Is Trump’s Trade Messaging Working?
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Besson gets to be the good cop. Be like, look, we get it. Like this isn't sustainable forever. Like you said earlier, it's basically an embargo between China and the United States. So he gets to be good cop. And then Donald Trump gets to be the guy. And it's always what you say, smug, the madman theory of why he's been such a genius in politics is,

is like, no, this guy might take it down to the studs. He might do that if you don't come to the table. And so Besson can be out there negotiating, and his backstop is a guy who's like, I don't know if I can convince this dude. I don't know if I can convince him. Mm-hmm.

It's the American market. You want access to this market. The backstop is the American economy. So come to the fucking table. And that's what he has. And that's why I like this is a two-step negotiating strategy between Besson and Trump. It's genius.

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My, oh my. Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial. We got a real treat for you today. I can tell you that the boys are, well, they're a little fired. We've got a lot to say. Yeah, the boys are buzzing. Yeah, the boys are buzzing. The pre-show meeting...

indicates that this could be a real banger. Yeah. I mean, there's so much great news to cover. There's so much good content to cover. I mean, I'm just so excited about this one. It's going to be good. So like everything we do, there's a little bit of vegetables and a lot of candy.

The vegetables front, it's going to revolve around trade and the economy. I know a lot of you have asked us questions and try to break down what it is that you're hearing in the national media. Lord knows the mainstream press has absolutely no idea how to interpret the Trump administration, the president, his secretaries, what they're trying to accomplish. We think we got it. We think we got it. And so we're going to give you all of that. We're also going to cover some variety, including...

A new pope, perhaps, which there's hard takes on here from the Ruthless Variety program. We have a king of the hill, again, as we do on Thursdays. But the place, and we have a great interview. James Altmeier is here, the attorney general of the great state of Florida. Great dude. When you have that kind of power in the great state of Florida, you're well within your rights to have an interview here on the Ruthless Variety program. But also, like, we've known this guy for a bit. Very, very smart guy.

And you should hear what it is that he's up to because it stands in great contrast to an awful lot of what you're hearing out of blue States with trying to draw lines around what they will or will not do on immigration. I mean, like California is trying to usher in a whole new, listen, legal pathway to pedophilia. I mean, it's just, it's just that bad. I mean, I'm not, I wish I was exaggerating. Not a joke. I'm not joking folks, but where I'd like to begin is,

is where we left off in Tuesday's episode. You'll recall that we covered a story

It was ostensibly about how journos had become Democrats in one form or fashion, either as operatives or candidates. And the jumping off point on that was Hannah Trudeau, who was a senior political correspondent. I understand that that comes with some pushback in the press, but she worked for The Hill at that point. And she had now announced her candidacy for New Hampshire Congress. Yeah, the first...

Congressional district. Yeah. And we covered it. We gave you the highlights, the lowlights, a little bit of background about how the nexus between Democrats and journos have existed for a long time. And we thought that was a good opportunity for us to sort of color that in and give you a good flavor of the revolving door. Since then, Hannah has reached out.

To the variety program to indicate that she would like to elaborate on her position and why she has come to the choices that she has and that she would like to be the very first Democrat on to the variety program. When it happens to be in the great tradition of people like Pete Buttigieg, who did right leaning podcasts.

People like the governor of California. Yeah, Newsom did a Charlie's podcast. Conservatives on his show. Well, it's a new thing. So, yeah. Right. I mean, this is Democrats got the message in one component, not in terms of the policy, not in terms of the TDS, not in terms of anything other than the fact that their means of distribution were antiquated.

They understand that they cannot now go to just the nightly news, CNN and MSNBC, and hope to reach the general public. They're going to have to do some long-form interviews, perhaps some that are not entirely laudatory of everything that they've done. And so we, as the Variety Program, welcome that conversation, think that that would be constructive. Now, I understand there's an awful lot of you.

Well, here's our point of view. It's a conversation worth having.

This is someone who is a younger demographic that, as we've covered with David Hogg and everything else on Show Me Your Hogg, has gotten a lot of pushback from the Democratic establishment. There is an unwillingness to let younger voters into the Democratic discussion at some point. Wait your turn. Wait your turn, Barack Obama, as they said. Mm-hmm.

But this is somebody who's going to get Democratic establishment pushback. And so our invitation is to you, Hannah Trudeau, we will take you up on the offer to come in and have a discussion. We'd like to talk a little bit about...

this, the dynamic that you're facing within your party, the pushback that you get for younger generations running against the Schumer-Pelosi view of what the Democratic Party ought to be. That to me is the most interesting part of all this. It's because it's becoming clear that the Democrats are in this soul-searching phase of like, okay, what is it our party stands for? Who's running our party? Because clearly it's not like

Schumer and Pelosi. Schumer and Pelosi are clearly trying to still maintain power, but it's very clear that the younger generation of Democrats are kind of done with that. So that whole dynamic, I think, is just very fascinating. Can we put up the graphic of her tweet? She says, would love to debate and discuss. Yeah. So yes, the answer is yes, Hannah. Thank you for reaching out to us. We appreciate that. We would be happy to

debate and discuss this and many components of journalism, the Democratic Party, the nexus within. I think it's going to be respectful. And I think, honestly, our audience and whomever you hope to

reach as voters, we'll get something out of it. Yeah, and you guys always give me a hard time for my journo buddies, but I'll be honest with you, I'd like to hear her message. I'd like to hear what it is that she has to offer for the people of New Hampshire. If nothing else, you'll have Ashbrook to defend you, because he's with all journos.

That's right. You'll have at least one ally on the panel. I think it's a good opportunity right here on the Ruthless Variety Program. Gigantic audience across the country and maybe fundraising opportunity for Hannah Trudeau. Big numbies in New Hampshire, too. Yeah, that is true. All the early states, we actually, by going and doing stuff, you know,

Our early voting states are pretty huge. They're pretty huge. So a chance to reach some of those center of the road voters that you hope to capture. Anyway, let's start with the real stuff. The things that we are focused on, I understand how you, the voter, the consumer of any kind of news and information that's not the Variety program could be a little confused.

as to where things sit with tariffs, taxes, the general economic environment, because, you know, there's a couple of different messages here. Let me set the table by playing two things that happened this week. The first is President Trump in the Oval Office with a meeting with the new Canadian prime minister in clip one, please. We also have...

A situation because everyone says, when, when, when are you going to sign deals? We don't have to sign deals. We could sign 25 deals right now, Howard, if we wanted. We don't have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don't want a piece of their market. We don't care about their market. They want a piece of our market. So we can just sit down and I'll do this at some point over the next two weeks.

And I'll sit with Howard and Scott and with our great vice president, who has done a really good job. We have some good news to report on a lot of fronts. But J.D. will be there and Marco. And we're going to sit down and we're going to put very fair numbers down. And we're going to say, here's what this country, what we want. And congratulations, we have a deal. OK.

Pretty straightforward. His point of view is we don't really need a deal. You need one much more than we do because of the American marketplace, the largest economy in the world. You understand, and we're going to get into this. But let's see clip two to provide another side of this story. This is Besant, who is on Laurie Ingram on Fox News.

This isn't sustainable, as I said before, especially on the Chinese side. And, you know, 145 percent, 125 percent is the equivalent of an embargo. We don't want to decouple. What we want is fair trade. OK, so unsustainable on one side, it seems like Trump is saying very sustainable unless you come to us on the other. You might think that's contradictory, right?

We at the Variety Program have a definitive view on how it is not. We're about to explain that, but also given a little bit more context on the specifics that Treasury Secretary Bessent was talking about with the China-specific deal in Graphic 3, if you don't mind.

This is from the Chinese embassy in the United States.

As China's lead in China-U.S. economic trade affairs, Vice Premier He LeFang will hold talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson during his visit to Switzerland from May 9 to May 12. Oh. The reason that that is of significance is the initial response that you got out of Beijing was that there was under no circumstances would they entertain any discussions whatsoever.

They did not want this to be a leverage play or be drawn into a discussion where they were going to renegotiate anything. And you got the sense that Xi Jinping, in some ways, in China, would rather take his economy down to the studs than admit that the United States is not getting a fair deal here and renegotiate all of that. Now, that much may very well still be true, but we've also seen the downturn in the Chinese economy.

And the reality that if you're China, there's great opportunity in the United States forcing the issue with the rest of the world in that you could try to get into those markets yourself. They may have found some resistance there, which means that opens up a discussion that you need to have with the United States. Do I expect a trade deal with China from May 9 to May 12? No, not at all.

I do expect some kind of a de-escalation. And I think Besson said this very well, that what we have currently is nothing short of an embargo, which was not something that anybody, I mean, embargoes are something that you do with countries that you're at war with. We are very much not at war with China. We are at a economic crisis.

Well, it's a perilous moment for the economy. They have been waging economic war with the United States for an awful long time, and there has been very little response from our side. This is an opportunity to sort of reset the dial. Yeah, I will say this. I think that there's been a lot of talk about all these other countries that the president has deals with that are in process.

And I think that the Chinese coming to the table is the best evidence we've seen so far that our president is very close to deals with other countries. The Chinese must know this. Their intelligence isn't non-existent. No, they're everywhere. So they must know that the president is close to deals with other countries that will put the

pressure on China and they're coming to the table because they believe that now is the time that they have to deal with a strong... Like they don't want to be isolated. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. I mean, look, I think that's well said. When we come back, we're going to deconstruct the seemingly disconnected statements of President Trump and Besson to make you kind of understand the full picture, which within the Trump administration, as we understand it, it's our take. I mean...

Look, take it for what it will, but we haven't been wrong a lot here on the Variety program. We feel like we've got a pretty good record of observing these things and giving you a good indication of where things are going. And we'll tell you what we expect over the next few weeks, months, and into the remainder of the calendar year 2025, right after this.

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One saying, we don't really need deals. We could sign 100 deals today. It doesn't really matter. We want to make sure that these things are good for us. They've got to come to us. We don't really want their markets. They need ours. And then you have Besson saying, basically, the current position with tariffs is unsustainable. We understand that we're going to work these things through.

You had, I think, a pretty good point on some of this, Duncan, that sets the table in the good cop, bad cop. Yeah, yeah. I love this. From a negotiating strategy, I think what Besson and Trump are doing is brilliant. Besson gets to be the good cop, be like, look, we get it. Like, this isn't sustainable forever, like you said earlier. It's basically an embargo between China and the United States. So he gets to be good cop, and then Donald Trump gets to be the guy

And it's always what you say, Smug, the madman theory of why he's been such a genius in politics is like, no, this guy might take it down to the studs. He might do that if you don't come to the table. And so Besson can be out there negotiating, and his backstop is a guy who's like, I don't know if I can convince this dude. I don't know if I can convince him. Mm-hmm.

It's the American market. You want access to this market. The backstop is the American economy. So come to the fucking table. And that's what he has. And that's why I like this as a two-step negotiating strategy between Besson and Trump. It's genius. Totally. Yeah, I think it's... Look...

If you've been around politics at all and followed this at all in the last eight years and you've read, you know, either Art of the Deal or anything else, you know that the one thing that Donald Trump is never going to do in any negotiation, whether it's foreign or domestic, is make the other side feel as though he needs a deal. That's like, look at the first couple of chapters of the book. Never. Right? I mean, this is not a...

Like, you don't have to be a genius to figure this out. Also, like, if you ever negotiated anything, I don't care if you're, like, buying a used car or anything else, you want to make them think you're going to walk off the lot at some point because they're going to try to give you a better deal. And, like, you know, a good dealmaker gets pretty close to walking off that lot before they actually get the deal, the best deal that they can. And that's what Trump is doing across the board.

Now, it got pretty hard to sort of dissect from just an average consumer of information early on when you had Peter Navarro out there basically saying trade deals are terrible, that tariffs are great, and the best part about the U.S. economy is just sort of drawing a big circle around the United States and not allowing anything in or out. Now, we know...

from various sectors within the economy. And we're not talking about Wall Street here. That is, if we are prepared to have economic downturn, that is exactly how you do it.

Right. I mean, you could survive. I mean, we do have a nice economy and you could make each other T-shirts and mow each other's lawns and all those kind of things, which is which is fine. But you're not going to have two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, maybe double digit GDP growth as a result of that, which is what I think a huge segment of the electorate suspects that Donald Trump is capable of and why they voted for him.

His goal all along was to use tools to try to reset the American economy to a point that's not just working on the Wall Street trading desk of all of your money, but actually create wealth within this country, create jobs, reinvigorate manufacturing, insource businesses.

all of the components, whether they're rare earth minerals or tech or ag, all of those things as the things that we do better than everybody else in the world and commoditize it in a way that has value for the average American, not just for people who are trading options, not for people who are, you know, buying futures. It is, it is something that creates real wealth and communities across this country. We know that because he's talked about that.

that. And I'll be honest, if you doubt that, look at the record of the things that he's talked about since the beginning of this campaign and look what this administration has done all the way through. Are they controversial? Sure. Absolutely. But if you look at what he's doing with immigration, he's following the letter of what it is that he's promised. This is part of what he promised on the economic agenda. That's what is happening here. You may all say like, oh, well, he seems to be a long term believer in tariffs.

Well, you know, he might be in certain circumstances, but he's also totally in favor of economic growth. And the only way to get that is to ensure that there are markets outside of the United States for things the United States does better than everybody else in the world. Let's take agriculture just for a, you know, one off the center of this country. Huge component of the Trump coalition.

A disproportionate amount of wealth is created out of the agriculture community, whether it's the farmer or everything that goes into the town that supports the farmer and machinists, suppliers, all of it. Tremendous bounty in this country. Massive amount. Now, we do that better than anywhere else in the world, and there are massive, massive current markets that take up huge components of...

of the export of our agricultural goods. It's also what makes the price of food in this country not only sustainable, but much lower than very many places across this globe. And it's one of the centerpieces of our economy. Now, you can't just do the Peter Navarro, draw the circle around the United States, have no exports and make that work. It'll never work. Energy is another one.

Tech supremacy is another one. There are many components of the United States economy that we know, and I know Donald Trump knows, Scott Besson knows, and the entire economic team know, are our advantage overseas. And you contrast that the way the Democrats run policy in this country, where they try to limit our energy development. Okay.

No, they've always tried to limit us. And you mentioned that it's controversial, the things that the president wants to do. And it's controversial because there is a media complex in this country that is against advancement and against using the resources and against using America for what it's capable of doing. They are constantly crying about the climate and

I got to tell you, man, there is so much that this country can do if the governor of the media and the cultural pressures and the social pressures that they put on our workers and our country. There's so much that we can do if you just lift that cap. You know, in every other country in the world, they do not have the same, maybe in Europe.

But in every other country in the world, they do not have the same cap. There's so much that American workers with their own ingenuity and with American resources that we can offer the rest of the world that we've been limited from doing for such a very long time. No question about it. So where does that leave us? My bet, I'd be interested to hear what you all think about this, but my bet is

that we're going to see the outlines of major deals. It won't be the whole enchilada. And as I said with China, I think that's a work in progress. It's very complicated.

You may get a detente from the embargo stance that we're at right now. But I think, you know, you look at like India, for example, the EU for another, many of the South Asian countries that we've been in discussions with. There are components of deals that have been formulated enough in public discussions that I wouldn't be surprised that some of those things start rolling out.

And what the media is treating as a status quo, a very static economic environment, is actually quite dynamic. And I think there is a good chance that like six months from now, all of us could be sitting here laughing about, do you remember when these guys all thought that we were basically going to become an isolationist country that doesn't have any sort of upward mobility from an economic growth standpoint?

I think those things are pieces of the puzzle. But I think they also intersect very neatly, both in terms of their in practice and in terms of the political wherewithal to get it done with the tax cuts. And if you look at the timing of all of this, you might say like I've heard a lot of different analysis from people on the street and elsewhere where they're like, they keep talking about deals. I haven't seen a deal.

They keep saying that they want to make these deals. Why aren't they making these deals? You hear very little from the international community about any of it. It strikes me that that dynamic is because it's on our plate about what a deal is, and the international community isn't particularly interested in spoiling that discussion. And two, it's going to be on the timeline that Donald Trump chooses.

And that timeline is important for the political wherewithal that you use to try to build a momentum for domestic tax policy that you are going to try to put into place with a two-seat majority in the House of Representatives. They got to shoot the moon on this thing. Very, very tight majority. But if you do it with the backstop of, oh my gosh, this thing is starting to work –

All of a sudden you get some reluctant Republicans that are starting to see the world in a very different way. You build momentum towards inevitability rather than...

hey, you've got to pass this thing because we're going to go down without it. Look, it's not just Republicans, but there were 35 Democrats who voted to stop this California car ban last week in this Congressional Review Act bill in the House of Representatives. So there are some dem normies out there who are ready to let America work. I just I think that I think there's a cultural shift back there.

to push back against the left and everything the left has done to just keep our country down. - And I would love to get a deal from like India or Japan or something. - Massive country, massive amount of opportunity. - Huge.

I'm a little suspect on the EU component of this. Because it is complicated. It's complicated. And, you know, Donald Trump in his first term tried to work with these people on so many things and they... Well, there's a national security component to it too. Yeah, there's so much. Yeah. I remember when Donald Trump went to these folks and was like, look...

You're going to be relying on Russian natural gas. And they laughed in his face. They're like, oh, you're going to... Remember the talking point at the time was like, he's going to be the first president to walk away from NATO. Yeah, right. And it's like, all he really said is, how about you pay your fair share? Exactly. And he called it. He was like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield. And he was like, no, this is what's going to happen. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. And then, look...

War in Ukraine and what happened? Here's the thing, dude. Here's the hard truth. Europeans are weak and lazy. They just are. They're like, yes, we want North Africans in our continent to do the work. Yes, we want the Russian energy in our continent to pay for all of everything that we're doing because we don't have the –

strength to just say, let's have a nuclear reactor. Let's use the resources we have. Let's actually work for a living. Europeans are weak and lazy and they are suffering the consequences. It's true. Pippa, can you deliver me my 401k? Exactly.

Exactly. We can't be like that. That is something that we have to look at Europe in America. Don't be like that, right? We can't be like that. There are so many writers. There are so many great conservative writers who 10, 15, 20 years ago were warning us about this. And they were on Bill O'Reilly. They were on every Fox show.

And like Mark Stein, perfect example, right? You guys all read Mark Stein. Mark Stein warned everybody what was going to happen to Europe and what he warned about we're seeing with our very own eyes. Well, it's immigration, economic vitality, the production of unique –

demographic sort of advantages over other... Like, it all faded. Okay, so one other thing, because you were alluding to Peppa Pig there. Oh, did you have a problem with that? I have a take on Peppa Pig, and I've been waiting for this for so long, and you delivered it for me. Please. Please.

They are so mean to Daddy Pig. Yeah, I noticed this. I don't care for it. It's disgusting. We banned it from our house. And I hate it. Yeah. Okay. Peppa! Every episode is how Daddy Pig is just like terrible. Oh, Daddy Pig. Daddy Pig, you've gotten your trousers muddy. Daddy Pig.

Daddy Pig, I watched the episode of Peppa Pig in which they do father, daughter, take them to work day. Peppa Pig's dad is like a fucking nuclear scientist. They treat him like garbage. And they treat him like shit on that show. It is terrible.

He lets them. They've erased masculinity. Shout out to Daddy Pig. We recognize how you deliver for your family. He should threaten to take them to the bacon factory and be like, keep running your mouth. Is the Mama Pig also giving them a tough time? They're so mean to Daddy Pig. Well, she provides no defense for Daddy Pig. That's good enough. She goes to the factory too. She lets their children make fun of their father. How many kids are there?

Two. One goes to the factory and the other learns a lesson. That's all he's got to do. A little baby back peppa. How do you let him get away with that? You don't let anyone get away with that. Europeans look down on effort. Yeah. They really do. They look down on your ingenuity. They look down on Daddy Pig. They look down on Daddy Pig.

Hold her accountable. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up. It's been bothering me for a while. No, we put a nix to it in our house. We didn't care for it. I don't like how they treat Papa Pig at all. So anyway, it leads us to tax cuts. And so the point that we're making with all of this is there is a momentum, and it may not be—

as it appears to be a haphazard coincidence. The correlation may be sort of a plan here to sort of build momentum towards something with a very slim majority and a hugely complex, very diverse set of views on a generational tax reform. And what they're trying to get to is the overwhelming support of

from the American people of tax cuts for the American people. And you can't have that conversation because it's nothing but a process conversation in DC. It's what are you going to do with salt? What about B salt? What are you going to do with this? What are you going to do with that? Like this person thinks this, this person thinks that, Oh, what does Chip Roy think? And it's all bullshit. Like none of it's all process and none of it has a single impact on your life. But if you're trying to consume information,

As a voter and how you're like, I don't know, thinking about balancing your books as a business over the next year, you can derive zero value from that conversation. It's all process based. Our take, and I don't know what's going to be in this thing, is that they're trying to get to the basic construct of an extension of the 2017 tax cuts that ushered in an incredible economic growth in this country, along with some campaign promises that President Trump made.

and get that all packaged together and kind of like jam it through. Our partners at AFP did some pretty incredible polling that sort of supports this point of view. They released a new poll showing massive bipartisan support for renewing the TCGA. That's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That's a 2017 bill that we've been talking about. 1,000 people, POS, reputable people,

firm. Despite the POS, I've always told my friends at Public Opinion Strategies, POS is probably not your best stuff. Don't ever use the acronym. It's probably not your best stuff. They are great, though. But they have become a preeminent pollster that people across the aisle, everyone respects. What they have found is you've got 68% of respondents that report that their taxes are already too high.

There's also a broad cross-section to support 84% for keeping the current tax rates in place. Pretty high number. 84%. I mean, you can't get 84% of Americans to agree on anything. No.

95% of Republicans, 79% of independents, 74% of Democrats. 74. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's wild. So as they're putting this whole thing together, I think that they've provided, AFP has provided a pretty good 50,000 foot look of the conversation you need to get back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't lose track of that. Right. Because like you were saying, Holmes, like everybody's getting stuck in the morass of the

and this, that, and the other thing. The reality is the American people very clearly want this extended. They're planning on it. And to your point earlier, businesses plan on it. You can't run a business in this country and plan for who's going to get elected in the midterm. That's not how business works. You have to look out four years, six years, ten years into the future and make plans for that. That's how you invest as a company.

And those are such big macro things. Like if you listen to the debate, if you read like trade pubs, the stuff that follows like every jit and tittle of all of this stuff, what they talk about is like, well, they're considering FMAP for Medicaid or they're doing like this little piece. Like none of it makes a fucking difference for you whatsoever. Like just get to the end of the story. Bring yourself out of that situation.

process argument that the press wants to make and talk about whether you want your taxes to go up or not.

Whether you think that that is a good economic condition for this country or not, recall that the corporate rate goes up 15% at the end of this year if you don't do anything about it. And before you say that that's the rich fat cats, recall that the corporate rate is not paid by individuals. It's paid by the people that ultimately are getting it.

W-2 paycheck from those corporations, which employ millions of Americans. Well, and I don't know. It might also be a pretty good political message. I mean, we're talking about the legislative component of all of this. But, like, if you're a Republican on Capitol Hill, fucking put your shoulder to the wheel. Yeah. Like, this is a great political message. It is. It's like my colleagues across the aisle want to raise all of your taxes. How do you feel about that? Yeah. Right. So, like...

Offense. Yeah. Offense. Play offense. But do that coupled with what I think is happening with the Trump administration in terms of how they're dealing with tariffs. Again, we talked about this last week. You could see a scenario in the fall where you're cooking with gas. And that is the America that we all voted for and one that I think Donald Trump is well on his way.

So our question of the day is who's the first? Who's the first to announce a trade deal? Do you think that makes a difference? Do you think the Democrats will ultimately in the media try to downplay any sort of deals to try to – and ultimately what that's about is – You know they're going to downplay it. You know they're going to downplay it. In doing so, by the way, is like a message internationally that you're trying to tank the American economy.

That's their goal from day one. So make no mistake. These people fucking hate America. They really do. And if that was our lesson of the first Trump term, every success he had for this country and for our people, all they did was neg it. Like the whole way through. So I 100% think he'll put a deal together and they'll be like terrible.

Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. People still concerned. Like they've been telling, they've been telling the hardworking people of America for fucking 25 years that they're going to negotiate a better deal for American workers. They've never delivered it for a second. One goddamn second. And Donald Trump will show up and do it and they'll be like, not good. Not good. Bad deal. People still, people are still concerned about this. Unbelievable. There is, I found someone who's living in East Fucknut. What?

He's extremely concerned about their pocketbook issues. They say they voted for Donald Trump and now they're not. No. Like that's 100% the first paragraph of some story coming at you. Anyway, we're going to get to all of that in your comments from last episode, which are a doozy, by the way. We talked a lot about the journos, Hannah Trudeau getting into Democratic politics and the journos basically falling away as a real profession. We asked you.

What should they do with themselves? You got some great responses ready for this.

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Okay, coming back at you with your responses to the question of the day from Tuesday's episode, what should journos do with themselves? You got to like and subscribe. And when you do and you put a comment in there, we read every single one of them. We distill them down to a few choices. And to read them, we always start with the voice. Okay, remember...

Like and subscribe if you wish to opine. The first comment comes from Gail VG. And Gail writes, let the Dem journos loose.

I love this. For anyone who is in the point of life...

that you've entered a community that the next door situation or like a list serve, like a mom's list serve governs a huge component of information flow. This is so funny. I know.

Here's my one complaint on this comment. They're already there. Well, they are already there. Yeah. You will never in your life meet a more petty tyrant than a Democrat on the next door app. I mean, it's so true. It is fucking terrible. This is true. And I do remember my brother in law. Don't encourage them. I do remember my brother in law sending me some screen caps a couple of years ago saying

where there were people talking about squirrels in their neighborhood, and he posted on the Nextdoor app, I've taken care of the squirrel problem. I've killed 17 of them in our neighborhood. 17? And the people underneath, he didn't kill a single squirrel. Sure, sure, sure. Continue. But the people underneath were like, how could you do that? Exactly. That's the worst thing you hate animals.

Animals. They're very. Yeah. And he said it to me and he was like, can you believe these? It was just like, we were dying to have things. It's also the kind of people that just sort of ragdoll you about not having your pronouns in the next door app. And to be clear, I'm not on this thing, but I've seen this happen. I've seen these push notifications. Yeah. Where they like ragdoll people about their sensitivity, cultural sensitivity, and then are the first ones to hit the next door app in a black

guy's walking his dog down your street. This is exactly right. You know what I mean? It's just the latent racism. And you begin to get a formation. If you want to know the modern, a local level is the best perspective. Because these are people who literally just

They drink Chardonnay. They hang out. They talk about all of your insensitivities that you're having towards certain communities. And then all of a sudden they get just like a random wealthy black guy walking a dog. And they're like, does anybody call the police? Yeah. Dude, what if... You know what I mean? It's just like... They put the sign out front, we believe that no one's illegal. And then like somebody who's...

you know, their skin has a melanin that they don't appreciate. Right. And they step on their block and they're like, oh my God, we got to call 911. So true. It just, it's just so true. It just proves to you that no matter what you look like, the fellows are brothers in arms and the left is against all of us. All of us. Totally. Smug, you'd be dead to rights if that occurred. Dead to rights. So I've seen, there's, I think a Twitter account, which is like next door fails or something like that.

And I just don't understand how people can spend so much of their time just, like, 24-7 just find... They go through the app and just get mad about everything. Everything. Like, I think I spoke the day after the election how, like,

The HOA in our neighborhood had some rules of like, okay, you can't put up election signs until like one week before election day. And then 24 hours after election day, you know, they have to come down. And so then the jerk, you

you know, half a block away in the like biggest brick place in the neighborhood, clearly. Has like Kamala Central, like you thought it was a Kamala like voter volunteer site. Covered, like billboarded up. Yeah, they're foam baking inside. Way ahead of time. He's not moving it. And like my wife when we'd drive by would be like, don't do anything, you don't need to. And I was like, I'm not going to. I'm not going to. Because I'm putting the Trump sign up

all over our yard, and I'm going to have the cameras pointed at, because you know these people can help. I'm going to wait to get one of them, and then I'm going to create a situation. You don't have to create a situation. I want to field the complaint. Let me field the complaint so we can have a discussion about the gentleman down the road. Right. Smart. I follow the rules, but...

The day after the election when I saw that dude having to pull down his signs like a sad loser, I had mine riding shotgun so I could go one mile an hour and just wave as I drive by.

You just say, just hold your ground. It's so good. Hold your ground. And his wife, meanwhile, is in the backyard with a tip-top or a chilled chardonnay. She's getting chiffon. Don't see my face. Yeah, no. I mean, she's getting drunk and trying to figure out how to cheat on her husband. Anyway, comment two. We go to Doug Soroks. Yeah, this is from Howard Yersetti. Howard writes, I believe the Dem journos have a golden opportunity.

to become the PR spokespersons for MS-13. They've done a good job, I think. They have. Their passion for the plight of MS-13 plus their left-wing woke media access make them perfect for the job. Oh, that's good. Using SEO and other internet tools to highlight their good works.

I love this comment. The only potential downside is the historic, unforgiving nature of MS-13 for failure. Well... Yeah. If you don't convince them, there may be repercussions. A couple more teardrops. Yeah.

I like how Wolf is sort of custom-made these days. Yeah, yeah. You know, you get SEO. It's artisanal. And he knows me. Yeah. He knew that was the comment for me. These are the things. Yeah. All right, Smug, what do we got? Comment three is from The Cookie Army. And The Cookie Army writes, The new journo job is real estate agent. They've been selling America houses that they cannot afford for years. That's brutal. Hit him right there. Ugh.

Brutal. That is pretty. That's brutal. That is pretty brutal. Also very true. Listen, when we come back, the Ruthless Variety Program is going to embark upon something that we have not done. And it is a rare endorsement, potential endorsement. We're going to talk it through about one of the highest offices in all of the world right after this.

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Head to helpusretire.org to take action and reach out to your representatives in Congress today. Help Us Retire is sponsored by the Investment Company Institute, representing asset managers serving individual investors. Okay, fellas, look, we've been real reluctant to weigh in with the power of the program, the power of the minions, with any sort of endorsement.

We respect the conclave. Yeah, we respect the conclave. You have to. I think we might be having what you would call a seminal moment. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. In that, well, the papacy has been something of great discussion lately, and there is going to be a new election for a new pope. They have now quarantined all of the cardinals, from what I understand.

Yeah, so now they're finally quarantined and they're not going to be listening to the variety program. So we feel like now is the time to make our pitch. It's our pitch. We didn't want to sully the process. Well, we didn't. And it was very important to us that, you know, it's a Democratic and pseudo, maybe a Republic style election. But we do have a favorite. We do. We do have a favorite.

I don't know how to say this man's first name, but I do know his last name. Cardinal Pizzabala. This is a gentleman who I think deserves all of our attention.

Mama mia. Mike. I think the first name is Pierre Batista. Pierre Batista. Pierre Batista? Pierre Batista Pizzabala. Okay, Pizzabala. Don't say it like that. Give it the honor it deserves. No, I will not. I refuse. We should call Cardinal Papa John Pizzabala. Oh, thank you.

The board work. The board work is so good. Listen, I just think that when you have an opportunity to deal with an Italian named Pizzabala. You gotta. You gotta take that opportunity. Oh, poor Mario. So he's a Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.

And he cuts an unmistakable figure, this is according to CNN, in the dark corridors of ancient and stone patriarch that is in this troubled corner of the world. He's played a very valuable sort. All of that very important to us. No question. We've considered all of it.

Ultimately, where we've come down on is Pizza Bala is a name that you just cannot ignore. Yeah. Yes. That's good board work. Can I read this bio right here? It says he was born in Bergamo, northern Italy, but after 35 years immersed in the concerns of his flock here, he says, quote, I have no idea what people in Italy are talking about most of the time. Good.

Wait, this may be like a supplemental endorsement for you personally. Yeah. This may be... He's like, I want to escape the nonsense that I hear in Italy, the crime. Mamma mia. The danger of living in Italy. He wants to be in a place less violent than Italy. He's like, I'm going to Jerusalem. To Jerusalem.

Honestly, this is a huge value add for Pizzabala because I read some of the reporting around the conclave and everything. And the number one complaint from all the cardinals was how tired they were of the Italians taking up all the time and filibustering around their speeches. Because they like to talk. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. Can we take a moment to acknowledge that these are like Super Mario Brothers? The board is echoing back a video game. It's doing great work. Oh, God, it's good. It's good. Smash, that's fantastic. No, uh...

I can understand that you would tire of those sorts of things, but he is a prolific body of work. Smug, I'd like to just get your impression. Like, is this some, are you ready to support Pete Zabala? I mean, if he allows folks to call him Papa John, Papa John Pete Zabala, 100%. He's got my support. Normally, I think Italians are, I mean, let's be honest, whenever you put them in a position of power, you're going to get corruption. You know what I mean? Nine times out of 10.

You let an Italian get a crew of two, they're going to rip off half. He's going to try to find out no-show jobs for the other cardinals. No-show jobs? Half the diocese in New Jersey, New York are all going to be no-show jobs for cardinals.

Yeah, you know, we're going to run waste management. That doesn't fall under your purview. Here's the thing. I actually really like this guy, Robert Serra. He's a very based, very based Cardinal. And I really liked him until I read this about Pete Zabala. Oh, yeah?

Oh, wow. Jeez.

great saint, this guy Maximilian Kolbe, who you guys may be familiar with, who offered himself in place of a Polish guy at Auschwitz. One of the greatest stories in world history.

And I do absolutely love this about the pizza ball. That's insanely courageous. That is. I mean, listen, very culturally relevant to this moment in time. If his name didn't get us, perhaps that story did. Either way, I mean, look. I didn't know that. Wow.

Pretty incredible, right? Can you put up graphic for it? Just take a look at this cat. He looks popey. He does. If he decides to go by the pope name of Pope Hey I'm Walkin' here, I will support him. Pope Hey I'm Walkin'! He looks like a king!

I had no idea about that story. That is incredible. It is incredible, dude. It's incredible. You know how they always change your name? I mean, the real problem with this is that you get this guy, Pete Zabala. Yeah, you'd hate to lose that name. You'd hate to lose the name, right? I mean, he's going to go by John Paul or by Francis. Yeah, but Smug has an answer for this. Papa John. Papa John. Yeah, Papa John I. Yeah. Yeah.

Just you can't lose pizza ball. Anyway, first here in the Variety program, you're going to hear about some of us with deep roots in Catholicism, I might add. So just take that for what it's worth. That's our endorsement. I hope he gets it. I really hope he gets it. That's our endorsement. All right. We got to get to a game. King of the Hill, it's Thursday. Boy, oh boy.

Boy, oh boy. Yeah, you're the defending champion now. I'm a defending champion, and I am excited to play. It's been a wild week. As you recall, the way that we play this game, these are people who build themselves as conservatives for years and years, and Trump broke them some years back, and they have the most insane takes on the internet. We surf through all of their X-takes, basically. Yeah.

And then provide you the best of the best. We have a judge and jury. We just work our way through it. We crown a champion. Yeah. And I'm the defeated. So now I think I'm bailiff. Yep. Right. I am. I am the judge this week. You're the judge. And Ashbrook, who are you bringing to the table? OK. Challenger is Bill Crystal. Bill Crystal coming back in. Wow. Wonderful. You notice how this is taking a new shape lately.

The names that keep coming up. Yeah. Very different than it was in year one and two. Like, they've got a new energy with, like, the crystals. I've got Smoke and Joe Walsh, and I feel good about it. Some would say that their energy comes also with the death knell of their entire grift. Yeah. And they're working very hard. I think we can only go ringside. Ladies and gentlemen, your...

Attention, please. Once again, it's time for King in the Red Corner fighting from Piero Medaille's checkbook.

Bill wore now wore forever crystal. And now, in the blue corner, fighting from his own Twitter account, Smokin' Joe Walsh. That's good.

It's always good. It's always good. If you haven't seen it live when we announce a new live event, you're going to want to be there because it is good every time. Good every time. So Smoke and Joel Walsh has got a real panoply of things. But I thought I would do his playoff last segment. Okay. Because it's got a little bit of something for everybody. And I felt like the continuity of the show would deserve something like this. So let's put up Exhibit 3. Okay.

I've spent much of today informing Trump voters that the image of Trump as the next pope isn't fake news, that he really did put out that image. Days like today make me want to just hang it all up, open a coffee shop in a small town in the middle of nowhere and never be heard from again.

Here's what I love. Here's what I love. Like, one, he just doesn't understand the Internet and he's on the Internet all the time. That's like how he makes his living. He doesn't understand trolling or anything else. And like he really does think in his core of core that Trump is campaigning to be the pope. But I just but two, he is suggesting what all of America would prefer, which is that he disappears from the face of the planet. And then at a base level, like the whole dependent clause at the beginning of his tweet says,

Do you think that there's Trump voters who fucking talk to Joe Walsh? Like the idea that he's got this like

you know, soundboard of Trump voters he checks in with every day about what they think about the meme that Donald Trump put up about him being broke. He's like Frank Luntz in a cafe every afternoon. It's such an absurd premise. Dude, that is actually really true. Somehow this guy's got his finger on the pulse of the Trump voter in America in the year of our Lord 2025. This guy hasn't been a Trump voter in a fucking decade. Well, I've checked in and here's what I found. Ha ha ha!

The guy ran for president against him. Against him. It's just incredible. Spaghetti, Bill Kristol, Exhibit 10, please. Continuing with the theme, he quote tweets the President of the United States with his funny meme with him as the picture of the Pope saying, Hey, J.D. Vance, you fine with this disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father? Ha ha ha.

So he takes it seriously. Bill Kristol, noted critic of anyone who should demean the Catholic Church. And I will tell you this about Exhibit 10.

Bill Kristol, I don't think, is actually trying to get to the bottom of whether J.D. Vance is uncomfortable with the president's joke. I think he is trying to create something that clearly did not take off. So I think Bill Kristol's tweet there is offensive. Because I think if there's something that J.D. Vance has to be mad about, it's that...

Bill Kristol advocated for a war that J.D. had to go fight while Bill Kristol was sitting at home. Yeah, I also really love this play by Ashbrook of this tweet from Kristol because it reflects this larger problem in liberalism, which is

Like, they still do believe they can play this old playbook of, like, using our values against us. Which is so fucking offensive. When they come to you and they're like, you as a Christian, a person who I hate and despise and I make fun and mock everything you believe in. Are you offended by this, by the way? You know what I mean? It's like, I don't believe in your beliefs whatsoever, but I think if I can blackmail you, I can have you do what I want you to. Exactly. Get the hell out of here. So where do we come down on this? You know what? Um...

I mean, listen, your take was great, but I just think it was, for me personally, such a mistake for Crystal to try to go after J.D. Vance on that, given that what he did, and it just makes my blood boil. It makes me hate Crystal so much for that. It was a good judge play. I will say that we have a...

We've defined ourselves in many ways of what offends ourselves as the judge. It was. And Smug has defined himself, and this was a very, very solid play. I will concede that. Round one. Round one goes to Crystal. Spaghetts, let's throw up exhibit number seven, please. And War Now, War Forever is quote-tweeting a picture of a story about a Kansas County jail where their holocaust

illegal immigrants as they're awaiting deportation. And Bill Kristol writes, I'm not yet quite at, quote, abolish ICE, but I'm getting awfully close to the anti-anti-abolish ICE. So what he's against, apparently, is detaining illegal alien criminals while they're awaiting deportation. So the

The picture, I guess, offends him because he doesn't think it's good enough for MS-13 and Tren de Aragua who are looking to murder regular old people trying to live their lives. I mean, what a comfortable life, just like getting paid by Piero Madara to just sit in your house in McLean and drop takes online. Yeah. Because he's not affected by illegal aliens who are out there killing people.

robbing people, murdering people. He's not affected by any of that. Bill Kristol demands these illegal immigrant criminals go to a Sandals resort. That's exactly right. Again, this guy used to publish a conservative magazine, and now he is against deporting illegal immigrants. Incredible. I've got a choice to make. I need to survive the rest. I have two what I feel like are...

Nukes? Yeah. And I'm going to go with one which is not on topic, but I do feel like just sort of ends this discussion fairly quickly. All right. Okay. Exhibit four, please. There should be coverage of Trump's cognitive decline. Massive coverage because it's an issue, a huge issue. It's incredible. Why do they keep trying this play? Why? I mean, like...

Especially after the whole Biden thing and how it becomes like somebody who's defended, who defined defended Biden actually passed the debate performance. Yes. As a better candidate for president. So I have a theory on this, and that is the ones who offended the most during that period and defended Biden to the hilt the most.

now feel like they have to overcompensate on the other side to justify how they beclowned themselves in the spring and summer of 2024. So a lot of those are never Trump people. They fought to the hilt for Biden more than Democrats did. Yeah.

More than Democrats did. That is sad. And so now these people feel like they got to do this same bullshit on Trump just because... Just because. It's like muscle memory. Because it was so fucking embarrassing what they did. Yeah, like this worked. I need to get out from underneath this. I'll dig, dig, dig, dig. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I mean, like...

It's just money. That is such a great statement. It's like the guy who's doing like 50 press conferences a week and just like wrecking journos left and right. Yeah. Oh, definite signs of comedy behind there. Round two, Joe Walsh. All right. So for round three, I've got many choices, but this is the one that I'll go with because I think it has the most flair.

And I think highlights one of the things that we love most about our contestants here on is that not all of these are made from a sober mind. Yes. Yes. Drunk takes. Let's get it. So at 9.58 p.m. on May 2nd, Joe Walsh sends out Friday night. This is Exhibit 5, please. Spaghetti.

Friday night tequila tweets. Oh my God. Let's go. If you don't treat the least among you with love and respect, then respectfully fuck you. Take care of those who don't have what you have. It's my favorite from so many different ways. First of all, he's like, I'm super drunk, so everything that comes after this, just have in mind that I'm drunk. Second of all, it's at 10 o'clock. Third of all,

Be respectful of people, guys. Fuck you. It's just such a perfect encapsulation of a former conservative when this guy was a right wing lunatic that became like a liberal apparashic. Yeah. Which is what he is. Think what I think or fuck you. And I think he's talking about if I'm reading between the lines, I think he's talking like trans.

Is he really? You think so? I think it's either trans or it's El Salvador. But it's one of the two. Because that's the only thing in that time period that would lead you to a point where you were like, the least amongst you, fuck you. Well, I read it a little bit differently. And that is the least among you. I took as him doing a Cliff Notes version of the biblical phrase. But the least among us shall be first.

And so he was trying to do some of this. You think this guy has got a – like a theologian? No. The dude is just hitting tequila on a Friday night. Now we're left to read like is he trying to stay with the trans? He and Pete Zabala were having a serious discussion about the scriptures.

I think he's trying to sort of do that thing. It's even more offensive in that case. And that's my point. It's absolutely horrible. If that is what he's doing, then it's like respectfully fuck you. Then like enter into a little scripture action and then drop the F-bomb. Fantastic. Good work. Good. Okay. Okay. Spaghetti, let's do exhibit 12, please. And Bill Kristol is quote tweeting something from the governor of Illinois.

Yes. Fat man Pritzker. He said it might be time to try that again. And what Bill Kristol writes is that Democrats haven't nominated a governor since 1992, Bill Clinton, who he ostensibly opposed as the publisher of a conservative magazine. And before that, 1976, Jimmy Carter, another one he ostensibly dunked on as the publisher of a conservative magazine. They both won.

So Democrats being Democrats, they promptly stopped nominating governors. It might be time to try that again. So here you have an endorsement. Former conservative, former publisher of a conservative magazine calling for J.B. Pritzker to eat his way to the White House. I like your style. Replicate what Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter did.

Bill Kristol, former conservative, now endorsing J.B. Pritzker. So this is tough because it is – the charm of that tweet is more it's fun calling him Fat Man Pritzker because, like, that's good. The other thing that I think is kind of funny about it, just to give Ashbrook his due –

on playing this is Crystal has such little respect for the education of his own followers that he feels like he has to say in 1992, we elected Bill Clinton. In 1976, Jimmy Carter. People don't fucking know that was actually necessary. They had to do a parenthetical being like, hey, by the way, we elected Bill Clinton that year. That's exactly right. Duncan, what you might call that is the weekly standard for people he doesn't respect. Yeah.

I do feel like, look, I'm going to say it's hilarious and he's an idiot, but the Friday night tequila tweet. Hard to start a podcast. I mean, I just love the idea also of him thinking he's like...

okay, guys, I've had some tequila. Like, hold on to your seats. Like, he's going to drop some fire. And then it's just like, be nice to people. And if you're not, F you. It's like, dude, really? Like, I thought you were going to drop a barnstormer. You're like, uh-oh. No, I've been drinking tequila. I'm about to tweet. It's also one of those things that, you know, when you have too much to drink and you say something you think is really profound and then you listen to it and you're like, oh my God, that is like the most.

See, that's the best case scenario. I think he's a lightweight and he's like, I just had like a little sip of, you know, of a reposado. It's not like, I don't think he was like, the warm is down and here it comes. I'm about to be a problem. You know? So like, it was disappointing for me because it's like tequila tweet and I was like, oh boy, he's going to really drop it.

Your Honor, no one will accuse... And all of it goes... My entire choice is on Ash Brooks on Fat Man Pritzker. Yeah. Just because it's funny. It's fair. Just because... No, it's fair. You champ, Ash Brooks. Wow. No, it's fair. Thank you, Your Honor. Just because it's funny, it's a Fat Man Pritzker. It's the gamesmanship that makes it. I feel like he really did say it. I will say no one will accuse Bill Kristol's 2028 candidate as a lightweight. I'm not.

I disagree with the judge's decision, I have to say. I personally disagree with it. I find it to be sort of shallow in terms of it didn't actually consider anything. But you got to play to the judge. You got to play to the judge. And he did. He did it formidably. And any time you can say fat in front of smug. Dude, FMP, he called him Fat Man Pritzker, which is hilarious. So much. FMP. We're going to drop the FMP on him.

Call in an airstrike. For you OGs of the Ruthless Variety Program, you realize that like two-thirds of the show is just trying to make each other laugh. And he did. So I will... Good decision. It is what it is. He's not small. Let's just be honest here. He's very overweight.

And also, is he not acquainted? He's a billionaire. Is he not acquainted with any of the Ozempic drugs these days? Just wait, pal. Just wait. He's going to start taking it, and then he's going to start looking like Jack LaLanne. Nine months. When he hits the campaign trail, everybody's going to be like, whoa. But you know what's funny about that? It's politicians who were once fat who became prominent, and then they get skinny. People don't trust them. They don't. They don't trust them.

They look at him and they're like, what's up with this guy? What else are you hiding? Yeah. Right. What's up with this guy? You know? I think he just doesn't even care, dude. I think he's like that. Like, his family's always had money, so he's one of these, like, you know, fancy boys his whole life. He's always been soft. He can't change. That might be right. All right. We got to get to our last story. Our last story, it's somewhat serious, but it involves Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports, a place that we have respected for years and had some interaction with over the years.

But it fits back into a category of things that we've talked about a lot on this program with just this latent sort of anti-Semitism that's happening throughout the country in different ways that deserves to be called out. You listen to the Ruthless Friday program, you have absolutely no doubt about where we stand on this shit. If you harbor any of that stuff, we're going to fucking call it out. I don't care if it's in the universities or if it's in West Texas. We're calling it out.

And this is what Dave Portnoy has done. Now, he's obviously Jewish. He's got an investment personally in how this whole thing is perceived. But in one of his establishments, a barstool location, there was an incredibly offensive sign that was put up. Now, for those of you who've probably seen a little bit of the story, before we get into the seriousness of it,

We wanted to contextualize, like, what is a sign? Like, what does this mean? Like, a sign up in a... How could some patron of a bar just put a sign up at a bar and make it make sense? And what it was is one of those, like, bottle service. Mm-hmm.

deals and there was a lot of questions that i've got over the last few days from people who are like what the hell is that like what does that mean like somebody just erected a bottle service sign well you'll be having you know here on the ruthless variety program we actually have experience in this very specific item and we know exactly what they're talking about if we can put up a

the clip here involving Michael's bachelor party or his birthday party. So there's, that's exactly the kind of sign that we're talking about. If you notice, it's not only just that sign, but in the backdrop there, it's a picture of Michael as a wrestler. We may have that separately. Do we have that? Well, we got to put it up.

Yeah, there it is. There it is. He's a wrestler. You know, listen, Dale Duncan, God bless you. You put this kid to good work at a very early age. He had a lot of energy. There was nothing left to do but make him wrestle larger humans. Well, I would also, I would point out there, this is me at five years old and I'm wearing an American flag singlet. I've been a patriot.

From the earliest days of my life. Yes. Despite the fact I could barely tie my shoes. Not very intimidating, I would say, that photo, but...

But a good one. It's good. But ready to fight. And then to Josh's point, you pay money to have that sign in that picture to goof on your friend. So what happened? So that's what you do when you go get bottle service. They tell you, they ask you what it is that you want to put on a sign to goof on your friend that you're like actually throwing a party for it.

That's the context for the story. Right. What happened was in Dave Portnoy's Barstool Bar on Sansom Street in Philadelphia was a sign that read. Do we have the picture of the sign? Let's put that sign up. I can't. They just order that. Dude, I can't. I just cannot believe this. It says, fuck the Jews.

And they brought it out? Somebody paid for this. Somebody paid for this sign, which blows one's mind that in public anywhere where you would think this would either be funny or you think this would be appropriate –

Or whatever. It's insane. It's an insane thing to do, particularly when you've got the situation in the Middle East and you've got riots on campuses and all of these things where you've already uncovered by the course of the 2024 election that there is massive amounts of anti-Semitism latent in the left side of a younger demographic of this like, you know.

people who show up at places like this. Yeah. So Portnoy did a little homework on it. He figured it out and he figured out who did this and he uncovered this person. The patrons ordered bottle service along with a custom sign, not uncommon for bars to have personal personalized signs, as we've said. Uh, and he found out who this dude was. So can we play clip four, please?

Another update from the sign situation at Barstool-Samson Street, which I am so sick of dealing with, but obviously going to deal with. So last time, I'm like, I thought about it. I'm going to send the two people responsible.

to Poland, to Auschwitz concentration camps and try to make it a teaching lesson. I talked to both of them on the phone. Both of them took accountability. Both of them were like, yeah, we did this. And we're willing to go and try to learn. Well, then I see a now deleted, I think it was an Instagram or Snapchat story of one of the kids, Mo Khan, the one who posted the video.

And he has this long speech. We'll put it in. Claiming he was just being a citizen journalist. He was just documenting his college life. He had nothing to do with the sign. Didn't buy it, had nothing to do with it, didn't even know what it was. He's just being a citizen journalist. Quite literally a 180 from when I talked to him. So I called up Moe. He presses record. It's a little message. Hey, this call is being recorded. He's like, I'm with my parents or whatever. I'm like, Moe.

What's going on? Like, we need some accountability. You hand up. I did it. I fucked up. I'm stupid. Like, let's try to learn from this. Yeah, okay. And where this ends is Mocon, the person that Dave had identified, not only doing a 180, but then doing subsequent interview that honestly hosts that were very anti-Semitic in nature, so sympathetic to an anti-Semitic

message trying to defend him where he claims to be the victim of all of this. That Dave is the one that called him out without actually doing what he had done on the phone with Dave Boy, which is cop to the fact that he made this sign or ordered this sign or was a part of ordering this sign. This is obviously set el precedente.

And so now he's on this like full blown campaign to try to blow all this up. But we're not going to air what this guy did to camera in large part because I don't think it's worth hearing. And I certainly don't want to amplify this guy's voice in any way. But basically it was like a Gen Z leftist who is trying to disassociate themselves with any accountability for something that they had done and then demanding restitution. Right.

from restitution dave portnoy in his bar he deserves it in his bar where you ordered a sign that said fuck the jews right he wants money from dave portnoy to reinstate him not only in his college but then uh for pain and suffering like what a fucking bizarro world we live in right now i mean like number one like shout out dave portnoy like like

There are not a lot of people who have hugely successful multimedia empires worth millions and millions and millions of dollars who had the sort of transparency to be like, hey, something got fucked up and here I am. I'm going to go live and explain what happened. Like,

Like that is not the threshold of responsibility for a guy who's actually like the CEO of a huge, huge company. No, it's usually a statement from the holding company that is like this happened at our bar. We're taking the appropriate steps to find out what happened. But that's like sort of the radical transparency that a guy like Dave has made his entire career on. So like my hat goes off to him for doing it in the first place. That's incredible.

The other thing I would point out is that sign didn't say two-state solution. It didn't say justice for Gaza. It didn't say think of the children. It didn't say I disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu. What did it say? It said fuck the Jews, which tells you everything you need to know about what these people actually believe. It's the core. It's the core. And we've been trying to tell you this for a long time, that if you, like me, grew up in a generation that –

fortunately for us, didn't have to think an awful lot about this because we were taught that we're all sort of equal. It's the character that you have and the content of all of that. And you didn't just sort of process this latent racism or latent anti-Semitism, which has now come to the fore over the last 10 years. We saw all the DEI and racism and all that stuff. Well, the anti-Semitism piece is very real. We saw it spill out after October 7th.

And then you saw an administration with a Biden administration conduct an entire electoral strategy, particularly with the selection of Tim Walz over Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. They codified it. They codified it. It wasn't a pushback knowing that you have a bully pulpit the world has to listen to. It was an understanding that this is where people are. We need to

sort of adjust ourselves to ensure that we can basically appeal to these folks. And that's what's so disturbing. We've talked about this over and over and over again on the Variety program, but you're now seeing this in a pop culture way, which I think is, honestly, this is refreshing.

Because it's going to spill into outside of the political context of all of you who listen to stuff like this into a modern day world where all of you live that don't follow politics, that are on there for sports or commentary or just having fun. They're going to realize...

Dude, this exists. This exists. And you got to get it out of there. And like until you shut this shit down, I'm not talking about like cancel culture and shit like that. What I'm talking about is you got to hold people accountable for what they do and say. And in this day and age, when you do something like say fuck the Jews...

That is no different than many other connotations that you could say with different ethnic groups in this country that is going to provoke a reaction. It is certainly not on the proprietor of the establishment to pay you restitution for the decision that you made to put that on the sign. Great point. Yeah. It's so weird. I mean, again, this whole like Zoomer lefty kind of thing.

This is like DEI restitution. I've been robbed. Kind of like, what's that word? They think everyone owes them everything. Yeah. This kind of entitlement. I do what I want. Backwards weird kind of entitlement. I mean, it's got to be, the intention of that belief system is essentially to destroy the country.

It just wants to tear this entire country out, root and stem. You can accomplish whatever you want if you put yourself towards it, which is the fundamental of this country and why it became the greatest country on earth. It just wants to destroy all of that and be like, no, actually I'm owed everything. I'm so sick of that. So, I mean, look, we've interacted with an awful lot of Barstool guys over the years and appreciate the good work that they've done. I think they've changed everything.

media in many different ways. And we've been huge fans of him. But this is an invitation to Dave.

Listen, there's nobody that is listened to more by politicians in Washington, D.C., opinion makers and everybody else to try to get this story out one way or another. I know you're working to try to do it. Come on the program. Let's talk about it. I think it's an important story that sort of illuminates this larger issue that we, the Variety program, have been trying to communicate for a long, long time now.

Anyway, so we got to get to a great guest. Listen, this guy's a good guy. Young guy, next generation Republican leader, James Altamire. He's a attorney general for the great state of Florida. A lot of power in that. You know, you're like the chief law enforcement guy in a great state of Florida. They're leading the way. Yeah. I mean, they're doing a lot of really great stuff. So listen to this.

One of the things you know and love about the Rule This Variety program is that we bring in folks from all around the country with very important roles. In this case, a guy we've known here for a little bit, very good dude with a very important job, Attorney General of Florida Uffmeyer. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. I've been a big fan of the program for a while, so it's an honor to be here for the first time. Well, it's an honor to have you. And as you know, we like to have smart people talk about smart stuff.

One of the things that has bubbled up on the federal radar, obviously, with the Trump administration and immigration enforcement and all this kind of thing is ultimately an awful lot of this is into the states and the partnership between ICE and local law enforcement and all of that kind of thing. You're kind of in the middle of all of that. And I know there's been a rash of, shall we say, activism off the left hand side of the map recently.

that you and many attorney generals, Republican attorney generals across the country have been dealing with. Give us a little insight into all that. Yeah, look, you've got judges across the country that nobody elected that are exceeding their authority, exceeding their jurisdiction. They've been doing it for a long time. You know, these nationwide injunctions. You've got a judge in one venue, you know, somewhere in the middle of California, and they issue an order and say it applies to the entire country. Yeah.

And they begin getting away with it because people let them, you know, or something about just it's a judge and they issue an order and everybody respects it. But many times they don't have jurisdiction. And it's great to see the Trump administration fighting back a little bit, you know, when it comes to getting a terrorist out of the country.

That's executive power. That is the prerogative of the executive. So, yeah, we've had some situations down in Florida. I know other AGs are fighting it across the country, and it's about time. Yeah, well, you wouldn't think it would be controversial to try to get actual terrorists out of your country, but this is where we find ourselves. So tell us a little specifically. I mean, I know that this has been a big priority of yours.

What kind of stuff specifically you're dealing with in Florida? I understand there's a couple of judges that are headhunting for you. In Florida, we're taking it seriously, our obligation to help the Trump administration. We were the first state to get all of our state police, state law enforcement, county sheriff certified under 287G, where they get delegated authorities under ICE. They go through the training, and they can actually carry out the federal duties and help detain and deport.

So we've had thousands of people we've been arresting and helping to deport. We had Operation Tidal Wave the last week of April where we had over 1,100 people arrested in one sitting. And most of these individuals, you know, they're already criminal aliens. They have detainers. Right.

We've had over a dozen criminal aliens the last couple of years that have committed serious crimes, murders, sexual assaults, and almost every time... It's still there. Almost every time they've been in the justice system before. They were picked up for drunken disorderly or resisting arrest.

And then they get let out the back door. So we're not letting that happen anymore. You know, DHS, ICE, they've been great to work with. But we do have a judge that is threatening to hold me in contempt because I won't follow an order she has to direct our law enforcement not to enforce a new law we passed earlier this year that says you can't be illegally in the state of Florida. So this is a judge. Let me get this straight because I want to make sure I'm clear about this. This is a judge in Florida.

who has decided that a law that was passed by the Florida legislature and signed into law by Governor DeSantis, that law enforcement not obeying that, she's basically directing them not to obey that law.

That's right. The ACLU brought the challenge. It's clear this judge doesn't think the law is valid. We'll appeal. This is novel territory. We believe we're on good footing. A state has to have the obligation, the opportunity to protect its sovereignty. But the interesting thing here is no law enforcement agency in the state has been sued. They're not a defendant. So she's issuing this order and saying you've got to tell them all to stand down. I'm not going to do that.

that. The first day of law school, you learn that judges have jurisdiction and you can't order somebody around that's not properly before the court. So I've said no. I mean, my argument in court is I'm not going to waive my obligation. I took an oath to the Constitution. I respect separation of powers. I respect these independent law enforcement bodies and their prerogative to follow the law and they should do that.

a lawman knowing law things. I know you guys don't like reading the Federalist Papers, but if you read them, you'll see the founders, they believed in separation of powers. I'll tell you, man, it's refreshing because we have an illegal immigration problem in this country and somebody has to do something about it or we're going to be

completely overrun into the future the way we were over the last four years and it's just so nice to see the state of Florida taking this so seriously and you taking your job so seriously to remove lawbreakers from polite society.

Yeah, look, we got the border tightened down. I think the president's done a nice job there. But, you know, you still have hundreds of thousands of people in our state that should not be there. And a lot of them are causing problems. Yeah, no question about it. Another priority of yours, which has just sort of recently come on our radar in large part because we have the unfortunate set of circumstances of employing a Californian. Now, he's one of the very few who are actually very conservative.

So he follows up with these kind of things. Generally speaking, I think we ignore almost everything that comes out of California. We try. We try our very best. But in this case, child trafficking, child exploitation, soliciting sex of children has become an issue unbelievably in California. Florida taking a very different tact on all this. I know this is a big priority of yours.

It is. I got three little kids. You know, I was not a big social media guy, Snapchat guy, but the more I'm digging in, working with our investigators, it is the preferred means that a lot of these predators will go to to try to solicit and prey upon kids. Hmm.

So we've been arresting numerous people. Last week it was Snapchat. The next week it's Roblox, this gaming app, where you have these predators and they pretend to be young kids. They use different photos. They develop relationships. They appeal to kids' insecurities. And then they start asking for the pictures. In the worst cases, they try to set up meetings. It's scary. If your parents are out there, they need to wake up and realize this is a new world and you've got to know what your kids are doing with those cell phones online.

So we are going to be the anti-California. They might want to create rights to pay minors for sex. And if they want to have those predators living out there, you know, so be it. But not in Florida. We will be very, very tough on this. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. I mean, the California thing, for those of you who haven't followed...

You've got a state senator out there who is basically in full opposition to any law that would penalize somebody for soliciting a 16-year-old or 17-year-old for sex, meaning like they're paying for sex. I mean it just blows my mind. Demented. But it also just shows what a different value set that James and your crew in Florida –

which is now really established as a red state doing good things. I mean, you can see with the economic growth and everything. It's hard to relate to any of that, isn't it? It is. I mean, it's unfathomable. I just...

As a parent, the last thing you want is some creep trying to trick your kid into meeting at the Starbucks down the street. When I got in office just a few months ago, I asked our team, give me the files and you've got these financial crimes and things that are out there. We'll get to them.

But every one of these sick predators that's out there, I want to get them behind bars as fast as possible to keep our streets safe. So we've had dozens of arrests at this point. We busted a big international child pornography ring just a couple weeks ago. We got a guy on this gaming app last week who, you know, this was a 17-year-old that was soliciting younger teenagers to send sexual abusive content and

No tolerance. Yeah. I mean, I hear a lot about that, actually. Illegal gaming apps and whatnot, where they're soliciting sex of minors and things like that. It's just, it's, I got to imagine, I mean, look, you're a lawyer by trade, right? Your background, you're an attorney. That's right. Probably didn't envision getting into politics. I tried to avoid it. I kept trying to go back to law and the governor kept giving me new jobs, but.

But we're blessed. We got a good thing going. We got great leaders. We actually passed a law. We were first in the nation to pass a robust law to make it illegal for apps to let younger kids and younger teenagers on the applications.

They're just not mature enough. They don't fully know what's out there. And then we believe in parents' rights, so 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds, they can access the applications so long as their parents give permission and have access to the tools so they know how to track and monitor what's going on. So we're ahead of the curve. Other states are following. It's been great to see. And if companies don't want to follow this law, we'll go after them.

Can I ask you just to step in back a second? Because I find it interesting for guys like you, very substantive attorney. Obviously, you approach all of this stuff from a legal point of view, which comes in handy when you're attorney general of a state. But, I mean, I imagine growing up, you didn't think, like, I'm going to be – I want to get into politics. Like, were you particularly political? Did you come from a family that was interested in politics? No. In fact, I –

I thought it was kind of disgusting and wanted to stay away from it. And every time I'd start to follow somebody, you know, they'd end up in some terrible sex scandal or something. So, no. Well, I mean, it's Florida, so, you know, there is something. I'm not going to ask you to say that. It was not something I wanted to do. But, you know, I've always been competitive. I'm a fighter. Nothing really scares me. If you're fighting for what's right, then at the end of the day, you know, the people are either going to like it or not. And, you know, I don't do this job...

I don't get so much out of this job. I get a lot out of going home. So I'll go, I'll serve, but I think there's too many public figures today. They need the job. They're obsessed with it. It's who they are. For me, it's not who I am. That's my wife. That's my kids. I'm just trying to get to the back porch. But if I can fight a fight and put some bad guys away, man, there's nothing greater. So Florida's been first into the breach on a lot of this stuff. You, Governor DeSantis...

And you've mentioned some other states who are starting to follow the lead. What's that been like working with others? Yeah, you know, we we took advantage of time. We had, you know, we had the governor and some great legislative leaders. And, you know, we got more done the last couple of years than probably the rest of the history of the state put together. And when it comes to parental rights, when it comes to

a universal, fully funded school choice. When it comes to cracking down on some of the woke things that corporations were doing, yeah, businesses do have some free speech rights, but if you're a publicly traded company, you have a fiduciary duty and you can't be trying to sell little bras to little boys. So we've...

You know, we've done everything we can to take advantage of the time. And it's been great to have a blueprint. And other states have come in, you know, looking to learn from us. You know, first state to have an election crimes office. And we've prosecuted dozens and dozens of people that are trying to vote twice or twice.

you know, felons, sex offenders that shouldn't be voting in the first place. And, you know, as a result, we went from being down, you know, quarter of a million registered Republicans. Now we're up, you know, 1.25 million more. And, you know, the governor, he didn't run to the center. He did what was right and just and,

conservative and people voted with their feet. You mentioned corporations and I just want to ask you about something because it's not just rhetoric for you. You are actually going after a major corporation for their unfair practices and that's Target. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I think people at home remember, you know, Target rolled out this transgender kids clothing line. I don't think they did that because there's this huge market out there for it. You know, it was a political statement. And unfortunately for them, you know, the stock value crashed 10 billion in 10 days.

And where we have standing as a state is we invest in the stock as part of our pension investment fund. So this is the retirement for our law enforcement, our teachers. And so we took a hit. And if companies are going to engage in some of this radical work,

ideology business and not just like get in the business of doing business and making money, which shouldn't be that controversial, then yeah, they've got a duty to their shareholders. So we've brought suit, we got a great judge, I think he understands what's going on. So we feel very, very good about the case. And then we've worked with our pension fund where we've set aside, I think it's 20 million or so for a corporate oversight and accountability fund.

to make sure other companies that are out there that want to get engaged in some of this political stuff that's going to hurt our state, hurt our pension fund, that they think twice about it. Yeah, it's interesting. You grew up colloquially known as the Redneck Riviera. That's right.

I mean, you've been a Florida guy your whole life? Yeah, I grew up in Destin. It's a little fishing village in the Panhandle, though people found out about the beaches. They did. It's busier today. COVID put it on the map. A lot of mackerel out there. I'm now looking for the new secret. Yeah, a lot of mackies.

Yeah. If you find the secret beach. Yeah. If you find the secret beach, let us know. We, too, are interested. Yeah. But it's a conservative area. You know, a lot of military bases, very, very strong military feel patriotic. Great place to grow up. Yeah, it's it's great. I wonder if you're sort of tracing back your career. Where did you go to school in Florida, too? I did. Yeah, I went to UF. I'm a gator. You're a gator. Came got sucked into D.C. up here for law school.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you look at your career trajectory and where things have put you, I mean, at some point you probably had dreams of being like a sportscaster or a basketball player or whatever. And you've now ended up here. I mean, what?

Put this in context of your career trajectory. I know that once you are a chief of staff for the governor and you get to know a whole bunch of things, all the good and the bad that comes with your state, you feel an obligation to do something about it. I remember being in that space in the same kind of way. When you have the ability to see the whole field, you feel like public service is actually really important when you can do something about it, which I assume was what you've chosen here. But I...

I can imagine that at some point you see your career ending. Like, what is it that you really wanted to do? You know, I really did want to be a prosecutor. There you go. I love speech. I love debate. And, you know, I love putting bad guys away. Now, out of law school, I ended up at a great, great firm in D.C. I was attracted to the firm because they were suing Obamacare, you know, six ways to Sunday. Is that how you started your legal career? I started there and then, you know, crazy set of circumstances, ended up doing some legal work for Trump's first campaign.

I was outside counsel, but kind of got sucked in, went into the administration. And I was a senior advisor for Wilbur Ross at the Commerce Department. He was kind of on the back end of his career. I would have loved to have gone off and made some money with him. Just an absolute genius. He could see the matrix. And there I started learning more about business and the dangers our country faced because there'd be some of our military assets, tanks and things. We'd look at where we were getting the metals from.

And there would only be like one or two manufacturing shops in the entire country that's producing this for our military. We're getting everything else from overseas, some from foreign adversaries.

So that was a great learning experience. But D.C. kind of wore me out. So I got married and was ready to get home. And then the governor, who I had met up in D.C. and thought a lot of, he got elected. So the timing worked out to head home. And little did I know what was coming with the COVID fights and how Florida would have to lead the way and be the beacon of hope for the rest of the country. Yeah, man. I mean, so you're a Gator guy.

I'm a Gator, yeah, I'm a Gator. Florida State fans not with Stanley. I've been teaching at the law school at Florida State. So he's covering his bases. This really is a statewide guy. Also a huge Cam Ward fan. Coral Gable is beautiful this time of year. I remind my students at FSU every day they couldn't get into Florida, but

Oh, man. He is fighting. I think that Lackaway is a good quarterback. It's going to be a good year. When I was there, we won two basketball, two football. These were the Tebow eras. I remember that. I ran cross-country and track, and we had some great track world-class superstars. We won some championships there, which nobody really pays attention to.

But it feels like yesterday, and we've been in a drought, so it was great to get a championship coming out of the Final Four, and I feel good about football season. Yeah, well, we'll see. We'll see. I feel like that's—I've got a couple cousins that are Gators, and just everything they've ever accomplished, I get, like, texted over and over and over. Like, chomp, chomp, chomp. Yeah. Text, yeah. Yeah, which I imagine is what it feels like to be a Florida State fan in Florida, but, you know, it is what it is.

All right, two questions. I kind of asked you one, but these are the things that our people sort of judge things on. If you could plan your last meal on Earth, what do you think it would be? I'm a good traditional Italian, probably be a carbonara or a cacio e pepe.

Oh, wow. Italian food. Oh, yeah. A man after spaghetti's heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, look, he's brightened up over there. Spaghetti loves the answer. He's beaming. He's not the one from California. No. No, no, no. I mean, they don't allow Italians in California. I don't know if you know that. But now you all have rooting interest in a pope, so I appreciate that.

Here's a question that's a little esoteric, but you can stick with me for a second. You've probably heard it. You listen to the program. But our view is that almost every successful person at some level is motivated by one of two things. And there's like no right answer, but it does go to your motivation of how you get to excellence or a pursuit of excellence in your career, which is you're either motivated by the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. There, when you

When you get like a typical politician thing, they think there's a right answer and they kind of try to dissect the middle of this. And they're like, well, you know, I obviously like the good things and I don't like the bad things. But like if you're real honest with yourself, it's like what you remember. Yeah. Right. The things that are in your head that when you wake up in the morning, you're like, that's never going to happen to me again. Right.

which is like a Michael Jordan type, Tiger Woods type. But there's also like the Phil Mickelson type, which is like, I've hit that two iron 280 yards over water and stuck it to two feet before. I think I can do it again. And that's the thrill of victory guy. Yeah.

Where do you think you put yourself on? A hundred percent thrill of victory. Yeah. To me, what I remember the great memories, you know, finding a way to maneuver a bill in at the 11th hour to get a landmark piece of legislation done and find ways to whip votes or, you know, or,

prosecute a case and have good evidence and argue before the jury and see them hanging on your every word. The memories to me are like slapping fives and toasting the team at the end of the day. That's what it's all about. And I think if you're fearful of defeat, you're afraid to take risks. I'm a big believer, you know, you got to do what's right. You know, that's actually rare. That's rare for a legal mind. Oh, yeah.

Generally what we've found is most of the folks who come from the legal profession are agony of defeat folks. Yeah. Right? Because they're like – they're going into the courtroom and they're thinking of everything that can go wrong. What's the other side going to say? How do I fight back against this thing? And so they're sort of naturally more agony of defeat folks. It is funny how it breaks down. We have like an even split. We've probably had 500 guests. Yeah. And –

It's almost an even split in terms of where people find themselves, but how they articulate it. I think you did a really good job of what it is that motivates you and gets you up in the morning and gets you ready to work that much harder to try to get something done. I understand that deeply. Lawyers don't like to lose. And because of that, they're cautious and they won't bring a case if they think there's a percentage likelihood of loss.

But this is where the left has been kicking our tail for generations. Yeah. Because they will just, they'll throw stuff at the wall. They don't give a shit. They'll dig inch by inch by inch, and they say this is what they want, but they're really looking to get here, and it's a slippery slope. So I believe sometimes the fight is worth it. Mm-hmm.

And you're going to lose cases. Yeah. And we should be losing cases. Otherwise, we're not pushing the envelope. Yeah. So I believe in taking risks. And I tell the law students, you know, especially when you're a government lawyer, you know, you never cross your ethical boundaries. You got to know where those are. You got to know where the boundaries of the law are. Don't do something illegal, but do what's right. Use every tool you have.

and get to yes where you can. It's really good. I'm glad there's a guy who understands an awful lot about this. He's in the great state of Florida. It's a place that we absolutely love and have loved going down to and spending time with your voters, your constituents. And it's been somewhat of a beacon, I think, in recent years for conservative policymaking. You've been a big part of that. James Upmeyer, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it. Of course. Thank you.

I'll tell you the thing I like about this guy is it's not just rhetoric, it's action. I mean, he is taking action on a number of issues, as you heard, and just very fortunate to have somebody like him from the great state of Florida keeping people in line. It's also just nice to have next-gen stuff, right? I mean, he's a lawyer lawyer. Like, you'd never be confused for us. Yeah.

Right? Like, this is the guy who, like, went to law school and actually understood all of it. Yeah. And actually applies all of it. And has seen it from different capacities. And, look, they're doing a great job. You should have a lot of confidence if you're in the great state of Florida that this guy's going to try to clean up your communities, which I like an awful lot. Thank you for...

james for stopping on in and uh with that fellas i think we did it i think so absolute banger of an episode gentlemen thank you so much to the good attorney general and thank you so much to the minions remember if you have not yet go to the youtube hit that subscribe button it's more fun in video so until next time minions keep the faith hold the line and own the libs we'll see you tuesday stay ruthless

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