiating a peace deal with Ukraine and Russia as we speak, you know, the talks in the middle East, he continues to be very involved in. We're rolling out new policy and EOs every day. So everybody is working 24 seven, but,

Like you said, you have to love what you do. Incredibly impressive. And listen, you're welcome back anytime you want. I want you to know, though, the absence of our colleague, we'll send somebody else. We'll send somebody else. Oh, don't be so hard on him. Maybe Duncan. Maybe you can get retribution this way. Maybe Smug. If called, I will serve. If called, I will serve.

But we'd love to see you guys back at the White House at some point. Briefing room. We're going to do some more fun and creative things in the weeks and months ahead. I cannot compliment you enough about everything you guys have done up to this point. I can't thank you enough for coming here, sharing some views, and a welcome back anytime. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you.

I don't have to tell you Americans are ready for what's next. Moving beyond the hardships of inflation and economic anxiety towards building a future, a better future for our families. Ensuring greater access to more affordable energy that powers daily lives, reliable energy that fuels innovation and economic growth, and the abundant energy that keeps our nation safer and more secure. It's all within our grasp.

We'll do this together, building a brighter future for us, powered by America's oil and natural gas resources. You can learn more about all of this at API.org. So, Dunks, you know, our colleagues are away, so we figured what we would do here is film the banger of all bangers. Yeah, right. I'm very— You got Carolyn in here. Yeah.

Just like spitting darts. Yeah. And she's fantastic. She's fantastic. And like she said, they're having fun. They're keeping Donald Trump's promises and they're having fun doing it. Yeah. And you can just tell it's infectious. They're smart. Yeah. Gosh, they're smart. She's so quick and so personable. I mean, it goes a long way in this line of work. You don't find that a lot. But just in case you didn't get enough.

You might as well hear from the Senate Majority Leader. It's just an embarrassment of riches today. You want to hear from the Senate Majority Leader of what's going on? Well, that's what we've got. Well, we have the luxury here in the Ruthless Variety program of every once in a while having some super VIP guests. That's right. And as you can see... It's getting deep in here already. We have the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, John Thune. Welcome. Thanks, Josh. Good to be with you. Mike, nice to see you. This is great. So listen, you're a couple months on the job. Mm-hmm.

I have consistently said this might be the hardest job maybe in all of America, but certainly in Washington is wrangling a bunch of senators to try to get mutual goals accomplished, particularly the front end of an administration. But you look around. I mean, you guys are way ahead of pace on nominations, confirmations, you know, not without controversy, but somehow you've just managed to line these things up despite Democrats trying to stop you at all turns.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's good. It's a good team ball. I mean, we had really good cooperation. And I'll tell you, it's nice to have 53 instead of 50 or 51 in the Senate.

But the confirmation process is challenging because if Democrats want to, they can drag it out, and they have been. But we've been able to use and manage the clock, I think, well and force them to concede on a lot of things and to give us essentially what we wanted in terms of the schedule. So we got through it pretty well. We've got a couple left, and we'll try and finish those up.

You know, Senator McConnell always reminded us that the Senate spends two-thirds of its time on personnel. Yeah. You think about it. Yeah. We're like a human resources factory. And there's, you know, 1,100 executive branch positions that come through the Senate for confirmation. And then you add on top of that all the judges, the entire judiciary. Yeah.

and it's just a consuming thing. So it makes it really hard to legislate. And to your point, in the Senate, you've got all these procedures and rules you have to follow that the Democrats can use to stall and slow things down.

So it makes it hard to do anything. I frankly am of the mind, and I would say this for a Republican or a Democrat president, we ought to cut that about in half. I don't think when the founders put advice and consent into the Constitution, they were thinking about 1,100. I mean, you get presidents who don't get their people in place until the third year or the four-year term. And that just doesn't make sense. It is absurd. But you're still confirming here on the fastest clip since 2001

Right. Correct. And while doing that, you're also getting good legislation in place here. Can you tell us about this Women in Sports Act that I know y'all are working on? Yeah. So we're going to put that on the floor early next week. And it's an issue the House has voted on. And the president issued an executive order. What this would do is codify the executive order. But essentially, you know, it bans biological males from competing in women's sports. Yeah.

Just the right thing to do. Yeah, well, you know, as a girl dad, both of our daughters, and now I've got granddaughters, were very active in sports. I've got my oldest daughter is in both her high school and college Hall of Fame. Oh, the Thins are into sports? I didn't know that. Go figure. But so, you know, intuitively, I think people just, this is why this is an 80-20 issue. It's people like, yeah, well, of course, right? Yeah.

And it's unfortunate that it's something that needs to be codified, but we're going to try and make sure that the president's EO...

endures over time. And the way to do that is to have Congress to take action. My assumption is we'll get a lot of resistance, obviously, from the Democrats. Which is unbelievable at some level. It really is. I mean, like I said, I think there are some things, you know, clearly there are partisan political issues in our times and things that we deal with legislatively, which create sort of the deep political divide that we have. But

But this one to me, yeah, it just seems like it's just common sense. You know, I mean, logic, once in a while you ought to yield logic and just say, this makes, you know, this just makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, exactly. So it's hard to, hard to feature how you could formulate an argument against that. Uh,

Um, but, um, we're going to find out here in a few days, uh, what the Dems think. Yeah. No kidding. So, I mean, look, one of the underrated parts of the job that you have is, you know, Senate at some level has to work with some consensus left and right in order to move anything. You've been able to roll through that with the nomination and confirmation process, despite Democrats doing everything. And so there has to be some level of comedy. How difficult is that?

Because, you know, right now you saw all these nominations where you'd settled, you had the votes, it was going to happen. They make you run the clock no matter what. And then they head out to a press conference at USAID, which like, I mean, they're beclowning themselves. So politically, it's not the worst thing in the world. But you're watching, you got to be watching this and saying like, come on. Well, I mean, I think that you, they're picking, you pick and choose the issues you want to highlight. And they're picking and choose issues that I just, you know, I'm like, really? This is what you want to talk about? Yeah.

But, you know, there are times, you're right, and you know this as well as anybody, Josh, where in the Senate particularly because of the rules, you have to find on some issues, including spending bills, bipartisan cooperation. It takes 60 votes, not 51, to do anything consequential in the Senate with the exception of budget reconciliation, which when you have unified control of the government, House, Senate, and White House, you can do things at 51 that you otherwise wouldn't be able to.

And obviously that's a situation we're now in and we intend to do everything we can to take advantage of that. But you still have to – when it comes to doing a farm bill, for example, that's a bipartisan exercise. Or like I said, funding the government. There are any number of things that if you're going to do them, you're going to have to have some Democrat cooperation. And right now it's really hard because the Democrats are just so spun up. I mean –

And over the strangest things, but this Trump derangement syndrome is real on their side. And it is, I mean, they can't see straight. Even when we were going through the budget...

resolution process last week. I adjourned the Senate at 4.51 a.m. We stayed up all night and voted on Democrat amendments. You've been there. On Democrat amendments. And some of them are just, and some of these folks on their side, I mean, they were just, they can't contain themselves. I mean, they are just so much anger and hostility right now. And I think they're coming out of an election and they're just trying to find their footing and find something they can get traction with and trying to find an identity for

Most folks take when they take an electoral beating, they sort of sit back for a minute and say, all right, what do we do wrong? Yeah. Let's think about what we're not communicating to the American people. Maybe our issue set is a little off. And it strikes me that Schumer and these guys have done the exact opposite. They just fire at everything. Yeah, they're crabs in a barrel and they're fighting over each other to get out. Yeah. And it's just it is. It's just like these very niche things and the anger and they just can't help themselves.

And not everything is a constitutional crisis. Right, yeah. Well, and as I pointed out in a floor speech not that long ago, they are attacking the Trump administration for use of executive power. Yeah. And I was like, where were these guys in the last four years? That's an interesting concept. Where there are all these abuses of executive power. And, you know, every president comes in and there's this tension between the branches of the government. Right.

But, you know, right now, picking, for example, Doge and USAID, you know, you get outside, you get 800 meters from this building, and people agree with that. They think the government ought to be downsized, and we ought to do things in a more efficient, smarter way and make our government more cost-effective.

and modernize it with technology. I think those are things that most people agree on. But they opted to pick USAID or whatever that particular program is and turn it into some sort of a cause to raise money from their base.

But I think what they're losing sight of, and it's sometimes easy to do this, is the broader, the middle of the electorate, the people in this country who are paying the bills, the taxpayers, who are ultimately on the hook for the cost of government, see this through a different lens. And those are the folks that gave Trump the win and gave us the majorities in the House and the Senate. Yeah, it turns out those people aren't their voters. Yeah, that's right. They don't represent them any longer. Yeah, they really, there's been a...

a change, and you're right, coming out of that, you think, okay, let's do a little self-reflection here. Right. But they're doubling down. They really are. They're doubling down. Yeah. So...

Look, now you get to the portion of the program where you're going to be dealing with core sort of Trump administration priorities, priorities of your members, House Republicans. And there's a bunch of big stuff that needs to happen. You took a huge step by passing the budget last week, which big accomplishment there. I don't think people would actually realize each piece of this step is as difficult as it actually is.

But then this unlocks the ability to do reconciliation and ultimately –

Get the tax cuts done. Get the important pieces with energy, immigration, all of this various stuff. It's not going to be easy. I imagine with your conversations with the speaker and with the president, you guys are kind of working through the formulation of how you're going to handle that now. Yeah, and there's some decision points ahead. This is the one big beautiful. The one big beautiful. Yeah. But, you know, you do –

Historically, if you go back 100 years, there have been five times when Republicans have had unified control of the government. By that, I mean House, Senate, White House. And four of those five times, it only lasted two years. And the other time, it lasted four years. So it doesn't come along very often and sometimes doesn't last very long. And so the use of budget reconciliation to accomplish things

at a 51 vote threshold in the Senate is unique historically, but it's a real opportunity for us. And so locking in and hopefully making permanent the 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Trump tax cuts, whatever you want to call them, is a part of that. Doing some things on, you know, deficit reduction, getting us on a more sustainable fiscal path, I think too, is part of it. And that's where Doge comes in and some of the other ideas with respect to

trying to rein in spending. Energy policy, things that we can do to make America more energy dominant, I think is a part of this conversation. Things that we can do to secure the border. There are a whole range of things that we believe are eligible for and that we ought to be able to... And part of it is in the Senate. You got to get past the parliamentarian. She's like the referee of all this. But

There are things I think we can do based upon the use by the Democrats when they had unified control of the government. That's how we get Obamacare funds. Well, that and then – but then we got the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act. Those were all done through budget reconciliation, and they created a template by expanding the scope of what is eligible –

under budget reconciliation for us to do some things that we think really need to be done. But chief among those really is if we can make that tax policy permanent and create certainty in the economy, predictability around tax policy. And to me, tax policy always ought to be about growth. Economic growth, the old axiom that a rising tide lifts all the boats. You get a growing economy

better paying jobs people are you know making money they're taking realizations and they're paying taxes and government revenue goes up up i mean one of the ways that you deal with you know deficits long term is you restrain spending obviously but then you also create growth in the economy when the economy is growing and expanding it generates more revenue and it makes a lot of a lot of these problems that we have look smaller by comparison no question so in you know

those tax cuts from Trump's first term and everything. The thing that really bothers me is in the conversation...

you know, the media and the Democrats and every once in a while, some Republicans to talk about these pay for us for tax cuts. Like this isn't the people's money in the first place. Right. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that other side of it, which is like unleashing the American economy on things like energy and all that. So could you give our listeners sort of a preview of, of what that might look like? That component to the growth component to the American economy that really allows us to take off.

Yeah, so if you think about it, Mike, and obviously to me – and when we went through 2017 and I was on the Senate Finance Committee and helped negotiate a lot of the policy, particularly around the small business provisions, the 199A for pass-through businesses. Very big.

And those things... If we could slot podcasts in this time. Yeah, I was going to say, there's a carve-out for podcasts. But the whole objective was, if you want to get faster growth in the economy, lower rates and faster cost recovery. And so bonus depreciation, interest deductibility, R&D expensing were all provisions that generated significant amount of economic growth. And when you get that growth...

You know, the standard rule of thumb is that for every one percentage increase in GDP, you get about $3 trillion in additional tax revenue over a decade. This is math that has eluded Democrats. Growth benefits everybody, yeah. Forever. And people are – you've got incentives for investment, which is creating those better-paying jobs. And, again, it improves people's –

standard of living, quality of life. And if you look at what happened in the aftermath of 2017, at least prior to the pandemic, we were actually closing the income disparity in this country. People in the lower end of the income categories were seeing the biggest growth in income.

And unemployment was at a 50-year low. So there are, in my view, these policies don't happen in a vacuum. They create the conditions that are favorable for making America an attractive place to invest. And I think it's tax policy. I also think it's regulatory policy and lightening that touch. And that's another thing that when Trump came in, a lot of executive orders that are designed –

to do away with some of this heavy handed, um, burdensome, um, regulatory framework that the Biden administration created and a lot of it, a lot of it around energy. Yeah. Yeah. And so unleashing American energy, um, you know, allowing, trying to figure out how to, uh, reform our permitting process so that you can get through the, the siting and the, um, all those things faster, uh,

and then also open up more areas for energy development. And my view is if it's American, it ought to be in all of the above. We ought to support and encourage and incentivize investment in American energy and become not only a country that can take care of our own energy needs, but hopefully help with some of our allies who are too dangerously dependent upon countries like Russia. Yeah. No kidding. Look, I think you've done an absolutely terrific job of –

Senate Republicans, many of which are just sort of ideologically aligned on this stuff, but understanding the opportunities ahead and being able to not quibble over every thing on the way to actually getting the opportunity to do these big things. I mean, you hear a lot of Republicans you were mentioning talking about, you know, you're paying for tax cuts, this, that, and the other thing. It's like, man, what you just explained is the reason that conversation doesn't work.

I mean, what you just explained is the revenue growth, which Democrats will never concede, CBO won't even concede, is your economy is growing much faster than you could tax your way out of when you're lowering the rates. And that's ultimately the conversation that will happen primarily in the House with House Republicans. But ultimately, you guys need to get together on that. I'm assuming you and Johnson and-

Yeah, I mean, we'll figure it out. And you're right. We've got some folks who think, oh, this has got to be offset. We've got to pay for this or that. But this is extending existing tax policy. And I still hear John Kyle in my ear on that. We don't pay for extending existing tax policy.

But the Democrats, oddly enough, their argument now is that we're cutting taxes to give tax cuts to billionaires. And I'm like, this is the law today. What are we cutting? I mean, all we're doing, you know, so this is the current policy. This is the current law. One trick pony stuff. Yeah, to think that you somehow can make an argument that by – because what's going to happen at the end of the year if we don't do anything is a $4.5 trillion tax increase.

of which falls on ordinary Americans, people who make, families who make less than $400,000 a year. So there's a

There's a huge part of this tax policy. And this is the thing I feel like in 2017, unfortunately, the Democrat narrative, they did a pretty good job of getting out there and making this about tax cuts for the rich. And nothing could be further from the truth. No, I know. I mean, if you look at, and we paid a lot of attention to the distribution tables and how does this, you know, the proportion of taxes paid by different income categories is

The tax code actually became more progressive after 2017 than it was prior to. In other words, people in the lower income categories were paying less of the tax burden and people in the higher end were paying more. You made a mistake of doing math. That's the funniest part of all of this is we're about to find out how much they actually believe the lie.

That's right. Yes. Yeah, totally. So the last piece of housekeeping you've got, you've got in March government funding. That's never a pleasant exercise. No. Left over from a previous Congress, left to you all to try to figure out how to get funded for the rest of the year. What do you think? Yeah. So as you guys all know, the federal fiscal year starts October 1. So we're halfway into fiscal year 25. Yeah.

And even though last year in the Senate and under the leadership on the Republican side of Senator Collins, 11 of the 12 appropriation bills were reported out. And they were reported out before the end of July of last year. And a number of them came out unanimously.

In spite of that, Chuck Schumer never put a single one on the floor. Yeah, weird. It's almost like he was trying to... Well, yeah, he's trying to create this pileup. And after the election went the way it did, I think then he doubled down on not wanting to do anything. And so now we're faced with this funding deadline, and the Democrats are out there publicly, if you can believe this, talking about shutting down the government. Oh, yeah. And in a mess that was entirely...

left to us by them. This is a pileup that was created by their inactivity and failure to do the basic tasks of funding the government last year. And so now we're having to clean up after that. And we're figuring out, you know, the best way to accomplish that to make sure that we keep the government funded, but in a way that is consistent with the overall goals that we have with regard to fiscal issues.

sustainability, fiscal responsibility, and moving us in a different direction as a country. And then fiscal year 26, which now will be on our watch.

we can start getting underway with. But it's just unfortunate that we have to clean up fiscal year 25 under people's mess. Super good at not doing anything. They really are. They've turned it into an art form. So, listen, last question. For all the years I was in the Senate, I think you were the land speed Senate holder for running around the Capitol.

There was nobody who could touch Thune. I'm wondering with the new, we've gotten younger. Has anybody threatening your 40 time? Yeah. Well, we've got some, we haven't, we haven't laced them up lately to see if anybody's got the, got what it takes, but. That's good. You got to blow off some steam though. Maybe just take it right down the Ohio clock corridor, straight across. That's right. So, you know, great honey. You got to take a spoonful of that before you do it. But seriously, one of the, you know, uh,

And for a while there, they had this race that I used to run. It was the three-mile run in the Capital Challenge, they called it. And for a while, I was like the fastest person in Congress. And so I would always remind people that's like being the best surfer in Kansas. You know, it's a nice title to have, but it really doesn't mean much. And it's great. So, yeah. But we've got some really great young senators who joined us. Seems like a lot of energy. There's a lot of energy. Yeah. Yeah.

Very exciting. Comes with an education, as we always know. Yeah. But you're doing an absolutely terrific job. These are the South Dakota products that you've brought us. These are... Little beef jerky. Yeah. The honey's going to keep us healthy. Yeah, that's right. We got some bison in here, too, which I always appreciate. Yeah, that's right. Awesome. And this doesn't exactly look like Skinny Pop over here. This is Galen's. This is Honey Farms. 80 Honey Farms. Wow. That may not be Maha...

It's going to go down smooth, I can tell you that. How's the Jackrabbit basketball team? They're decent. I think it's a wide-open tournament this year, our conference tournament. It'll start here in another week or so.

But the women are ranked. Jackrabbit women are 20, they're top 25 in the country. And the men have had a nice season, and I think they very well could win the tournament. So, yeah, go Jacks. Go Jacks. Go Jacks. Listen, Majority Leader Thune, thank you so much for joining us. Great to be with you. Thanks, Josh. Thanks, Mike. Well, that was fantastic. I mean, they're doing a great job. Majority Leader Thune, his entire team.

Two months in, I can't find a flaw. They've processed everything. I mean, look, it's going to get harder. He explained that. Yeah. But the basic arguments of what he's laying out are exactly right and what he's –

cajoling colleagues to get behind here in the Trump agenda and making sure that we've got an economy that works and everything. I mean, it's just fantastic. Also, first-rate dude. First-rate dude, great personality. And like you said, he's moving the Senate at a pace that's just absolutely incredible. And I mean, you kind of have to with everything that Trump's doing on his end in the administration. Totally. Well, with that, I think we've done it. I think we've done it. And we don't have our colleagues. And I think it's appropriate we go to Hollywood Hen.

Another banger of an episode, folks. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. Stay ruthless.

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Welcome to Combat Story. I'm Ryan Fugit, and I served war zone tours as an Army attack helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15-year career. I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat. On this show, I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their front lines. This is Combat Story.

They were pinned down from a dish cut and the dish cut was coming from a third story of a seven story apartment building. And then we blew that third story out within like maybe a minute and a half or two minutes of getting that nine line.