How Trump Is Destroying The Legacy News Media - Trump Chief Strategist Chris LaCivita Joins The Progrum!
01:33:39 Share

It's about the people who are listening, reading and looking for information. And that's where the legacy media has gone way off the rails over the last couple of decades. They think that they're the main character and their audience is secondary. When legacy media for years and years and years has relegated regular people to comment sections that they roll their eyes at.

Yeah, they don't look at it. And the whole point of this show, the whole point of new media is to give voice to regular people. And that's why it's successful. They think that it's top down and they should be telling the public what to think. And we see ourselves, especially when we take in people's questions, we're getting the people to ask the question. We finally beat Medicare.

He's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death. Joe Biden's legacy for seniors? He raided Medicare, made premiums skyrocket, and drove up drug costs. Worse, the Biden pill penalty is already slashing the development of affordable drugs, forcing seniors to pay the price of Biden's failed policy. Biden broke Medicare, but President Trump can fix it. Call Congress and urge them to end the Biden pill penalty.

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...

Well, good Tuesday to you, and welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. I am Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug Michael Duncan and White House correspondent John Ashbrook. How are you guys? I'm very good, Josh. Thank you for inviting me back today. Well, the little program that could has gotten a little history under its belts, fellas.

As it turns out, this became, as you're listening to this, some of you maybe for the first time, became the first podcast that asked a question at the White House press briefing thanks to our very own John Ashbrook. Well, I got to tell you, fellas, when I was a kid and I was touring the Dayton bike shop of Orville and Wilbur Wright or fishing in Neil Armstrong's pond, I never knew.

That I would be another Ohioan to make history in this country. Neil Armstrong of new media. I can't believe he made it about Ohio. He did. Of course he did. And to clarify, the first flight happened in North Carolina, but please continue. Yeah, that's right.

So for those of you who are brand new to this program, we've been going on here about four years. And what you like about it is that we have a little bit of sense about the way things work in D.C. Lots of us have worked in here for a very long time. All of us have worked here.

in politics for a period of time. So we can kind of translate to you what's happening up here in a way that the mainstream media never will. And I think that was the point of what the White House had done, bringing John in for a question last Friday. But more importantly, we do a little humor.

We do. We have some fun here on the Variety program. We do, and you never get that from the mainstream media. You never do. They're always so serious. They're so dour. Yeah, mean kind of. A lot of dour, long faces looking at our friend John Ashbrook in that briefing room. I noticed that. Negativity. Yeah. I'll tell you, that was the best part of it. I mean, I thought the one reason I was not nervous going into it

was because I was so excited about the reactions I knew I was going to get from everybody in that room, because I know a lot of them. And I knew the second I walked through that door, they were going to be like, you've got to be kidding me. Oh, yeah. And also so much credit to this White House, because they'd said that this is the podcast election, that the Trump campaign had leveraged that conversation.

Folks out there, voters out there, they are not getting their news from like the 630 News. They're tuning into podcasts. They want to hear the truth. They want to hear exactly what's going on, unfiltered, without the media gatekeepers.

And for the White House now, the Trump administration have the foresight to recognize this. And then Ashbrook becomes the first podcaster to ask a question that's huge. And to piggyback on what Holmes said earlier, especially for our new listeners who maybe don't know, you know, I mean, like Josh made his bones doing, you know, campaign management and chief of staff.

You know, Smug and I more on sort of the tech and digital side of politics for our whole careers. But but John Ashbrook here, comms guy, PR guy through and through. I know, which made it so much better that he was the exactly. And so that's sort of my point here is it's perfect that it worked out this way because of all four of us.

He's the funniest to be in that group. If you know anything about the politics of the White House press briefing room, the idea that John Ashbrook, someone that literally every person in that place knows exactly who he is.

was the one that rolled in and asked the first question. What a stamp. Very funny. I mean, I remember 15 years ago when I would send these people suggested questions that they might consider asking the Obama administration.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be a guy that actually got to ask a question. And we all talked about it ahead of time and we all put our heads together and we were like, we need to ask a question that will be a little bit provocative, but also make news. And that's what we did. She actually made news based on what the Ruthless Variety Program asked her.

And people had to write it. They had to. And it was a service to our listeners, which is like... That's what we do here. That's what we do. You get your actual information here. You get to hear it from professionals. But the fun little trolling twist of every reporter had to write, he then asked why us in the mainstream media are so out of touch. Why we didn't do our job.

Oh, it's just so good. So we're going to get into that in greater detail. We have a terrific show coming up, including the Trump changing the media landscape. Big, big hats off to Carolyn Leavitt and her entire team.

Awesome. Awesome. Just an incredible amount of professionalism going on over there. That is the reason why you are getting unfiltered information about what this administration is doing. I can't say that's ever happened in my lifetime. Certainly not my professional career. They're doing a terrific job over there. So let me get into that. We talk a little bit about all these executive orders.

and how some of them come into fruition. We read a lot about tariffs that went into place over the weekend. We're going to give you some context on all of that and why all of these things are more than meets the eye. And you've seen some results already. We have some variety, as we always do on the Variety Program. We have fun. Some variety. We just have fun.

I'm told there's monkeys involved. It's an important follow-up on a previous story covered on the Ruthless Variety Program. So for our OGs, you're going to need this. Yeah. You're going to need it. It answers the questions that you had in the previous episode.

And then we have a special guest, a good friend of ours, Chris LaCivita, campaign manager of Trump 47, the Trump 2024 campaign, along with Susie Wiles, an incredibly good friend of the program. It's his third time. Third time here on the program. It's a little like SNL, you know, when you get a repeat.

guest or host. We should get a, well, can we get a jacket? Yeah, we need to get a jacket. We needed some kind of a jacket for anybody that hits five. They should get, it's probably like cotton at this standpoint. Yeah. Who's got one, you know, maybe Wesley Hunt close. Yeah. But like Chris is pretty close to getting a jacket. Yeah. At this point.

So we're going to get all of that and we're going to have fun along the way. Thank you for joining us. You remember you can, I mean, you're listening to this, you know, you can find it anywhere you get podcasts. We're also on YouTube, YouTube slash Ruthless Podcast. And if you're not on that, you got to like and subscribe and then comment away because we use a lot of your stuff as you see in this program. But more importantly, we provide some visuals along the way. It's a lot of fun. So like, look, I,

I listen to podcasts on the way to work, way home from work, so I get if that's your thing. But if you've got some time and you want – the visuals add something here. Particularly when we get to some of our racy content in the variety section of the program. They really do. So get on that thing. Like and subscribe. That's how more people can find out about us along the way. I would do that. We have a merch store. You can check that out. We're endeavoring to provide a few more items.

Well, now that we have the first generationally important individual down. Moment in history. Moment in history. 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.

On we go. I want to set up this Ashbrook clip for those of you who didn't see it the first time, because I think it is it literally, you know, like we're a little program that could, but it does make it there's significance attached to this. So let's play clip one.

And in lighter news, but in exciting news, after announcing our briefing room changes on Wednesday, this White House has received more than 10,000 submissions from individuals across the country who are eager to join all of you. We might have to make this room a little bit bigger to do that.

who want to participate in our new media seat at a future briefing. So, in this seat today, we have the Ruthless podcast. They humbly started by entertaining small audiences on Capitol Hill, but after four years, this program has become one of the most influential podcasts in America. They previously reached number one on the charts and earned over 25 million downloads as they deliver political news with a humorous touch.

The hosts are Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, Comfortably Smug, and the man joining us today, John Ashbrook. So with that, I will take your questions. John, please kick us off. Thank you very much. You know, Caroline, in your first briefing, the media went after this administration for reporting illegal immigrants they claimed were not criminals. The question is, do you think they're out of touch with Americans demanding action on our border crisis? The media out of touch?

I think that's... So good. It certainly is out of touch, and I think that's proven by a number of things, John. Number one, there was a New York Times poll that was released prior to President Trump's inauguration by the New York Times, which, of course, is a legacy media outlet, that showed that...

I know that 83% of Americans support deporting the individuals that you mentioned, illegal immigrant criminals, especially those who have committed heinous crimes in the interior of our country. And I received a very actually interesting statistic on this front from ICE this week. 97% of the deportations that this administration has made thus far

are of individuals who had a removal order from the previous administration, but were never removed from the interior of our country. So this shows that the previous administration was actually defying our laws, and all this administration is doing is simply following the laws, the immigration laws of this great country. Thanks for the question, John. Oh, geez. That's amazing. First of all, fantastic. Again, Carolyn Levin.

Perfectly. But she didn't know what you're going to ask, clearly. But she made significant news there. You've seen all these legacy media outlets over the last couple of weeks talk about, well, there's panic in communities across the country that

that all of these deportation orders, they're visiting churches, they're visiting schools, they're visiting all of these places. They're just randomly throwing people out of the country. And then she comes back and she's like, actually, 97% of people have a deportation order that were made by the previous administration, which, you know, look, I don't think I'm breaking any news on our part here by saying they didn't actually prioritize this sort of thing or we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

That's a big stat that adds value to information the American people need to know. It's not a front page story saying people panicked.

It's 97% of the people who've been deported in the first two weeks of this administration had a deportation order by the previous administration. And that's the key of it is when all of these legacy media companies are so angry that fewer and fewer Americans are tuning in, it's because you have organizations like our program that ask a question that lets Caroline Leavitt infiltrate.

it inform the American public of that fact that 97% of the people had a deportation order in place. That's actual news that the American people care about. They don't care about the New York Times being like, isn't this scary? Because they have no intent in leading the news with it. That's right. That is a newsworthy lead the news of CBS, NBC, ABC statistic. And now you have the spokesperson for the White House confirming it as such, but it would never lead. Mm-hmm.

It's information that's useful, but it would never lead because they can tell you about all the things that they're drawing controversy. Right.

And the only way that we get in that room is because of you, dear listener. That's right. So a special thank you to everyone watching and listening to this and the millions who have over the last four years. Because without this platform, without this audience, we wouldn't be in that room. 100%. And I've gotten, since that moment, I've gotten so many text messages, so many emails. You guys can imagine. We've talked about it. But-

what several people have been like, she gave you a shot at asking another question. Why didn't you ask another question? And I had a lot of ideas about another question.

But after that moment where you ask a question and she makes news with the answer, and I looked around that room and I thought to myself, you know what? We've already won. That's right. I don't need to belabor the point. Let somebody else ask. Well, and that just in and of itself outlines the ideological difference of how we see news and how they see news, how journos typically see news, the media.

What it is is to make enough of a scene about things to sell their next book. That's right. And they just want to take up time hoping they can get some viral clip where the resistance left is like, oh, finally a newsman holding people to account. Right. And like your point of view on this was I asked a question that I wanted the answer to. Right.

She provided an answer that was newsworthy enough to lead local newscasts. And I'm not going to waste everybody's time with me. It's not about me. It's exactly right. It's not about us. It's about the people who are listening, reading, and looking for information. And that's where the legacy media has gone way off the rails over the last couple of decades. They think that they're the main character and their audience is secondary. That's right.

What we try to do on our show is, I mean, look at what we do every single week. We ask people to give us an answer to a question or an idea or something that informs what it is that we do when legacy media for years and years and years has relegated regular people to comment sections that they roll their eyes at.

Yeah, they don't look at it. And the whole point of this show, the whole point of new media is to give voice to regular people. And that's why it's successful. They think that it's top down and they should be telling the public what to think. And we see ourselves, especially when we take in people's questions, is we're getting the people to ask the question in that briefing. Well, unless you believe that we're entirely altruistic about all of that, why don't we put up graphic one, please? What the fuck?

Look at that. There is the gentleman in discussion now, John Ashbrook, standing at the famed Pebble Beach of the White House, getting a stand-up interview on Fox News, looking like a true newsman. Look at those steely eyes. I know. Looking off into the middle distance there. And the flow. Yeah, the flow looks great, that hair. I mean, you really, that was some top-notch flow. I bet you spent a little extra time with that.

You know, it was raining on Friday, and the hit started a little bit before we thought it would. So we sort of hustled over there, walked in from the rain, and just stood and delivered. That's what the Ruthless Variety Program does. That's what we do. Well, you look good doing it, Johnny. Well, very kind. You look good doing it.

But the media, predictably, one of the reasons you said you were not nervous going in is because you anticipated seeing the faces, the displeased faces of many people you've worked with throughout the years. Well, in typical fashion, they reacted exactly as one would expect. Graphic two, please. Spaghetti.

He's from Politico. In the new media seat, the row of chairs reversed in prior administrations for members of the White House press shop.

Was John Ashbrook from the Far Right Ruthless podcast. Far Right. One of the most influential podcasts in America. We appreciate that. Yeah. We appreciate that. Describing it as providing political news with a humorous touch. Very apt. Appreciate that. Far Right, fellas, that was a...

Well, they came back and they said, you know, we may have overstated it. They're a conservative podcast. We didn't call. No. You know, my experience with...

These kind of journos is anytime they mischaracterize something one way or another, it takes like a full battle royale to get them to sort of like sand the edges of it. We're like perfectly comfortable with the way that they do it. They change it anyway. Yeah. You know, I'm I'm comfortable with being described that way because I know the only time they describe people that way is when they're trying to scare people.

Yeah, we're doing damage. That's exactly it. And I kind of do want them to be a little scared of what we might say. Well, they should be now. They should be. They should be now. No question about it. So anyway, that's what we're dealing with. Listen, we're going to be in and out of this situation. And we're working, obviously, with the White House, people on the Hill. I heard from Jason Smith last week. He was writing a tax bill. We're going to have basically everybody who's involved in –

affecting your lives one way or another in this Trump administration and the majorities in Congress, you're going to hear from him directly. Yep. But we're not leaving that room anytime soon either. So we're going to ask you a question.

We typically do a question of the day here on the Variety Program, which if you like and subscribe and you get on board and you write a question, we're going to read all of them. And ultimately, we're going to provide you some of those in our next episode. So this one, which I...

Listen, this is right. This is kind of like the way to do it. Next time Johnny's in the old room, maybe it won't be Johnny. Maybe we'll say one of you bozos. Yeah, why not? The first time they said comfortably smoked from the White House podium. Bozos. I would have it be known that I was offered that seat. And I graciously...

I couldn't attend because I was out of town for a wedding. And I actually ran into a lot of day one listeners of the Ruthless Variety program while I was at a wedding. But I was traveling on Friday and...

and asked if my friend here, my pal John Ashbrook, could take the seat. He obviously did a much better job than I would have. Never missing an opportunity to pump your own tires, Duncan. Well, you called me a bozo. I think he brought with it a level of credibility that, frankly, we're uncomfortable with here at the Ruthless Variety Program. Michael also knows himself as a...

libertarian, and his first question might have been, when are we going back to the gold standard? You never know. I've got a bunch. It's a tougher question. So our question to you, dear listener, is...

What should we ask the next time we're in there? We don't know when it's going to be. It might be soon. It might be a little later. But what should we ask? What would you ask if you were in that room to try to get some information that you know you're not getting from the mainstream media? Like, subscribe, put your question down. We read all of them. And when we come back, we have your predictions about the deportation. Last Thursday, we asked how many of these things can they get done in the first 100 days?

Well, your answers were instructive. And I think it's probably set some kind of an over-under if you're a Vegas man. You know, if you like the online betting thing, I think we've set an over-under. You guys are the smartest people in the business. We'll get to all of that right after this.

So we just got some big news from Americans for Prosperity, the most effective grassroots organization in the country. They've just launched a massive $20 million campaign to protect your hard-earned money. Here's the deal.

If Congress doesn't act, the Trump tax cuts will expire. That means families could pay $1,500 more in taxes next year. We all remember the benefits of those tax cuts. More money in your pocket, higher wages, and thriving mom-and-pop businesses across the country. But Bidenomics has taken us backward.

Record inflation and rising costs mean families are paying over $13,000 more per year just to make ends meet.

Now is not the time for higher taxes. That's why AFP is unleashing its grassroots army to protect the tax cuts with hundreds of local events, millions of voter contacts, and direct pressure on lawmakers. Join the fight. Visit protectprosperity.com to demand Congress renews and strengthens the Trump tax cuts so we can reignite the American dream. That's protectprosperity.com.

Okay, so unless you're living under a rock, you have noticed this administration has taken...

That's right. On all the things that they said they would do, the one that should come as least of a surprise to the American people is border security, legal immigration, what they're doing about it. They said they were going to do deportations. They're doing it. Made a lot of headlines in week one and two. And they put some – Dr. Phil was a part of one of them. Right. You know? I mean, it's a little – they've got some Hollywood involved in all of this.

Anyway, we asked you, how many do you think they can actually get done? And you have some great answers. To do this, we always start with a voice, our White House correspondent, John Ashbrook. Okay. First comment comes from Rodney Carey. And Rodney writes, I think 45,047 people will be deported by Trump's 100th day in office. That's a good number. Hit that 45, 47. Yeah. Perfect. I feel like they're ahead of pace.

Yeah, on the last day, slow down a little, just hit 45, 47 exactly. And then the next day, double down.

I love it. I like that. All right, comment two. This is from Mindy M. My guess is 452,002 deported in the first 100 days. Very specific number. After all, Tom Homan said that after they burn through these criminals, they will turn to those illegal aliens who have had cases adjudicated and have been told to leave but haven't. There are over a million in that category. Parenthetical. Exact number is uncertain.

He said those people will be easy to find compared to the real baddies. I think it's going to get wild real fast. Keep the news and analysis coming, boys. I love it. Yes, Mindy. We will endeavor to do that in a good answer. I like that it's a thoughtful, like they're trying to win some merch. Remember, you get the number somewhere close, you get some merch. And we did that with the number of pardons that the Biden administration ultimately bestowed on their family.

So, like, you know, there's thoughtful number crunching here. And remember, each piece of merch is hand-sewn by our own Michael Duncan. That's right. Very, very important. It's done with thought and love. And love and carpal tunnel now. Yes. Because now we are the big program. Yes. The big program that could. Smuggles? Come.

Comment three comes from Gringo Loco, and they write, QOD guesstimate, 120,420. QOD real answer, not nearly enough. Oh.

Very well done. Very well done. I love that name, too, Gringo Loco. Yeah, Gringo Loco is bringing heat right on the comments section. So remember, like, subscribe, and add your question that we should ask in the next White House briefing, and we'll read it on Thursday and maybe even deliver your question next time we're in the House over there.

We wanted to go over the impressive wins that the Trump administration is going through. Because if you pick up your newspaper or you look at your newscast, all of this is muddied by the controversy of disruption. Right. They don't want anything that it's disruptive at all. The media was very comfortable with Joe Biden just being a zombie asleep and not rocking the boat.

Yeah. That's not how things are with President Trump. That's not. I mean, he has problems that he's outlined during the course of a two-year campaign that he intended to fix. Did you think he was not going to try? Yeah. He's doing it. Of course he's going to try. But we're going to provide some context to some of this. So, look, over the weekend—

There was three tariff policies that were unveiled by this administration, 25 percent on Canada, 25 percent on Mexico, 10 percent on China.

China won. It's not a surprise he did this the first four years and then worked through a whole bunch of things that he's talked about on the campaign trail, insulate our farmers from any sort of repercussion, worked it through where they had, I think, a much better relationship in terms of understanding each other during the Trump administration than they ever did during the Biden administration when they just had to pay his son. Mm-hmm.

Pretty much. They're like, that's how it works. You know? Many people are saying. So, but the 25 and the 25 on Canada and Mexico makes business people go crazy. Yeah.

So all of your newspapers are going to be filled with like, what a disaster this is. You know, you're bankrupting American. That's like the best thing that they say, the bankrupting American business, because, you know, so much of our commerce runs through these two countries. And then they'll say, and ultimately you're going to pay much, much more for everyday products because we can't get these things as a part of it. Well, to understand President Trump,

First of all, I don't know how anybody doesn't get it at this point. Yeah. But just in case you don't, this guy negotiates things. Who'd have known? He knows the art of the deal. Who could have guessed? Yeah. If you read a page of the art of the deal, you understand how he wants to get in the room.

And if you haven't noticed, a high T at some G6 with Biden taking a nap and like whispering relative concerns hasn't actually produced an outcome with any of these people. Was it there that he pooped his pants? Yeah, I think that was a pooping. I think that's where he pooped his pants. There was a pooping, alleged pooping. Alleged, many people are saying. And then also the queen noticed maybe a smell when he was in Britain. Yeah, that's been reported. Yeah.

Peace through strength there. Peace through strength. No, strength of smell for sure. So if you look at what Trump is trying to do, he is grabbing some leverage here, knowing that the American economy and our American military are the two most significant items in this world. Mm-hmm.

And if you're not going to go start a bunch of wars, which he said he doesn't want to do under any circumstance, you've got to use the American economy as an example for people to pay attention to.

And it's different. It's not something that a president has done because they don't want to upset all the business leaders that are concerned about their products and whatnot being used as leverage. They just want to conduct business as usual. But when you do something like that, you get people's attention pretty damn quick. That's right.

And I don't know if you've noticed, but Mexico caved to Trump's tariff threat and agrees to send 10,000 troops to the border to stop illegal immigration and drugs. That is shorthand for something that showed up in the fact sheet that the White House put out in all three countries, which is his grave concern about fentanyl entering this country. We have in the for the length of this show.

fentanyl has been a major problem. Yes. We've talked about this since day one, about there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans that are being killed in communities across this country. They don't know poverty lines. They don't know geographical lines. It is a killer in this country. And so you as an average American are sitting around saying like, well, why didn't you just ban it? Well,

You can't if you don't enforce the border. And you can't if you don't eliminate the incentive of other countries that are facilitating it coming in our country from doing it. Right? But if you do that, if you say, no, this is a huge priority, you're going to pay a serious price. If you don't focus on this, all of a sudden you get people's attention. So when they say stop illegal immigration and drugs, they're talking about fentanyl here. Yep. That's what they're talking about.

And just as a matter of background, fentanyl, much of it produced in China, makes its way through Mexico into the United States. Now, there's also been, what, 43 pounds of it over the last year that entered through the Canadian border. And you had a bunch of idiots that were like, 43 pounds, only 43 pounds. Yeah, only enough to kill about 10 million Americans. Right. Only that much.

Right. And to your point about how everything is happening so quickly, within minutes of this announcement from Mexico, there was reporting on X that Mexico had caught and arrested El Ricky, who is the leader of Cartel de Nostra. Yeah.

I mean, the Biden administration, presumably they knew where this guy was last year at this time. And the Biden administration was like, ah, don't worry about him. But it's proof of the whole Trump strategy, right? Of like this whole like,

Crazy Ivan strategy, the madman, you know, like when you're dealing with Donald Trump and he can say anything and he has the leverage of the United States of America behind him, this asymmetrical warfare of being like, well, we're going to do tariffs until you solve this problem. Right. Or in dealing with Panama on the Panama Canal.

It's never like the Biden strategy of, well, we'll have a high tea or we'll have a summit and we'll talk about this thing. It's like, no, I have the full power of the United States government behind me and we lead the world. And I will use every tool in my arsenal to put maximum pain on you until you solve this problem.

It's amazing how quickly you can get somebody's attention. Right. That's the thing. It's about results because, you know, you see all these newspapers freaking out and being like, oh, God, these tariffs, why would he do such a thing? Look at the results. Mexico says they're going to send 10,000 troops to the border to stop illegal immigration drugs. What was the Biden administration doing? They're like, well, we'll make compunctions.

model the borders are and we'll try to investigate the root cause. No. Do you want to investigate the root causes or do you want 10,000 soldiers that Mexico's putting at the border and make it stop? I always thought, by the way, that was the funniest campaign insulation moment when they're calling her the poor borders are, which many of the media labeled her the borders are after he made the announcement that she was going to be in charge of the quote unquote root causes. And the Kamala campaign was like, no, no, no, no.

We had nothing to do with the border. We're not the borders. You've made this up. We were there to examine the root causes of illegal immigration. Just think about how offensive. Well, what the hell did you come up with? Think how offensive that is to communities across the United States of America that have been ravaged by opioids and fentanyl and all of this sort of stuff that Kamala Harris is going –

you know, all the way to South America to discuss the root causes of migration. Like she's like going there for fucking teach for America. You know what I mean? And somehow the cartels didn't come up. Yeah. They only came up this week when we leveraged a 25% tariff and they were like, we don't want that. Let's throw El Ricky in jail. And El Johnny and El Freddy too. Exactly.

Going back to the Biden administration, you have to ask yourself, why did they label Kamala Harris as the border czar at the very beginning? And that's because the most important Democrat in the world wanted her to be saddled with the border problems so that it insulated him from any challenge against Joe Biden. The media, legacy media, wrote it dutifully. As soon as the coup happened and Kamala Harris was the most important Democrat in the world, all of a sudden she wasn't the border czar anymore. Mm-hmm.

She was just looking for the root causes. And I mean, this goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, why it's so important that the Trump administration allow new media to come in because the legacy media has a narrative and drives a narrative. And the narrative is written by powerful Democrats and powerful left-wing NGOs who back them. I mean, think about this other thing. And I'll just, I'll let you guys take it back because I don't want to go down a rabbit hole too much. But

The Biden administration revoked press credentials for over 400 reporters inside of that briefing room. Why? Because they wrote things that the Biden administration didn't like. So you have all these reporters who are living in fear of writing things that the Democrat power structure doesn't like. I talked to one reporter, and I won't say the name, who said that they asked a question at the very beginning of the Biden administration about his mental acuity. The second he asked that question...

All bets are off. He's out. They're freezing him out of the process because they didn't want that conversation to happen. And then you also think about last summer when the first person in a major publication to write about Biden's mental acuity was the Wall Street Journal. But who wrote it? It wasn't their White House correspondent. It was somebody who couldn't be

penalized by the fact that they wrote that story. Are you telling me that the Biden administration tried to make sure that democracy died in darkness? That's it. That's 100% it. And that is why it's so important that the Trump administration is able to execute on what they're trying to do to expand the media access so that future administrations don't have the same sort of codlock on the access that regular people have to information from their governments.

It's really, really well said. Great explanation, Smash. There's more. Even more. So quickly after the election, President Trump does a press conference where he's like, another thing that bothers me we didn't talk a lot about on the campaign trail was the fact that we built the Panama Canal. Blood, sweat and tears of the American people went into doing that. It's since been taken over by Chinese operators. Yeah.

I'm not happy about that. I don't like it. I don't like the way that this is operating. It puts us at a disadvantage. It's in our own hemisphere. We're going to revisit all of that.

Immediately all the press jumps all, well, he's talking about going to war with Panama. Yeah. And all of this, this, that, and the other. Over the weekend, once again, Secretary Rubio makes his first trip down to Panama. Well, lo and behold, lo and behold, this problem, which you've been insulated from because nobody in the mainstream press remembers

reports about a problem in a democratic administration. That's it. But the problem exists nevertheless, was fixed. So this is according to Bloomberg. Panama offers concession to U.S. after Rubio meets with president. Panama promised free passage for U.S. warships through the Panama Canal and said it would withdraw from China's signature lending program after Secretary of State Marco Rubio blasted the government during his visit last

On Sunday, Rubio, echoing President Donald Trump's complaints about the Chinese influence on the waterway, warned that the U.S. would take measures necessary to protect its rights unless Panama would make significant changes. Well, they did. And that's the thing is to take a step back when they said that China has put in place a way to try to control this is many people have heard about the so-called Chinese Belt and Road Act.

program where their whole approach is we go into countries, China does, and says, okay, we will build you some roads or we'll build you a soccer stadium like they have all across Africa. And they're like,

And then what they do is they sell this country with the debt to build them these roads or stadiums or whatever. And then they use that as leverage and try to control it. And they've done this in Panama. Until President Trump brought this up, how many Americans knew that U.S. warships were having to pay money to access the Panama Canal? That we built. That we built. Imagine the first time that that happened, not as a commander-in-chief of the United States being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We built this thing for you. What are we talking about here? Nope. Didn't. No news. No. And like, look, we don't live in an entire silence chamber. Like, clearly this was known in defense circles and people who have beats for mainstream press that cover this sort of thing. It was unknown to the American people before President Trump surfaced it shortly after the election. Yeah.

And now it's dealt with. Yeah, I just think like philosophically in the United States, and I think this is a bipartisan problem, is for too long America has been seen as a force in the world for good that does things first and foremost for the world and not for America first. And those things aren't always in conflict. We should be able to do things in the world that are good for America. But it always has to be good for America. That's the point. And that is the new posture of America under Donald Trump.

And also this is becoming a pattern where you had the situation with Columbia where before the news could even get started, where they started their whole outrage thing of, "Oh no, Trump's going to put all these terrorists on Columbia and you're going to pay more for Valentine's Fathers," before they could even really get the ball rolling on that Columbia caves. And so then President Trump sends Marco Rubio, Secretary of State down there before

Before, like, this outrage cycle can even build, Rubio's like, I have a significant announcement. Columbia's caved. Yeah. Well, you got Chuck Schumer, just the absolute schmo of the world. Yeah.

out doing a press conference with a... Did you see him eat a can of Corona? Come on. Where he's like, well, it's going to... Beer drinkers are really going to be... This is his way of, by the way, trying to relate to the middle class. Like when he was doing his fake grilling with the burgers. Everyone made fun of him for not knowing what he was doing. The raw burger with the cheese on top. Yeah, so this is his... He's like, well, the real hardest hit Americans are going to be beer drinkers because we get most of our beer. He's like, I understand you people drink the...

Sorona. Sorona. This is your popular drink, gentlemen. Yeah, no, he's holding it like it's a nitroglyceride, like a bomb or something. He's like, oh, look at this thing. This is people drink it. We like this thing. Well, you know, less than 24 hours later.

The president of Mexico is like, no, you make a good point. We're going to do something about fentanyl, human trafficking, the border. And by the way, we're now arresting cartel members. He looks like a complete asshole. But it also...

Totally undermines everything that all of these clowns have said for decades. Like, oh, don't disrupt the trade. Don't do the terror. Companies are going to be met. It's going to cost Americans. Okay. How about in 24 hours we fix a problem that has killed hundreds, hundreds of thousands of Americans? There is a 9-11...

10 times in this country every year, thanks to a failure to address fentanyl getting in this country.

And they take care of it in G6 summits where they whisper little sweet nothings about how this is sort of a concern. Or they fund these pilot programs that are like, oh, we're interested in trying to help people. Maybe providing like a few of those – what are those shots that like bring you back to life? Like that's their answer. Narcan. That's like their answer to all of this. Instead of –

asking the Mexican president, please make sure that fentanyl isn't trafficked into the United States of America. Because those people were all about managing the decline of America. You nailed it. Right. And Donald Trump is not. He's about American excellence. And that's what we're striving for. The golden age doesn't mean let's have a chat and fund an NGO. The golden age means you lay down the law. Yeah. And look, it is not going to be this easy.

These three items that all happened right after presidential announcements give you an idea of what's possible here. There is going to be international resistance to what needs to happen. So make no mistake, some of this stuff might get painful at some level.

But it's going to be a plan to try to address this stuff, which it's all any of us could ever hope for. I know that you've got an update on this, Ashbrook. I have breaking news, actually. You mentioned Mexico. You mentioned Colombia. You mentioned Panama. We'll add Canada to the list. No way. Really? I have a statement from Justin Trudeau, alleged son of— Fidel Castro. Many people have said. Many people have said. What?

We're joking. We're laughing. And in response to the strength of America delivered through President Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau writes this. I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan, reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners and increased resources to stop the flow of violence.

Fentanyl. Oh. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Would you look at that? And, you know, it's like I'm just sitting there preparing for a Sunday show, reading the White House fact sheets, and I'm like, you know, it's interesting. All three White House fact sheets, everybody's concerned about the economic impact of tariffs. All three include fentanyl.

Interesting. Maybe that is the top priority here to try to figure out a way to get the attention of these countries for the very first time. I keep saying it, but I'm going to keep saying it. It feels incredible. Like we can feel so optimistic as Americans. We are not worrying about...

well, you know, this things take time and lower your expectations. The realm of the possible is here. President Trump got, I mean, we can't even finish a show without another accomplishment coming across our backs. No, I know. That's exactly right. My point is it's not all going to be this easy. These ones are giving you an idea of what's possible. China's a tough fix. Europe is going to be a tough fix.

People are going to be whining a lot about trade relations and all of these things. Point is that there's something larger here. This is not just like a difference in ideology that we've had over the years about whether tariffs make money or whether free trade makes money or all of these things make money. That's not what it's about. It's about getting these people's attention for the very first time on issues that plague the American citizens. That's right. And it's working.

In case you had any other doubt, turns out Venezuela just worked its way in. You mentioned Colombia. We mentioned Panama, Mexico, Canada. Well, Venezuela turns out it had some American hostages.

Why they had these remains a question. And why we didn't know about it. Like, I don't remember reading about this in The Washington Post. I mean, I don't even know when these people were taken. I remember reading about it when Rick and I had the photo of like, got him. We're bringing him home. Yeah, no. And I was like, what? Got who? Like, when this was a thing, like we should have been outraged. It's in our own hemisphere for crying out loud.

But Rick Grinnell gets sent down. Venezuela, according to Politico, released six detained Americans on Friday as President Trump's envoy for special missions ended a visit that included talks on U.S. efforts to repatriate a large number of people who fled the South American country in recent years. Hmm.

So what he means by that, that's like Politico speak for we got a bunch of your illegals. Yeah. We're going to send them back. And those Americans that you have, you can send us them back too. Or we can have a further conversation that likes that we're having with Mexico and Canada. You may notice the hemisphere is kind of going our way right now. You know? And so anyway, they're doing all of this. And it's like.

There's important results here. So, like, slow the roll on the he's doing too much too fast. It's reckless. He doesn't playing games with the American economy. There's a larger plan here. There's a larger he's not. He spent four years thinking about the way that he could do the first four years better. Because, by the way, the first four years, the intent was totally right.

But anybody who's coming into office for the first four years, having spent no time in politics, had to learn the hard way about a whole bunch of stuff, including the fact that they've now weaponized the Justice Department and all these things against them. But when he gets another shot, boy...

He's running in the other direction fast. Yeah, he's ready to go. I mean, he is locked in. Bro's on the grind set. I hope the folks in the White House, you have those cold Diet Cokes ready because he's working on the clock. Get those Diet Cokes and just bear steak. Let's just get a butter knife, a steak, a fork, and some Diet Coke. This man is working. Around the clock.

God, I love it. Maybe a couple of McDonald's hamburgers. Filet-O-Fish, perhaps. Yeah, get them ready. Do you guys want to do some variety? Always. Always. This is very important. It's an important update. For those of you who don't know, animal fighting is a big piece of this program. We've talked about it for years. It all started when Smug said that he could fight and beat a horse. Very doable. They're very fragile animals. Extremely controversial here on the program.

And we've had a lot of takes on that, but we've entered other animals over the years. One of them that snuck up on us is the monkey. Yeah.

And a lot of people underestimate the monkey. You know they do those graphs on what animal you think that you can beat? One of the publications, like Forbes or something, does a routine survey that they include of what animal you think you can beat. And they compare it around the world. Europeans are like only 50% think they could beat a rat in a fight. And you've got like 100% of Americans being like, yeah, I could kick its ass. No, no, it says a lot about you. But then, you know, they go up to like donkeys or like dogs.

Yeah, large dog, kangaroo. They also have chimpanzee in there, which people far overestimate their ability to tangle. I think any in that family, whether you're talking about a gorilla, chimpanzee. Oh, they're yoked. Like, they'll rip your arms off and beat you. Yeah, they're like 3% body fat that things are just ripped.

Which is why at the Ruthless Variety Program, we fight with our head. And when it comes to monkeys, our recommendation is to take an Olympic-sized swimming pool, fill it with water, and cover it with bananas. The monkeys go in for the bananas. They can't swim. They drown. They don't get out. So we've already solved this problem, but the world continues to have an issue with it. We covered several months ago a story about escaped parrots.

These are a brand of monkey. You've got to be careful of them. Particularly, you've got to be careful of macaque. Anyway, these things were captured in South Carolina because they were on the loose. And nobody really knew. There was a bunch of them. Like what? They're testing macaques? Maybe like a makeup, you know, that they test on animals. We don't know what we're doing with these macaques, but they escaped. And they could only gather a few of them. Well, yeah.

According to the AP News, authorities in South Carolina said Friday the last four of the 43 escaped monkeys have been recaptured after two months living in the woods.

weathering a rare snow storm and being tempted back into captivity by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Peanut butter and banana? Here's the thing. It's funny because it also works for children. On a snow day, if you want them back in the house, peanut butter and jelly will do it. And it turns out monkeys are the same way. There's a snow storm. They're like, yeah, I think I'm done monkeying. I think I'm done. So it's the rassus macaque monkey that we're talking about here. All females. All females.

Oh, you're kidding. No, all females. They make a female. Yeah, they made a break for it after police say an employee did not fully lock their enclosure at Alpha Genesis, a facility that breeds them for medical research. Also, that's like a scary name. That's like how the horror story or the horror movie starts. It's like Outbreak. It's Alpha Genesis, and then the monkeys escape and all hell breaks loose. Yeah, they call it the monkey farm.

Right? Dangerous. So they recapture the monkeys. They appear to be in good health. Good news. I mean, I guess it's better than hearing about monkeys escaping the Fauci farm. God knows that's a twitch I'll lead to. You don't want that. But the one thing, like the good people of South Carolina now know after this outbreak is, like, you've got to be careful of macaque. Oh, jeez.

I'm just offended that we didn't have any listeners to the Ruthless Variety Program at Alpha Genesis because they didn't use the banana pool. They didn't. I thought that was a novel solution Ashbrook provided. Well, it took them 60 days. It would have taken them six hours. Right. Yeah. And they wouldn't have come back healthy. One thing I've just noticed here is there's like – I love –

Can I just pause? That my favorite part in it is Ashbrook isn't satisfied unless the capture includes a capture and kill. Yeah. No, it's, in drowning seems to be a full through line on all of this. It works. I mean, if they escape the Alpha Genesis lab, you know that they're infected with something. So you got to think they're one of dead or alive and dead is preferable. Right.

And I think it's also important to note, it says here in the article, the date is all the monkeys escaped on November 6th, right? Are you kidding me? On November 6th, right? And now President Trump's in office. Boom. Like that. Monkeys are back. We're talking about Colombia. We're talking about Venezuela, Canada, Mexico. Even the monkeys know the hemisphere belongs to President Trump.

You're locked up. If one of these things exists, we're going to have to get you in. You know, there's talk about DOD and DHS and how they're reshuffling press chairs there. I'd like to get Smash in there to ask about their monkey control. Oh, yeah. 100%. It's a very good question that nobody in the legacy media is asking. But I want him to be dressed like Crocodile Dundee when he walks in. Excuse me, sir. How do you plan to deal with macaque?

Oh, we love the macaque monkeys. We just love them. What we love more than anything, though, is our next guest who has been here, as we said, three times to give us everything from what's happening on a Trump campaign to how they were dealing with the media. He's going to give you a summary of the campaign and a look ahead. You are not going to want to miss this.

Well, look, we're having a lot of fun around here. When we have a lot of fun, we like to bring in people that we like and we have fun with. We also happen to be amongst the smartest people that we know. And in this case... What am I here for? Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but over the last few months, you've grown taller, you've gotten skinnier and more handsome. I did, and I lost 20 pounds. Also joining the rare, like, three-time appearance, Ruthless Guy...

which we reserve for very few individuals. Well, I'm flattered. Chris LaCivita, ladies and gentlemen. Good to see you guys. That's great to see you. I mean, the famous guy at the end. How about that? Oh, my God. Artist, working journalist in the business. He most certainly is. He most certainly is. What'd you make of that? Well, I mean, I was thrilled for you guys and obviously for John, who's such a great guy. But, you know...

It's literally, um, I know that some folks may be in the white house press room wouldn't have taken it this way. And several of those folks are, you know, we know we've worked with for many years and, um,

And they do their jobs. But, you know, it's a new day and people consume media differently now and they get their news differently through different, you know, medians. And, of course, having you guys to be the first, I think, from the podcast space was amazing. But, you know, this should not really surprise anyone. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is except maybe you.

you know, the legacy medium. Well, they think they just own those seats. Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable, but, you know, we do, in all our survey work and when we do polls and all this stuff and campaigns, we always ask people, where do you get your news? Because it's very important because it drives our spend and, you know, who we talk to and this kind of thing. And

You know, not everybody is watching the 6.30 news. Right. You know, or 6 o'clock in Brett's case. You know, to get their information, and not everybody is, you know, reading the New York Times or the Compost or, you know... I say that with a degree of affection, but sort of. But, you know, they just don't. As a matter of fact, I think the...

The most consistent number that we see in some of our data is that people who get their information from newspapers is below 17%. Wow. Actually, it's about 12 on average. So, you know, there's a reason why campaigns have never really advertised in newspapers. If you see a campaign... Yep.

I'm not talking about like a public affairs campaign, but an actual political campaign. Buying ads, you know, in the newspaper. They're idiots. Well, it's like billboards, right? Yeah, they're like billboards. Now you do you do billboards occasionally to troll. Yeah. You know, the trolling, but important. You know, you can't really, you know, drive a message as you're going 80 down 95. But.

But people aren't doing that in newspapers. And, you know, so you've got to shake it up and make it different, which is actually part of the reason why on the Trump campaign we were so successful in meeting the goals that we established in the campaign to win the younger vote. Yeah. Because people – we went to where the voters are. Yeah. And, you know, it's not about conforming people.

to get their news from one place. That's not good. Right. So the competition and having everybody, competition for news and the competition for information is, I think, key to maintaining the democracy, frankly. You're right. But I also think it's really impressive.

in that so much in our collective world over the years has been about campaign consultants, campaign managers, as you and Susie were on Trump 24. You don't get fired for doing things that everybody else has always done, right? You get fired for taking risks and finding audiences and doing things that are outside of the norm of what people should be doing. And yet, you're all's view going into this is,

We're going to take risks because it's worth the risk that we need to go out and meet people where they are and break the whole, you know, sort of establishment both on the media side and the political consulting side of what it means to drive a message and get to the target audience here. And, you know,

Look, you had to have thought about that somewhere along the way when you're laying out a game plan that runs contrary to what presidential campaign managers had done year after year after year. Yeah, but there's also this – the old adage that at least we had when I was in my time in the Marine Corps, and I know it's still something that –

that is used to this day, which is no plan survives first contact. So, you know, you can have the greatest plans in the world and, you know, the other side gets a say. And for us, it was, you know, we had...

the Biden campaign, then the Harris campaign. Then we had, you know, all the media. Then we had the Justice Department. Then we, I mean, you know, then we had the Iranians. Then we had the crazies. Then, you know, I mean, every single day tested the integrity of what we wanted to accomplish. But I'll tell you what made it so much easier. When you have a candidate like we had in Donald Trump, who you would not be penalized for

for being aggressive. So you could be aggressive. You could be different. You could be daring almost.

And not have to worry about second guessing, which was for – in any campaign. It's the biggest thing. Yeah. I mean – and it's the biggest thing. And so it gives you a degree of latitude and a degree of confidence. But if you're out pushing a particular message, we want to drive a particular issue –

The boss just makes it so easier because nine times out of 10, he was usually the one out there first. So all we had to do was get in line. I have a question right along the vein of that is the campaign you ran was against so much conventional wisdom.

For decades, Republicans were told, don't go after younger voters. Number one, they don't turn out and they won't vote for us. Number two, high turnout hurts Republicans. Both of those you proved wrong. High turnout only helped President Trump get elected.

younger voters came out in droves. When was the decision made that we are going to specifically try to make these things happen? And what did you do to make those things happen? Well, it was a couple of things. First of all, you know, you're led by a great candidate who literally, there's somebody who literally leads from the front, right? So he's taking the lead. Yeah, we've seen that. Yeah, literally and figuratively. And then, of course, you know, the team that, that,

really Susie had started putting together with Susie and I doing our roles and then of course having Fabrizio around Tony just like driving the targeting with James and Tim Saylor, James Blair who's now White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Taylor who's another White House Chief of Staff on the comm side but earlier he was on the Super PAC. I mean it was just a great

It was a great team of people who were unified in one mission and one mission only, and that was winning. There's no jockeying for who's going to do what. It's about accomplishing the mission. The mission was the man, the man working for what he wants to accomplish for the country. So that kind of made things a little easier. Plus, in campaigns, 20 hours a day, seven days a week,

high stress, you get a sense of camaraderie that you work with people and everybody has their back. It's like gallows humor at some level. There's a ton of gallows humor. I mean, I used to say that I could get whacked at any particular moment. And so going in with a sense of an attitude of, I'm just going to do what I've spent the last 35 years doing, but

But I learn something new every day. I mean, that is a distinction. I'll be honest. That has been your MO since the moment you stepped foot into politics. Right. Which is no two cycles are alike. I'm going to learn something new every day. We're going to put in place something that is based upon what I've learned rather than the way everybody has done it up to now.

Well, that and also, you know, what really drove, I guess, the necessity or what drove our ability to to target and talk to new groups of voters, whether they were Hispanics, whether they were black men, whether they were white working class without college degrees, was those were the folks we needed to actually win.

And so, I mean, like we improved our numbers everywhere. I mean, we won Long Island. Yeah. Every single county in the United States went more conservative. You know, we increased our voter share in all 50 states, California, New York, Florida. Look what we did to Florida. So, you know, the level of discipline internally within the campaign system

You know, we had developed this list of persuadable voters that Tony and Tim Saylor had spent, you know, weeks, weeks, hell, months. And we tested and counter tested and stress tested and all of these particular segments of the electorate that we needed to increase our vote share with. And that process stayed with us forever.

And what was weird was when the coup happened, right, because that's basically what it was when they got rid of Joe, the coup, you know, everything was geared toward Biden. And we're sitting there looking at ourselves and we're like, we just spent $30 million on all this data. But the one thing that...

we realized was the underlying issue set and the underlying persuadable voters really at the end of the day did not change. Yeah, that's... Well, I noticed. I'm glad you brought this up because remarkably disciplined campaign in terms of the way you all operated internally and what you would let the external world see, but also in terms of a campaign message, right? The messages against Joe Biden...

if anything, became more acute against Kamala Harris. Yes, right. You had a younger candidate, but you had a candidate who had worse tape out there. Worse tape? From that primary. Tardy, rich environment. And the issues that you're litigating, the economy, I mean, this lady has the balls to roll up and be like, I'm a champion of small businesses. Well, because she spent that whole 2019-2020 primary in the Democratic primary, like,

running to the left of everything that joe biden was trying to triangulate on so the tape was fantastic but i guess what i'm wondering chris is like there's been you know all these post-mortems on the kamala campaign and every a lot of finger pointing and the perfect campaign yeah right yeah i remember that whole round table where they anticipated everything they knew exactly what you're doing and then they fell flat on their fucking face i love that um i but

But I'm wondering from you. Somebody just dropped the F-bomb before I had it. It wasn't you. It wasn't you. But they did that whole thing on Pod Save America where they're like, nothing surprised us. We had planned for everything and we were totally wrong, which I just loved listening to. But I'm curious from your perspective, was there ever a time, a moment, something that her campaign did that—

that you were like, that's going to be a problem. That's actually smart. Was there ever a time where that happened? I mean, I got to imagine at some point between her announcement and their convention, when it was nothing but corporate legacy media acclimation. Coronation. Yeah. It went from a coup to a coronation. That's right. I mean, really, just that quickly. And for someone who was considered by the legacy media and by, you know,

politics writ large, that she was not a very good vice president and a horrible communicator and all of these things to then all of a sudden. A generational change agent. Generational change agent. And you're like, what the hell? And, of course, we knew. We saw what was happening. And I said this to somebody a couple weeks ago.

Where it's sort of like, because, you know, we were, the campaign was at that point in such a good rhythm. And campaigns have to find a rhythm. That's it. I mean, timing and rhythm is actually a real thing. It is. And just like it is in a football game, I'm not, you know, it's not the same. Momentum is real. Momentum is real. And, you know, and this had the makings of instead of a...

instead of a 21-0 halftime lead, in a football game, it was more reminiscent of a 2-0 halftime lead in a hockey game. The most dangerous lead in hockey. No, seriously. And of course, I'm a bit of a hockey nut. And so I have a little bit of an appreciation that the smallest thing can literally change momentum on a dime. So this, and they know that.

And the media knows that. And, you know, I refused to play baseball while they were playing hockey. And so, you know, our entire focus was during that period of time when the coronation was happening, you know, we were looking at our numbers and seeing that, you know, the president's numbers never once changed. They never went down. They stayed consistent. Yeah, we noticed that. Right? But what did change was

Harris was able to consolidate... Yeah, they reconsolidated a Democratic base. Who was leaving because they were going with Kennedy or they were going with Stein or... He also saw an 85-year-old guy walking around falling off stages and whatnot. He didn't know what planet he was on, let alone what century it was. And so, you know, that was a moment where you're like, okay, we're going to have to finish really, really strong. And

You know, so it and, you know, the boss was pissed because just from the sense of, you know, how do they do this? Yeah. How do they consistently. How can they get away with. And, you know, no price for. No. And, you know, I remember saying to the boss, I said, look, you'll be the first candidate in American history to beat two Democrat nominees in one year. I bet he loved that. Loved it. Again, it's another example of American history made in this campaign, which I call a campaign of firsts.

Yeah. Because like every week there was a first. Right. In some regard. And so there really wasn't there really wasn't a path, you know, that you could go back and say, oh, I remember X, Y, Z campaign when they did this or, you know, because, you know, your experience informs. Yep. Right. I mean, sure. Shit ain't stuff they teach you in a book. Right. Like, I mean, it's just.

It doesn't happen. So part of it is you're winging it. Part of it is you do rely on your collective experience with the team. But that's what kept the focus, the messaging. Classic example. There was one particular week during the course of the campaign in October where the Harris campaign was running over 160 different creatives on TV and digital.

Across all platforms, broadcast, cable, cord cut, I mean, you name it, but you're talking over 116 competing messages. Yeah. We had seven. Yeah. And we drove those points continuously, and it was, you know, for the vast majority of the time, it was mostly economic in nature. And they were switching back and forth between...

you know, talking about her bio and trying to inform people. And I'm thinking to myself, if they're running biographical ads in October, yeah, not good. They, they, they got a problem. And so, and you know, when you're an incumbent, uh,

If you're a challenger, you have to do two things. You have to give voters a reason to vote for you and fire the other person. And so there was always this internal battle going on as who really was the challenger and who really was the incumbent. And we took the challenger. We took the challenger status just by virtue of the fact that Donald Trump had 100 percent name ID. What could they possibly say or do by October?

that anyone in the world hadn't heard in some form or fashion. We're talking about probably the most defined man in the world.

Clearly. Everybody's got an opinion. And so, like, how do you battle that? Well, you don't battle it. You embrace it. Yeah. Well, you also clearly defined and didn't let her get out from underneath her very clear role within the Biden administration on things like immigration, border security, the economy and everything else. It's the same thing during the primaries. You know, I hate to always revisit that, but I think it was instructive because.

you know, in, you know, the boss announces, you know, right after, you know, the 22 cycle, which didn't end well for anyone. And, um, you know, we're looking at, you know, the announcement and then, and then going into, um, you know, the primaries and the, the whole focus up to that point was, you know, about how great of an opponent Ron DeSantis could be. And, and, uh,

You know, the boss right out of the gate says, we're going to hit them. And Susie and I are like, in January? Yeah, right. And he's like, in January. And hell yeah. Hell yeah, double down. And we're like, okay, we know how to do that. And that really, I thought, you know, set the stage for just the overall disposition that the campaign would take from that point to the very end. Yeah. Which is, it's going to be constant. Now, I mean, honestly, it was...

I guess it was maybe late September when I started looking on the internet for countries with non-extradition treaties. I mean, and, you know, my go bag is a little larger than most people's go bags. I can only imagine. It has been for years. It has been. And...

So, I mean, we were ready to go. But, you know, as we got closer and closer to the election, that gold bag became a little smaller, a little smaller, maybe not as much ammo. So, but. Yeah, you're like, well, this might work out. I mean, two weeks out, we knew. Yeah. I mean, you know, it was funny because one of the states that was most consistently had

the president winning by, you know, outside of the margin of error, anywhere from four to seven points was Arizona. And so...

You know, we knew a Sunbelt strategy was not going to be in the works for them. Yeah. Which is part of the reason why we took such, you know, an aggressive posture in Nevada. And you could see them begin to retreat. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they were pulling. Yeah. You know, they weren't buying as much, and they were really putting all their eggs in that blue wall. And, you know, I mean, it just – a lot of those things clicked. But, you know, it was –

And so you're seeing the manifestation of a lot of those things, you know, come to pass now with, you know, you shouldn't have been surprised over the course of the weekend that Donald Trump, you know, I'll just jump right in and say it and levy to 25 percent across the board. Yeah.

The tariff on Mexico and Canada. And you shouldn't have been surprised either when you woke up this morning and found out that the one in Mexico had been delayed. Because this is about changing behavior and attitudes and how you deal with the United States. This is a negotiating tactic.

And so we wake up this morning to find out that the Mexican government is actually going to put 10,000 troops on the border to stem the flow of fentanyl. And I don't think people have an appreciation for the fact that nearly as many people have died from fentanyl over the last few years have died in all of World War II.

And so it's an actual war. And so the first demonstration of that was the president classifying the cartels as terrorist organizations. That gives us the ability to...

to engage with them in a different way. Listen, I mean, we talked a lot about the campaign. This is the most professional, most successful presidential campaign that anybody has ever seen. But the president didn't stop on November 6th. No, he is. Day one, he is there delivering on his promises that he made to people, people who cast their vote, trusting in him. He's proving them right now.

Right out of the gate. And I mean, there's no way you're surprised about that because this man had a vision in his mind. And it's not just with Mexico. I mean, Panama, we were talking about Panama earlier. You know, the Panamanian government is now saying that they want to move China out. And it's strictly because...

With Colombia, that was what, a three-hour news cycle of that? Like the media can't keep up with it. Like I saw this messaging, and I thought when you brought up fentanyl, it was particularly disgusting what they did. You saw journalists being like, oh, it was only 43 pounds of fentanyl that was seized at the border last year. That's enough to kill 10 million people. And the media can't keep up with the speed of it. Like you saw Panama, they canceled Belt and Road. They can't keep up with it.

Because all they want to do is play the opposition. They don't want to observe what's actually happening. What's actually happening is historic. This is a figure that we haven't seen in a very long time in American history. And what he's delivering in the first couple of weeks, I can only imagine what's going to happen in the next few years. And he's in a hurry, right? And I know in some form or fashion, all of us are a product of the United States Senate. We've all spent a lot of time working in the Senate and

electing senators and all of them good people, but not everything in Washington moves at the pace of the United States Senate. Right. And the most deliberative body in the world. Well, you know, it's time. The time for deliberation is over. The time for action is now. We also have not had. We have not had. And I said this all day yesterday.

We have not had a president that understands the power that they have and the leverage that they have and actually uses it. Everybody's afraid to do that, right? They rock the boat.

Anytime you're talking about tariffs, all of the business community freaks out about it. Except when you sit back and understand that Americans' leverage over the rest of the world is our economy, the size of our economy, the power of our economy, all of these things. So if you use it as leverage, for the first time in 10 years, you can get people who are responsible fentanyl coming into our country to actually pay attention to it. This isn't a fucking high T. We're very serious about doing it. That's what I love the most about it.

about the first couple of weeks of this presidency is he's like, no, no, no, you're going to listen to this. And you're going to do something about it. It feels like a permanent campaign. You know, like the campaign was about maximum volume, maximum pressure, no free shots, which is a thing we always say. That's my people say. Why did you say that? I'm like, no free shots.

Yeah, you know, take a shot at an incoming ambassador to the United States from England. Why'd you do that? But I feel like that's informed. No free shots on goal. It's carried over now to the administration in a major way. You know, this strategy of sort of maximum pressure, do everything. There was like a school of thought in politics for like most of our careers where it was like,

this is our message this week and we're going to have the event and the rollout. Infrastructure week. This is the press strategy. And it's like, no, you can actually do multiple things and be successful. In fact, sometimes by enacting a bunch of things at the same time and exuding maximum pressure, as the United States of America, you can get shit done. Yeah, they pay attention to it. Well, you know, when you say the permanent campaign, look, good politics has always made good politics.

I think the politicians that don't understand that or heed that are the ones that fade in obscurity. They never get anything done. You got to be gutsy. I mean, look, what could they possibly do to him now? I mean, they tried to put him in jail. They tried to kill him. He has two shits to give, right? Except let's get this stuff done. But also a basic understanding of...

far as a master's degree understanding based on the first four years of the power in the limits of mass media distribution, right? A media center that is entirely focused on trying to undercut everything that you're doing. And by going outside of that and being able to talk directly to people, not just through the press conferences he's doing all the time, the things that you developed in

During the course of the campaign, the maligning of characters and the maligning of intent...

Like, it probably just doesn't have the same sort of meaning to a Trump administration that it would be to somebody who just showed up on the scene. True, but it doesn't mean, obviously, that it still doesn't happen. I mean, look, you know, what happened with ABC News. Yeah. Right? I mean, I hate to single them out. They're building a presidential library from what I understand. Yeah, I mean, but, I mean, you know...

They knew what was said that day, and there had been plenty. I mean, look, I had to deal with it on the campaign toward the end when an online publication decided to literally print defamatory comments about me, wrote a whole story about it, then did podcasts about it.

It's so sick they do this kind of garbage. Oh, yeah. And, you know, with this belief that there's not going to be any recourse. Well, you know, those days are long gone. That's it. I mean, those days are long gone. And you just can't do that, you know, that kind of thing anymore without there being, you know, serious consequences. And it's something I'm going to live with and I'm going to follow through with that much I can tell you. Yeah, let me put a finer point on that because I don't want you to have to do that. But –

But what happens when you can't beat a campaign or an operation is that the press, in conjunction with your activist left, basically try to take the head off the snake in campaigns. Like, you know, if you can't take the candidate out, Lord knows they've tried. 47 different indictments, nonsense bullshit, you know, two assassination attempts, all kinds of different stuff. If none of that shit works...

What they try to do is get as close to the inner circle as possible and lop the head off that way. Like I've been a victim of it over the years.

anybody who's gotten into a consequential position where they're actually doing damage to the left narrative control in this country has suffered it. Nobody more so than this guy to my right, who honestly, there was something that was posted like, oh, this guy's a profiteer. He's profiteering off of the Trump campaign, which for anybody who's ever read an FEC sheet, like if you spent one minute around politics,

You look at it and you know that that's a completely bullshit case. But if you know nothing and you're willing to just write anything to try to sabotage – If you have no integrity, you're willing to lie about it. Well, not only did they do that, but then the lead writer went out and did a podcast and made it even worse. It has an impact. It has an impact.

That's why they do it. They don't do it because they just don't like Chris LaCivita. No, no, no. Yeah, the entire goal was, you know, I think it was to inflict maximum harm on the campaign, the candidate, myself. Undermining morale, undermining donor confidence. Creating division. Well, the donor confidence part, too. You know, they wanted to think that the consultants were ripping off Donald Trump. Yeah.

Right. I mean, good luck. I mean, yeah, please. And and and, you know, when you've been in the business for as long as I have, 35 years, the most important commodity is your reputation. Totally right. Right. And so when when when you're dealing with a frontal assault on that, you have to deal with that. But at the same time, you can't allow to, you know, deviate. You can't take your eye off the ball, which is, you know, actually winning. And, you know, you're in the crunch time of a campaign.

And, you know, you've got, you know, it literally is to create chaos and division. Try to take your eye off the ball. Well, I'm just trying to make you. Oh, yeah. And dry up the money that that that is obviously that the campaign is raising, that it's using to, you know, be effective. And of course, you know, with with.

The Harris campaign raised, I think, what, $2.5 billion? Jeez. Because they're literally running around saying, oh, we didn't have enough time to actually perfect our perfect campaign. Yeah. And fucking break. Right? It seems like the longer it went, the more imperfect it became. I mean, yeah. You've given me six more weeks. The result would have been a whole lot –

probably even the wire margin. But yeah, it's part of modern campaigns, but that's got to stop now. That's got to stop now. And it's not just for the people that are engaged in the process.

And and and we've obviously seen the courts and we've seen, you know, people taking a different look that, you know, maybe this is getting a little out of hand and it's sending a message. But but at the same time, it's it's actually good for the consumer. Right. The voter, you know, they've got to know that because right now they don't. I mean, the media has one of the lowest ratings.

approval ratings of any institution really that's in existence. And they wonder why, you know, they're laying off. I mean, if people just covered their news and left the editorial comment out of it and left the agenda out of it, I mean, there are – I'm not going to name them, but there are publications –

In D.C. right now that, you know, are dealing with, you know, they're they're cleaning out people because they're not conforming to this one very leftist perspective. And and, you know, those things have those things have impact. But I dare to say that that the most.

That you'll start seeing, I believe you'll actually start seeing because the pendulum's moved so far. You know, if you're not, you know, behind it, you're in front of it. And that pendulum's got a blade on it. And right now, you know, at least from the media standpoint, I think people are getting the joke that they're going to have to at least...

try to be a little bit more objective in how they portray things. Because at the end of the day, the American people don't want to be told. They just want to know. And there is a difference. Yeah, huge difference. We only have a couple minutes left, Chris. I imagine you're still talking to the boss.

I don't disclose or talk about that stuff, but yes, I talk to a lot of people in administration. I will tell you, the boss left me this message, which of course I saved because he left me a voicemail message. Yeah, you got to. About something he wanted me to do on the fentanyl stuff and something that I'm working on and we'll be talking about in the not too distant future. But yeah.

And then he left it. It was Thanksgiving morning at 1218 a.m. Wow. Guy does not stop working at 1218 a.m. He doesn't ever stop. And it's a very detailed, hey, Chris, it's your favorite president. I swear to God. And I look at it and I'm like, it's 1218 a.m. My ass was sound asleep. I was duck hunting that morning, so I was literally wiped out.

But the first thing I say to myself is, shit, the one phone call I don't want to miss. Yeah, right. So I'm like, all right, I'll call them back Thanksgiving morning. So it's 9 a.m. I'm literally in the kitchen cooking my in-laws breakfast because I'm a good son-in-law. And he calls me, 9 o'clock. I'm like, hey, boss, did you get my voicemail message? I did. Who'd you play it to? My in-laws. Oh!

It was so funny. It was great. I thought you'd be watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. No, no, no. Truth be told, it's in the background, but no one pays attention to it. But it was quite amusing. But they're running at a million miles an hour. Of course, the inaugural was nuts. And that's the other thing. I mean, you go straight from a campaign like that.

And in which we had prepared for that campaign to last 60 days longer, right, or three counts. And we had this amazing operation that I think we've really changed dramatically.

Republicans wage their efforts. The RNC was a phenomenal partner this cycle in doing that, and we're going to actually seek to codify a lot of those things that were done, that we had come up with during the course of the year in terms of ballot integrity and ballot security, because Americans really care about that. You hear about stolen elections. You hear about

these things that happen in other countries and people look at us as an example. And so we've got to obviously maintain the integrity of all of that.

As well as getting rid of all the bad apples that decided that the weaponization of the DOJ was a good thing. Yeah, right. And that changes perceptions on how people look at us around the world, but also it also gives despots and the bad guys around the world the opportunity to say, well, hell, if they can do it in America, then I can get away with it here. So the fact that President Trump won in the manner in which he did by not only winning the electoral college but winning the popular vote has really given –

I don't think people really understand the impact it's had worldwide. Just the sheer volume of calls and people that I've talked to, not just here, but in other countries are just like, wow. And it gives them that degree of hope. So, I mean, I you know, the golden age isn't just a slogan. I think we're living it. But but again, all of those gains that we made in the election.

All of those voters, we don't own them. We're merely renting them. And in order for us, at least from the Republican standpoint, for us to maintain that coalition and make that coalition more of a permanent part of the party, we have to accomplish what we said we were going to accomplish, which is something that the boss is keenly aware of, which is why he's in a hurry, which is why there's this shock and awe, really, for lack of a better word, term going on with Trump.

with what he wants to accomplish because we have a limited amount of time and we got to get these things done. And so I think that's being reflective in the speed in which they're doing. And on that note, one thing I definitely wanted to add is not only do you have a point of pride of being a part of this election victory, but seeing the results of it. So I live in North Carolina. I'm a North Carolinian.

and seeing J.D. Vance is there today. We've seen the Army Corps of Engineers has just been deployed. They're going to work. They're helping the people there. The result of this election is not just a win for President Trump, but you're seeing right now the result of that. And you should feel a tremendous amount of pride for Americans are being helped right now, which shows in the case of Western North Carolina, not only was it willful that they were being ignored by the Biden-Harris administration,

But now they're seeing that there's actual hope that someone is there who actually cares and is making a change for their lives for the better. It was a great thing to be a part of. It's, you know, obviously the crowning achievement for me personally. And I've always told the president and I told the president, you know, I appreciated the opportunity just to be a part of it.

Yeah. I mean, well said. And you guys have been great. I mean, look, we had a lot of friends. We had a handful of not-so-friends. We had a speed bump. A couple of speed bumps. Yeah, but I mean, that's the nature of politics. It wouldn't be worth doing if it wasn't hard to do it. No, that's 100%. Nothing good comes easy. Yeah, 100%. Well, listen, we've known each other for, gosh, almost 20 years. I can just tell you there's nobody that I felt more comfortable with you and Susie than you.

running this campaign, not only just to the integrity of the campaign, giving us the best shot to win, but also building a culture that allowed this president to do what it is that he was saying he wanted to do. And I think all of that's coming to fruition. Can't thank you enough, not only for your friendship here to the program, but like what you've meant to our listeners and everybody else. You don't, I think you might understand because, you know, this guy's an Italian with a healthy ego.

But like, you know. I get my politics from the Irish side. I'm just saying. I can appreciate that. I'm always looking for a fight. I can appreciate that. And anybody out there that doubts that. Oh, don't doubt that. Stand the fuck by. Thanks for everything, pal. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate you.

Man, I just love that guy. And anytime he wants to come back, I feel like we should have him back because he has so many stories that we weren't able to get into in the time that we had. And you know that he would love to tell them right here on the Ruthless Variety Program. Entirely. He's a man who's seen some shit and done some shit. Yeah. And always has a good story to tell. He always has a good story, but he's just really good at what he does. And, you know, we've all been witness to that during the course of the Trump campaign. He's been doing it for 20 years plus. Yeah.

before that. And it's just rare to find a guy with utmost integrity, knows what he's doing, is a leader of people. They can get a big, unwieldy presidential campaign pointed in the right direction to accomplish incredible things for the American people. I'm so glad to be his friend. I'm glad he was here on the Variety program. So we've got the question.

And remember, this is like we've got a big guy over here. He can get the questions right to the White House. White House correspondent John Ashbrook has got his ears on. He's listening to you.

If you like and subscribe and add right into that YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, what question would you like him to ask next at the White House briefing? We're going to listen to it. It may very well happen. We'll read a bunch of different responses. Use some humor, too, because we like to laugh here on the Friday Program. So if you got something – there were some people who were like, I'm really surprised you didn't ask about animal fighting. Yeah. Like what's the biggest animal that you, Carolyn Levitt, could take down with your bare hands? Yeah.

because it's always been part of our questioning. That could work. Yeah, it could. You know, she may come on the program at some point. We might get an answer. We'll get a direct answer on that. Right. So you just hold out. People want to know.

Do all that. With that, thank you to all of you for listening. Thank you for your newcomers, of which there are several. Welcome to the party. We appreciate it. We're going to keep going here and having a lot of fun in the process. I think we did it, Smug. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Chris Alcivita, always welcome on the show. And thank you so much to listeners. Remember, like and subscribe on YouTube if you have not yet. So until next time, minions, keep the faith.

Hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless. Valentine's Day is just around the corner and nothing says love like the warmth and comfort of a Miki Couture blanket. Whether it's for your sweetheart, your best friend, or even yourself, Miki Couture has the perfect gift to make hearts melt. From luxurious textures to stylish designs, Miki Couture blankets are the ultimate way to show you care.

Plus, now through Valentine's Day, enjoy exclusive savings on our limited edition Valentine's collection. Visit any of our stores or shop online at www.mikikator.com and give the gift of love, comfort, and warmth this Valentine's Day. Miki Kator, blanketing the world in warmth and love.

How much do you guys know about the things flying around in the sky under the ocean? I didn't know anything about it. I found a thing on National Geographic called UFOs Exploring the Unknown, a five-part series, and I was hooked. I started paying attention to the hearings, the fact that the Senate majority leader is asking for a UFO disclosure and none of the mainstream media is covering it.

Well, Monday through Friday on my show, I try to cover all the stuff going on in the world of the UFO, UAP phenomenon. Check it out. Be educated. I ain't asking you to believe in all of this other stuff about what people are theorizing. I'm just telling you to ask questions. So come on over, ask some questions, be part of Down to Earth with Christian Harloff.