Riots Erupt: Trump Takes A Stand, Media Spins
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This message that the media is run with of like, if cops are actually the bad guys, you see, it's the criminals who burn shit and everything. Everything. They're just having their fun little fire. Leave them alone. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Riots are the voice of the unheard. Property damage isn't violence, right? It's a statement. It's a First Amendment protective activity. Right. That is what they've sort of tried to ingrain into the public writ large through the media here over these last four years. And last conservatives.

are the ones protesting, in which case... Better get the guard in. ...that it's 20 to life. He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress, Chicago Senator Dick Durbin. And now Dick Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Today, consumers have thousands of choices in credit cards, all with equal, strong security. But Durbin's plan is less competition and less security.

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Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. Boy, oh boy, have we got a show for you. We've noticed a lot of news over the weekend. My name is Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, left or right, across your radio dial, as always. Fellas, I couldn't help but notice the press is at it again, and in really spectacular fashion. We saw a bunch of riots. Yep, LA Riots Part 2, it's back.

Well, as we know. Or is it part three? Does it count as part three after Summer of Love? Like, God knows how many times. But L.A. is at it again. Ain't no riot like a West Coast riot. That's right. Because the West Coast riots don't quit. That's right. Paraphrasing there. But, I mean, to be honest with you, a little overdue. I felt like we were in need of a good left-wing riot. Yeah, it is the summer, and Trump is president. What is it about summer riots?

My thinking on this is you have a lot of Dem operatives, which is to say essentially paid semi-half homeless operatives who are out looking for a quick buck. They can hit that Craigslist.

All the Soros groups are out there paying, you know, 10 or 20 an hour. Grab a brick, throw it at a cop. Grad school is out for the summer. There you go. There it is. Yeah. If you're working hard on that, uh, master's or PhD, this is a good time to throw a brick. They do, they do six months of Marxist theory and then summertime is praxis. There you go. Dude, that's dead on. Excellent. Summer, summer, summertime. Excellent. Excellent. Uh,

So listen, we're going to cover an awful lot of that. We're not breaking any news. You saw the news over the weekend and it turns out there's a big riot. They don't like us enforcing our immigration laws, which, you know, hey, I'm sorry. There was an election and everybody was pretty clear on what they wanted to have done. It's being done. We're going to explain the method and the madness of how this whole thing has come about. But then, like, the media react.

Which, if you're looking for some yucks, oh, you've come to the right place. You've come to the right place. Not only for that, but we had a question of the day about the Elon Trump thing. We'll get into that because you guys had some responses and then there's been some developments. We were way ahead of everybody on this. Like a day before everything erupted last week, we were talking about it. And, you know, you've come to the right place for that, too. And then we got Roseanne Barr.

This is somebody who was iconic in my childhood, probably the most famous woman in all of America as I grew up, as we grew up. And she's still doing what she's doing. She's come in promoting a new thing. And she talked to the fellas. We had a great interview. Good time. Yeah. So you'll get that at the back end of the hour too. So listen, this is a good show. We probably should start with the riots.

Just because. If it bleeds, it leads. If it bleeds, yeah. Tonight, fire in Los Angeles. City of Angels is no longer. Now, but listen, what happened basically, if you watch the news, you come away with the distinct impression that there was something that was extraordinary happening here. That ICE had basically...

come out in a totally extrajudicial way and started raiding innocent people's homes and throwing it. Not at all what was happening. They basically decided to do in Los Angeles what they've been doing across the country, which is enforce existing immigration law.

That has been on the books for millennia. Yeah. I don't know why the left would be upset. They spent the better part of the last three years telling me no one is above the law. That's right. That's exactly right. And how critical these federal judges are to enforcing the rule of law, judges which signed –

Search warrants that ICE was executing. And I think that is a very, very important point because every time that a judge goes against Trump, the left is like, no, the courts are going against what Trump wants. And now we have judges signing warrants to execute against these criminal illegal aliens. And now the left is like, oh, no, you can't do that. Yeah, right. You can't carry that out. No, you can't do it. And of course, you know, right.

is not a riot if it's done off the left wing. It's just a peaceful protest, as we all know. But according to a spokesperson here for ICE, Yasmin Pitts O'Keefe, told the Los Angeles Times the federal agents were executing search warrants related to the harboring of people illegally in the country.

So it's not just like there's somebody there who they think is illegal and they're just raiding randomly. It was like a harboring. There's something more to it. I mean, this is sort of like a network or an underground component that

And at the warehouse in the fashion district, agents had a search warrant after a judge found that there was probable cause that the employer was using fictitious documents for some of its workers. U.S. Attorney's Office spokesperson Karen McEvoy, McEvoy, McEvoy, I don't know. It's McEvoy.

Seems like an Irish name. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Karen with a C? Come on. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Well, anyway, she told the Associated Press that. So they serve these search warrants and then immediately it becomes a problem. And like all good riots, they always start right there in Los Angeles. They're ready to go at any moment's notice. They're like, listen, folks, what the wildfires didn't burn, we will tonight. It's the L.A. way. They're like looking for a reason at all times.

Well, they did. And they started setting things ablaze. You saw nothing but foreign national flags flying through the streets. You saw cars burning.

What's the outfit that I'm on? Waymo. Bad day for Waymo. I mean, like, this is the worst because so, like, you know, if you have not seen it yet, please see our interview with Secretary Duffy. Absolute banger. Yeah. But he, you know, we had a discussion. Part of it was Waymo, which is terrific. Every town they've gone to, you know, drunk driving deaths have gone down. Self-driving car. This is what the future looks like, you know. And it's cheaper than even Uber. Anyways. Anyways.

These people were calling them specifically to line up and set them on fire. Like, that's all they want. They just want destruction. Yeah, like Snake Blinson himself would not have been in that situation. Yeah.

Well, I mean, so all of this calls back memories to 2020. Yep. Right? When in the wake of the death of George Floyd, cities across this country were burned to the ground. A guy overdoses and now we have to burn down mom and pop shops across the country. What a system. And there was a whole lot of media coverage of that at the time that was roundly mocked and in retrospect seems completely ridiculous. I feel like they may have outdone themselves.

even by that standard. They may have outdone themselves. Let's call up a few clips just to have some yucks. Clip one, if you don't mind, Spaghetts. Large group of people. It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators. So what...

You don't want to invite law enforcement if there's cars on fire, guys. They're just having some fun. It's like a barbecue except cars. They're treating this like it's a block party. You know, like we're out here. We're just barbecuing. You know, having the kids play, toss around the ball with some burning cars. Yeah, just throw some ribs on and watch a car burn. Like order up a couple of Waymos and set them ablaze.

But like just to reset, I mean, just in case you missed sort of the logical construction of what that anchor was saying is basically the problem that L.A. had in these riots were the fact that law enforcement responded in any way to them setting the city ablaze.

This was the problem. People were just enjoying cars burning. And can I say this one thing? This horrible, insidious idea that the left pushed and the media pushed on their behalf of when police show up, it makes things worse. The whole BLM message of like,

And this sprung out of like the universities and you know these idiot professors at these worthless liberal arts colleges who put kids in lifelong debt, teach them nothing, leave them unemployed. The idea that they put out of like, no, you see, communities want to police themselves. You go to any community in the inner city and ask, would you like police to be removed from your community? They'll say, hell no, please send more police. But this message that the media is run with of like,

Cops are actually the bad guys. It's the criminals who burn shit and everything. They're just having their fun little fire. Leave them alone. It's ridiculous. People are sick of it. Riots are the voice of the unheard. Property damage isn't violence. No, it's a statement. It's a First Amendment protective activity. Right. That is what they've sort of tried to ingrain into the public writ large through the media here over these last four, five years. And last conservatives.

are the ones protesting in which case better get the guard in than that it's it's 20 to life yeah yeah send in the guard throw them in gulags no trials i mean look i wish i was exaggerating but it is kind of the framework in which has been presented check out this professor in clip two

We could see the president potentially, again, pull the cord and say, I need to invoke the Insurrection Act. As I'm sure you've been talking about, the Insurrection Act would give the president more authority to not just

federalize the National Guard, but to say that the National Guard can actually act as domestic law enforcement, that the military on U.S. soil can search, can seize, can arrest. That's not something that we're accustomed to. So I'm looking to see, obviously, what's happening right now, but also how the situation evolves and how the president reacts.

And we have seen the president allude to the fact that, and we're watching, sorry, Professor, there's a split screen here on the right side of your screen. We're seeing continued demonstrations. Demonstrations. Just thrown down off of the 101 freeway overpass onto one of those CHB vehicles below. Demonstrations. For your audio only listener, what we were watching on a clip was as this professor was talking about sort of perils.

federalizing law enforcement. On the split screen, you were dealing with a car that was Molotov'd. A police car that one of these rioters throws a Molotov on, catches fire. All those law professors are like, well, you see, we can't have laws in this country. Yeah.

Right. Actually, one of three police cars that were immobilized because there was an entire mob of people on the overpass throwing rocks and paint cans and everything down to basically try to kill these policemen.

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Put simply, manufacturing depends on rail. Freight rail is America's engine built on private investment driving the nation forward. Learn more at aar.org. That video that you know for our folks on YouTube who saw that overpass was where you saw a bunch of these like leftist nut job rioters were throwing bricks, full bricks off an overpass hoping to hit and they did many times police cars broke the windshield there was an officer who they hit in the head

with a brick from this overpass and for her to be like listen uh it'd be super dangerous right now if the president did anything to try to try to stop this violence well it's it's funny because it's the way that the left always operates is they obfuscate through this language of academia right and talk around the thing the problem with a split split screen is you're seeing the difference between theory

And practice, right? Like she's talking about the ins and outs of the Insurrection Act. Meanwhile, here's an insurrection happening. Exactly. And it's not like the news then cuts to the family of the officer who was hit in the head to talk about how difficult it is as a cop in this country to try to keep the peace and help people.

They'll stay safe. They are literally trying to inflame it. It's the worst possible scenario, and the press just makes it worse. They do make it worse. But if you take a half step back, again, you're informed by history at some level. And what the left always counts on is that you never remember anything that happened more than yesterday. Yeah. Right? And so the whole 2020, they're trying to do a sort of a replay of

of how things were covered and framed in 2020, in that all of these are just freedoms of expression, disappointment. And if you take a half step back, what we're talking about here

It's a far less inflamed national discussion than we had in 2020. What we're talking about is actually just enforcing existing law that had been on the books for generations in America that you can't live here illegally. You can't come here without any paperwork whatsoever and not know who we are and everything else. And so we're just going to – there's nothing that's happening in Los Angeles anymore.

that this president didn't run on and the people elect him upon to get rid of, particularly the most violent offenders across the country, but anybody who's like a harbinger of like these trafficking components. I don't know whether or not these specific cases were epicenters of that or not, but if you know what it is that they've been prioritizing, I mean, there were significant enough cases

Where they were going after him. Look at the grand jury indictment on Embrago Garcia. You know, I mean, they are accusing him of basically shipping migrants all around this country that he was involved in human trafficking. Right. We brought him back to the United States. Pam Bondi said it to to face justice for that.

Like there are networks across this country of people harboring illegal immigrants and shipping them all across the country. And they're doing it right under our nose. Donald Trump was elected to root that out and deport these people. He has the mandate to do it. None of this is complicated. But they've created a leftist political infrastructure in California that sees that as a act of war. Mm hmm.

And they're going to treat it as an act of war. They're going to go out and set their communities on fire because that's what you do every five years in L.A. anyway. But like this is this is something that that literally brings people to the streets. And so like all of this is in how the media is trying to frame it. They're trying to frame it.

Like they did in 2020, except for we live in 2025. Right. Like we're in a very different place as a country. We've already seen and acknowledged the mistakes of the last five years. And the fact that like, I don't know, there was components of the conservative atmosphere that looked at it and was like, ah, I don't know like how to deal with it. Well, now we know. Now we know. But again, they just keep on one more clip on this because this is just it keeps getting better. CNN clip three, please. Spaghetts.

We are having an administration that's targeting peaceful protests, people that are there to protest. The president is sending the National Guard because he doesn't like the scenes. He doesn't like the scenes of people peacefully protesting.

Car on fire. Car on fire. For our audio listeners, man, first off, please get on YouTube so you see that. She starts saying that, well, these are peaceful protesters. And then the split screen shows this car that's set on fire while a motorcycle is doing donuts around it. And she says, so these are very peaceful people. And CNN cuts away from that video. Shout out to whoever's in the control room at CNN who's watching this lady say all this bullshit and is like, oh, shit, better get that off the screen. Get that off the screen. Yeah.

The burning car with the motorcycle doing donuts around it. And she's like, it's a very peaceful protest. He doesn't like the scene. He doesn't like the scene of all the peace. No, he cares. He doesn't want the peace. Who amongst us wouldn't want this peace? You notice something? The media always carries the furthest message of the left. Two or three weeks ago with Abrego Garcia, it was all about due process, due process. She's not complaining about due process. You know why? Because they were carrying out

a warrant issued by a federal judge. Nailed it. So they can't do the due process argument on CNN anymore. They have to say, oh, well, it's peaceful protests. And then you see it's a fire. There's nothing peaceful about it. So they have to change it again. They're constantly carrying the furthest argument the left has to offer. So like you just flash back, right? I mean, this was CNN, same network that did the mostly peaceful. Fiery, but mostly peaceful. Fiery, but mostly – fiery.

They didn't mean it literally. Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests. And the backdrop was a burning police station, right? Which became a national joke for how the media handles this. That, what you were seeing-

It's just another installment in the exact same thematic. Yeah. I mean, it's the same. Oh, no. All these things, they're very, very peaceful. And then you look and you're like, but I'm watching on the split screens on fire. That is so key. Like we showed that video clip specifically because the left is cognizant. They recognize the fact of how horrible it looks.

When they're trying to dupe the public into being like, these are peaceful things, and they hide the image. Because they know now, from examples like that CNN anchor standing in front of a burning police station being mostly peaceful, they understand the power that image and that message has. Because that did become just like a meme and a joke

that the right, you know, rightfully put everywhere so everyone could see what liars they are. And you're seeing the images that are coming out of these riots in LA and how damaging they are for the left. When you see a guy on a motorcycle waving a Mexican flag, doing donuts around cars that have been set on fire...

The American people see that. They do. Normal people. You go to a Walmart and you show everyone this video, 99.9% of the people will be like, this is trash. That guy needs to be arrested. This needs to be put to an end. This is America. That's what we voted for. Yeah. And like, okay, if you're waving the Mexican flag and you're like, no, we're here illegally. Mexico rules. And Homan's going to put you on a plane to Mexico and you're like, no, anything but that. I thought it was the best place on earth, bro. Yeah.

But again, I mean, look, the media descended upon this story in large part to try to highlight the anger against Trump administration policies. They tried to highlight the divisiveness, as they say, amongst the American electorate to make it seem as though something extraordinary was going on within this administration. They spent the last two months saying that they were operating outside of the legal bonds of justice. Mm-hmm.

Right. And you notice in the Ebrego Garcia case, all the headlines after he was just indicted for human trafficking omitted the fact that he was indicted for human trafficking. But they all included the illegally removed, illegally removed from the United States is being brought back.

That was an axios with just like a 10 of 10 headline on that. And like didn't the reason he's being removed and coming back is because he's going to go to prison for the rest of his life for human trafficking. But be that as it may, after Chris Van Hollen and the margaritas and all the thing like this is a this is the altar by which we sacrifice as part of the left. That's what they expected to have happen. They were watching uprising. Yeah.

uprising is good because uprising means that Trump is being divisive and something that our country can't withstand. We have to run him out because look what he's doing to these communities. Then they start setting fire to

What are the name of these cars? Waymos. Yes, they start setting fire to Waymos everywhere. And like all of a sudden it's like, oh, geez, the split screen is not looking great. We've got to get some people on there to speak nonsense, academic crap, and then get that shit off the side of the screen. Right, and it's not just –

setting fire to Waymo's. They were ransacking and stealing things from 7-Eleven and stores and everything. And so it's like, oh, Trump is so divisive. People are so upset about his immigration policy. They have to steal everything out of 7-Eleven. You know, they're just driven to this. Because they're used to using any sort of, like, it must have been, like, ingrained in young socialist journos.

like the lessons of their grandfathers in the late 60s where like any protest is a good protest and

And it doesn't matter whether or not you're protesting something that's completely insane. Well, even closer. You had – what's his name? Weather Underground, who was Obama's teacher. Bill Ayers. Oh, Bill Ayers. Yeah. I mean, but for real. Obama turned it into practice. He took the Ayers theory. He turned it into practice. That's why I always say if you want to know where all this started, go back to Barack Obama. Bingo. Yeah. It totally is. But that's the way that they cover this stuff. Listen, we come back –

It's not only not 2020 in terms of how we react, as you, a ruthless listener, and like all of our people, how we're reacting. It's also how the federal government and law enforcement at the state and local level is reacting to all of this. Very, very different story than it was back in 2020. We'll get to that right after this.

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OK, so listen, recall in 2020, every time that there was any sort of uprising, it was like, you know, cops had been so undermined at this point, not the least of which is the cops that gave rise to the discussion of George Floyd and they were being prosecuted and everything else. You saw people that were longtime police officers wanting to exit because they just didn't feel like anybody had their back whatsoever. Yep.

Times have changed in the five years since then. Society has changed. Obviously, Donald Trump is back. Donald Trump has got a different view than he had back then. And you see law enforcement acting very differently when it comes to this stuff. Like they're going to do something. This is not about setting our entire city ablaze while we sit there and watch it. Ain't happening now. And you saw it in L.A. Clip four, please.

For audio only, that was, like I mentioned before, at the overpass. You saw a brick just hit an officer in the head. Yeah, so that's what they're doing. And then let's look at how these responses take place in clip five. Okay, this is outside. Officers are outside of a federal building, and they're starting to push back on a mob. They open a gate. The mob is there.

And you've got, like, what appears to be dozens, if not...

you know, probably a hundred. Yeah, all stacked up. Federal officers. A number of bullets. They're just ready to go. Right? And this falls into the lessons learned category where no longer are federal law enforcement or state and local law enforcement willing to just take it because they don't feel like the politics are going to be good for them. I mean, you come out and you try to defend a state or federal building in 2020, you could find yourself sitting next to Derek Chauvin. Yep.

being prosecuted for whatever. Or they'd set the fucking building on fire, as we saw with the police station in Minneapolis. Right, but I mean, you could be personally liable if you try to uphold the law. No longer the case. Right, and it's so good that these cops in L.A. are showing leadership the way that they are right now because there are rumors about

June the 14th. I don't know if you guys have seen this, but Randy Weingarten, who is ostensibly supposed to be helping teachers get raises, which they never get, she is trying to organize a nationwide left-wing riot. And they put out a map. This guy, Corey DeAngelis, friend of the program, he posted this on his Twitter account.

And they have hundreds of sites around the country where the left is going to do riots just like they did in L.A. this coming weekend on June 14th. But like she's a she's a for those of you unaware of who this person is, she represents teachers unions. Right. What is the basis upon their riots?

She's just a leftist. She's a communist. She's unhappy. She doesn't like Trump. And she has turned her attention from helping teachers get better jobs to ruining our country. And like they are like this map shows something in every single city this coming Saturday. And so what I mean, this is the funniest part about the left, though. I mean, we've joked about this before is you get people with Mexican flags.

waving around being like, no, no, no, we're taking over stuff. And they're like, no, they're just like, they don't want peaceful people to be disrupted. And then somebody rolls in and they're like, yeah, and kill all the Jews too. And you're like, wait a second, how did this get there? And then all of a sudden you got Randy Weingarten rolling in being like, yeah, and more teachers pay. I mean, it's like, what?

I'm sorry. There are some pieces that we can talk about here, others we cannot. But like what the left has made up of these days, there's no congruency to it at all. I mean, it's completely disparate.

with a system that they don't, unfortunately for them, control. But for them, everything is the one thing through intersectionality. You know, you can have a guy, I saw a clip of a guy with a Hamas, you know, bandana on his arm waving the Mexican flag in front of burned out cars.

This is just what they do. They can go back and forth. At the end of the day, it's all just Marxism in the end, and they want to tear down the system. Fundamentally, everything they believe is anti-American. It's the problem why they have such an issue with electoral politics, because that's why they pick the 20 side of every 80-20. That's why they have all of these disparate groups trying to act with some sort of solidarity together. But that's why they fail at the ballot box. That's a good point. So the mayor of this situation, you would think you would –

have a problem with their city being burned to the ground. Karen Bass, let's see how she takes it in clip seven.

We do not want to play into the administration's hands. We're working with officials. We're organizing resources. But what we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration. When you raid Home Depot and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you cause fear and you cause panic. And...

This is this is this talking point that you've heard from now, Karen Bass, the liberal mayor of Los Angeles. You've heard it from Gavin Newsom. You've heard it from left wingers like Chris Murphy on the East Coast.

This is a talking point that they're driving because they know that the left is going to start doing this in cities around our country, and they want to blame President Trump for their actions. Yeah, the one thing you see the setup, the one thing you see in all of their talking points is escalation, escalation. Yeah, like not all of these cities breaking our immigration laws. That's not escalation, like throwing bricks, throwing, throwing bricks off of overpasses on to

the heads of police officers. That's not escalation. Burning down all these cars, that's not escalation. Donald Trump trying to save the lives of these officers by calling in the guard, that's escalation. Because like you said, Ashbrook, it's going to get worse. Someone's going to get killed. Someone's going to get killed. And all these people who are watching their cities burn are going to be like, orange man bad, he caused it. Not me. Not all of the policies we believe in. Well,

Well, and you go back to like the media roundup. That's why they got into this in the first place is that message in that message alone. Orange man bad that he's caused an escalation here that this is everything that you're seeing on your TV is a result of Donald Trump.

Not a result of a bunch of illegal practices by a bunch of criminals who are taking it up another step and another step because they've been caught in their game. You know, I mean, this is what the left tries to do in terms of manipulating information that you're getting. And it's wild. It doesn't stop there. Also hilarious. Remember Maxine Waters? This lady shows up.

I mean, first of all, she's one of the most laughable figures. Complete moron. But she apparently is trying to visit an SEIU president who had been arrested for assaulting a cop in the course of all this stuff. And she gets caught up on camera. Check this out in clip eight. No, I want you to... Hello. Here she comes for her viral moment. I just came to use my congressional authority.

Other end.

Owned so hard. Showing up with her Fiji water bottle. I demand to get in. You got to love it. Dude, she just wanted her viral moment. I mean, they can't help them. These left-wing politicians can't help themselves. They can't. They just want to find a way to turn all of this violent protesting and rioting and burning down cars about how they can get their 15 minutes of fame. It's hilarious. This is the only move they have. So you can bet that it does not stop in Los Angeles. It's going to be all across our country in short order.

Also, don't you just kind of love...

With people like Maxine Waters, who are like, I don't know. Must be in a district that just will elect cadavers one after another. Because she's like valueless. That's what happens when you're in a D plus 99 district. You end up with clowns like that. It's just activism and nonsense. I mean, she was the one that said you ought to kick the shit out of conservatives when they say something. I mean, she's like the worst of the worst. And she shows up in this situation trying to talk to somebody. And they're like, no.

but the justification is I'm going to use my congressional authority. Well, I missed somewhere in the handbook that the congressional authority allows you to march into prison. She should be marched into that prison. I am allowed to obstruct justice. It's what I do best. I,

I kind of respect it in some ways. It's hilarious. You know, when you were a kid and you were like not supposed to be somewhere. Yeah. And they told you like, just walk with confidence. Act like you're supposed to be there. Act like you've been there before. And like people look at you and be like, well, surely he seems like he should. That's basically what she's doing as a 75-year-old congressman who's been there for like, I don't know, four decades. She's like, no, it's my congressional authority. They're like, pop.

Sorry, Maxine. Not today. So anyway, our question of the day is if this thing erupts is what Ashbrook is talking about. If it gets worse than L.A. and it starts showing up across the country, what should President Trump do about it? Should he send in the Marines? I mean, there's a lot of discussion.

You notice Tom Cotton, who broke the New York Times editorial board in 2020 by suggesting federal law enforcement be in charge of trying to secure the cities, particularly in the upper northwest at the time, from this just like bizarre set of anarchy that they were doing. He literally shut down the whole New York Times sub stack.

Their Slack. Their Slack was like, okay, we need to hold accountable anyone who got this published. It can't be allowed. How dare you suggest that National Guard put down riots and stop the Chaz from breaking away from the country. So he tweeted his article from 2020 back out over the weekend while this was happening, which I love the troll. I mean, it's great stuff. But the question does remain, what do you do if you're from a Trump standpoint –

And look, a lot of lessons being learned here. Something tells me they're not going to sit on their heels and watch this happen in city after city. What would you do if you had the reins of power?

We're going to get to your comments from last week, which again, way ahead of schedule in terms of giving you the news and information. We identified that the Trump-Elon thing was starting to get to a fever pitch. And Thursday morning, we gave you the whole layout of the arguments. By Thursday night, it sort of boiled over. But we asked the question of the day, how does the whole thing end? We're going to get to it right after this.

Okay, folks, time to sound the alarm. Trump's big, beautiful tax cut is coming down to the wire in Congress, and my friends at Americans for Prosperity want your help to get it across the finish line. If the bill doesn't pass, the average American family is looking at a $1,500 tax hike.

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cultivate what we think are representative of a whole bunch of different points of view and read them back on the show. To do that, we always start with a voice. Okay, friend. This first one comes from Tellin' It Like It Is.

And Tellin' It writes, I can't help but wonder if this feud is a way for Elon to move back to the center for the sake of his businesses. You have to figure a guy like Elon understands the nuances here and remembers how the economy took off when the tax cuts were first passed. This allows Elon to say he was trying to help the American people and then he, quote, stood up to Trump.

when they disagreed. Trump can say Elon, quote, doesn't get it and move onward with his work. A lot of people are expressing this take out there. There's a lot of people that think that this is the take. Ah.

I think the events of Thursday afternoon would suggest that is not what was going on there. Yeah, there's a couple of items. Because it went from zero to 100, which we'll go into here shortly. Yeah, we'll get into that in a second. Comment to Donks or Unks. This is from PoliticPolitic. I do have a few problems with the OBBB. That's the big, beautiful bill. And I love Elon.

but I think he's wrong here. Also, this isn't the budget bill and trying to balance the budget takes multiple bills. It's a hard goal with such a split and small majority. That's somebody who knows what they're talking about there. I mean, that's, that's somebody who's followed the process, obviously. Um,

And what we were trying to talk about on Thursday. Smuggler, what do you got for comment three? Comment three comes from Plausible Deniability, and they write,

My one caveat, and I know this isn't true, is that Musk is projecting because he believes the Dems will win back the House, and he's trying to fend off the onslaught on incoming investigations. I don't know, just hate that it is ending this way. Yeah, I mean, look, there is...

That's like a 2.0 version of the first comment, right, which is the inevitable if Democrats were to take over the House or the Senate or God save us both, there would be investigations. Elon would probably be front and center. Maybe this is a way to mitigate that. We're a little skeptical of that. First, if you're going to attack something like the big, beautiful bill.

and you're going to do it knowing it's a cornerstone of the Trump agenda, you would be right in saying that, like, you come out against that kind of thing, like you'll engender yourself a little bit to the left, perhaps lower the temperature of people that, you know, want to see you investigated and that kind of thing, maybe increase people's willingness to buy Teslas again or whatever. But not when you do it from the right. Not when you do it from the right. And he came at the BBB suggesting...

that it didn't cut enough Medicaid and it didn't get specific, but that's basically what he's talking about because it only cuts that you can do in the context of a reconciliation bill or on the mandatory spending side. And so when you come at it from that point, like there's nobody on the left that agrees with that, like literally nobody. So, I mean, if he were to be like, yes, you can't do this to the American people, like they deserve their Medicaid. Okay. Like there's a case to be made there.

Reality is a lot more to the story. We laid out three scenarios, all three of which were discussed by the president of the United States later in the afternoon after we discussed it on Thursday, which is basically, hey, look, the EV tax credit thing, that going away is not great for Elon. He didn't appreciate that.

The fact that he kind of doesn't know exactly how to effectuate the doge cuts and all of that because this isn't a doge bill, something Stephen Miller put a fine point on, that was ultimately discussed. And then we talked about how there's other things afoot, and we talked about Bannon discussing the Besant interaction where they apparently had a shoving match, and there was some of that, the extracurriculars, as I'll call them. Yeah.

Yeah, Jared Isaacman.

But it's vetting process, you know, in large part, the first step is to make sure that you're not like a active registered, uh, opposition party member. Uh,

And apparently this individual had given like hundreds of thousands of dollars to like Chuck Schumer and Democrats, and that would like tripped his wire on somebody they didn't want to nominate. But Elon sort of fought through that. And so when Elon was wearing thin on some of the cabinet secretaries, Sergio saw the opportunity to go to the president and basically say, let's pull this thing. President did pull his nomination, and that's what sent him into orbit. The New York Times had an article suggesting that that was the catalyst for Trump.

I would suggest it's all of the above. Right? That this thing was just sort of breaking down on many different places. Now, what you couldn't predict...

is the Richter scale level to which the whole thing hit in a matter of hours. The president addresses the fact that he is opposing his cornerstone, suggests some of the things that we just articulated, and then he comes back and is like, oh, yeah, well, he's in the Epstein files. Yeah. Like, pretty...

tough allegation. Let me just tell you, fellas, as someone who unfortunately missed that show. Yeah. I watched it, sort of like I was sick. It was sort of like I was sitting in my bedroom as a kid watching my friends ride their bikes through my window. Yeah.

and have all the fun in the world. I will tell you that that was not only prescient, it was some of the best material that the Ruthless podcast has ever delivered, and might I say, it was excellence in broadcasting.

We appreciate that. We appreciate that. It wasn't just the Epstein thing, though. Elon doubled and tripled down. At one point, he was calling for Donald Trump to be impeached. Yes. And then Elon also takes credit for Donald Trump's victory, saying he wouldn't have won without me. Well, this is what I was trying to tell people when they were saying, like, boy, it's an act of nuclear war for him to suggest that he's in the Epstein files and that all these other things. I was like, no, no, no.

The act of nuclear war was suggesting to President Trump that he would never be president without Elon Musk. And that, if you know Trump and you know his operation and you know the way that he's operated, the mere suggestion that somehow the guy who hasn't taken 47 indictments to the face, a shot to the ear, another assassination attempt...

a full-blown media campaign the likes of which nobody has ever seen before, that that wasn't what got him over the top, his sheer will to do that. It was Elon. Right. And Elon is extremely talented. That's an act of war. Obviously, Elon's extremely talented. I mean, just putting the rockets up there, right? And he bought Twitter, as you said, the most patriotic thing somebody's ever done. Totally. But that suggestion is like...

It's just an absurd thing. And in fact, we have evidence that Elon is incorrect about that. Look at the special election up in Wisconsin where he said he was going to take the vaulted operation that he powered Donald Trump's victory and he's going to win this special in Wisconsin. What happens? Same number. Same number as the previous special election five years prior. Yeah. Right? It's like you can't – like at some point – And I'm not blaming him for trying. Look, look. I think net-net –

So Elon has been an incredibly powerful force within the conservative movement, given a whole different constituency, a reason to believe in certain aspects of it. He's done an incredible amount of good for people who respect the Constitution, the rule of law, America, the way it should be, an opportunity to come into the fold. Right.

But you got, I mean, this is just a departure from reality. Yeah. Can we get that graphic number?

Number one, so this was the post on X that Elon sent out. Time to drop the really big bomb. Real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT. So he thought he really did something here, right? Yeah. Folks probably can't find this because he deleted it, first off. That's how you know you've taken a no, right? Yeah. But here's the thing is, if that were in any way, shape, or form, in any way, the least bit true—

You don't think Democrats who tried to be like, moral law goes worth only $10 million. Let's put Trump in jail. You don't think they would have used that in one of the hundreds of charges that they tried getting on him? They controlled the FBI to the point that they were going after his election campaign in 2016. You don't think if they had that, they would have gone after Trump with it to try to destroy him? No. Of course. Of course they would. So it goes back and forth. Trump threatens to cancel...

all the SpaceX contracts. Musk comes back saying that he's shutting down the Dragon Man spacecraft program, which, you know, if you know or have followed anything to do with this, it's like literally the only way America can get into space safely these days. And so that's a big blow. He comes back and says, OK, I'm not going to do that. Maybe we've gone a little bit too far. I sent a post that I was planning on starting a rocket company.

It's very funny. That could step in and avoid. And that got Elon to backpedal in seconds. They didn't want the smug program. You've done it again. Thank you for your leadership. Yeah, you've done it again. What would you have called your capsule? I mean, that's a good thing. I'd ask, you know, that could be question of the day number two. What would you call the smug? I'd let the people make the decisions. That's who I work for. The smug capsule. No, it would be for the people to decide. Yeah. It's always for them. I think you'd call it the Bobcat. Not a bad name. Not a bad name.

No, but... So anyway, there's also...

You see Elon Monday starting to post about rockets again. Feels like the temperature went down over the weekend. If you know anything about the way Trump has operated, there's these moments of maximum contention. People either get over it or they don't. The people who don't find themselves in the Lincoln Project, you know, largely. And there are people who we play King of the Hill with.

Or there are people like Elon who sort of like let the thing simmer a touch and then may my bet. I don't know. I'm interested in what you guys think. I bet this resolves itself like it may never be the same may never be Thanksgiving dinner as it was for the last year.

But I think they probably put this thing back together in some form or fashion, don't you? I think Elon would want to. I think Trump's indifferent. Really? I mean, listen, the thing is Trump has such sheer force of will. Yeah. I mean, who has gone against him, guns blazing, and come out on top? I mean, you just don't bet against him. No, you can't. The history is insane.

Bro, I don't think you can call a guy a pedophile and then get back in his good graces. I think it's over. I think it's cut. It's done for. I think Elon got on that stage in the run-up to the election, and he started to get a big head and think he's his own political force. And then he got in and he started doing the Doge stuff, which was extremely, extremely important. But I think the ego mixed with...

The overselling of Doge and the under-delivering, as we saw in the Bannon piece about the argument with Besson. Which gave rise to the shoulder and the chest. I just think you only see this sort of petulance from somebody when they've been embarrassed in that way. I think that's it.

And at the end of the day, I don't know. I don't think you can come back from that. And God bless him. Keep building rockets and doing all the things you're doing because it's fantastic. We need that in America. But I don't think you're going to be next to Donald Trump again. Interesting. Smash, what's your take? I'll tell you what. You can never engage Trump in a war of words and win. And I don't care how brilliant Elon is. And he is brilliant. He is the most left-brained, brilliant person who is probably walking the face of the earth right now.

But he met the most right-brained, brilliant person who's walking the face of the earth right now. And I'll tell you, like from a publicity standpoint, not since Hammurabi's Code has somebody written publicity and the conversations in this country or the world quite like Donald Trump has.

You do not go mano-a-mano with Donald Trump. We're back to Hammurabi. Dude, I'm just going to take a moment for all of you to Google Hammurabi in the code just so you're up to speed on where Smash is bringing us. I didn't know we were going to get a Cuneo form reference on the Variety program. That was for Luke Thompson, like Professor Luke Thompson. Enjoy. What I am telling you is that Trump's

abilities are historic in nature. And you aren't going up against him. I don't care if you're Xi from China. I don't care if you're Vladimir Putin. I don't care if you're Elon Musk. You are not walking into that room and walking out as the alpha. Donald Trump is the supreme leader of the American... He's something very special. You will never see anything like him again, and he will not lose to somebody mano a mano. That's interesting.

I don't know, man. I've seen a lot of people come and go and come again, you know? I just feel like everything that you think is broken, it relies on the other person thinking it's broken because he's so – Trump is – in so many regards. He may have never had the same trust that he had when he just sort of allowed him to go do the Doge experiment on all of his government. But –

If it's better off for Donald Trump and the American government that he foresees to bring Elon back in in some capacity to sort of have a discussion, I think he's going to do it. I don't know. I mean, we'll see. I mean, time will tell. But you're right. These are

I'm just saying, bro, you call me a pedophile, you're dead to me. But that's the way that we operate. Trump, you've seen him deal with stuff. People write tell-alls. The next thing you know, they're back in the old... Elon, stroke a check for the entire presidential library. That's your only chance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gentlemen, before we get into the variety, there's breaking news from CNN that our question of the day is...

Again, prescient in that Trump is considering sending in the Marines to try to restore order. We'll see if that happens on a nationwide basis. But again, like we said, not 2020.

It's not 2020. Very, very different response to this. No, he's not just going to let people surround a federal courthouse with the black umbrellas throwing everything. You remember this. These visions were iconic. He's not letting that happen this time. And the left is going to blame him for trying to defend federal property. And they're just going to continue to escalate and escalate. I think you're probably right. All right. You want some variety? Yes. Always.

Smug, once again, on the weekends, your mind is unbound by that of child care, and you find some of the most interesting things that are anywhere in the internet. And what you found here is a zebra that was escaped. I couldn't help but notice that this is again in Tennessee. Feels like all of our animal stuff is happening in Tennessee these days. It's...

Mildly concerning. I feel like maybe we should talk to Governor Lee about that because Tennessee is having a real problem. But this one involves the zebra. And according to the New York Post...

An escaped zebra dangles from helicopter as daring rescue crew earns its stripes. Let's put up the graphic, if you don't mind. The first thing that you're able to see here, if you're watching us on YouTube, is a zebra. This is like Operation Dumbo Drop. Ridiculous. I mean, it looks like it's having a great time, to be honest. The zebra looks very content, sort of being taken care of in almost a fetal-like way.

But it's dangling from a helicopter. I got to say, for our audio-only listeners, this zebra is thick. Yeah. This zebra has a dump truck ass. Well fed. I mean, well fed. It is a dump truck zebra. No question about that. I'd like to get sort of the fighting composition that Smug will break down later on whether he was able to manhandle this thing by himself. But in clip nine, you'll see how the authorities took care of it.

Zebra in a bag. Zebra in a bag. Best breakdown ever. There it is. So there's the helicopter flying with the zebra, and I can't disagree with the assessment of law enforcement that it's a zebra in a bag. It is twisting. Yeah, it's spinning. So that's the interesting thing because, you know, you see this sometimes. I remember years ago when they airlifted that lady and, like, I mean, she was hitting, like, 300 RPM. It was a record. Yeah.

But this zebra's getting a bit of a spin, so that's the interesting thing. So the part of the story that really surprised me is it said this zebra had been on the lam for a week. Yeah, it was a goner. It had escaped, and it was...

All but lost in the fields of Tennessee. Well, he was eating well. I can tell you that. Oh, yeah. Dump truck. Dump truck. Dump truck zebra. I mean, imagine being a zebra and going back to the pen after that ride and trying to explain that to your other zebra pals. I was flying in the air and spinning. They've named this thing Ed. Yeah. I presume after, like, Mr. Ed. Mm-hmm.

Whatever. They said Ed was airlifted and flown by helicopter back to a waiting animal trailer.

So I just have to like, and this goes, Ashbrook, your point always, there has to be an easier way to deal with all this stuff. Like there's helicopters involved. We put it in a bag. First of all, I don't understand how it was on the run for a week. It's not like it was blending in in Tennessee with all the flocks of zebras rolling around Johnson City for crying out loud. And when you see it, why is your first move to put it on a helicopter?

Why can't you hit it with a tranq dart and throw it in the back of a truck or in like a horse stall trailer? Well, forget the tranq. For the folks in Tennessee, that's who I'm disappointed in. You had a week where you got a free shot on a zebra. You shoot this. It's yours. You stuff it. Now you got something. You're like, yeah, that's a zebra you're seeing right there. And I killed it.

Right. If you go to one of those exotic, you know, animal preserves, shooting that thing costs you $2,000. Yeah, right. You had a free shot at it. Free shot. Yeah. No, I know. And all the people at Tennessee, we know they're well-armed. Yeah. They could have taken that thing. You'd think that. What's happening, Tennessee? Like, let's go, guys. You never hear about that in NC. No. Someone would have ended up with a trophy. Somebody needed to take care of that zebra. Do you think if, like, you came head-to-head with that zebra, you'd just, like, try to jack it in the jaw? I'd call Duncan and say, Duncan, get the gun.

Don't get your cut. Because zebras are mean. Well, that's why you shoot them. Yeah. I would love to have a stuffed zebra. You want distance. Unlike a thoroughbred, you want distance on that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, I wouldn't let the opportunity waste itself for a free trophy. Zebra, stuffed zebra, dude. You would stuff it before you'd skin it and make a rug?

Oh, yeah, you like a big rug. You know, that's a tough thing. Maybe you can do both. I'm still holding out hope for that bear rug for the living room. You know, I don't want to, you know, zebra, settle for zebra, because every time I see the zebra rug, I'm like, it's not the bear rug I wanted. But it's like the last five exotic animal variety segments that we've had, it always ends in him making a rug. Right. Good observation. Now it's like he wants the head of this family. But every time you'd see the zebra rug, you'd be like, I settled because I really wanted the bear, but I settled.

So, you know, you won't get the accomplishment. But a stuffed zebra is a great thing to own. Maybe you'd like the head for the practical reasons. The teeth kind of stick out. You could open a beer on the front teeth. See, that's a great use. Going in the bar, that would be a great addition. It's a conversation starter. No, it is. 100%. Good thinking there, Ashbrook. If you can get some kind of a bottle cap tooth work, then you've really got something. Especially if you called Duncan, the thing would have a bullet between its eyes, and you'd be like, that's why.

This is Duncan. You'd have the taxidermist put the bullet hole right there. And just so they knew. I love the idea of just calling Duncan out in his underwear to shoot a zebra. If you've got a problem, Duncan will solve that shit. He probably would, to be honest with you. All right. So we got a great interview for you. Um,

This is like a childhood legend. It's rare that we can meet somebody like this who is quite literally the most famous woman in America during the late 80s all through the 90s, who the left has done their very best to sort of like smear and make into some version of a right-wing reality. In all honesty, she got...

What our politics are today, way, way before America was willing to open its eyes to it. It was a middle class viewpoint that resonated with her because that's who she was. But that's what she presented on television. Her life has taken that course. And you can disagree with things that she says and things that she does and all these things. But like to understand her is to understand that. And I think you're going to get that out of this interview. Roseanne Barr.

It is my profound honor to welcome somebody to the show who I grew up, this is a hero of mine and my family. We all gather around the television set weekly to watch her and her incredible career as it's progressed. Roseanne Barr, ladies and gentlemen. How are you? Please sit. Thank you. The standing O. Thank you.

Listen, I mean this sincerely. You were a pioneer before that became sort of a political term, right?

in terms of being the center of the TV universe as a woman who just sort of naturally understood middle America. And it was kind of in your DNA. I mean, I think that's what made Roseanne so successful to families like mine sitting in the middle of Minnesota is that we can relate to it. It's like the conversations that we had on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. It seems like your entire life has been sort of capturing that center. Well, I lived in it, you know, and, uh,

hung out with and went to school with and, you know. Makes it a little easier? Yeah, and I always loved the American people, the working class people, and always trusted them. I did crazy things in my life, like one time when I was up in the mountains of Colorado there, I was a sous chef in a French restaurant.

I applied to be a busboy, but the guy had, he was a psycho. And the bus, the sous chef had just left. When I went in to apply for busboy, he goes, have you ever cooked? He was a French five-star chef. And I said, no, not really. He goes, well, I'm going to train you to be a chef. So I went, wow, this is something.

So I did that, and I didn't know being a chef meant scrubbing toilets and... The restaurant industry, it's a real education. You know, it was like bottom level. And first I was really happy, man, I'm going to be a French chef. And then, so on my way to work, which I had to hitchhike to three miles...

I just kept going. Yeah. And I called in sick. Oh, I think I said my mom has died 150 times on different jobs. But I said, I'm sorry, my mom's died and I have to go home. And I just kept going. And I hitchhiked back and forth across the United States.

And just hung out with people. It was the joy of my life. And it filled my head with all kind of stories. I love to tell stories and write stories. So it was meeting people. Yeah, and I just love them because, well, they're so smart and they have such spirit. And they're fighters like I am, you know, working class people. And such a great disdain for the government, which I always respected, you know. Yeah.

Well, that gets it. So you gather stories from around the country. Yeah. You find your way onto stage. You become, you know, I'm sure it didn't feel like an instant hit, but in terms of the TV business...

No, it didn't. Things moved pretty quickly. It felt instant. It was mind-boggling to me. I mean, yeah, it was within going to Los Angeles within three weeks. Wild. But in that three weeks, I had to go home and arrange for my kids to be taken care of. The first night on stage, Mitzi Shore, when I was auditioning for her, she put me in the big room, which the waitress says she never did before or after. Yeah.

She said, can you do 20? Yeah, a comedy store. And I said, yeah. And she goes, well, go in there and do 20. And I was like, oh, my God. So I did. And during that 20, George Slaughter was doing a special about women in comedy. He was in the audience. And he said, I want you to come back and do my special. So I went home, came back to

two weeks later and during the rehearsal the talent scout for the tonight show was in the audience i mean so it's really three days and he put me on the tonight show that week that is a while and i was sitting next to julio iglesias there and he asked me to tour with him for 18 cities so it was four days in la and i got an 18 week tour and during that i did press everywhere we went and i got my

sitcom. I mean, that's... It's unbelievable. But did you always know you were funny growing up? Did people tell you that? Or is that something you sort of discovered by way of the process of, like, just living your life and telling stories? Well, my whole family was really funny. Yeah. Okay. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, parents, cousins. You know, we...

loved to make fun of each other. And it was vicious comedy. I mean, it was all slam comedy. Like now they do the roast. It was like that all the time. And, but we never made fun of my grandma. Hell no. And, but my uncle, he was a big fat guy and he was her son and he did make fun of my grandma and I couldn't stand. I was only two or three or four.

And he called her a greenhorn. That's what you call, that's what they called the Jewish immigrants from Lithuania there. And he'd say, you know, Americans don't make chicken soup with two inches of fat on the top of it, you know. And I became irate. And I said, then why do you eat three bowls of it, you fat pig? And...

Instant family hit. No, they were angry as hell. And I didn't understand it because a lot of times everything I said, they go, oh, so cute. You're so cute. And this time all the women were stunned and they were like, you don't talk to men like that. We don't talk to men like that.

Well, that lesson did not stick. And it went in there, hey, I'm going to make fun of men like my uncle. And even my grandma wasn't happy that I stuck up for her. Oh, man. She was like, you have such a mouth. They always would say that to me. Why are you crazy? You have such a mouth. But.

But anyway, so... Your lesson was more of this. I got the reaction I wanted. My lesson was, as I say to my friends, I finally learned my lesson, and my lesson is, I never learn my lesson! That's so great.

So you have this rocket ship that you're riding. Yeah. And it's 11 years of Roseanne. No, 10 total. 10 total. I only ever wanted to do 10 seasons because I thought it would be a 10-year story unfolding about this family. Yeah. But so they cut me off at nine. They really fucked with me on the nine. Yeah. Yeah.

because nobody wanted to come back but me, and they took it down to the wire. I call Iger, am I getting a 10th season? Well, we're still working on it. Am I getting a 10th season? There's three weeks to go of this one. Well, yes, we're giving you a 10th season, but we're going to ask you to cut your pay in half. And I thought about it because I really wanted a 10th.

And then I had it where I would be doing the tent season with Whoopi Goldberg and that the family had died. And I had to move to Las Vegas to a black neighborhood and that she would become my best friend there. And no. So they said no. And then. Was that a concept you came up with? Yeah. I mean, that would have been hilarious. I always wanted to do racial.

material. Because I grew up in inner city with a lot of black people who I loved and I have black people in my family and I just find American racism hilarious. Because you wanted to cut through the BS essentially, right? Yeah, because it's all spoon fed and nobody really believes it. And when we live together, because the working class is the most integrated class in America and I wanted to show that it's not

It's not the experts and the spokespeople of, you know, the anti-racism, you know, it's more a class thing. Yeah. And so I wanted, and I did in several episodes and seasons on Roseanne address that, and they would always freak out, you know, because whatever they are. Yeah, because everything is dangerous. Well, they're Satan-worshipping baby blood drinkers. Not to put too fine of a point on it. Yeah, they don't really like Jewish people, really. Yeah.

But, yeah, it was a fight every single day. And I won. Fuck them. Well, I wonder – here's one thing that I've always wondered about you. Where you come from – look, you're just kind of a normal lady. You're the peak of stardom when TV –

Is the thing, right? Yeah, there's only like three or four channels. Yeah. So, I mean, like literally. I had 46 million viewers a week. Isn't that, that's a wild. Yeah. It's hard for younger generations to even conceptualize. Yeah. Having a Super Bowl every Wednesday. Yeah, it kind of was. Yeah. But that's what it was at the height of the power of Roseanne. And I just wonder, how does it, how did you adjust and deal with being literally the most famous woman in America at one point?

I didn't handle it very well. There's no way to handle it, but I mean, it, it gave me more of a voice on my show. I had the power of the audience behind me, so they had to listen to me and I got what I wanted through, which was a conversation with the audience. It wasn't a conversation with advertisers or executives, which was a new thing. And it kind of still is, but, uh,

So I had the power of the numbers of my viewers behind me. But in my real life, man, it was crazy. I didn't even know. I never even left barely Utah before I was a mother of four, and I never left home being a mother of four, just writing these jokes and going out and telling them at night. But...

I wasn't prepared for any of it, and I did not handle it well because I didn't even know how. I don't know how to lie and thief and steal and be a whore. I had no idea. I just was regular. Had to learn all that on the fly. Yeah. And how they do something, how they say things, they're like...

You know, I prayed a lot. And a lot of times I felt like Daniel in the lion's den there, but I always had that other guy behind me because, you know, I did always pray. But you can't even go to, like, a store. You can't walk out of your house. I mean, you'd have been mobbed at that point in your life. Well, I had a lot of assistants, and they did all that. I just, you know, for real, just stayed at my room smoking. Ha ha ha!

That sounds great. It was great. It was great. Yeah. I had my kids there and, you know, so I was still doing the mom thing, but I did have a lot of assistance and help and stuff. And most of my time was on the set and in the writer's room and,

I did love it. We had a blast on the set, the cast and the crew. We just tore it up. We did all these ridiculous things. They made me a, because I said, I'm tired of walking. And so my crew was so funny. They made me a wheelchair with a place to put my drink and an ashtray built in.

And then I had a loudspeaker on there where I'd go, move! And we'd play this thing where I was, you know, we had this whole fake family we invented that were circus folk that were doing a show about normal people. So I'd go around in my wheelchair and

And then they built me a throne where it was this big throne and they said, when the network comes, they have to climb up this ladder to kiss my feet on the throne. We'd build these fantasy things. Yeah, right. And we had so much fun. I mean, it seemed like it. It seemed like it was a genuine pleasure for you to do. I mean, it came through on screen, obviously. Everything was a blast till the network folk showed up and then it was...

Oh, Christ. Yeah, all good things have to come to an end, right? Somebody's going to ruin it. Yeah, they always tried to...

If they understood what I was doing, they tried to stop it. So I'd always try to couch it so they didn't understand. And I told my sister, they'll get it in two years and then be pissed. And that's what happened. Two years later, they're upset about it. So you're working on this new documentary, Roseanne Barr in America. Well, it's done. It was done by Joel Gilbert, who's done a lot of great documentaries such as

Dreams of My Real Father about Obama. And then, oh, my God, that's a great movie. And then what's the one about Michelle Obama? Michelle Obama, 2024, her real-life story on planning for power. Oh, her grasp and lust for power. Okay. And then the Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Hoax. Trayvon Hoax. Mm-hmm.

So he's a news buster. And my friend Melanie Krell knew Joel, and she said, you ought to have Joel do a movie about your story of what happened to you. Because she's like, stop talking about it, all my friends. Stop talking about it. They're sick of me. Sounds like you have good friends. Yeah. That's what my friends would do. It's been eight years. Come on. Get over it.

But then she hooked me up with Joel and, you know, he hadn't heard any of the stories and wasn't tired of them. Oh, yeah. So you could get some fresh eyes on these things. And he made a really fantastic documentary about my whole life getting to fame and what happened after. And

I finally get to tell my story about what they did to me, and none of my friends are forced to hear it again. But the linear through line through all of this is, again, I think you just – you said it when you said you were always having a conversation with the audience.

Yeah. And that's always been, I think, the common thread in everything that you've done is that you're not interested in everybody else's politics or everybody else's this is how you do it. It's like, no, I'm going to have a conversation because I know these people and they know me. Yeah. And talking to them, we're always on the same. We all know. I mean, they think we're stupid, but we know what they're doing. Right. We just we also know that if

We tell we're the ones that will get in trouble. We also know that because we're smart and we see what happens. They got a country that don't even include us. Right. But the real country is us. We make everything go. We do all the work. They're just a bunch of parasites. It feels like for the first time, politics in the era of Trump is sort of caught up with –

this view that you've had for 30 years about middle America 70 publicly how about that for 30 or 40 years

Where all of a sudden we are having those conversations, at least for me, for the first time. Yes. And that's what I intended to do when I went to television as a little girl watching TV and seeing Father's Nose Best and all that stuff and going, what the hell are these people on? Honey, where's dinner this evening? Yes. Oh, darling.

And I'm like, these are nothing like my neighbors. You know, dad's passed out. He's dead tired. He's had to work two jobs. He's asleep on the couch. Yeah. Kids are taking off his shoes and hitting each other with them. And our mom's trying to make macaroni and cheese and...

talking on the phone to the school so our kids don't get kicked out. I mean, just real life is art to me. The real life of the real people. Well, it's about the salt of the earth. And, you know, it's biblical because it says all along in there, there will come a day when the salt of the earth...

takes over and that's what I saw in Trump and why I loved him and why I wanted to go on TV and why I'm a Trump supporter and all of it. It's the salt of the earth, baby. It feels like it's come full circle. I think so. Not all the way full. When they go off to prison, it'll be full circle. Right? Well, there's always something to strive for. There's always something.

Yeah. Unfortunately, they are the police, the judges, the FBI, the CIA, everything, the State Department. They're everything. And they still think we're deplorable. I love when people go around shoving their wieners in the kids' face and then they call us freaks. Somehow we're the weird ones? Yeah, they call us the freaks. When did you sort of apply –

Your entire life, it's not political at all. It's totally political. No, but now it is. It always was. Okay, that's my question. I was a Jew in Utah, for Christ's sake. You had to go to school and say Mormon prayers at school. Right. And you're like, this is not... So I went out in the hallway with...

All kinds of religious books. I didn't even know what the hell they were. The Bhagavad Gita and whatever else I could find. And I was praying in the hallway at school. I go, well, these are my religions. So I want the prayers of the Indian folk, whatever they were called. Hindu. I want to say Hindu prayers in school too. Yeah, that was not popular. That was in Mormon, Utah. In Utah. So anyway, I woke up in the state hospital, Utah State Hospital. Yeah.

I was always... Felt like you maybe have gone there more than once as a child. Yeah, I've been in many mental institutions. Some of the finest places I've ever visited. There's remarkable clarity in the mental institution. It's just like I can't

Live with lies. I can't live with hypocrisy and lies and double talk and forked tongue. I just can't. I have to say something about it, and I always have, and I'm always in trouble. Well, you never played by anybody else's rules, that's for sure. No, I have to answer to God because I believe in that, and I don't want to make him mad. I mean, making a network...

That doesn't bother me. I love it. But, I mean, I got to answer to God. There's a higher power there. And he'll say, how come you didn't cause any problems when you heard that? He'll say that to me. I made you with a big, fat mouth and a bad attitude, and you let that slip? I'm sorry, Lord.

I gave you some gifts to do some things here, basically, right? You're supposed to do that. Talk to me a little bit, because you have remarkable faith. I mean, you grew up, as you said, in a Jewish family in Mormon, Utah. It seems like you've sort of explored faith and the journey and the relationship that you've had with God throughout. Not everybody who doesn't know you would immediately assume that, right? I know, and they're always shocked when I tell them. They're like, huh? Yeah.

We figured you for a rational thinker. No, they don't. They don't. I never talked about it either. But then recently, maybe the last, well, since I got fired, I guess, I'm like, you know, I'm not going to hold back. I

It comes from some place. I'm not just a regular nut job that scroobs in the street. I have a core. And I felt like I got to say it because the storm clouds are gathering against people with beliefs and ethics and decency and I got to fight it. That's what I'm here for. That's why I got famous, I think. That's why people listen to me and

Kind of serving a higher purpose. I mean, with the benefit of retrospect, you look back on life and realize so many of the opportunities aren't a mistake, right? No, I knew God was telling... I always go, what am I doing? You know, and then something comes up. Somebody calls. I go, thanks a lot. You know, because I've always lived and walked in trust and faith because I know he knows what he's doing. I don't. I never know what I'm doing. But...

It always comes. But it probably also gives you the confidence to proceed in what has been, look, you've had tumultuous times until you talked about getting fired and sort of run out of time, canceled in many ways. And killed. My character killed. Right, right. That was a good one. Your character gets

gets killed. But I imagine faith plays a pretty big role in sort of reconstituting for you. Where's the next step? What's my next step for? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It does. Cause it's,

It is a journey, and it's a journey of faith, and it's got a lot of tests in it to see if you're going to survive it, if you're mentally and spiritually strong enough to survive what you walked into when you opened your big mouth. But when I look back, I'm like, oh, that's why I opened my big mouth. I mean, I don't even know what I'm doing day to day. And I'll look back and go, oh, that's why God made you say that. I mean, I do think like that because I think God made me send that tweet

And he was, I'm like, okay, he goes, get ready to write. That's how it always goes. I'll feel a presence and it goes, ready to write? And when I don't feel it, then I can't write. I mean, I'll go like through writer's block for months. Right, you can't force it. Of self-torture and tearing my hair out. Why can't I write? Oh, it's just torture. Writers all know. But when I get that feeling, I might be just...

at the drugstore or, you know, doing laundry or something, I'm like, I'm electrically on fire. You've got to go find a pen and a pad. And, of course, I never have a pen. That's rule one of being a writer. Never have a pen and never have paper. So then I'm tearing through. Do you do this thing on the bed stand? Huh? I've heard a lot of writers say that they have a pen and a pad on the nightstand, and you have a dream or something, you wake up, and you just start scribbling stuff. Do you do that? I do, yeah. Then I can't read it, but...

Whatever. When I'm in the conscious mode of I'm being given something, you know, I'll fill like 25 pages and just, it's just an overwhelming creative process.

eclipse of everything and it's just joyous it's the best feeling it's better than anything that's listen you are you are incredibly talented at that and that's something that stayed with you throughout your entire career you're still at it i i just feel i'm connected i i don't know if you call that talent or what i always feel it's god given he's giving me a download because

Because I'm like, wow, that's great. I could never have thought of that. What a great analysis of the political geosphere. I go, thanks, God. I was just sitting here thinking about corns on my toes. I swear. And here we are. We have three questions that we ask just about everybody. The first, I'm interested in where you land on this. First one is if you could plan your last meal on Earth. Oh, yeah.

What would it be? Buffet. A buffet? Of course. Like old country buffet style? Well, it'd have the best of everything I like on it. Really loaded up. Unlimited supply of it. Yeah.

Yeah, and I'd have to know that I was going to die 24 hours before. Oh, yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, gorge. You have to slide in sideways. Yeah. That's the deal. Caviar would definitely be – beluga caviar is my favorite thing on earth. Is that right? Oh, my God, since I was a little girl. I would have never would have guessed that. I used to give my kids that too, and they all loved it when they were little.

It's Russian, you know. But yeah, beluga caviar. We'd have to catch our own whale, I guess. But they don't serve it anymore. But then, oh, oh my God, what else do I like? I love carbs. Carbs in any form. I like rare prime rib. With horseradish. Speaking my language there. Fried chicken. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you do like a bottle of wine on the last night or what? At least one. That's what I'm saying. Hell yeah. What are we talking on the carbs department? Pasta? Are we talking bread? She said call it all of the above. All of the above. Macaroni and cheese. Yeah, all that stuff. And perhaps a cinnamon roll to cleanse the palate. Nice.

Nice. A little dessert. Oh, yeah. That's great. Some good desserts. You're not getting cheated on the last night. Oh, hell no. Oh, hell no. All right. So second question is, you have this incredible career and we ask everybody with the benefit of retrospect, you look back, if you could do anything else other than what you did.

But knowing the talents that you have and how you've applied them, what the world looks like and things you didn't know when you were kind of growing up in the entertainment business, the benefit of retrospect, is there anything else that you would do or be interested in pursuing from a career standpoint? Well, I always wanted to be a school teacher, believe it or not. I'd love to take the Roseanne Barr class. Well, I have taught some stuff to kids, but I do like the –

freedom of children when they're able to think and when they've been raised to be able to think. I just love it. I love kids more than I like humans or adults, whatever it's called. And I love just their creativity when they don't know that they can't imagine they're a bird. Yeah. You know? So I thought, oh, I would be good to teach a comedy class to children. I think about it a lot, like how fun that would be for me and, uh,

That would be a huge benefit. Yeah, I would do that. Learn how to laugh, kids. Yeah. Talk about something you could use. Yeah, how to act funny.

free and create how to be free and freely creative. Yeah. Unprogrammed. Yeah. Yeah. Deprogrammed. Yeah. Deprogrammed. Right. Back to the original program in which was God created a thinking and creative being. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've certainly followed that. That is, that's fascinating. All right. Our last question, our view, is it all successful people, uh,

are in some way or another motivated by one of two things. It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. That's true. And it's not like anybody enjoys losing or anybody doesn't enjoy winning. It's what motivates you to take the next step.

I think I know the answer from where you find yourself. But, you know, we always said, like in a sports analogy, the Michael Jordans or the Tiger Woods is our big agony and defeat guys, right? Right. They had to, like, invent slights in order to go practice more. And the thrill of victory is somebody that just wants to keep going because they think they can do it. It's not really what anybody else is thinking. It's...

It's their own sort of self-motivation to do it. Where do you think you find yourself on that? Well, of course, I think of it as all one thing. You get big defeats and setbacks because you're supposed to come back stronger. Yeah. But it motivates you a little bit. Yeah. As soon as I'm defeated, I'm like, oh, boy, when I get over this nervous breakdown, I'm going to come back even fucking meaner. Yeah.

So like when an executive would tell you, Roseanne, you can't do that. That would motivate you to be like, fuck you, I can? Well, they wouldn't exactly say it like that because they knew that I was anti-authoritarian. So they would say it in other ways, you know, in that libtard speech. They would speak for the people that they despise and have never met or hung out with.

We feel that the – we really have the whatever they call it, data, that the people in wherever they would always reference, Kansas or wherever. Peoria. Yeah, in the middle part of the country are not ready for that kind of a thing. They're not ready. They don't – they're not going to appreciate it and they're going to call the sponsors and they're all going to hate you and –

We just feel like you should rethink this. So I'd say, thank you. Thank you for bringing that up to me. I will rethink it. And so then I'd go rethink it. Double down. And make it 100 times worse. But it would be more flowery. Because the one thing I did learn is how to make flowers.

thinks palatable and i had the help of the sensor they put on me his name was neil yeah neil and he was all tidied and buttoned up in a suit and had real short hair like you know with a briefcase and he'd sit there all the time and i assumed he was one of them till we had this party well we had a wrap party and neil had a couple drinks there

And he comes over and he asked me to dance and he whipped it. You know what I mean? It was like, whip it, whip it good. And I was like, Neil, I had no idea. You're the censor, Neil. Yeah. And so after that, we made friends and I was like, y'all don't know, Neil's got it going on.

And then after that, we became friends. And I did a sketch with him on the show where I said, Neil, am I able to say this? And he'd say, no, instead say this. And he would suggest we wrote it. Something worse. Yeah. But then he would say, well, Roseanne, I see where you're going. Perhaps I could advise you to. And he knew the language. So he really helped me to get on.

horrible things on television. And I still love him. Hi, Neil. What an awesome deal. Thank you, Neil. Everyone needs a Neil. Everyone needs a Neil. Listen, Roseanne Barr, Roseanne Barr is America, is the news. I am. You know why? Because...

I'm not going to let these bastards win down to my last breath. They're all commies. They're all pedophiles. They're all lying, cheating whores. Thieves. Fuck them. I'm back. They couldn't shut me up and they never will because you know why? God don't want me to shut up. Thank you. Rose Amar, thank you so much for joining us. It was fun. Thanks, guys.

Man, she is so entertaining, and you're exactly right about the middle class viewpoint. It is all over everything that she does and lives, and I mean, what a treat to have her here on the Variety program. I also just love, like, there's a...

element of like self-examination and components of what she's talking about where she's you know we asked her about what was it like going from nobody to be the most famous person in america and she's like i didn't handle it well you know were you like ah

Yeah, that's, I mean... She certainly lives authentically. Yeah, I mean, so what you're getting just truth that she sees it. You don't have to agree with everything that she has to say, but you do have to appreciate those people that come along in the course of American history that just sort of define eras, but also just live authentically to themselves. And I think she's one of them. She's got a great new documentary out, America, Roseanne Barr is America, that people should check out because I...

imagine that's going to tell a story even longer than we were able to tell here on this program but we enjoyed her coming in so thanks much to Roseanne

Remember our question of the day, should Trump send in the Marines? Sounds like that's where things are headed, but I'd love to hear your point of view. You've got to like and subscribe, and when you do, we're going to read all of your stuff. With that, fellas, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Roseanne Barr, and thank you so much to our listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, hit that subscribe button on the YouTube. It's more fun and video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith.

Hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless.