Ruthless 500th Episode Spectacular!
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You all are responsible for the reason we got this far. Frankly, we didn't think we'd make it past like three. 499 mistakes and then we got here. And I want to point out that this is our 500th episode and this will be the first episode that my wife has listened to. Is that right? She's up there. We finally beat Medicare.

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

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Just a catch of strays over here. You're in for a hell of a show. Keep the faith. Hold the line and own the libs. It's time for our main... Wow. Hello and welcome to the Ruthless Friday program. Yeah. It's been a long time since we played this venue. It's been three years. Three years since we've been here. Our first live show. Yeah. Our first live show.

And the whole idea of what we're doing tonight is 500. 500. You all are responsible for the reason we got this far. Frankly, we didn't think we'd make it past like three. 499 mistakes and then we got here. So here we are. I have a whole list of things that we need to get to tonight. And I'm going to keep it an orderly process. But look, I thought we would start with a little reminiscing.

And some of you are OGs. Raise your hand if you have been since the very beginning. Wow. Yes. Wow. Yes. Hell yeah. Solid. God, I love that. But we've picked up a lot around like in the last, I don't know, couple years. Yeah. And it's been real hot in the last couple months. Yeah, rocket fuel. Rocket fuel. But we have a different viewpoint now.

on where we all were collectively sold on this thing, that it was actually going to work. Smug, yours was late. Well, so here's the thing. So I came up with this idea. No, but the true story is I used to have these off-the-record confidential records

happy hours in New York City and in D.C. And I invited these gentlemen to one of the ones I'm hosting. He pals around with journos. You heard it here first, folks. Wow. That happens. And we had a great time. I mean, they like drinking bourbon and talking shit, so it worked perfectly. And I said to them, I have an idea. We should chat about it. And Holmes was like, okay, drop by my office sometime next week and let's talk about it.

And I showed up, I had this whole PowerPoint ready of like, okay, well, there should be a media company that has a podcast that uses satire and is funny and goes after the left and journos.

And so I show up with my PowerPoint, and I put it down on the desk. I was like, so here's what I was thinking. And Holmes was like, well, okay, I put some things together. Here's what I was thinking. We slide it across the desk, and it's the exact same idea. Can't make that up. No, literally, it's exactly the same thing. We had the exact same idea at the exact same time, and that sort of coalesced it. But then, you know...

Executing it is a different story, right? When you go about trying to do it, I mean, everyone in the world, I don't care who you are, everyone anywhere has been like, "I can do a podcast.

I can do that stuff. And the only difference between a podcast that you've heard of and every other one of your friends is that you just didn't hear of it. Because everybody's tried it, right? And that was my point of view. It's like, I don't know. I mean, is anybody going to listen to this stuff? No, it's fucking hard. It's like, Ashbrook and I were like Avicii in GarageBand trying to figure out how levels work.

I'm not joking. He's not exaggerating. These guys taught themselves to edit audio, and it really was like a big cheat. Do you want to know what a noise gate is? It's fucking complicated.

Yeah, when you're sitting in bed at night trying to edit a show and your wife is like, wait a minute, what are you doing again? It's a low moment. And I want to point out that this is our 500th episode and this will be the first episode that my wife has listened to. Is that right? She's up there. No, my wife is up here too. She was... She's like, I get enough of your shit. She's here. She's here.

I can't see you, honey, because of the lights, but I can tell you, she was here at the last live show. This will be number two. This will be number two, that she hates the sound of my voice. Believe it or not.

But tell me the episode. Let's start with Duncan. Tell me the episode that you were like, okay. Okay, so I have a great one. Okay, so I hate the fucking media. I hate the media so much. And it's so great to have a platform in which you can hang out with your friends and drink bourbon and make fun of them.

And for that reason, my favorite episode of all time is the first 15 minutes of an episode called Scandal at CNN. And if you've listened to this episode, I think it's the best 15 minutes ever put to audio. You could crush it up and snort it. It's so pure. It's knock three times. Yeah.

Okay? Remember knock three times? You might remember this. This is when Zucker was having an affair with the chick on the next floor of the same apartment building he was living in. She happened to work for him. Yeah, and they blamed it on COVID. Do you remember this? Yeah. And so we decided...

It maybe took us five minutes being like, we're going to make fun of this and we're going to do a whole intro to the episode. We're going to sing a song. We're going to sing a song. We're going to sing Knock Three Times. Knock, you know, on the pipes. Give him a verse. Knock three times on the CNN if you want me. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Twice on the pipes. Oh.

If the answer is no. That's it. I'm a darling. So we did that whole thing. And only when you're in a group of your friends can you do something like that that fast. You're immediately in a fucking writer's room and you're like, we're going to make this happen. And Hollywood Hen, God bless her, she's holding a vase and a hammer and doing the knock three times.

into a microphone. This was audio only. And so, like, I guess... Also, that was easier to do in the audio only days. Yeah, right. Like, if you had to see us doing that shit, you'd be like, I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know if these guys got it. I'm not sure. But I just say that to say it's an example of the show just being really creative on a crunch. And I really, I just love that. Listen to it sometime. It's fantastic. It's really good. How about you over there, Smash? Yeah.

So my favorite moment of the show was the live show that we did right here at Pearl Street just three years ago. And I got to tell you. Was anybody here? Yeah. Oh, wow. Wow. That's amazing. Okay. And we've done a few live shows since then. But there's so much content that we do just us laughing. And we are actually friends. Part of the magic of the show is friendship.

And what was so special about that moment and what's so special about our other live shows is that we get to spend time with people who are listening to the program and who actually enjoy it. And you get to hear from them, you get to talk to them, and that's what's so great about tonight. It's such a surreal feeling, by the way, just seeing all your faces, many of them very familiar, but knowing that what you do, you grind out. You know, I mean, we got day jobs.

And you just grind these things out. You're like, nope, we're going to do it. It doesn't feel like work to us. It's always felt like a release. It doesn't. The best content comes from the people who listen to the show. I mean, every single show, we ask a question, and then we get answers, and the best content comes from the answers that people provide. Like and subscribe if you wish to opine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We invented that.

You invented that. How about you, Smuggles? I would say it had to be the J.D. Vance fishing trip. Yeah, hell yeah. Which was the most amazing thing. Did you guys all see that? So... Cheaters! Yes!

Yes. I see you. No, he didn't cheat. I see you. And you are right. And don't anybody let you tell you you're wrong. You're right. He's a cheater. I wish we would have done like a behind the scenes of that episode where we're driven to the middle of the woods. Yeah. It looked like a kill house full of Navy SEALs who were like, okay, uh,

Bobcat is in the building. Oh, it's so true. And I was like...

We're not here to do an interview. They're going to kill us all. It's so true. Just to paint the picture, it's like 5 o'clock in the morning. You've got to go fishing early. So we get up, and we're driving literally into the middle of the woods, and we take this dirt road. Remember this dirt road? It was 100%. They're going to do me like Joe Pesci. They're going to beat us with baseball bats. I was just waiting for the laser pointer to go between my eyes.

We take a dirt road and then all of a sudden they're like, hang a left. You hang a left and you all of a sudden pull up and there's like a dude with an M16. And you're like, oh no. Like, how am I going to explain this to my wife? There's like five guys who shot bin Laden. It's like, we're just trying to do a podcast. Funny, I'm really funny. Oh God, it was a nightmare. And then when we actually get on the boats and we hang out with J.D.,

I know everyone tries to say this. They're like, oh my gosh, he's the most... He is truly the most normal dude you have ever met in your life. And I want to say I was right. Because people were like, how's JD going to perform in this debate against Waltz and everything? I was like, do you people not know where he has been? Do you not know what he's been through?

Debate is the easiest thing he's done in his life. This guy knows real struggle. And he destroyed him. It's because he's a normal American. And the left completely fell out of touch with what real Americans are capable of and who real Americans are. And that was so good. And I thought it came through so clear.

You saw that whole episode and you're like, that's not just J.D. Vance, that's me. They thought a winning strategy was to demonize him to a point where it's, remember the weird thing? He's so weird. He's hanging out with this kid fishing. Oh my God, he's so weird. He's unrelatable. He's crazy. He's like this weird Silicon Valley guy. And then you saw him on the debate stage and everybody's like, well, it doesn't seem that weird to me.

And then he goes fishing the next day. And it's like, it just shattered a narrative. They thought a winning strategy was to try to demonize something because they thought they would never get to know him. Yep. Because he's in the shadow of Donald Trump. And it just like, if you can just throw off something, just a little bit, one, 2%, maybe it makes the difference. And so we can demonize this guy to a point where like, oh, he's weird. He's not like us. And then he showed up and everybody's like, mm.

A lot more normal than Tim Walls. A lot more, the guy's like gallivanting over stage and waiting to agree with J.D. Vance on everything he had to say during a debate.

You know? Yeah. I mean, it was amazing. I'm so glad we got that opportunity. Also, you can't catch a lot of fish. Just word of the wise. You can't catch a lot of fish when there is like 17 Navy gunboats behind you and helicopters floating over top. They don't respond. That's not true. Smug caught a fish. He wrestled it from the depths. It just happened to be very cold. Its eyes were glassed over from the depths. He caught it.

I named it Costco. Okay, so mine was, when I knew this program was going to work, was the first Thanksgiving Day episode. How many people listen to the Thanksgiving Day episodes?

Great crowd. We got some real ones from day one. OGs. So the first one, we're kind of toying around. We knew we had the same sense of humor, kind of irreverent, making fun of stuff. But it was dark times. We just lost an election in the worst possible way. Everybody was really negative about a whole bunch of things. You were in Egypt. And I'm pretty sure you had the worst OG COVID of all time. So I had to go through France, and I couldn't claim I had COVID.

Right? Because they were locking up Americans. I'm dead serious. I'm learning this now for the first time. The wild thing is, U.S. citizens at Charles de Gaulle airport... You had COVID before you got to Egypt? No, I had COVID on the way back. So when I'm on the episode, I was like, I don't have COVID, guys. He was breathing so shallow.

I remember we did the pre-production meeting before the Thanksgiving episode and this is back before like when me and Ashbrook were just doing the fucking levels and I was Avicii and I remember doing the pre-production meeting and being on Zoom and I texted Holmes and being like I think Smug's gonna die. He literally sent a sincere If you would have seen him you would have thought the same thing. He sent a sincere text that said his breathing is really shallow. And I was like

All right, but there's a show to do. So I was like, in case the French government is listening, I am very healthy. I just can't breathe right now. Jet lag. Yeah, it's jet lag. Well, no, but this is the best part. So we get into this. There's no script. This is the beauty of the first year. No script. No nothing. We literally planned nothing. We're just USB mics on the side of the computer, and we're like, all right, we're ready to go. And the first Thanksgiving Day episode, we just hit a cadence where we're like,

dunking on what your family is like when you have libs at the table. And you get into punting the turkey. Punting the turkey. That was the best. I remember just listening to that and being like, it was the best. It's because now we're in the good times, but there were the dark times where journos were like, how to deal with your fascist uncle. Yeah.

And it's like, you people are like this around your family? This is for real? You're actually completely insane. So anyway, that's when I knew things were good. But all of you know things are good because you've liked and subscribed. And we're at a very different position here in the Ruthless Variety program than we used to be. And there was an award bestowed upon us. Smug, I'd like you to stand here for a minute. Stand up, Smug. Stand up. I didn't even know about this.

He didn't know about this. This is gonna be embarrassing for all of us. Oh, no way! I need to find a position to... This is the second greatest day of my life, wife. This right here is the button. You, sir, are now the new king of YouTube, smug. I always knew I could do it. That's the thing. It's just been a pleasure to be on for the ride.

You all can look at it before I take it home. That is so awesome. Oh, my gosh. So this goes over your mantle? Yes, 100%. This is the dream. Thank you all so much. You all made this happen. You all made it happen. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, man, that's awesome. And the funny thing is about the YouTube thing is this is relatively recent. I think we've only done about a year of video. I mean, we were an audio-only thing. We're in Washington, D.C. You all were kind of the base of this thing. People were practitioners in the field. People just wanted to laugh on the way to work. Knew a little bit about politics. You're either involved in it or you're interested in it. And you wanted to be...

a part of something that was not just so negative and shitty. You just want to have a laugh. And then Wolf came along. I think he was the guy that brought this thing out. And he was like, "Oh, let's do some video." We set up some cameras. Next thing we know, we built a studio, and now Smug has got something to put over the fireplace. They made a mistake. They said, "Ruthless podcast, not comfortably Smug." They can fix that. I was sweating both. I was like, "Here comes the compromise. They're done with me."

Well, so anyway, there it is, pal. Congratulations. Thank you all so much. Really, from the bottom of my heart. I've got too much stuff here. Yeah. Yes, please do. I'm just going to give you... You just put that under your seat and deal with that. I got too much stuff here. Listen, we've got an incredible lineup tonight. And fun guests and everybody who we thought would be...

representative of the build of this show. People you've heard over a period of time here, you've laughed along with, you understand who understand us, who ultimately understand you.

American investment, more jobs, higher wages. It was President Trump's promise when he championed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and American businesses delivered. Investing in U.S. manufacturing and equipment, increasing wages for American workers, and creating over half a million new jobs. That's why he's fighting to do it again for families, workers, and businesses. Tell Congress to extend and strengthen President Trump's tax reform.

The first one we wanted to bring out, Mary Catherine Hamm. Let's go! Let's go! Oh, it's so good to see you. Hello, everyone. Did you ever think this would be a serious thing? Is it a serious thing? Not really. Not really. I have to say, I know it's customary, especially on an anniversary like this, big milestone, to bring you guys something. Uh-oh. And I brought nothing. Thank you. Because I'm like a federal worker. Thank you.

I'm doing the bare minimum. And I'm going to complain you made me leave my house. You know, we got a lot of conservatives here in the building. And what we thought was important is that we needed somebody, some conservative to be...

the man who is not, if something terrible should happen here tonight. So Guy Benson is not here just so we can carry on with the show. He's a succession plan for the program. Yes. He is saved somewhere in an undisclosed location. That's right. Absolutely. I did wear my Daytona jacket for your 500th. Did you guys hear this? Awesome.

And by the way... This is Winston Cup, okay? Yeah. Like, we're not... That's how you know it's real. It's a Winston Cup. Can we smoke cigarettes up here? Yeah, no, they're not gonna... Let's not ask that question. That's not allowed. Okay. Let's not ask that question. I thought I'd ask. Sue me. It's not American until we can smoke on airplanes again, by the way. Soon.

And it should be like what, seats separated, far apart, cigarettes, suits and ties. And two entrances, you know, like why do I have to use the same one as coach? That is exactly what they thought. They just walk by and stare at me. It's like, why? My kids are touching you with their jammy hands. We're the working class party now, Smog. Just bring my drink and let me smoke.

So you've allowed us to put you in a situation where you're playing a game with us. I know. So we asked last episode what we were going to do. Let the audience basically decide which games we're going to play today. And...

I think we have a wide range of responses. We got like five or six games. Everybody, you know, is kind of familiar with these things. One of them is the flagship. But this is the first one. We got comment one, please, if you wouldn't mind throwing this up. This is from Mitzi Dowden. I love Dem or Journo. We do too, don't we, folks? Don't we, folks? Dem or Journo? Yeah.

Yeah, so Demojourno, obviously, it's not our signature game, I would say. But it's an OG. It's an OG. It's the second most popular, I would say. And typically the way that we play this is I read four comments, four tweets, four articles, three of which are made...

you know, by journos, and one is a Democrat operative, and my friends here have to decide who is the Democrat. And it's a tough decision. I think it's the hardest game. I mean, other than in the Kamala Day's Veeper Veep, remember that game? Yeah. Other than that game, this is the hardest one. Well, no, it's tough because you have, like, a rabidly partisan...

Ivy League theater kid who runs a nationwide pack for the blue team. And then you also have a dim operative. Right. So like it's in the name. It's tough. And it's especially difficult during times like right now. Right. Where Donald Trump's ascendant, this new administration and all of this sort of stuff. Mm hmm.

You're gonna have so much fun playing this game. I think we should just hit that music. Oh, it hits me. I really want to remember. Nobody knows. Okay. Okay.

Is it a stanza long? It's a stanza long. It's a stanza too long and we'll never change it. I don't care. It has harmony. Who votes too long? Who votes not long enough? Yeah, not long enough. Yes! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Nobody knows. Fuck yeah. Nobody knows. Okay. Statement number one. President Donald Trump and his billionaire advisor, Elon Musk...

have sent shockwaves through the federal government by attempting to take a hatchet to certain agencies in the name of reducing the federal deficit. In the name of? Is that a bad name to take?

I wasn't aware. In the name of such a journo. I'm going to give away a little of the end. In the name of. In the name of. Is such a great clause from journos, isn't it? On the backdrop of. Yeah, yeah, right, right. Okay. All right. Oh, it gets better. It gets so much better. Statement number two.

Are Americans willing to accept a high level of cruelty and death? Just, you know, on the president's whim, on Elon Musk's whim. I vote yes. I say yes. It feels

So this is all journos and one dem? There's one dem. One dem. One dem. Okay. We've had two bangers already. Bangers. Fucking bangers. All right, what do we got? Statement number three. Politicization of the U.S. Marshal Service poses a real threat. Oh.

Oh my god. U.S. Marshal Service? What the hell are they talking about? No, deep cut. Deep cut. Deep cut.

Whoever that is, it's like real deep. Digging deep, right? Yeah. Digging deep. You know what it is? It's that damn marshals. They are the thing. We figured it out. You need to keep an eye on that. When you coup the marshal service, it's really over. I didn't know that was a thing. That's important. Statement four. Immigration has always been the lifeblood of America, helping to create a unique melting pot of culture and history. However...

However, the fight over who belongs and who does not is as old as the country itself. The idea of cutting off all illegal crossings is popular with some Americans. Some. Popular with some Americans. Roughly 76%. But other groups urge a cautious approach on enforcing the law.

screaming journo. These are your four. That does scream journo. You're like blinking red siren lights. Other groups. They don't know, they don't mention them, right? That's the other journo trick that you work with. It's like, but others say. Groups, groups say. Or, or critics believe. Yeah.

Right? They never say anybody next. I like some, and it's just like the other people in the newsroom. Yeah. My editor. The assignment editor believes. Some say on Slack. I have a definitive answer on this, but I want to start with Mary Catherine. Oh, man. Yeah, no, you need to work this through. And it's okay to get the audience involved. Smug once told me don't think about it because they don't think. Yeah. Yeah.

You have to lose your brain. They just embody leftism and just roll with it. But I insist on thinking. That's your mistake. I resist the urge always. Oh, man. Why do I have to go first? Okay. Cruelty and death on a whim. Just break them down. You can take them one at a time. This is why it's so tough. Break them down. Because at the end of the day, they're the same group. Do you want us to take a poll of the crowd first? No. I just...

What do I live with my finger in the wind? Well, I don't know. You seem like you're having trouble. No? I can do it. Okay. Cruelty and death on a whim seems very, seems very, it's got to be operative, right? You never know. What's the ratio again? He's the game master. Just one dem operative. There are literally three journalists of those four statements. Okay.

Am I allowed to reason it out? Cause I don't want to go right ahead. Cause martial service feels very niche. Like you did like a little bit of work on that. So is that a journey? I don't know. Uh, yeah. Three and four seem complicated. I'm going with two.

I think it's wise. I'm a no-brainer on two if for no other reason. But this is where you actually fail in this game is that the game master throws you curveballs because he knows what you think. He does. He knows what you think. I'm a sneakiest game. But my point of view on the marshals and all that stuff is you have to have a beat.

in order to get that in there. To know that we've cooed the marshals. Yeah, the marshals are never going to be a topic. We were cooing the marshals very secretly. Except they were like... And they picked up on it. I'm the marshal guy. I write about the marshals. So anyway, they're on that. I think the whim and whim... Not very many... The key is with journalists is they're like...

zero brain activity whatsoever, except they have some talent in writing, which is why they are where they are. And a whim and a whim, whim and a whim that we did in number two, I don't like it. I'm going to say that's the operative. Okay. Wow, we might have a unanimous pick. That means it's a curveball. Yeah. Now I'm scared. Is this a dunk and switcheroo? It might be. I mean, can I say for a second, when they're like, people are going to die, it's like...

After like 10 years of this, no one believes you. But I love it because it's more content for this game. No one is alive because net neutrality already killed them. Yeah, that's right. You have an NGO for basket weaving for trans people in Guatemala. You're not going to die. We're just not giving you money anymore. It's not a constitutional crisis. It's just bad spending. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Got it.

Okay. Smash? I'm going U.S. Marshals. He's going Marshals? I'm saying Marshals is the Dem just to be a little bit different. No, you're playing the judge. I'm playing the judge because what a Democrat would do, and a lot of these journos are Democrats, but they would pull a third-party validator to demonstrate that what they're saying is more than... Can we open it up? Who thinks it's number one?

Number one's operative? We've got a couple of number ones back here. It could be one. Who thinks it's number two? Okay. All right. Who thinks it's number three? Ooh. Ooh, it's spread about. There's a good group. Okay. Number four? Few in back. All right. All right. Listen, there's some mix here. We have a distribution. What do we have? Okay. Well, we're going to do a little process of elimination here. We're going to go up with number one again.

And this is President Trump and his billionaire advisor, Elon Musk, has sent shockwaves through the federal government. This take. Who's this one? That is Sahil Kapoor from NBC News. Oh, my God. Yeah. In the name of. In the name of. Just remember that every time you read. He's your friend, right, Ashbrook? Yeah. Who's in your wedding? He blocked me on Twitter. He blocked me on Twitter. He was probably on his wedding. And Sahil's probably listening. Okay. It is.

Maybe we can go to number four here. Oh, he's skipping down. I'm trying to build the drama. I'm doing the drama. Number four. Immigration has always been the lifeblood of America. That was...

ABC News. And seriously, there were like five, eight people on the byline. I don't fucking know. I don't know. I stopped counting. At some point, I stopped counting. Five people came up with a cautious approach to enforcing the law. That's what's important. Yeah. And I think the crux of this is two or three. It really is. Yeah. Right? All right. Here we go. So I'm going to go ahead and...

Fuck it, let's do two. Let's do two. You guys were wrong, you idiots. No! Whim and whim? Two was Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic. Are Americans willing to accept the high level of cruelty and death? Just, you know, on the president's whim, on Elon Musk's whim?

This is journalism today. What a psycho. What a psychopath. What a psychopath. It's also bad writing. I just hope, RFK, if you're listening, let's fix this. There's a mental health crisis in this country.

That's it. That's the game. Open the institutions. I think that means I win. You won. I win. I win. I win. I win. And I think the lesson here is that Democrats think they need a validator. Journos do not. They don't need facts. I love it. Mary Catherine Ham, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

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

We'll do this together, building a brighter future for us, powered by America's oil and natural gas resources. You can learn more about all of this at API.org. We got another guy you may have heard of. This guy's something else. We have him back here, Lee. We're ready to go. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Kennedy. He likes a slow and deliberate entrance, ladies and gentlemen.

The legend himself. He's loading up the alligators as we speak. The legend. There he is! Watch your step on the cords. You want me to sit here? My man, you can sit wherever you want. I'm here? Okay, I'm going to move away from you a little bit here. That's probably wise. That's probably wise.

Nice hat, man. I remember when those were in. Wasting no time. How dare you? This is a Stetson. And you know what? You know, it's perfect that you come in and you do that on me because I believe the last time you were on here on the episode, you called me a virgin. And you're a lawyer. You're a lawyer. You're a lawyer. I had been day drinking. Yeah. Me too. Yeah.

But you're a lawyer, so you'll appreciate this. Exhibit number one is my wife is right up there. And he's got children. I got children. Yeah. So... I love how Duncan's like, I'm not a virgin. I'm not a guest. Isn't that the first rule in politics? You don't start off on a negative footing? Yeah. You're like fighting from behind. Have you guys paid your taxes? We need the money, man.

And you know what smug spelled backwards is? Gums. I just noticed that. Well, I have been paying my taxes in a bit too much. A little bit too much. What do y'all want to talk about? How do you get rid of my taxes? My briefing paper. Did you have one? Yeah, they wrote me up, but they always do. I don't know.

That was a mistake. We didn't send anything over. I think bullet number one was cuts, mugs, taxes. I think that was the first thing that we were going to discuss. Yeah, you're supposed to work on that, right? We're talking about, as long as we're talking about taxes, what do you think about that? What do I think about taxes? I'm against them. Yeah. You know, I researched you guys. Yeah. I researched you guys. That's problematic. Yeah.

Especially Smug, he's all over the internet. Yeah. It's a liability. Growing up, Smug had an imaginary friend. Okay. Who his parents actually preferred. Did he become a doctor because that's what they wanted? I know what kind of doctor you wanted to be.

Pervert. He's talking about a podiatrist, ladies and gentlemen. Did I mention I like your hat, man? That's really cool. It's a good hat. It's a Stetson. How dare you? How was it working for McConnell? It was good, man. I had a time of my life. I saw that sucker smile back in 2017. I don't...

I don't believe you. It was scary. You saw it? Yeah. Was it authentic? The press asked me when Mitch fell. And they said, you know, he fell, saw the end. I said, let me tell you something. When the world comes to an end and hell freezes over, there are going to be three things left. Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and cockroaches.

That's probably right. That's Alyssa's seniority right there. All right, so what do y'all want to talk about? Well, you know who will not be left over if Al frees is over? Alphonse the alligator. Alphonse. You killed an alligator with your bare hands. One finger. I think people need to hear about it. Alphonse is a... Can we get graphic two up? Can we pull that up? There it is. There's Alphonse.

Alphonse is from Louisiana and Alphonse, years ago we had an alligator scarcity in Louisiana. We stopped trapping them and they came back and they came back and they came back and now we have more alligators than people and the alligators are surprisingly well organized, okay?

And so every year we issue tags and somebody harvested Alphonse, took him to a taxidermist and paid a deposit and come get him. So I bought Alphonse and I brought him up to the Capitol.

They dumped him behind the Russell Senate office building. I'm in a hearing, and the Capitol Police tried to, wanted to cut him open. They thought there was a bomb in Alphonse. It's true. In Alphonse? In Alphonse. But I keep Alphonse. The kids love Alphonse. I mean, he didn't name him. Show Alphonse again. Yeah, put him back up. Put Alphonse up. I mean, he named him after an Italian. This was just a happenstance, but Alphonse, see his mouth is kind of open?

The kids love it. They come by and they can stick their head in Alphonse's mouth. So Alphonse is a big draw. I wanted to hang Alphonse from the ceiling, but the architect of the Capitol wouldn't let me. So come by and see Alphonse. I love it. Alphonse is a male, obviously. I didn't... I believe that... You didn't misgender him. He was being taped. Hold on, hold on. I was going to interject and now I'm like...

Let's hear where this goes. Alphonse just happened to be a male. I believe that men and women are equal, except women can't piss on a campfire. But otherwise, I believe they're equal. Y'all cut that out, boys. Take that part out.

I love that. Listen, what everybody's falling in love with you over is that regardless of the issue that we deal with, and you've dealt with some shit since we've been up here. I mean, all kinds of different stuff and the media and driving narratives from the left-hand side. You speak, well, it's distinctly Louisiana. Let's just put it that way. But it's like the rest of us think.

And I wonder, the thing that's most impressed me is in the context of these hearings. Have you seen him in the Judiciary Committee? Always. It's Can't Miss TV. Where it's like he lulls you into the like, oh, shucks, I'm a country lawyer type thing. And everybody's like, yeah, I can handle all that. And then he just gets super arcane and they're like, oh, shit. Yeah.

And these nominees, it's been regardless of party. Everybody all of a sudden just sort of buckled. Like, do you just wait? Is that just like your favorite thing? Or are you just kind of like... Well, it's not that hard because most of President Biden's nominees had, they had IQs

Barely above a single cell organism. So that wasn't particularly a challenge. And frankly, the secret, senators, you've watched them in these hearings, they hardly ever ask questions. They just always talk.

And if you want to learn something from a witness or impeach a witness, you have to ask a question. Duh. You know? Yeah. Which is a novel concept. And I like to talk to people. You know, Tom Cotton's coming. He's backstage. Cotton was, if you listen, you learn something. Cotton was just telling me that he was telling me about the Internet. He said, uh...

He has a guy that he gets 20% off on his blow on the internet. I'm telling you. And Cotton is a wise man. We're sitting there in a committee one day, and this guy is talking and talking and talking, and Cotton leans over, and he said,

He's like watching porn on the radio. He's a wise man. So I hope y'all will probe the depths of his intellect, okay? You get this. Nice hat, man. Nice hat. This guy, huh?

You get this for free. You get this for free. On the YouTube. Did y'all really pay to get into this, for God's sake? Listen, you are an absolute gem. I say this every single time that you show up in a committee hearing or show up on cable news and you're just giving us gems like that. He is one of the great wonders of politics right now. Everybody, thank you. Look, it's easy. Welcome. Welcome.

I mean, how hard is it to make fun of Chuck Schumer? He's got more. You know? He's ADHD. He runs around. He's like a five-year-old in a Batman costume. And I tell him that. You know? And Mitch, well, don't get me started on Mitch. My office lined up in Richmond.

Am I done? No, I was going to let you go on your way. I know you've got a busy schedule, but you've got more material. Let's have it. I'm going to go home and Netflix and chill. Mrs. Kennedy is going to have words with you about that. Yep. All right. Thank you, guys. I love it. Thank you so much. Senator John Kennedy. Thank you so much, John. No gift cotton to him. Thank you so much, John.

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

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One of our old friends, somebody who you will instantly understand is woven within the fabric of the Ruthless Variety program, Katie Pavlich, ladies and gentlemen. So good. I can't believe you made me come after Kennedy. That was so cruel. I thought you were my friends. It's okay. Okay.

You're not going to question his virginity or anything? We're going to start off. We're just going to be good. We're going to play games. Sounds good. All right. Sounds good. All right. Let's keep it clean here, Pavlich. Let's keep it clean. I understand also you're going to be playing a game with us as well. A new game. A new game. A brand new game for the Ruthless Variety Program. You were chosen to do the new game. So hopefully I don't mess it up.

Well, listen, Pavlich has been a part of this program from the very beginning. And you know her, you love her, Fox, Town Hall, she's been everywhere, all over everything, providing incredible commentary on all the news of the day through multiple generations of stuff that we've dealt with. And one of the few people who I think all of us go to, regardless of the political environment that we're in, to make sense.

Right? Just does it and does it the way that we appreciate, which is a lighthearted approach but very serious, taking on very serious topics, unwavering from her point of view. I know all of you appreciate that exact same thing because every time you're on the show, yeah. Thank you for the kind words. Let's give her a hand. Thank you.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity tonight to bust this out of my closet. I figured if I'm going to follow Senator Kennedy, I have to wear something ridiculous. So thank you. He asked me where I got it. I told him on the Internet. And then he proceeded to tell me all the things you can buy on the Internet. I think we'll keep that off the record. Yeah, we got about a third of the way into that. I felt like we needed to cut things short. No, I appreciate that.

So listen, we have a new game. We have a new game. And it's time, ladies and gentlemen, to enter the Snark Tank. Yeah, Snark Tank. Tonight on Snark Tank, old man Duncan pitches three ridiculous government programs. Two are real and one is not. Can the Snarks guess the fake right now on Snark Tank?

Okay. I'm gonna need a beer for this. This is fucking great. All right, I just want to apologize. I want to apologize because I wrote all these pitches last night while I was very drunk. Even better. Oh my God, really? Yeah. How does it work? This is... How does it work? So it's like Shark Tank. There are three government programs, two of which are real programs

that Elon Musk and Doge identified as being fucking terrible programs we have to cut. One of them is one I made up while I was halfway through a bottle of Elijah Craig last night. So get very excited. That's the preparation that we take here for you all here at the Variety Program. We get half a bottle of Elijah Craig down, and we come up with a game for the next day's show. Yeah. So... You ready? Yeah. Let's do this. You guys ready? Let's go. Okay. Okay.

Hey, Snarks! It seems... First of all... Wait, are we all voting? Are you fucking ready? We're ready. We're ready. Are we all voting on... You're all... But you gotta wait to the end. You gotta wait to the end. Gotcha. Okay. It's like Demerjurno. Okay. What do you think when I say Djokovic, Slobodan Milosevic, meet the country that spread more itches than a Tijuana hot tub, Serbia, and while their ability to play sports and start wars is legendary...

What's less well-known is there are irredeemable bigots who must be cured with American tax dollars. We at USAID...

Need your investment of $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbian workplaces and expand opportunities for LGBTQI plus entrepreneurs. With the last name Pavlich, I feel attacked.

I'm sorry, there's ethnic jokes. We do ethnic jokes. We do ethnic jokes. We're sorry. They even got to an I in there? I didn't even know there was an I now in there. Well, it's LGB now. LGBTQI+. Next up, snarks. As we all know, journalists are just like firefighters. Running to a story like they run to the bar after filing deadline.

But in some war-torn areas, our brave stenographers don't have access to the bare necessities of life. We at the State Department are asking for $2.5 million to provide journalists in Southeast Asia with fair access to social media applications and news aggregation services. I mean, the thing is, is that you always have to, when you have a game master like this guy, he throws you curveballs.

I do goofs. You said Southeast Asia? Yes. Southeast Asia media applications and aggregation services. How much was the first one? 1.5 mil? 1.5 mil was the first one. This one's 2.5. A little steeper. Is the eye for Italians? What is that? Oh, you just wait, Smug. You just wait.

I'm sorry to the Italian Defamation League. Oh, you're not sorry yet until I read the third one. Spaghetti, where are you? You have to come on stage because it's important that you stand with us. This is the point where Lee thinks we're going to get canceled and we're going to end the show. Yeah, yeah. See Spaghetti back there? He's got the plaid shirt on. He looks like a redhead, but in fact, he's Italian. The Eastern Europeans won't cancel you, but the Italians might kill you. They might. You've got to keep an eye on that. One final one, Sharks.

This Jesus Christ. Snarks. Did I read this? We're snarks. Why did I write this? Benito Mussolini once said that blood alone moves the wheels of history. Oh, which one's fake? I don't know. But he was just a dumb Italian. They strung him up like a salami. This is great writing. War is more than a battlefield.

Here at Sesame Workshop, we know that to win the war, you need to win hearts and minds. That's why we're asking for $20 million to produce an Arab language version of Sesame Street in Iraq that promotes inclusion, mutual respect, and understanding across ethnic, religious, and sectarian groups.

We need Big Bird in Iraq or there is no democracy. Basically. Yeah. Right? Basically. The surge didn't work. We need Sesame Street. You can fight him over there or you can fight him over here. You can fight him over here. But most importantly, we can fight him with Big Bird. Al-Qaeda and ISIS love Sesame Street. So, Snarks, those are my three pitches. You have to determine which one is not real. Oh, my gosh. This is hard. Pavlich, where are we going with this?

Number two is not real. Okay. She's just like straight up. Wow. Look at that confidence. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So it feels like, listen, the writing on number three and the price tag lead me to believe that you'd want to, he's leading you to go there as the not real one. So I think the price tag seems right in terms of the misspending.

And the Mussolini thing is like enough where he knows like that's where I want to land. Where do I don't? So. Oh, you see, you think it's a. I think I'm. Yeah, I think I'm going to. I'm playing the judge. Not the questions. Yeah. I'm going to go with number one. OK. So number two was about journos. And I thought you were trying to just like give out catnip because like if anything says journo, you know, we're like a bull seeing red.

But I think that was an old switcheroo. So number two is fake for me. Okay. I'm going to smug all the way. Number two is the fake. All right, hold on. We need a crowd. We need crowd. We need crowd. Who thinks it's number one? Just a handful of us, and we're going to be right, and you guys are going to know that you can just stand up here as kings once we win. How about number two? Everybody thinks two. You're fucked. No way. No way. How about number three?

Here we go. Lonely customer up here in front. You too, sir, are going to be a king. Oh, we got one more. All right, two. The answer is number two is fake. The crowd knew. These are smart people. Yeah, there's a lot of transparency with Doge. They tell you exactly what's happening. You've like studied the spreadsheet probably. I definitely studied the X feed before where there are lots of spreadsheets. I glossed right over those. They're too much.

Before you get out of here, why don't you tell everybody what you're up to and what you're doing and where they can find you. Well, now the election's over and the D3s, the deranged woke white women, are in total disarray. I am thoroughly enjoying my walks in the neighborhood, watching them cry and hugging trees. Yeah!

But other than that, just covering the news. You know, it's like dog years again. One year feels like seven. And so just covering the White House and everything else going on in this crazy town. She's absolutely the best. I mean, we can find you. You're doing like all kinds of different Fox stuff. You used to be like...

all over the nation, like shooting stuff. I was hunting a few things, yes. You're still doing that? I don't have any dead animal gifts for you this time. No. I thought it was inappropriate to bring to the bar, but maybe next time in the studio I can bring you something. No rattlesnake paraphernalia for you to use. But your brother hasn't let up.

He's out there killing everything. He's making sure the animal kingdom is subdued as it should be. I still use his rattlesnake coaster on my coffee every morning. He'll be glad to hear it because he's a big Ruthless fan. So he'll be glad to hear it. What a gentleman for sending that over. I have it right on my desk. Oh, it's awesome. It's what we call the FAFO doctrine when it comes to my brother. And that rattlesnake while he's out hunting coyotes, effed around and found out, and now they have coasters that they use for their bourbon. It's wonderful. I have a nice pair of bearings, too.

Ladies and gentlemen, Katie Pavlich. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much. Congratulations. All right, so, listen, Kennedy blew the surprise on this one. But for you OGs, you know that he is the absolute first person who agreed to do an interview with Ruthless. He probably didn't have good comm staff at the time, I'm guessing. The vetting was incomplete, but...

For sure. It took a big risk for anybody to come on with us. Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Cotton. Paul, you got to strike up the band. I think last time we were here, you tried to give me a crack pipe, didn't you? No, you gave us a crack pipe. You brought the crack pipe. Sorry about that.

So for the backstory, for those of you who weren't here the first time, he came, the first time we did this show, there was a big story about how the Biden administration was actually providing crack pipes and like, not just a crack pipe, like a full bundle of goods and services. Like if you walked in the first class of the United Polaris Club, like they provided this, like they provided you with like hand lotion. Yeah.

Like, he was like a little personalized kid for how you could smoke crack. And he brought it here on stage. He found one and brought it to us. Was USAID handing them out? All I know is I saw Smug sneaking out the back. What did Kennedy say about me? Or that rascal over down here talking trash? He was talking a lot of trash. What did he say? He said, give him a hard time for starters. And then, you know, he laid some denigrating stuff out there, didn't he?

I think that's just typical Kennedy to be honest. Why don't we shoot back a little? You want to shoot back a little bit at Kennedy? What do we got? Well, did all of you know that he has an OnlyFans page? And if you subscribe tonight, you get 20% off if you use the promotion code RUTHLESS.

That is exactly why we have you here. What's the name of it? The only thing better than one crawdad? What was it? The only thing better than one crawfish dinner is three crawfish dinners.

That's the name of it. So, Cotton, listen, you've been an OG friend of ours. An OG when nobody should have believed in us. People believe in you now? No, but they're here, so we might as well flatter them. But part of the reason why we have been such huge fans of you over the years is because the guy's always right. Right.

He's always right about everything. And like every single time the media just sort of castigates this guy and jumps as ugly as they can possibly be, it's because he's more right than they want to admit. And the thing that I keep coming back to that is an irrefutable truth. And like there's a lot of these that are lower profile, but this one is in just a different echelon of stuff. Can we throw a graphic three, please, fellas?

All right, Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed. Oh, no, the scientists. The Washington Post. That was in the Washington Post. Five years ago this week, February 17th, 2020. That's exactly right. And the fringe theory was, I don't know, that there was a lab in Wuhan that created coronavirus things, and maybe that's where it came from. And you were like, that might be it.

I mean, yeah, I mean, like, look, I didn't have classified intelligence. I don't think we had any. It was like, gosh, there's this giant lab that has a history of safety malpractices, and they research bat-based coronaviruses, and the director of it is literally nicknamed the Bat Lady.

versus a food market that didn't even have a bat sold there to eat, yet somehow like a bat kissed an art bar or something. Right, exactly. That's the thing. That's the thing. The bat banged the pangolin and was sold in the market. That's what they tried to tell us. I don't know. Maybe we should at least look into it or check it out. It made no sense. The bat lady. But I'm glad you raised it because I do write about it in my new book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China, which you can all get at bookstores near you today. Yeah.

We're gonna plug your book, Tom. We're gonna plug your book, I promise. We're gonna send a lot of it. It is an important book, but we did get a question from Eric Swalwell. He was wondering if there are any pictures in that book. I think you'll have to go to John Kennedy's OnlyFans page for such things. But hold on, we want to do the other side of this story, so here's graphic four, please. Which is the thing that nobody ever writes about, I'm sure you all have consumed.

FBI director says COVID-19 most likely originated from lab incident. That's it, right? But it's three years later and nope. I don't see an apology from Tom Cotton to Tom Cotton there anywhere. No, they don't do that. You were a racist at that time. The New York Times. No, I take this back. That was not about COVID. The New York Times in the op-ed that I published. Well, that was when you bankrupted the New York Times. Yeah, when I bankrupted the New York Times. They later said that although they're not factual errors, it didn't live up to

to their usual standards and I agree with it. I didn't live up to their usual sophomoric standards. I far exceeded them. That was the time that you suggested that Americans enforce laws against crime in cities. Yes, that we not let people rampage and loot and riot throughout the streets. That's very controversial. That's very controversial. But look, this is what goes on. I mean, I've known you since like 2013. Yeah.

And this is every three or four months, there is a situation that presents itself in front of the country that is a controversial issue that we're grappling with. And then Tom goes on one of these shows somewhere and says, this is what makes sense to me. And immediately, everybody jumps ugly on him. And immediately, everybody's like, this guy, what a right-wing lunatic. He's a complete insane son of a bitch. Like, we hate them.

And then, like, 18 months later, everybody's like, man, it was right. It was right. At some point, right-wing conspiracy just became spoiler alert. It's true. It's true. But it's gone on and on. The reason we led with the COVID thing, I could have led with, like, one of a hundred things.

is that you've written a book. See, listen to what I'm doing. You don't say. Listen. This is Seven Things You Can't Say About China, your new book. Oh, look, I got it right here.

Oh, there it is. There it is. Look at this. Hold it up so everyone can see. Turn it to the side so you can see it's a small book. It's easy to read. I made it readable for someone like Holmes, so he could digest it. It's not a big one. How did you dodge that bullet, Smug? So it's like the supermarket trash that I usually get into? No, listen, this is important stuff. Tell us a little about it.

Yeah, so for 10 years on the Armed Services Committee, on the Intelligence Committee, now as chair of that committee, you know, I've been watching what China has been doing. And it's clear they have a deliberate and well-considered strategy to replace the United States as the world's dominant economic and military superpower. And fortunately, we've done a lot to help them.

giving them permanent most favored nation trading status, letting them into the World Trade Organization, continuing to end this delusion that somehow if China traded with us and got wealthy, they'd also moderate. They'd stop repressing their own people, Christians, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and stop being so aggressive towards the United States and our friends. And obviously that's been a failed theory for a couple decades at least.

President Trump really kind of reset the conventional wisdom on that needfully eight years ago But with all that wealth and power China has amassed massive influence in our society And that's one of the reasons I stress in the title the sense of opinion control and censorship is Because there is an effort like the coronavirus that if you criticize China if you say the things I say in the book that

Chinese communists jump on you like a ton of bricks. You would expect them to do that. But it's not just Chinese communists, it's their American handmaidens as well. The Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN and the rest. So their influence has infiltrated American society and business and government. I mean, consider Hollywood, which depends on access to the very large lucrative Chinese movie market. When was the last time you saw a movie with a Chinese villain?

Not since Brad Pitt made seven years in Tibet in 1997. NBA had the same problem. NBA has the same problem. The general manager of the NBA merely posted a graphic that we should stand with Hong Kongers who are fighting for their freedom. And again, China came down like a ton of bricks. You might expect that. But LeBron James and Steve Kerr, who will always stand up for anyone expressing social justice warrior theories, criticized the general manager, the CEO of the Brooklyn Nets,

was fired, he resigned within a couple months for supporting the Houston Rockets GM, guess who owns the Brooklyn Nets? Joe Tsai, one of the founders of Alibaba, who is a frequent Chinese communist apologist. Or back to the Hollywood movie studio example, think about our news networks in this country. Every single news network, except for Fox News, is owned by or affiliated with one of those Hollywood studios.

ABC and Disney, NBC, MSNBC, Comcast, Universal, CBS and Paramount, CNN and Warner Brothers.

Do you really expect them to report the facts straight on what's going on in China? Is it a surprise that Fox News is the toughest network on China? You see Chinese influence throughout the country. And I want to ring the alarm bell in this book based on everything I've learned so normal Americans who don't do this all day long can appreciate, even though they have a justly low opinion of communist China,

it's still probably worse than they can imagine. Can we talk about this a little bit in the context of AI? Yeah. I mean, it's a conversation that we've had nationally here for the last three weeks, but it's a conversation that most Americans are having for the first time because the Biden administration thought AI was any, like, you know, denigrating video of Joe Biden falling down staircases that they, you know, what was it, deep fakes? Yeah.

Deep fakes or whatever it is. Like that was the contextual understanding that the previous administration had

talked about with the American people about what AI is. For the first time in the last three weeks, we've had a real conversation about what AI is. And there's been a high-level discussion from the president himself and folks in press conferences talking about the need for American supremacy in this area. I wonder from an Intel Committee chair point of view, like, what's your view on that?

Well, it is vital that we maintain the lead that we have in artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, the lead has been shrinking somewhat. The book was finished many months ago, so I don't write about DeepSeek, the new Chinese AI engine that surprised so many people a few weeks ago. Now, I have a few questions about that. One, whether like so much Chinese technology, it's

built off of stolen American technology? Two, did they really build it with as few chips and as few powerful chips as they claim? Three, did it really cost as little as they claim as well? Now, it does have one of the key flaws of all Chinese technology, which is it's a propaganda tool for Chinese communism. And you can't go into Deep Sea and ask it

or try to learn anything about Tiananmen Square, or the crackdown in Hong Kong, or the Uyghur genocide, or the takeover in Tibet, or Christian persecution in China.

In that regard, it's much like TikTok, where you can't learn those things either. Now, that is a real problem for China. Anytime you're dealing with information technology and their ability to control what their people see and hear and learn, because it's not a free society, it's a communist country, versus here in America, where our developers, our scientists, our engineers don't face those constraints. It's, again, one of the many advantages that we have as a free country over a communist enemy. That's incredible.

you want to know about this topic buy all the big the whole series of Tom Cotton books where can we find them anywhere you can buy books bookstores anywhere near you just type it into your search engine and go about it and you're maybe you can find maybe you can find a special package discounted all three books together you know and we'll send it out in the on the ruthless X account as well so you can all see it there listen this is one of the good guys before you go

Let me just say, one of the reasons we have this set of guests that we do is because these are people who we just genuinely believe in. Tom calls me. We talk once a week, maybe once every couple of weeks. Every time this guy calls, he's talking about something. Hey, what do you think about this? And everybody's like, you've got to stay down on that ground ball!

He's out teaching his kids baseball. He's just a normal dude, right? And I can't tell you what a breath of fresh air that is for somebody like many of you who've been involved in this line of work to find somebody who's doing things the way we grew up with, who's just trying to raise his family and do what's best for this country. Appreciate your leadership, and thank you for coming on the program, pal. Thank you. Everybody have a good time?

Did everybody chug a beer? Because if you didn't, you got to get back up there and go do it now because we're going to have a lot of fun here. We got a great, great, it's not really a second half, but it's like a peak. We're peaking. There's no breaks on this train. We're not even to the entrees yet.

All we had was an amuse-bouche. The old man. Yep, our theater major. He's very cultured. I'm cultured. As everybody understands. Well, yes. Yep, for sure. And you wouldn't know that by his Stetson, but that was just purchased in Aspen. How dare you. George Strait, everybody. How dare you. This is Beaver Pelt. He's here having fun with his friends tonight, but tomorrow it's Amarillo by morning. Sure.

So listen, I think we're going to do some questions. The last time we did this, what occurred to us, and we did this sort of spontaneously, were like, oh, I have some thoughts. And you do a great job, by the way, when you like and subscribe, like and subscribe. If you wish to opine. Which is what John Ashbrook came up with.

But just leaving us questions and thoughts about the show. But it's always topical in what we're dealing with the day of or what you're seeing in the news and getting our thoughts and perspectives on things and responding to our question of the day. And happened in our audio thing, which by the way, it's crazy. We were audio only for like three years.

Which, you know, I think probably the vast majority of you, if you're local, that's where you were at to begin with before we did video. And the amount of interaction... We don't have a single guest, and I mean not one, who doesn't come away and say, listen, I did four primetime hits in cable news last week, and I've never gotten more interaction than I do when I'm on Ruthless, and it's all thanks to you guys. And that's sort of the secret genius of our show. It's like there's no...

There's no fucking producer in New York who's in charge of what we say. Obviously. Fucking obviously. But it's like we rely on you. Listening to you. Reading the comments from you. Producing the show for you. And that's what we love about this show. It's the reason why I do it.

I'm here with my friends. Honestly, I don't like doing anything unless I can be around my friends. I get to do this show with my friends twice a week for you guys. And being able to read what you guys say about the show makes me so happy. Yeah. You know? Yeah, totally. We also refer to him as our Lou Reed. And for those of you music enthusiasts, there's kind of like two different...

of handling a musical artist that sort of revolutionized the field. One is like a Lou Reed Velvet Underground, which revolutionized 30 years of music, but you don't know who Lou Reed is, most of you, and you don't know who the Velvet Underground is, in large part because Lou Reed was like, I don't care if you listen or not, it's great music. I don't, I just like doing the art. Ha ha ha!

But the larger point is we like some Bob Dylan here too. And we like to bring it to everybody. We like the growth. We like the fact that you guys share it amongst your friends because it's all a community that we like to have fun with and enjoy and get more input in a larger community. And when you have 25 million people download your podcast, it's a pretty humbling deal. It's a pretty humbling deal. Yeah.

To me, that's honestly the funniest part is we'll get like very major media companies who approach us and are talking after the election like, so this was the podcast election. What did you guys do? And for years, all we've done is just listen to the American people and say what they're telling us. And we had an election that was just listening to people and doing this. It's like, what is this genius move you've done? Yeah.

Well, it's like Wayland that we just played. Three chords and the truth, brother. That's all we got. That's it. You know, that's the secret to the success. So we want to take some questions. And Wolf, I don't know how you want to organize all of this, but if we've got a couple of questions, there's a microphone. Oh, we already have some volunteers. Oh, wow. This is fantastic. Come on up. Come on up. Come on up. Anybody, feel like you can ask a question.

What's your name? My name is Kara Lee. My question is for Holmes at first, and I will note that the advantage is for the viewing audience. I love your sweater. I actually have it in every color, but that one. So can you tell me where you got it? Is it your beautiful wife's sweater? My wife. My wife. Wow. So there's a lot. What a perfect first question. Where's Blair? Where's Blair?

There she is right there. So that's my beautiful wife right there. There's not a single thing in my wardrobe that my wife does not buy for me, except usually what I wear on stage. And last time we did this, I wore a red sequins jacket. She was humiliated. Speaking of red, John, where did you get your sweaters?

This hockey jersey? This is unbelievable. No, no, I won't have this. So I'm like, I'm going to wear the Three Wolves shirt. I'm going to be an asshole. And John's like, I got a great idea. You know, I'll get a hockey jersey. I'm going to look cool as shit. It's like, it's not fair. Well, Garth Brooks is...

I can't wait to hear this fucking wind-up. He's very focused on the bulls and the blood and the dust and the mud. But I like America. And what we learned is that America is better than Canada. And therefore...

You gotta represent America! Yeah! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! That's awesome. Thank you for that question. He got a free hockey jersey out of that. Talk about your all-time backfire.

Gee whiz. You weren't going to ask about... Nothing wrong with Garth Brooks, by the way. She didn't ask you where you were fitted, like what kind of Versace you have on. No, it's all American made. I know a great tailor, Rochester, New York. There you go. Only American made, head to toe. Yeah, yeah. Well, and this is a Stetson guy down. We've covered in great detail up to this point. So there's the whole answer to what it is that we're dealing with. I promise to go with something sequenced next time. Next question, please. I'm all here.

Oh, geez. You know I'm a super fan. What's your name? Ashley. So thank you guys for doing this because I'm a huge fan, as you know. We're a huge fan of yours, Ashley. Because I sneak you information all the time. Okay, so if you could agree on one animal that you all had to fight together, what would the animal be? Together? Whoa. Whoa.

Well, no, this is actually a very controversial question. No, like I'm kind of sweating. The first thing you can't do is take on a chimpanzee, monkey, gorilla, or anything in the monkey family. They're like 95% muscle. They're all muscle. They rip your arms off and beat you with them. Right. It's sort of deceptive because the hair covers the muscles. You know, like if you actually shave them, they're yoked. They're fucking yoked. Yeah.

Like, you cannot mess around with a chimpanzee, I will tell you. You will lose. Please don't do it. We've talked about this more than you, like, all the time. This is when we're off air. So the question is, what's the, like, greatest animal we could all take and who would I? The four of us together. Look, we've talked about the kangaroo. And, like, because if you've ever seen, again, a shaved down kangaroo, they're absolutely yoked. They're yoked. But the thing is, they have a narrow gait.

Big legs mask the hip width, so if you get them at a side angle, you can tip their little asses over, and then their kicking is no good, but somebody's going to get fucked up by that. I will tell you, Ashley, to be honest with you,

The biggest animal we could take is the biggest animal on the planet. And that's the blue whale. Yeah. You plug the blowhole. Yeah. And once you do that, it's done. Yeah. And we can work together as a team. We've 500 episodes together as a team. We plug the blowhole. The blue whale is done. And think about the oil. Yeah. It's a renewable resource. We can fuel nations. Swallow.

We could fuel, well some, like smugs going down like plankton. No question about that. So I actually, in college, I had to take environmental science. And the teacher gave me an F on a paper that was thoroughly researched and was the truth. And here's what the paper said is, if people are worried about oceans rising, I calculated this, we kill every whale.

You kill every whale and you pull them out of the ocean and it counters any number that they put up for how high the sea levels are going to get. Because it's a volume distillation, right? And I did the math and she still didn't like it. And so, listen, facts don't matter to them. The science isn't settled. We have to hunt them all down. See, you'll be surprised to find out our resident Indian is great at math. I'm terrific at math.

He can also spell the shit out of anything. I'll challenge anybody. That is a brilliant deal. You want to throw one more out, Dunks?

Well, no. I mean, I think Ashbrook is right. I think you cork it. You cork the blowhole. Could you do it with a fist if you didn't have a foreign object? You cork it. You and I, you and I join hands, and we execute some sort of sleeper maneuver on the whale. Like behind the fin or something? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And then we sort of curl it around. And then smash up. Smug is dead at this point. No, he's planked. 100%. He's going to get planked. I'm managing. I'm on the beach.

But think, I mean, think not just of the oil. Think of the precious, precious ambergris that makes our wonderful perfumes in this country. Yes. I mean, we could make so much money. We'd be rich. We could retire. On one blue whale. On one blue whale. Yeah. What a great question, Ashley. We've been dying to answer that for years. Next question, please.

What's up? Holy shit, Robbie! Hey, what's up, buddy? Robbie, what are you doing here? I don't know. Mike, I feel bad for, you know, never coming to any of your previous invitations. Oh, thank you. Oh, thanks for advertising that. All right, so we talk about politics a lot, so let's get a little personal. Each of your favorite musical artists, and Mike, your favorite story from IU.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Great question, Robbie. Great question. No, I... Kilroy's? No, you go first. The IU one we'll hold off on because it gets complicated.

And his wife's in here. So, you know, I mean, you got to be serious about that kind of stuff. Listen, my favorite musical artist is in some ways representative of what it is that we've got going on here. And it's different, right? It's the band. Yeah. And... Great, great. Yeah. It's like a 70s band. I don't expect a lot of people to know the band. If you've never seen The Last Waltz, you ought to get that thing and stream that immediately. Yeah. Yeah.

The reason, first of all, they play great music, incredible singers and songwriters, but more importantly, every single other artist of their generation wanted and sought after the ability to go play music with them.

Right. And that that's what we like to do in the conservative space, which is every single you saw here tonight, you know, MK is in the back. Pavlich is up here with Ed Shapiro and Tucker and Megan and everybody else. We like to go play music with the band.

And we like to bring everybody in and have conversations, the likes of which most people aren't actually privy to because everybody thinks that everybody's competing against one another. And they're not. We're not. That's not the way we see the conservative ecosystem. We see it as...

There's a media culture out there in corporate media that has deliberately, over years, tried to manipulate the American public with the information that they provide. They bundle it in cable services. They throw it out there for people, and they say, this is your content. This is your nightly news. This is your local news. This is the stuff that we tell you is happening. And what's happened over the last 10 years is it's entirely changed. You come to places like this. And if we can get together with everybody else...

and play the chords that everybody else is playing and they can come play it with us, you can hear the real truth. That's why I love what the band's done. That's why I'm so committed to this project. - So I have an answer that plays right off of that. So the best performance of Comfortably Numb was Roger Waters with the band. And my name's actually a play off of Comfortably Numb.

Yeah, deep lore. I didn't know that. Breaking news here tonight. I never tell anyone. It's a secret. Only my wife knew until tonight. Don't tell anybody. I'd say it was Pink Floyd, but probably Fleetwood Mac now. And any music that's been released in the past 10 years, I have no clue what the hell it is. I apologize. Not interested. What do you got? Uh...

I don't know. I mean, so there's two answers to this. I think number one... It's going to be complicated. Well, fuck you. I mean, I think the band that's most like us is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And that is because... And that's one of the greatest shows I ever went to. I actually skipped a final in college to actually go to a... I thought you were going to say there's one star and then some Italian from New Jersey. Yeah, well, I know. It's just...

No, not enough Italians. Not enough Italians to make fun of. But if you've ever been to a Bruce show, he's fucking throwing guitars around and they're doing the thing. And it's a party. And he's doing the thing and he's doing 100% of the time. From start to finish. And that's what I love about the show.

I mean, my favorite act I ever saw live was the Room on Fire, the Strokes tour. Dude, great tour. Yeah, it was like 2009.

Jesus, careful. Careful not to get a boomer on it, dude. Yeah. Which is great. I saw him in the Egyptian room in Indianapolis. Indianapolis is an incredible place and it's the best venue for anything ever and the best town in America. So Indianapolis rules. Hold on, you got to go quick because we got a special guest. Yeah, we got a special guest. Tell them about Kilroy's. I think what's more honest to the show is probably Bruce. Bruce is us. All right, quickly.

Yeah, very quickly. I love so many different types of music, and I love the band, and Josh basically took my thing. Oh, Jesus.

You got to hurry, though. I will say the Highwaymen. Oh, yeah. Oh, there you go. What a great answer. Yeah. Really wailing in the boys. Yeah, they are so good. They are so good. Everybody's got something a little bit different. A little Christofferson? Yeah. Yeah, that's great stuff. You can't beat them. Good answer. Anyway, thanks for your questions. We're going to stick around afterwards for those of you who are like,

interested in a little bit more and we can talk individually. Yeah, we do need an IU story. I can't, and we'll get the IU story. We'll get the, we'll get the, At the bar. Yeah. Honestly, off mic. It's inappropriate and I don't,

But we can't. We literally can't leave this guy waiting. He is an absolute gentleman. Somebody who has been an incredible friend of the program. Walked through his entire experience almost from day one. We know his family. He has been, I mean, like almost a day one listener of this program. Governor Kemp, ladies and gentlemen. So unlike Milwaukee where you just...

Go Dawgs! How about them damn Dawgs? You guys, I don't know if you, I mean, the OGs know this, but when we did the debate, the first sort of live venue game day set that we ever did was the first Republican debate. This dude, we had an event with you in Georgia probably six months before that, and we were kind of hatching out this idea. We were like, hey, man. Yes, sir.

how do you feel about throwing some meat on the barbecue and being a part of our tailgate? And he was like, and all the staff is like, we've got a real busy schedule. I'm not sure that that works. And Kemp immediately leans forward. He's like, I'll be there. I'll be there. What do you need? And you showed up literally for no other reason than to come smoke some meats. And the grill and the full barbecue

Okay, so let me give you the whole backstory here because the pig had an accident. The pig crashed on the way to the venue. The pig crashed. The guy who was supposed to roast the pig crashed on the highway. There was a pig just laying out in the middle of Milwaukee Freeway. And he had to go to the hospital.

God bless him. I feel bad. The pig was cold dead. The pig was already dead. And the beer was hot that day. That's what. Yeah, right. It was like 110 degrees. True story. They wouldn't tell me the name of him. I wanted to leave a negative review on Yelp. He promised he would bring a pig for Governor Kemp. We had Kemp. We had Kemp.

We had Kim. And so we had to get someone on staff to find like a pork shoulder to like throw it on the spit. Yeah. So we had something for Governor Kim. But you, unbelievably against all odds, you did it. And it was 115 degrees or something like that. I don't know if you needed a barbecue at that point. No, you did not. But congratulations on 500, guys. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And I just want you to know, I came tonight because I heard y'all show a couple of weeks ago when you were talking about people that have been on four and five times, and y'all were going to give them like a fleece jacket or something. So like, you got my jacket? Wolf! Wolf, we need a jacket. I want the hand embroidered.

Jacket. Michael Duncan will sew that with his own hand. I have carpal tunnel. No, we're going to get you a jacket. We're going to get you a jacket. It's going to be very impressive. Maybe it's green. Maybe a green jacket. Maybe we can do more green jacket things together. You can't insinuate shit like that. You'd never get on the course. That's right. So what he's saying is you can get us memberships at a gust, right? Yeah.

I can't get a membership with Augusta. It's a great, every time I take a run at Kemp about getting on Augusta and every time he's like, even if I could, you wouldn't be in. That's just not something you ask. That's covert, man.

Totally. All right. So you're up here. You got the RGA. Got a big role here. Bunch of governors. We I mean, look, we all know how important and we've seen it over the last three weeks, how important it is to have conservative government at the federal level. None of this shit gets implemented downstream unless you got Republican governors. I know that that is primarily what you're focused on.

Yeah, look, it's so good to have a friend in the White House that Republican governors can work with. So if you think about, you know, where we were in the first Trump administration, you had governors like us that's had Georgia National Guard troops on the border since 2019. And now to have somebody in the White House that we can actually work with to secure the southern border. I mean, you see what's going on there now. Republican governors over the last decade

Really, two or three years, I don't know how many press conferences we've done down there supporting Governor Abbott, calling on the Biden administration to do this, that, and other, just to meet with us to talk about the things that we could do that we wanted to be helpful. Because that's the thing. You all talk about it. Yeah, I mean, we're all getting invaded. Every state's a border state. We're dealing with fentanyl. We're dealing with human trafficking. We're dealing with just all this other, you know, all these people that are coming in, all the problems that's created. And then now...

You know, literally in less than a month, I mean, the numbers at the border have plummeted because of good policies that we've been talking about for three years. So we're, you know, I had an op-ed I put out today that was on fox.com or Fox.

I guess it was. But really talking about how excited the Republican governors are to have a friend back in the White House that we can work on government efficiency, securing the border, getting our economy rolling again. Well, they listen to you. Just doing...

Listen. Yeah, just doing all the good things. And then you think about the cabinet secretaries that we have that we can work with now, whether it's on transportation, health care, energy, just all these things. It's so refreshing, and I think...

It's really the reason there's so much optimism around the country right now. No question about it. I mean, we all were aware of the Lake and Riley situation in Georgia. We're all aware of the back story of that, somebody being housed in New York on taxpayer dollars, shipped down on taxpayer dollars down to your state. And I'm just wondering, before even that happened, how many conversations would they have with you about –

the migratory crisis that your state experienced firsthand. I mean, one of the things, like, we wrote a letter from, you know, whatever it was, 27, 28 governors asking the Department of Homeland Security to

to just tell us, you know, if you're not going to secure the border and you're not going to do any of this stuff, just tell us who these people are and where you're sending them across the country. So at least the governors know like who, who's in your state, who are you dealing with? Are they criminals or not? And like, you couldn't even get that. I mean, just nothing, right? Crickets from that. And now you look, and now you look at what you're seeing. Um, I mean,

And that's really, I think, the problem the Democrats have right now. I mean, they've just been so out of touch on those kind of issues. I mean, they really don't understand where the principles are. So now with President Trump throwing so much out and the administration throwing so much out every day, they don't know what to target because they first have to decide, like, we've got to figure out what we believe in, and then we can figure out what to go after. Yeah.

I mean, look, you may not like some Republicans' positions, but at least you know what they think. You know, they will tell you honestly what their principles are, what they believe in. And I think the biggest problem the Democrats have right now is they just don't understand what their principles are. And they have to have somebody in leadership tell them, like, what is it that we believe in? That's not the case with the Republican governors. I mean, and we've got Republican governors from across the spectrum, whether it's from New Hampshire to Texas to, you know, Florida or...

you know, Oklahoma. But at least you know what these people believe in. On that point, you've got to notice just a night and day difference from last year at this time to this year at this time. I mean, talk about what you're seeing as a governor about the support you're getting from the federal government today that you didn't get last year at this time. I mean, it really is just night and day. I mean, and you have a federal government now that...

is doing the things that really Republican governors have been doing for decades. And I think especially coming out of COVID is really where you saw that, like, if you want to understand why it's important who your governor is, you can go back and look at COVID policies, whether it's reopening the economy, getting your kids back in the classroom. Are you going to close churches or not? Oh,

oh, it's okay, we can allow our casinos to operate, but we're not going to allow our churches to. I mean, just that kind of insanity. You know, the things that you're seeing in health care now when you think about CDC, public health, and other things where people are trying to just...

Make Americans be in the herd mentality that you have to do this. And it ends up having really a reverse effect on things like vaccines and other things. Because people just didn't trust the damn government. Because they were just trying to control people. And it was the Republican governors that were actually standing up and going, hey, we're not going to do this. And we're going to stand up and do what our people want.

And I know we dealt with that when we reopened. Oh, you were first through the wall. Well, look, when we reopened the economy, I told people, I said, look, our people are not going to sit in the basement and lose everything that they got. Because I had been there in that position. Both Marty and I, my wife, as small business people, we'd be home at Friday night. We're like barely paid the people working for us. Couldn't pay all our suppliers. About to lose everything we got as builders and realtors during the Obama recession.

literally fighting week to week to survive. And I just told people, people are not going to sit in their basement and lose everything they got because some government bureaucrat is worried about this virus. It's just so refreshing.

And I think that's what you're seeing now in the White House. You've got people that are real, you know, they're business people. They're people that they listen, they know. And it's such a difference in the communication. I mean, look, even if you disagree with some things that the president may be saying or whatever, at least he's saying something. I mean, Joe Biden, Joe Biden.

Joe Biden couldn't be part of America's problem is we did not have a president that could state a case for why we need to be for something in the country. And that's very important for us, regardless of who the president is, whether it's Republican or Democrat. We need we need to have somebody that can tell us like why we're doing this and why we should support that. Then we make our own decision whether we want to do that tonight. But we didn't even we didn't even have the president.

given us the option to decide before. But thankfully it's a new sheriff in town and the Republican governors are looking forward to working with him. - All right, one last one, Smug. - So I'm always happy to see my friends succeed. And in this new role that you have with RGA, I always like to give my friends advice. - Oh, this is good. - So I live in North Carolina and we just had a gubernatorial election.

I would highly advise you to do an internet search on these candidates who are running for office because, God, we need a Republican governor in North Carolina. Well, the best advice I could give you is to move to Georgia. That solves all your problems.

And we've got a great airport. I know how much you enjoy flying. For anybody that's a regular listener on the program, I gave Smug a pair of Delta airline wings the other day. Where's them probably? I'm surprised they're not on tonight. Listen, last question, then I know you've got to go. I thought that was the last question. No, no, no. Last one.

Listen, the only buddy who lobbied harder to get in than the people who are here are the people of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And they're wondering a lot about where you're heading with all that. Well, hey, look. Alex Latrim's here, right? He's like...

I know that y'all had Senator Kennedy and Senator Cotton. I'm big fans of both of them. But, you know, I had that. The governor had to come on last to kind of calm things down. Don't do this to new new. Get things back to reality. Don't do this to new new. Don't do it. We are trying to pass tort reform in the great state of Georgia. There you go. And listen, I tell people, they're like, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm going to do what I told people when we were campaigning. So I wasn't on the ballot in 2024.

But I worked very hard to make sure we held our Republican majorities. Our House...

in the state of Georgia very tough right now. We held three incumbents in districts that Kamala Harris won. We beat a Democrat incumbent in a district that Harris beat Trump in, held our majorities, and then we also obviously put Georgia back in the red column for President Trump. Hell yeah. Go on.

And I've told people we cannot get ahead of our skis here. Like, we all campaigned on things just like the president did. We did so in Georgia on, like, tort reform. We're doing another tax cut. We're doing a tax refund.

you know, a lot of other different things. I said, we need to deliver for the people on what we promised and everything else take care of itself. So we got to the first part of April to do that. And then we'll let politics take over after that. We'll let politics take care of that. And maybe the next senator from the great state of Georgia, Governor Kemp. Thank y'all for having me. Congratulations again. Thank you so much. Marty, thank you.

Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. God, he's the best, isn't he? Just awesome. All right, so we can't leave this thing without playing the game, right? And we, again, I guess we're going to go back. You know what's coming now. You know what's coming. We're going to go to, we all asked you what game you wanted to play. We all know what game you wanted to play. But, like, let's throw this up here anyway with a comment, too.

Yeah, it's coming. Congrats, King of the Hill. It's King of the Hill! It's King of the Hill! It's King of the Hill! The signature game of the Ruthless Variety Program. It is the signature game of the Ruthless Variety Program. So all of you who are here, obviously, you're big fans of the show and you know the drill. But for all of the people who are new to the show... And listening. And listening. And there are many of those...

The way that we work this game is that we have contestants

People who were former Republicans, people who lost their minds. They made a living being quote-unquote conservatives. Right. Fiscal conservatives, economic foreign policy conservatives, social conservatives. All these people made a living espousing their beliefs that they were the true conservatives. The true conservatives. And when Donald Trump became president, they lost their minds. Yeah.

And they lost their minds for our enjoyment. You know? And so now we have this game called King of the Hill. And so if you're new to the Variety program and you're listening to this for the first time, you're going to enjoy it a lot. We have a defending champion who I think is borderline unfair. Josh? Everybody give it up for Sharon McSherry, Sharon McJacobus. Yes!

And we're doing this OG. We're doing this OG. I am the judge. Which is the way we started. The way we started this. The first like 50 of these games. We've done so many of these games. And Smug and I were both. Smug is the challenger. Wait, who do you have, Smug? I could not be more confident. I've got Bill Kristol. Oh.

This is a battle of titans. This is the rumble in the jungle. A historic battle. This is Ali Frazier. I think we have to go ringside. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. It's time for King.

In the blue corner, fighting out of Piero Madagascar's checkbook, Bill Warr now wore Forever Cristo. And now, in the red corner, fighting from her own Twitter account and current champion of the world,

Sherry Jacoba! Wow. She's on a three-game heater. By the way, for those of you who think that those things are pre-taped, you now know they're not. They're live each and every time, baby. We've done it deliberate. Done it deliberate. Every time. Okay, so I'm the champion. You're the champion. You have to go first. And Smash is the bailiff. He is. That's right.

Okay. I'm just, listen, for those of you who follow the show over the last couple of weeks, I'm a three-game heater. Okay? Sherry is on a run. And frankly, when Sherry's on a run, you just relax, you sit back, and you let it happen. And that's what we've got here for you folks tonight. You're going to enjoy every bit of exhibit number five, please, if you don't mind. Trump. Spaghetts. Spaghetts. Spaghetts is on it.

Trump and Elon want to kill off black, brown, disabled, elderly, and the poor so Elon can steal more. And then, wait, and then wait. Via YouTube. She links her own channel. It's a misuse of the internet, even despite all of that. This is a banger amongst bangers. I couldn't be more proud to present that as my first episode. This is like...

You know, this is like in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, where my heart grew three times smaller. Because I'm so disappointed in her misuse of the internet. So here's the thing, folks. I knew Sherry means crazy. So I brought the crazy, too. Let's go. Spaghetts, can we get exhibit 20, please? Bill Kristol.

It's heartening that today the leaders of the two major parties in Germany are unequivocally anti-Nazi and anti-fascist. It's horrifying that today the President and Vice President of the United States of America are not. Yeah. We're fighting fire with fire. That is, that's a nuclear weapon.

You met Sherry where she was. That's a deep, dark hole. Bill doesn't want to lose. He's like, I got to tweet some fire. Don't you think at some level that they do this for us? They know. They do, right? I mean, they know that what we do, they have to know. The only people reading their tweets are our folks being like, you're fucking crazy. And they tag them in the middle like, congratulations on your win.

This week, and they tagged them. They blocked all of them. I just think, I think at some point, we need to develop at Ruthless like a workers' comp program for having to delve through this bullshit on the internet. Like,

Like, there's an emotional toll, a physical toll. It's traumatic head injuries reading this shit. It is CTE. There is a class action lawsuit waiting to happen here on the show. Don't give Spaghetti any ideas with this. Yeah, I see him there. He looks so handsome. He does look handsome. Spaghetti in the back, ladies and gentlemen, right under the exit sign. Spaghetti!

Just eating his marinara and enjoying the evening. I'm just glad he didn't walk out after my Mussolini joke. No, he's still here. He's still here. I think, oh gosh, these are good. Tough. Do you want a review? It's fucking tough. You want a review? How about the audience? One or two. Hold on, hold on. Do we know the audience knew who won? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Bailiff. Do we have a bailiff? Hey, we don't have a people's court. We have a judge's court.

Thank you. Thank you, Your Honor. And I just want to see Holmes' take one more time, please. Yeah, thank you. Let's throw it back up there. If I can see that real quick. Number six...

Or five. Yeah. Nope. Five. There it is. This is Trump and Elon want to kill off Black Panther. It's a lot. Disabled and elderly and poor so Elon can steal more. I mean, what a wild take. I don't know how you make a decision here, Judge. This is very difficult. No, no, no. Dude, it doesn't get worse than that. Like, that's a nuclear... Okay, can I just see smugs one more time? Exhibit 20, please. This is like...

Jeez. Disabled? It's heartening that today the leaders of the two major parties in Germany are unequivocally anti-Nazi and anti-fascist. It's horrifying that today the President and Vice President of the United States of America are not. Okay. I've rendered a verdict. It is very difficult to do this. But I think ultimately the difference between these two takes is

They're both fucking crazy. These people need to be in SSRIs. And RFK, please, I beseech you, sir, fix the mental health care crisis in our country. But the difference between these two is they're both crazy, but there's an additional element in smugs which turns it back on the Republicans and says...

That we're the Nazis and for that reason Smug wins round one. Boo! Boo! Wrong. Wow. He hates the court. Well, I got screwed. So for this take, I really wanted to highlight the spirit of the game, which is these are supposed to be conservatives, right? They're the true conservatives. Yes. Exhibit 23, like Jordan.

Bill Kristol, what can Democrats do? Well, here's something they can do if, like AOC, they've got the stomach for it.

They can step forward and spit in the eye of the authoritarian bullies. Not because the bullets will retaliate, but because they know they will. Dude, this guy is like AOC is what we should do. True conservative Bill Christian. I love when this fuckface offers consulting advice like he's ever consulted a single candidate in the country. It's incredible. I love the casual fuckface. That's also really...

A fun little thing you only get here on the Roots of Friday program. We're just a complete meppo baby. This guy's never done anything successful in his life. He's going to be so mad at McClane when he hears this. He's going to go, oh my God. My groundkeeper's going to hear about this. My grandfather's going to be so pissed. Meanwhile, his groundkeeper's a regular listener and is like, fuck you, Bill Kristol.

Okay, well, you know, look, you had what seemed to me to be a soft spot for the Nazi piece. So I've got a lot of choices. And so you play the judge as much as you play the game, folks. That's just the way you do it after you've played 100 rounds of this. Let's put it up at Exhibit 7. Elon Musk practices and supports eugenics just like Hitler did. Ha ha ha!

He's taking action to kill off or let die vulnerable or disadvantaged populations to save money so that there's more for him and the other evil oligarch thugs to steal. Okay, so this one's really super easy. You win. Thank you. Thank you. That was good. Shit, that was close.

I just had to know where the Nazi thing was. If we were like, are we in on Nazis? Are we out on Nazis? It turns out we were very in on them. Okay. God, I got good incel content. I've got a lot of great stuff. Here's one that I think is going to play just for this judge and jury. Okay.

that is in a very different category, because I've got like 17 of them in this mitt full that spaghetti has provided that fall into the same category of things that we've already talked about. But for the interest of this audience, we might as well spread our wings a little bit, shouldn't we? Let's go to the exhibit six, please. She is retweeting Pete Buttigieg. Boot Pete-a-jidge.

Where she says, we need all capitals. Him doing this every day in an official capacity behind a podium in the Capitol building every damned day. It's quote unquote special senior advisor to leadership. And yes, he would advise. He wouldn't just be a mouthpiece. Pete Buttigieg could be our Vladimir Zelensky. Ha ha ha!

Oh my goodness. Wow. I got an answer. Okay. I know, but I still got an answer. This is the best game ever. Truly, RFK Jr., if you're listening, there's a brain damage epidemic in this country. I'm going to get right to it. Exhibit 24. True conservative and patriot Bill Kristol. Looking at photos of the American and Russian delegations meeting today in Saudi Arabia, I had two reactions.

The first was my hope that this American mission abroad fails. The second was how discomforting it is to root for that failure. He's like, number one, I hope America loses. Thanks, everybody. But also I'm aware of it. He's like, I'm a piece of shit, but still I'm going to save, folks. This is tough.

To act as though Boot Pettigidge is the thought leader of our times and also that the leader of our times is Zelensky is something new.

It is fantastic. It can't be replicated. I don't think in the English language, frankly. It takes time. And real brain damage. Bailiff, bailiff. I only think it's fair. The bailiff has been pretty quiet. That smug is provided an opportunity to make his case as well because Holmes did.

Smug, do you have a final statement that you would like to make? Certainly. This is our 500th episode. Thanks to all of you. Yeah, it's way to the crowd. I love it. And in the spirit of the show, I thought the best way to reveal the fake con that this guy's been running is to say, I'm the real conservative. I'm the real patriot. I'm rooting for America to fail.

That's a mask-off moment, and that's the spirit of King of the Hill. This is tough. This is tough because this really is like the Rumble in the Jungle. Boot. Ali Frazier. Really, really tough. Gosh, I think just at the end of the day, what is...

God damn it. It's... Dude, it's boot. It's... No, it's not poop. It's not poop. What is most offensive in that is, like, he will be our Zelinsky. What does that even mean? What is that? What does that even mean? And for that reason, it's like comparing, like, Conte Partiro and Nessun Dorma, and you win. They're the best, and that's the best. You fucking win. Yeah.

That's a fucking crazy place. Four times. Four times. Back to back to back to back. RFK, if you're listening, there is a healthcare crisis in this country. Please solve it. I thought that's Lenski. I was like, ah, shit, it's over, isn't it?

Listen, we would be remiss. First of all, thank you. Thank you all. You jumped on these tickets really early. They sold out in like an hour and you got them. You're here because you were all over this first thing in the morning. You're the super fans. Can't thank you enough. Really, honestly, big round of applause for all of you. Thank you all so much.

Second, we're going to do a lot more of this. We're going to do a lot more, and we're going to do bigger venues. We do this because this is like our, you know, you remember the old singer-songwriter forums where everybody comes back to where they're comfortable and with the people they're comfortable with, and they can play the songs they want to play? That's kind of this for us. And so you being a part of that is really important. We're going to get bigger. We're going to go do a bunch of stuff. We took a couple years. We were doing a bunch of political things. We were at, you know,

conventions and speeches and rallies and debates and things like that. We're going to be doing more of this stuff. So please come along and ride with us. And then lastly, listen, you are responsible for us just absolutely loving what it is that we do. And now there's not a single day that feels like work when we're up here. And I think all these guys have expressed it.

in some way that you're a part of our family and hopefully we're a part of yours. Feels like we're all sort of friends. Nobody's a stranger when we go do stuff like this. And all across the country, you guys would be shocked when you show up in the middle of Minnesota and everybody's like... Can I add one thing? Yeah. I think the most important thing in politics is loyalty. And all the people that came on this stage tonight, whether it's Mary Katherine Hamm, Katie Pavlich...

Governor Kemp. These are people that made our show. Right? And at the end of the day, my grandfather always taught me, like, you got to dance with the one who brought you. And I think that's the most important lesson in politics and in life. And I hope everybody who's here on this, who's watching this, knows that that's like a very valuable thing that we value too. And it's why you're family to us. So thank you so much for coming. So with that smug, I think we did it.

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode, gentlemen. Thank you all for 500 episodes. Thank you so much, Senator Cotton. Thank you so much, Senator Kennedy. Thank you so much, Katie Pavlich. Thank you so much, MK. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the lives. We'll see you Tuesday. Stay ruthless.