Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
You'll recall the first time around, each executive order that came out, there was a banner headline and they're like, "Activists erupt and court challenges are here, there, and everywhere."
And like this time around, you're not getting that. Yeah, that is the funniest part about this is seeing the left's reaction in this executive order. And it's like these people on every other issue believe in a living constitution that can be amended on the fly. But you talk about birthright citizenship and they're like, no, our framers were geniuses. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
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Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. It is a good Thursday to you. We're going to cover a lot of ground here today. I'm Josh Holmes, comfortably smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, left or right across your radio dial as always. You may have noticed that Washington's working a little bit more expeditiously than you may be accustomed to over the last four years.
It turns out the guy that was there before, not exactly on his A-gang, a little sleepy. Not a lot of pep in his step. A little sleepy, that's part of it. And then the guy that came in now, holy smokes. He's not taking a break. Holy smokes. There are no breaks on this train. We saw so many executive orders going out. We're talking about all the campaign promises. It's like...
Check your watch. It's been 30 minutes. Another one's been kept. You know, he's moving fast, fast, fast. It is really incredible. And I look just visually, even if you're not paying attention to what's coming out and we're going to get into all of that. Um,
But if you're not paying attention to that, the idea that you have Joe Biden saying like, I don't know, eight good words over the last six months in public. And then in the first full day, you had Donald Trump do not one but two unwieldy open press conferences answering any question that anybody will throw at him.
It becomes a little bit of a shock to the system, to the people around here. What a welcomed surprise. And again, Ashbrook has said this a million times. The press has essentially been either A, asleep during the day, or B, when they're summoned by the White House, told what to say. And they're not used to having to show up to work. A lot of the federal employees aren't used to showing up to work. The press is the same way. Well, he's got an EO for that.
About showing up for work. That's right. Have you guys seen this chart that Elon is moving around? It's the percentage of office space that's actually been occupied by federal employees. And, like, one, I think it was, like, the Department of Energy was, like,
eight people are going into the office every day in their space for like 4,500 people. No way. And if you'd calculate out the percentages, it goes to 0% of the spaces occupied. We're going to have to rename it the Department of Low Energy. And that's the thing is we've all been paying for that. Yeah. And we didn't hear this information before because for the previous administration, this kind of stuff was acceptable. Mm-hmm.
It became the norm of you don't show up to work. And I know a lot of people, and I'm one of you, is like, well, if there's less bureaucrats, that means that they can't mess more stuff up. Well, they're just sitting at home under their jammies, occasionally deciding, here's another horrible idea. And then choosing to mess stuff up anyway. Yeah. Right? But they're doing it for the comfort confines of their own homes. Yep.
The other thing it does, honestly, is probably have an attrition rate associated with it. When you make a whole bunch of people who are like, oh, I never need to go to work. I'm just going to work from home and do my own thing. When you make them go back to work, they probably decide, you know, let me look around for other opportunities where I can work from home. And like there is a whole host of problems when you try to get rid of a federal workforce. First of all, they're like unionized, shockingly. Which is horrible. Shockingly. We should get rid of all of that shock.
that shit, but we can't immediately. That takes things to do. So just by making him go into work, his promise to reduce the footprint of the federal workforce probably comes to fruition just by indirection. Yeah, no, that's exactly right, because they don't want to be told that they actually have to put in a day's work. They just want to forward their requirements to Booz Allen or some other subcontractor out there. And by the way,
People wouldn't have known this if they just were relying on corporate media over the last four years. Because as we always say on the show, that the media never holds Democrats accountable. If you want the media to hold your government accountable, elect a Republican. Bingo. All they did was forward on Dem press releases for the last four years. So the only place you would have heard complaints about stuff like that, shows like this. We were talking a little bit of the other day, though, Dunks. Yeah.
sort of a mixed bag for folks like us. Yeah, I mean, selfishly, I'd like them to stay in their homes forever so I can go door to door in 12 minutes from my home, you know? But I care that the taxpayer gets what they're paying for. Bingo. Yeah, we'll sit in traffic a little longer for you. Yeah, knowing that they're miserable makes me happy. And so much about Trump...
It's about making all the right people as angry as they possibly can. And I also anticipate, you know, there'll be a lot more availability for, I don't know, long weekends at beach houses in Rehoboth if all these government workers actually have to go to the office rather than being home and on Zoom. And in reality, they're on permanent vacation. That's the truth. A hundred percent.
So we'll get right into the meat of things, and it starts with the executive orders. Look, there's been a lot of summaries. Then you see the thing, the scroll on cable news. And if you're doing your due diligence, really paying a lot of attention to it, you've seen some of what it is that we're about to talk about. But just let me just say as a precursor to all of this, this is such a different experience than in 2017, when many of the same ideas that Trump and his senior staff had then have now have
The difference is they've had four years to prepare for it. And also in a lessons learned category of things that they tried to do in 2017, they immediately got jammed up in court and they were fighting endless legal battles to you again, dear taxpayer, having to deal with to try to effectuate actual change. And what you've seen out of these executive orders is pristine. I mean, they are really good. They're very specific.
Many are just unchallengeable. I mean, they're just clearly within the confines of executive power, things that can and should be done, and some of which have been challenged and the challenges have been lost because they really are well within the confines of what the president can do. I credit Stephen Miller for this. Yes, yes, yes.
You know, America first went to the policy and the legal side of things and put together a team that never stopped thinking about it. If they ever had another opportunity, of course, they didn't know whether or not President Trump would choose to run for another term or not. But just in case, just in case, they spent four years researching every way you can possibly do what it is that they intended to do the first time around. Mm hmm.
And it's why, I mean, you'll recall the first time around each executive order that came out, there was a banner headline and they're like, activists erupt and court challenges are here, there and everywhere. Right.
And like this time around, you're not getting that. And you're 100 percent right. Stephen Miller, you know, at that America First Policy Institute was ready to hit the ground running. Trump just unleashed him. Stephen Miller has gotten these things ready to roll and we're seeing them roll and we're seeing the results. And also, I feel there's a little bit of a shift in the vibe where when Trump was first elected in 2016, he
In the aftermath of that election, you saw corporate America, you saw the Democrats, everyone. They were like, you know, maybe this was a fluke. You know, this was just, it wasn't supposed to happen. So if we go along with this, like, resist thing, maybe that'll work because this shouldn't have happened. I think seeing him win this landslide election and the popular vote let them know, okay,
America is with him. There's no use to fight. It feels like a complete surrender on the opposite side where you're not seeing these activists flooding the streets. You don't see all these court battles, you know, filings starting to get put into courts to jam all this stuff up. It's kind of like they get that, hey, we lost and America has won and this is what the American people wanted. So what's interesting to me is when you take all of this, the one that focuses –
the attention of the left.
the ones that they think that they actually can take. They'd love to take it all down, obviously. But, you know, you've got to pick and choose when you're dealing with stuff like this. And the thing that has promoted the most ire out of the left so far, and I saw 22 Democratic states sue on this, and I think today, as you're listening to this at 10 a.m. out in Seattle, they're going to be having an initial hearing on it, is this whole concept of birthright citizenship. Mm-hmm.
Which is very interesting to me because, look, a lot of conjecture, discussion about birthright citizenship. It is the principle behind it is that if you are born, literally born, in this country, on the land of the United States of America, you are afforded citizenship to the United States. An interesting concept. The history of it is also sort of interesting, right? I mean, and this is something that came out of the Reconstruction.
There was a series of things that dealt with slavery and people granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people. It was relevant, extremely relevant in 1868. Yeah.
And that was an important part of a post-Civil War society that you had to grapple with all of these things. And ultimately, the 14th Amendment was born out of that. You extrapolate, take all of that out. And that's really what that was for. But then you put it in a 2025 world.
It becomes an incentive to be illegal. Because it's like, okay, if we just make it across that border, and it's why you see so many illegal immigrants arrive eight months pregnant. And why you've seen, for example, this became a big problem of Russian tourism where they fly in and the wife is pregnant and
And the plane lands. An hour later, she's in the delivery room. And all of a sudden, you've got an American citizen. Well, because think about it, right? I mean, look, getting here, unless you're crossing the southern border or perhaps the northern border—
with all the illegal immigration that we've seen. For any other country to do that, it had to be a tourist event. Who travels in your ninth month of pregnancy? What responsible person is traveling in the ninth month of pregnancy where there's a very real chance that they could give birth on a tourist vacation? You don't do a lot of that. Folks at home, how many of you would be like, well, I'm nine months pregnant. It's time to go on a cruise.
Yeah. Like you just wouldn't. There's only one reason why someone would do that.
And she's like, that sounds fun. Let's do that. I'm like, ah. Like, this sounds horrible. I mean, it's not like you're dealing... You're not exactly going to the Mayo Clinic if something happens here. But we win. It was a good month before... Six weeks before a due date. If you're doing it at the due date...
Clearly there's intent there, and the intent is to try to abuse an interpretation of the 14th Amendment where it would apply to people who just simply set foot in America. You're telling me so that in the mid-1800s there was an interpretation of this, and at that time they weren't thinking about how Uzbekistan warfighters couldn't bring their families across the Mexican border in 2025? Yeah, that is the funniest part about this, is seeing the left's reaction in this executive order.
And it's like these people on every other issue believe in a living constitution that can be amended on the fly. But you talk about birthright citizenship and they're like, no, our framers were geniuses. Right. Right.
Exactly. This is perfect the way it is. They definitely envisioned a big Honduran migrant crisis. Right. But like you talk to them about like the Second Amendment, they're like, well, that's like Flintlock rifles, you know? But on this one, they'll just, they take it down to the hill. They do. They take it to the hill. And so like, look, I think a lot of the battle, the legal battle that we were treated to in 2017 was,
It sort of begins and ends at this question. I don't know how it's going to resolve itself. Of course, the left is absolutely convinced it's a hard text to
an interpretation of the 14th Amendment. We're not allowed to change any of our immigration policy in the United States of America forever because of the words on a poem on the Statue of Liberty from 100 years ago. And it's just like, it's not the reality of America. And at one point, America was a frontier country to be explored by the people who were colonists and the early pioneers of this country.
That isn't America in 2025. For Democrats, it's a broken immigration system until Trump's in charge of it. And they're like, no, no, no. It's perfect. Everything worked great. Just enforce the laws. No big deal. We don't make changes around here.
But like, look, I think that's the big the big thing to focus on. The one that's going to make some news. Just wanted to give you some information on that, because that's I don't know, from my standpoint, the one that everybody else is for the left is focused. Yeah. And it's making all the right people mad. Good. Absolutely. Listen, it's been a really historic first few days. And we're going to tell you why all these executive orders are so important for the future of America for the first time, folks.
Conservatives, first time in my lifetime, and I mean this sincerely, conservatives are winning a culture war. Yes. For the first time ever. Winning used to be, for the entirety of my professional life-
stopping the leftward march. Yeah. I have never in my life seen a reversal where a rightward march has taken place. Yeah, I think in military tactics you call it a fighting retreat, you know? Yeah. It's like that's how the culture war has felt for conservatives for a generation. And that stuff's changing. I mean, it's just changing. We're going to get into all of that right after this.
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All right, so let's get into this stuff. Let's play clip two to start to just sort of lay the predicate for this. This is actually an executive order designating the cartels and other organizations to be foreign terrorist organizations. It's a big one. Yes, sir. People have wanted to do this for years. So they are now designated as terrorist organizations, foreign. And Mexico probably doesn't want that.
What we have to do. What's right. They're killing our people. They're killing 250, 300,000 American people a year. Not 100, like has been reported for 15 years. It's probably 300,000. Ah, thank God, Donald Trump. Yeah. Yep.
This is something that we've, long-time listeners, you know this has been a little bit of a hobby horse for a while in that people aren't just showing up in the border because it's like Manifest Destiny in Central America and they're interested in a better life. I mean, there are cartels where their business model is to human smuggle, sex smuggling, basically, drugs, fentanyl, the worst of the worst. And their entire business model is an illicit smuggling
to get people over the border. And to do that, they then send all of this shit with them in the process. Mm-hmm.
And so, like, look, I mean, they sent Kamala Harris on a three and a half year extravaganza to examine the root causes of illegal migration. How about a fucking cartel that's paid to do it? Right. And these are horrible people. I mean, these people are beheading people, killing people, raping, pillaging. I mean, they're just it's been like this for the beginning of time. Reagan fought this stuff in the.
Well, yeah, and it's always been clear that they're the problem, the key problem in this whole flow. And what I love about this executive order is, like, you don't have to go into the Situation Room and put up, like, a plan to take out these cartels. All you got to do is flip on Sicario, and then we're ready to roll. Yeah, ready to rock. But so by designating them as foreign terrorist organizations—
it opens up a whole world of possibilities for how you can defend yourself against them in an offensive posture rather than a defensive posture that this country has been doing for decades. And again, this is not a group of people who are on some street corner trying to be like, does anyone want to buy some weed? These are people who now have military vehicles, rocket launchers. When Chapo's son was taken by the authorities by the Mexican government—
There were days of the cartel running a rampage across Mexico where they were shooting down Mexican police helicopters using rocket-propelled grenades. So this is a terror organization. This is essentially the Taliban in Mexico with military-caliber weapons terrorizing the population, bringing drugs and misery across the U.S. border, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans with their poison. Yeah, and you have to ask yourself, why in the world...
Is Trump the first guy to be doing this? I mean, like, why didn't Biden do it? Why isn't this – I know – we all know the answer. It's because there were terrible leaders. Yep. And that Trump is a great leader. But you've got to think, like, this is the kind of common sense thing that everybody in the country is like, oh, well, of course –
Of course, they're terrorist organizations. They've been terrorizing our country. Why don't we act like it? And I know there's a lot of different competing equities that go into that designation. But if this is such a big problem to our country, and it is, why isn't a leader stand up and do something about it? And it goes to the – it's the same thing –
with the Panama Canal. Like, did you know that there was a big problem with the Panama Canal? I mean, I guess maybe I'd heard about it, but it wasn't something that anybody talked about for the last four years. This is, this, what you're seeing is four years plus of a problem of the mainstream media that will not call attention to the real problems in our society. So it takes a leader like Trump to say, no, I've noticed that and I'm doing something about it. So it allows for military intelligence? Mm-hmm.
It allows for Justice Department to become fully involved in all of this.
It allows for, you know, the end of that clip is they asked him about whether or not there could be a situation where special forces are called in to dismantle a clear and present threat. Which, by the way, is what you do when you're commander in chief and there is a terrorist organization posing a threat. They're killing, he said, 300,000 Americans. 300,000? That's a lot of people. 300,000?
I mean, come on, dude. There's nothing that's in that category of crazy. And the fact that nobody's done anything about it is crazy. But now that you've done this, there are tools. And some of this stuff is actionable today. Some of these executive orders are tools that he may or may not use, but it gives him leverage. Now, he's been talking to the Mexican president. He's like, are you going to handle this? Or I will. Well, I mean—
The reason why I don't think it's gotten done, back to Ashbrook's problem, is I think there's like this diplomatic industrial complex that exists in Washington, D.C., this blob that is just like, well, if we just got in the room and kept talking, we'd somehow figure it out. And I think it's so naive. And a fear of offending. Yeah, it's just a naive worldview. It's the same worldview that the Obama administration had. If you go watch that documentary the last year about their policy in places like Africa and that Susan Power,
Worst woman. Who ran over an African kid. Yeah. But she just thought if she sat in the right room with enough women who'd been like mutilated, their generals had been mutilated, like somehow, you know, this awareness would stop these lunatics from hurting people. And it's like, no, at some point you have to deal in hard truths and make things happen. And Donald Trump does that. That's the thing is like when you mentioned this blob, this foreign policy blob, you've had these like thinkers, you've had like,
John Kerry sitting in Nantucket being like, oh, well, you know, when I have a problem with a neighbor, I invite him over and we have a couple of martinis. Maybe this can work with the world's problems. These are very bad people around the world. And Donald Trump is the kind of person who knows how to handle very bad people. Well, and they understand pain.
And they understand fear because that's what they live with. That's what they, that is the only currency. It's what Wesley Hunt said when we had him last in here for an episode. Yeah. It's like there are parts of the world that deal like in those absolutes. And if you're not willing to deal in those absolutes, you're not going to make any progress. There's no deals. There's no deals. All right. Clip three, please. Spaghetts.
Shout out Megyn Kelly for that, because she was 100% out there when it was not okay to be like, keep men out of women's locker rooms, keep men out of women's sports. She led the charge, made promise kept. Yeah, and Riley Gaines and anybody who's
raise this amongst great personal risk, right? Because we're still in the cancel culture with democratic rule, where if you put your head up, you're immediately a target from one, but two, like your job prospects, your social media accounts are canceled. Like all those things were very real and they happened in real time. We had a lot of them on our show. To have a president of the United States sit behind and say, no, we heard you.
And we're recognizing that on the federal government forums, you can select man or you can select woman. It's so crazy. Think about it. 20 years ago, you're like standing up and plotting. Thank God the president said there's only two genders. Like that's how nutty things got, folks. That's how crazy things got. Wild stuff. So there's a whole bunch of other stuff. They declared an emergency.
On the border. Yep. Feels like we're about three, four, four years late on that. And thank God for January 20 in the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, because he finally now allows him to deploy troops to the region, National Guard to the region, to actually have the sort of bandwidth to deal with a potential problem. You know what the end result of that was? They stopped coming. Yep.
They stopped coming. Can I add one quick thing? It's not here in the notes, but he had an executive order dismantling DEI policies at the federal level. All the DEI employees who run the DEI departments have already been told, "You are on leave. Don't show up to work. You're probably not going to have a job because we're not doing that DEI stuff." But beyond just the federal government,
I'm reading in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, this has already had a very rapid effect on corporate America, where corporations are now freezing their DEI programs, their DEI offices. They're like, well, we're cutting that headcount. There's already layoffs happening among DEI offices and DEI administrators at these corporations. What does this mean specifically for you, listener? And the Wall Street Journal touched on this is crazy.
This gives an opportunity to CEOs, executives of these companies to have these massive layoffs because costs have gotten so bloated paying for these DE officers. Well, it's a racket. It's a complete racket. It's been a shakedown racket from day one. And if you're listening to this or you're watching this and you're like, man, it really turned on a dime. This is crazy. You've got all these corporations who it feels like they're Republicans now. And it's like –
Reality and having talked to a lot of these people, they've been here for a couple of years at the very least. But they were powerless to do anything about it. They were powerless. They were being extorted by all of these institutions that the left controls to monitor their behavior. And you had a federal government that was forcing this from the top. So finally, Donald Trump comes in and it's like, oh, thank God we can rip this bandaid off because we've been wanting to do it for a long time. Yeah. If you look at it like Fortune 50, right? And there's a...
There's a lot of reason to believe that corporate America just ideologically hewed to the left. But if you, by and large, the most successful companies in this country are non-ideological to a fault.
In that they actually don't believe in anything other than their ability to do business. They're responsible to shareholders, their fate, their company's fate. Everything that they do is responsible for their ability to continue to do business. The greatest threat to their ability to do business was the left. And particularly post-George Floyd, in that moment in time, there was a great organization off the left that required you to pay them. Yep.
And so they established these departments, these DEI departments that were filled with people who were part of this movement that essentially went out and then provided that company's grants to organizations like BLM and others.
in order to keep them off their back. It was basically like a parasite shows up in the company, starts sucking the blood out in the form of cash, and then distributing it to all the other left-wing operatives. This was their money machine. They were like, we will bleed corporate America. If you don't pay the protection money, then we're going to tell everyone to boycott your company.
We're going to run you into the ground and we're going to take your money and we're going to give it to all these left wing organizations. That's what was happening for years. It's 100 percent. It is absolutely no different than any mob movie you've ever watched where the guy walks into the front entrance of the bakery and the baker hands him a cup.
envelope full of cash and he's like a little light this month yeah I'll be back next month better be better you know what I mean yeah it's it's it's a apples to apples it's not like yeah oh that's a funny movie comparison that's apples to apples what was going on exactly in the hard left had Luca Brazzi and Luca Brazzi was the mainstream media
And he would knock out anybody who got out of line. Trump walks in and he takes care of Luca Brasi, sends him to the fishes. And then everybody's like, oh, free at last. Yeah. We don't have to deal with that. We don't have to be afraid anymore because Trump doesn't care what they say, because Republicans don't care what the mainstream media says. They don't have the same leverage. Yeah. A hundred percent. A couple more here. I'm glad you brought that up.
because that's a really, really important one and one that has done cultural significance here in 48 hours. And also for our listeners in your pocketbooks, that's going to bring prices down because they don't have to pay protection money. Yeah. There's not a – I mean, can you imagine? They said all these departments. Every department in the federal government had a DEI office. Huh? Yep. What? Department of Equity and Inclusion. Just think about the name of that. Equity and Inclusion.
Never mind the fact that you can do your job or not. Nope. You know? And then their ideas are all about, well, you got to pay this guy. Then you got to pay that guy. Yeah, yeah. It's not like they're like, oh. Equity is you pay me. And the great irony of it all is at no point do things like Department of Equity or Inclusion
At no point does any of that seek to have racial reconciliation and racial harmony. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's to try to further divide things because you know what? That's the business model. That's the business model. That's the business model. If you solve the problem.
You wouldn't have a job either. Yeah. You know? Like, nope. So you know what Trump's doing? Solving the problem. He's solving the problem. Because those guys, if you want to think about the history of racism in this country, all the way back through slavery, all the way through the 60s, what you're talking about are things like integration efforts. Well, who wanted to stop that and what did that look like? It looks an awful lot like DEI. Yep.
It looks like the Bull Connors of the world look an awful lot like a separate but equal type deal. And it's – the left has become the modern-day racists. And we're still in an era where they're trying to process this out. I'm convinced like 50 years from now people will look back on this and they'll have the same sort of disdain.
For everything that came about with the DEI era, as they do with the racists of the 50s and 60s. They were trying to separate schools and have busing and all these other things. Because the practical impact, regardless of what the media has told us it's supposed to be, was that. It's the same. I would just love to know what the DEI department at like...
The CIA did. We know in some level they would hire underqualified agents.
Oh my God. I mean, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. But we saw, I mean, it goes all the way down to your local firehouse. I mean, this is, this is the cascading effect. We do not have enough minorities doing the waterboarding. We need to change this. We got to make sure we get, yeah. I mean, it just makes no sense. But anyway, a couple others that are going on. Remain in Mexico. We talked a lot about it. You know why he's reinstating that? Because it
fucking worked. That's right. It worked. The Romania-Mexico policy was a novel concept to the Trump administration in the first four years, and it is the one thing more than anything else that worked. You could not come into America. There was no catch and release. We didn't have an on-your-honor program where you could
come in, get processed by a court and released into the United States with a promise to show up at 830 on a Tuesday and somewhere in Lubbock, Texas. Like that shit didn't happen. He made sure that you had to stay where you came from. And if your asylum claim was processed in a way that you had a legit claim that then you had to go and get that stuff done. But until it was done, you stayed there. There was no catch and release.
Huge, huge deal that's coming back. We mentioned the birthright piece. Energy and environment executive orders, these things don't get as much pub in a lot of ways, but it's like huge stuff. National emergency order and expedited deregulation of drilling. He calls it drill, baby, drill.
Yeah, man. Great stuff. Great stuff. America is a land of abundant natural resources, and we have had both hands tied behind our back, becoming completely dependent under Joe Biden on China for solar panels. That was actually, it was a big government grift for the left wing, where they're like, oh, we need $50 billion to make electric car charging stations. How many were made? One. Oh, where did the rest of the $50 billion go? To our friends. So-
All that shit's over. It's over. We didn't mention the back end of the making everybody, all the federal employees come to work. But another executive order was also a hiring freeze. Yeah. So we talked about the natural attrition that's going to happen with people leaving the workforce because they have to go to work for the first time in four years. There's also an executive order where there's a hiring freeze. You can't replace them. So good. I mean, it's the smart stuff. This is what we were talking about at the top. This is very smart.
There was so much about 2017 where the intent was always right. But the execution of it created a whole bunch of problems in that you were dealing with court battles. There was some political fallout. There was all kinds of stuff going on. It just didn't lock the door. Well, I mean, part of it was...
A lot of people didn't know Trump was going to win in 2016. So like the way I like to look at it is like 2017 was like a pop quiz. Like everybody had to get real smart, real quick and figure out what we wanted to do. But in 2025, it's like a take home test. Yeah. We've already seen how this works and we're going to make it even better. Yeah. I mean, it's just so good. This is my personal absolute favorite.
There's tons of different things. We could spend two hours talking about everything. Electric vehicle mandate. Yeah. Like throw all that stuff out. All that stuff is great. This one's my favorite. Did you guys hear about the one flag policy? Hell yes. So I had forgotten entirely that the Biden administration had implemented a
I almost can't believe that this is possible. And I can't believe it wasn't just universally an outrage. Implemented a executive order that allowed for not an American flag to fly alone at American embassies and consulates around the world, but also made it possible to fly a pride flag and a BLM flag.
Like you didn't have to, like multiple flags, multiple flags. And we actually have some graphics on this. Can we pull up graphic one? During the Biden administration, you may ask yourself, like this is an American embassy. And you might ask yourself, like, holy smokes, like I wonder what country they put this up in. Is this the Vatican? It's the Vatican, the Holy See.
This is in the Vatican. They put up a pride flag on the American embassy. Imagine in the holiest places for Catholics that this is the message that you're sending. It is amongst the most offensive things I've ever... First of all, I don't care what the cause is. Pride, whatever. Could be great causes. To reduce the power and the image of the United States of America to niche...
sort of like activists is insane. I mean, that might fly to the embassy, to the Episcopalians. But let's be serious. You think the Pope wants to see that out the window? Maybe this Pope, maybe a rhino Pope. I knew a blast was coming. But think about how funny, think of how funny it would be. You know, you're one of these like cartel guys in Mexico and you're hanging out in Mexico City, you know, extorting a bunch of people and
You see the American embassy and you see the BLM flag coming down. And then like you look at your phone, you find out now you're designated as a terrorist. Yeah. You're like, oh, shit. I got a real problem. Trump really is back. But I mean, just imagine the thought process. It's the same sort of offensive. I took so much offense. Remember when the Obama years, when they lit the White House in the pride colors? It's the White House.
It's the symbol of freedom across the world. This is not an activist organization. This isn't now. This isn't some domestic argument that we're having.
It is literally the symbol of the free world. Each and every embassy that America has is like, fuck you, we're here. Here's the stars and stripes. Respect the shit out of it. And also that flag represents everybody. Right. That's the thing. That's the thing. And that's the other side of it is like what they're saying is the American flag itself isn't good enough.
Yeah. The American flag doesn't represent everyone. And I'm here to tell you it does if you're black, if you're gay, if you're anything. Right. Because you're an American. Right. Exactly right. There was a time during Trump's first term when the left was like, no, you can't put the American flag up on your house and like your homeowners association. I'm like kids would wear an American flag on their shirt to school and they would be sent home because they were told it was offensive. Yeah. Think about that ideology. It's a perverse ideology.
ideology. It is. And until Democrats are not completely owned and operated by that perverse ideology, they're not going to be able to win. Yeah, I mean, look, I think they're still in the same category, right? I don't think Democrats have changed a lick. I think if you gave them the keys to the kingdom tomorrow, they'd do all this stuff again. But the difference is the people are not with them. And they're not going to get those keys to the kingdom for at least four years. My guess is
We're turning the tide on some of this stuff. The economic policies were horrible. They spoke for themselves. Trump's changing all of that. Border policies spoke for themselves. Terrible. It's the social and cultural stuff that he's done here that everyone thinks and was afraid to say. Yep. For so long. And when you have the president of the United States sitting behind the Resolute desk signing paperwork that says, nope, we heard you. This is it. You can finally...
Like, we're back. Yeah, that's exactly it. We're back, you know? And it's just, it's a relieving experience.
I am confident that over the next like 30 days, there's going to be plenty of things where like, whoa, like, you know, I mean, there's going to be a lot of consternation. He's going to do all kinds of things, some of which you may really agree with, some of which you may not agree with. But it's that trend in that direction that only this guy can do. And it's having a profound impact, which brings us to our question of the day. Hmm.
It's a good one. I want to hear a lot. If there's not thousands of comments on this one, I'm going to be really upset. Yeah, because it's a dang good question. Yeah. You got to like and subscribe. And I want you to use your imagination. Smug, while I'm reading it, you have to think of your own because I feel like you'd have a pretty good answer for this. Yep. If you had a blue sky opportunity to write Trump's next executive order and he's covered a lot of ground, so you got to really be creative about it, what would it be?
I want to see some serious shit, and then I want the comics out there to give us some stuff to laugh at. Because, you know, Smug's whole Project 2025 stuff, I love that stuff. It's a great comedy. But it goes to the point where it's like, let's draw out a little funny. Let's see what else we got here. Question of the day. What would you do if you had Trump's pen and you could sign the next executive order? What would it be? What do you think you'd do, Smug? So on a serious one,
I would say there's no such thing as a sanctuary city. You got to end that. You got to get rid of that. Because I saw a headline this morning from the LA Times where they're trying to be serious. And they said, oh, if Trump enforces these actions on sanctuary cities, it could endanger LA's ability to fight fire. I saw your ex on that. And I was like, what you have just said, what you have just said, is that Los Angeles is spending money on illegal immigrants to
That is taking away from critical basic services for U.S. citizens. That's what you just said there. That needs to end immediately. Every sanctuary city, that's got to go. That's done with. And that's my serious one. I think less serious, given the events the other day of this fake Episcopalian bishop trying to lecture him.
That's not a church. That's a political organization. No more tax-free status for the Episcopalians. Specifically. Done. Oh, we're going to get so many emails.
The problem with the jokey ones, you know, is like some of those are being delivered too. Like, I don't know if you guys noticed, but like Sweetgreen, the salad place, they have a whole menu of seed oil-free dressings now. Oh, yeah. Steak and Shake, Indiana's finest, I will add. Okay.
They're bringing back beef tallow fries. Like, we're getting it all. We're getting it all, folks. A little Maha stuff going on here, too. I think we need one establishing comfortably smug as the chief warden at Gitmo. Oh, God. Where there's a journo wing? That's the thing. Whatever he wants. He's in charge. He's got the baton. I would be like chief warden of Gitmo slash head of journo public relations. Because that's the same job in my mind. Like, anybody who spent any time this week...
declaring that Elon Musk was doing a Nazi salute, you're going to get a hearing before Smug's tribunal. Yeah, 100%. You're going to get fast-tracked for that. And if you spent two days on it, no hearing. You're just there. And I hope you're thirsty because you're going to be drinking a lot of water fast.
That one took a second. That one took a second. A little towel shake. A little towel shake in there, too. Yeah. It's important. You know, there were some lessons in the early 2000s that were well worth carrying on. All right. So when we come back, we're going to get to your comments about Trump's inauguration speech. They're very good. We'll get to it right after this.
I don't have to tell you Americans are ready for what's next. Moving beyond the hardships of inflation and economic anxiety towards building a future, a better future for our families. Ensuring greater access to more affordable energy that powers daily lives, reliable energy that fuels innovation and economic growth, and the abundant energy that keeps our nation safer and more secure. It's all within our grasp.
We'll do this together, building a brighter future for us, powered by America's oil and natural gas resources. You can learn more about all of this at API.org. So on Tuesday, we asked you what was the best part of the inauguration speech. I mean, we went through an awful lot of it. It's our favorites. We opened it up to you. You got to like and subscribe. And for those of you who did...
We read all of these things and cultivated a nice list. And to do that, we always start with a voice. Okay, this first one comes from Cheryl.
And she writes, my favorite part of President Trump's inaugural speech, quote, Americans pushed thousands of miles through rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.
If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve. Close quote. I love that one. That's like Peggy Noonan caliber. That is. And she writes history will remember these inspiring and unifying words. And that's Cheryl from. How do you say it? I think it's Manalapan. Manalapan, New Jersey. I don't ask spaghetti. Spaghetti is Manalapan.
Yeah. Does that sound good to you? Thumbs up. All right. I just wanted an Italian to check on that. From the New Jersey delegation. Thank you, Cheryl. I love that quote because it goes back to what we were saying in the run-up to the election. You know when like Elon Musk would be there giving a speech at a Trump rally is that they were inspiring Americans to dream big again. Yes. And that's what this speech did. For so long we've believed –
from the left that like America's in decline, our best days are behind us. And it's like reinvigorating as a country to have this national purpose is like, we are the pioneers and like we can do anything. Totally. It's, it's just, it's motivational. It's great. I'm so glad Cheryl clipped that. Cause I'd forgotten just how beautiful that was. Excellent. Comment two dunks. Uh, this one is from Katie bug. My favorite part of the speech was the DEI stuff.
For all the lib talk about how racist he is, especially on MLK Day, just falls flat when you look at his message. MLK said he wants the day where men and women can be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And that is exactly what Trump mirrored in his speech. You will be judged by your merit and not by the amount of melanin you contain.
You have to be on your deathbed suffering from TDS to not see the correlation. Great show, fellas. You know, it's funny. I didn't read that comment, but our whole previous discussion was exactly that. Yeah. Exactly it. That's Katie. Katie Bug, man. Hammering it. All right, Smug, what else we got?
This comment comes from Allison Esquivel, and she writes, My favorite part of his speech was by far the reassurance that our slighted and disrespected military be given back their careers with back pay. As a mother of three, active Navy, God bless you, felt they had no way around getting that jab. If we don't have our military, we have no country, and we are so absolutely lucky that we have him. That's right. Yep, yep. Really, really well done.
So when we come back, we're going to have a little lightning round where we're talking about the woke bishop. In that situation, we covered a little bit of it. We'll put a finer point on that. And we've got some other stories, some varieties, some things that you ought to stay tuned to. But before we do, we want to thank our sponsor, Lumen.
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all for you. It's not like, you know, you get like a whoop band, it's like, this is what your HRV is. I don't know what that means. I don't know how to change that number. I don't even know what it is doing to me. I have zero idea.
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A little lightning round. Because we've got games to play, too. Yeah. We've got games to play today. The Woke Bishop. Crazy. This is wild. You know, it took me a while. I was on Fox, I guess, on Tuesday night. I hadn't even sort of consumed. There was so much news, and I was trying to follow the executive orders and do, like, Trump's press conferences and his big announcements and all these things, that I had totally missed this until I actually watched it. Wild. Can we play clip four?
Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We're scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.
And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques.
Synagogues, Wadara, and temples. Can I get the first crack at this? Yeah, take it. Okay. So I'm enraged. JD, yet again, has the perfect face for it. He was looking at her like she's nuts because she's nuts. I thought the same thing. First off, when she says, there are children who are scared because they're gay, lesbian, or transgender...
Number one, they're scared because people like you believe there are children who are gay, lesbian, transgender. There are not gay, lesbian, transgender children. These are children who want to go to school. They want to go to recess. And activists and crazy people are telling them, you know what? Maybe you're transgender, little kid. You ever give that a thought? Like, I want to be a dinosaur when I grow up. No, no, no, no, no. You want to be a girl, little boy. That's what you want to be. For her to further this kind of ideology, which there's going to be not even 10 years from now, so many kids...
who were because their parents wanted to be part of this hip new thing of, oh, you know, the neighbor's kid's transgender. That makes them, when they go to Starbucks, they've got a story to share that makes them special. There's so many of these parents who have bought into this crazy bullshit and whose kids are going to end up permanently sterilized, scarred forever. Irreversible damage has been done to these children because of idiots like this
giving them these ideas, she should be ashamed of herself. Horrible. It's unacceptable. The whole concept of fear in itself. They're scared. They're scared. Do you know why? It's because of you, Marianne Booty. Right. If you're scaring the shit out of your little kids because Donald Trump became president, I think CPS should take your kids from you. You're a lunatic. You are the problem, Bishop.
marrying. And then for her to be like, some of these people, who's going to pick our crops? Who's going to do our dishes? Maybe you shouldn't be rooting for modern day slavery, Bishop. Did you give that a thought? You know who can do jobs in America? Americans. Americans have always done American jobs. That's how this country was built and that's what we need to do. Not open the borders for criminals and fentanyl to come in just because you want to have a sermon and try to lecture the president so you're on the view the next
day. She should be in jail. Well, that's, yeah, first of all, very well said, Smug. Very well said. Second of all, that's the other piece of this, is that she promptly gave that sermon, which, by the way, take a look at her. Yeah.
Episcopalians. Who'd have guessed that this lady was going to be off the left-hand side of the spectrum? I'm sure there are plenty good Episcopalians, Bug. I don't want to get all the emails. But the reality is she's a woke activist who's basically storing up her treasures in the legacy corporate media. I mean, she was on The View within 24 hours of the sermon. She was canonized by the New York Times instantly. She cares about an audience that is quite different from the most important audience that someone in her line of work
should care about. Nobody's bowing down to her. Nobody is like buying into her stupid ideology. This was supposed to be a national prayer service. We're supposed to give like thanks to our creator and recognize that he is in charge, you know, and she turned it into something else.
I appreciate tradition as much as the next guy, but I really think they should have picked a different church. And here's the other thing is they should have absolutely done that because very quickly online it surfaced on X video of her four years ago wearing her mask being like George Floyd. This national tragedy is because of Donald Trump and we need to replace Donald Trump immediately. Yep.
Oh, that's where you got the tax thing, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Revoke. Revoke. She's an activist. That actually in and of itself would do the job if you ever enforce the law. If you have somebody from the pulpit saying this happened because of this person, you need to vote this way. Like that's.
They told us, they told us for years that our churches, if we ever talked about social conservatism, you'd lose your tax status. And all of our churches have operated under the fear that the IRS is coming if that were to happen. This lady does it with impunity and has an audience with the president of the United States and then gets put on The View and then on CNN, Mary Ann Booty.
Good Lord. What a terrible... I can't believe... Executive order, designate the Episcopalian Church a terror organization, Donald Trump. Oh my God! Seize her land and bring her in for questioning. I can't believe... I can't believe we've added to the Italian list at this point. Now, it's the Irish, the Italian, and now the Episcopalian. And the Canadians, too. Oh yeah, the Canadians got... And the Australians. We've attacked everyone. Yeah.
So tell us where you're from and your questions, and we're going to attack them next. Listen, so this is a big announcement that happened yesterday, and it may actually go under the radar for some. You'll see the headlines, but you don't know exactly what it is. And I'll tell you the fault of why you don't know why this is significant is because of Joe Biden and the way the Democrats run what's important for so many different years. So the Trump tech agenda, this is according to The Washington Post, begins with a $500 billion budget.
$500 billion private AI plan and cuts to regulation. President Donald Trump set about defining his new administration's technology policy on Tuesday, hosting industry CEOs at the White House to announce a massive private sector investment in infrastructure for artificial intelligence that could reach $500 billion. This is super important for so many reasons. First of all, we just got done
With an administration that told you AI was basically any disparaging video of Joe Biden that they didn't want you to see. Yeah. Cheap fakes. That's such a good point. That's the element. That is the understanding that they have communicated to the American people about the power of AI. And therefore, amongst their progressive base, communicated that AI is a danger and to be feared.
because it has profound unintended consequences. Never minding the fact that like AI, if properly defined as it was with the CEOs yesterday, can cure cancer, can do, this isn't about work product, does that too. But it has, what they're talking about is the processing of information so quickly and so astoundingly that you're helping the best trained people
most incredible scientists, doctors, you name it, engineers, oil riggers to do their job so much better and more effectively. If you're into environmentalism, you should love AI. AI is one of those things that will help you not dig dry holes.
Right. If you're into health, you're talking about curing all of the world's most significant diseases in our lifetime. You want to know a very interesting, specific test case that I saw the other day is there was a woman who was on X.
And she said her daughter, I think it was like playing a soccer game or something, had hurt her leg and could not walk on it. Right. They take her to a clinic and the doctor was like, she just sprained her ankle. It's fine. You know, just have her bandaged up, wait at home. Her daughter can't sleep through the night. The pain gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And she takes her to another clinic. The doctor was like, no, no, no, there's nothing broken. She's just sprained. Just have her take an aspirin and go home. She uploads the x-ray that she got done.
to X, to Grok, and asks Grok, is the bone broken? And Grok pulls it up and is like, here's a hairline fracture. This is a broken bone. She goes to a hospital and sees a specialist, and they're like, clear as day. It's a broken bone. Let's go mend it right now, or else her daughter would have had a limp permanently. That's what AI can do. That's what AI can do. You know, and here's the other piece of it, why it's so important, because it's a race.
What we're talking about is not just some piece of technology, it's not a Google search engine. We're talking about something that literally will change the way humans live their lives around this world. It can either be Chinese or it can be American. If you're at all concerned about the ethics behind AI...
or the human value of what AI can do. You ought to be very concerned that America leads this race. And, uh, another really quick, great point is, uh, on his first episode the other day, Will Kane's first episode, great show, by the way, congrats, Will Kane. Yeah. Uh,
He had Joe Lonsdale on, absolute genius. I've gotten a chance to meet with him. He's a brilliant guy. He was a palantir. He started a bunch of companies, great friend of Elon's. He was explaining to Will all the benefits of this, what this creates, is having this large of an investment in AI is for so long. And like you said, Duncan, earlier, Democrats have told us, oh, you know, you have to think smaller. You know, we have to think of where we can have cuts and who will get them and whatever.
What AI allows is when you have productivity increase. We don't have to think about cutting entitlements because now we have a bigger pie. It's the idea of growth and abundance. And we harness AI to do that for all Americans. That's what it can do. That's what it can do. But the American aspect is something that Trump uniquely understands. I can't believe, by the way, he's the only president. He showed everybody in the first four years how you do this. When there's significant investment in America...
that he's helped convene, brings him on in and announces it. Right? It's like, I mean, he's basically like being the mascot for America, cheering us on, like telling us what can happen. You're giving people reason for hope. It's not every press conference about all the jobs that are leaving Ohio, right?
It is this is where we're going. This is what we're doing. I'm convening these people and this is what their investment is going to be. How is it that nobody else understands this? Last thing, last thing that just occurred to me. It's germane to you. So I saw a CNBC special talking about in Phoenix. Trump had talked to TSMC, who makes the chips that are in all the chips that we need. Y'all remember the chip shortage. Trump said, let's start manufacturing chips domestically.
TSMC says they'll make a $5 billion investment in Phoenix, Arizona. It's now turned into a $50 billion investment. How has that gone even further is...
Your old alma mater in Arizona has now become an engineering feeder school where American kids are getting engineering schools there. Then they walk across the street and they're handed a well-paying job at TSMC. And it's thanks to President Trump. This is how we do it. Yeah. And Donald Trump recognizes that you have to be willing to play a longer game when it comes to things like this with these investments on things like technology. You were saying earlier about the race between China and America on things like AI. And it's like, well...
Yeah, it's a race between two superpowers. And like, what's the rest of the world going to do? They're either going to take ours or theirs. Right. And so like in the social perversion of something that is doesn't have the American value attached to it. Right. Is potentially catastrophic. Right.
Yeah, I mean, like what large language model does Nigeria use? Right. Or Italy, you know, all these other countries. And it's like we want it to be ours because that's how we maintain our tech leadership in the world. And that's how we get to that point that you were talking about, Smug, like this like post-scarcity world of abundance and growth. And if you listen to – we follow this stuff. But if you listen to what tech leaders have been saying all along –
Even when everybody thought tech leaders were off the left-hand side of the map, which turns out they weren't. They just had a gun to the side of their head telling them to be.
As we found out on Monday when they all showed up, right? They've been saying this all along. Like, you don't understand. This is an existential race. If you believe in Western values, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in all the things that you say you care about in America, you got to win this one. This is way more important than the race for the atomic bomb.
This is something that literally changes the way society works. And if society works with the same principles that America was founded upon, great. We're in a good spot. If it's not, sayonara. It'll be China's social credit score AI. That's the choice.
By the way, Arizona State always said it's the Harvard of the West. It truly is now. Many people are saying it. It made me so happy seeing that because so many of these questions about what we're going to do about immigration or anything, America can take care of America and America can lead the world like we always have. But seeing that like
Thousands of kids graduating with the degree that they walk across the street and get a well-paying job. That's awesome. It's the principle of technical schools, by the way. We were going through that huge drought of new high-paying jobs for people who couldn't afford college educations. And technical schools started getting built because they did exactly that. They've just broadened it out to now really high-paying jobs and giving you that opportunity, the next generation, that opportunity. It's incredible. Yeah.
We've got better scenery in Arizona State than Harlem. Oh, it looked beautiful. It looked beautiful. Yeah. No, everybody says that. Everybody says that.
All right, guys, you want to play a game? Always. It's time for King of the Hill. It's our feature game here on the Variety program. I think I'm the judge. And I'm the bailiff. And you are the bailiff. So we're going to run a tight court here. Very tight court. Yeah. Very fair. Very fair. Who is our champion? I am bringing Adam Kinzinger, who you have a new nickname for. It's a modification on the nickname. That's right. Yep. And I have Rick Wilson as the challenger. Oh, wow.
Okay, well, let's go ringside. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for King of the Hill in the red corner fighting out of the Daily Beast, Rick Wilson. And now, in the blue corner, fighting from his own Twitter account, crying Adam Cuckuck.
So good. So we add the crime because Trump, right? Yeah, that's right. He made a great point. You have to add that in there. You got to add that in. It's good. Although I'd appreciate it if he reciprocated and went with cook, cook, cook as well. Yeah, maybe he will. Yeah, maybe he will. Maybe he will. And we know those guys listen. So, you know, that's a suggestion box over at the White House. Okay. So our champion always starts things out. Nick, may I please get Exhibit 7, please?
Adam Kinsey writes, many MAGA are so embarrassed that Trump canceled the inauguration for cold.
Actually legit reason when they already spent money. They're making up reasons like assassination attempts It's going to be a letdown for them these four years when they realize how weak Trump really is my god number one This guy's trying to diminish any assassination attempts on Trump like there weren't a half dozen well, and then he actually shot It's he survives being shot in the head I also appreciate Nick pointed out to me in that graphic. Could you pull it up again at the bottom?
Kinzinger is talking about who is weak. He limited replies. Oh, that's a nice little addition. Limited replies. I always love when somebody limits their replies, especially when they're like a real smug, pompous asshole. It's like it's the Twitter version of tweeting something and being like, I am infallible.
I don't need feedback. I can't have a discussion. It's social media. Like, you take the social aspect out of social media when you do that. And it's like, if that's the way, then don't post. Just posting bumper stickers. Right. Oh, my God. That's a solid entry. Okay. Challenger, Rick Wilson of the Daily Beast.
Exhibit five, please. Spaghetts, this tweet was delivered at 9 o'clock in the morning on January the 20th, and he writes, Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. This guy was a former Republican. And every Republican who's coming to Washington, D.C., he's saying that they're devils and that hell's empty. Can you do the time stamp on that one? This is 9 in the morning on January 20th. So it is... He's talking... It is... Yeah. Yeah.
Wow, this is very, very tough. This is very, very tough. Let's pop yours up one more time. Exhibit seven, please. Exhibit seven. I mean, look, this thing, I thought this was a sure winner. Somehow alluding to security threats being made up for a guy who's survived not one but two assassination attempts in the last six months. Mm-hmm.
And then limiting replies. Like, I didn't think that that could get beat. But then I see, like, literally hell. Yeah.
I can't. I just can't overlook that, Ashbrook. You got a round one. Thank you, sir. Fair. Okay, round two. We'll start with exhibit six, please, Spaghet. And this is Rick Wilson, 27 minutes after his devil's tweet. He writes, the hollow triumphalism of the people on this platform who think they're not going to get fucked over by Donald Trump will never get old.
Rick Wilson, Daily Beast, Former Republic. I love that. I want to get right to this one. It was just perfect. Don't put in the newspaper that I got mad. Yeah. It's just so funny. It's so good. It's like on the day you're owned the most, you're like, actually, all those guys who won, they're the losers. Yeah, yeah. I chose the wrong side. Can I get Exhibit 9, please, Nick?
Kinzinger writes, ha ha ha ha ha. They literally have convinced themselves Trump, who isn't president, is responsible for the ceasefire. You guys are in the cultiest cult ever. So dorky. So beta. Oh my God. So a deal which hasn't been done in like 18 months. Mm hmm.
Yeah, responsibility for this goes to Joe Biden, not after Trump says there's going to be hell to pay if I show up. No, it's amazing how that all sort of came about. Any formal conversation sort of got fast-tracked right after he said there was going to be hell to pay if they're not all back. And the guy who was saying it is the one who turned Soleimani into salsa, who follows through on his threats of hell to pay. I don't have any question you got round two there, Smokey. Let's go. I think that's fair.
Thank you, Bailiff. I'm going to put this one away. This is a funny one. Can I please get Exhibit 10? Adam Kinzinger. To the government of Denmark, the best thing you can do, re-Greenland threats, is not express fear but anger instead. Keep threatening and we will deny you access to Greenland. Trump, like Putin, understands threats and will back down. No way. No way.
That's his foreign policy advice? I think it was like, here's how you get government's respect here. Deny you access to Greenland? Yeah. Newsflash, Don Jr. showed up and they were like, hell yes. Keep threatening it. You can't go to Greenland. Okay. Well, we had no interest until all of a sudden we had interest.
Maybe we can't go to Denmark either. Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine? It just reminds me of that Dave Chappelle skit of Black Bush. I was like, oh, UN? Sanction me. Sanction me with your army. Oh, you don't have an army? Well, maybe you should shut the fuck up. And then you can imagine that, like,
Denmark holds an emergency meeting. Folks, we have a tweet from Adam Kinzinger. He's got some advice. A high-level strategist, former congressman, somebody we need to take very seriously here in Denmark. How are they Dutch? Very funny. Okay. Rick Wilson, Exhibit 4, please. Spaghetts delivered on the same day, January 20th. This one at 1239 p.m.
Trump had always had a false and weird cadence when he's reading a real speech, like a slightly off-text-to-speech bot. The authentic Trump is the whining, mendacious, compliant machine that swings between self-pity and self-fallation. What a weirdo. I did like the flourish of self-fallation. I mean, he always has to work something that's kind of his M.O., right? Has to be some sort of a...
Gay reference. Yeah. Right? Isn't that his thing? Yeah, I guess what I appreciate about... Like hyper-masculinity? Yeah, what I appreciate about that tweet and some of Kinzinger's stuff here, and I think we're going to see a lot more of this now that Donald Trump's president again, is like the never-Trump characters who feature in this game for our new listeners and viewers. They've changed tone in all of their tweets. Now they're trying...
to mock and cajole us. And they're trying out a different tact. In the last four years, they did a lot of earnest posting, a lot of cringe posting, and now they have a new strategy of like, try to demoralize us. I think they're trying to demoralize us through
you know, ridicule, which I can appreciate. It's a great observation. Well, they spend the last eight years basically aligning with a party that sort of tries to eliminate all forms of masculinity on the planet and then come at us with, no, you're the cuck. It is funny to get speech lessons from a guy who defended Joe Biden for the last four years. Smoggy got it. All right.
It's awfully tough. The government of Denmark can continue paying attention to this. Well, I just think that the idea that this guy's got like the foreign policy chops to like recommend the way that Denmark handles something. He does have foreign policy chops, you know, because he has Slava Ukrainian in his name. That's right. He knows all about foreign policy. Three flags right in the name. It's a really good. It's a really great game. Congratulations to our champion.
K-K-K-Kinzinger. So accurate. I got one piece of variety here that you're not going to want to miss. This is the damned funniest thing I've seen maybe ever. So, uh,
The New York Post put up something that was cruise passengers horrified as workers parade around while dressed as KKK members and their explanation is mystifying. If we can pop up this pic real quick and graphic. So here's the staff of the cruise. Come on. This is why you subscribe on YouTube. You have to see this to believe it. So literally, if you're an audio-only listener, what you're looking at is a little KKK costume totally complete with the white pointy hat.
Two eyes cut out, nothing else visible. But they thought it was something else. So the reason – so this is a foreign cruise ship.
that was unfamiliar with their Western audience, evidently, as these people are marching by a swimming pool, what they were evidently trying to do was dress up like snow cones. Like snow cones. Like upside-down snow cones. The cruise company says the housekeeping crew
Oh, man, the housekeeping crew. They did this to the housekeeping crew. The cruise company. I have so many observations to make. The cruise company says the housekeeping crew had no idea what they looked like when they chose to dress up as, quote, upside down snow cones.
unquote, for the event during a Pacific Explorer voyage from Melbourne to Hobart in December. Also, hasn't the housekeeping crew been through enough? These people on cruises are giving each other diseases. They have to clean out their place when they've been hitting a buffet line for about 14 hours a day, and you've got to clean up the mess that they leave after hogging out on the high seas. And now they're like, now put on the uniform.
Go out there looking like a Klansman. Around the pool! Get out to the pool! People want to see this. And for the crew, it's like, you have a single job. Just have the trough running 24-7 for the hogs to roll up. You don't need to dress up like snow cones. They're all going to get norovirus within the hour. Yeah, seriously. No, but pop the picture back up. I'm going to tell you my favorite. Oh.
Look how fucking proud the guy who's leading these people out. That's my favorite, too. He's got this big smile on his face like, look what I've done here. Look what I've brought you for entertainment. I just don't understand.
It's a picture. How in 2025, you know, with the internet and history and like, what are they teaching you in schools in Australia that nobody knows what the Ku Klux Klan was? It is a very... It's the earnestness of it. That's what makes it so funny. They're like, what? And people are like...
Horrified, right? They don't appreciate our pageantry? They got a couple of brothers sitting there like, uh-oh. What's going on here? And they're like, why are all those people running from us? And they're like, dude, those aren't snow cones. The eye holes. It's literally identical.
It is like a Chappelle skit. They're like, well, now we're going to start the annual flame of tradition for the...
We will start our annual tradition of burning X. And the festive tiki torches, everybody. Everybody grab a necklace. It's like, what the hell? Oh, God, it's just so good. We got a lot. We get a kick out of that. What a bunch of nonsense.
So anyway, remember our question of the day. What should Trump's next executive order would be? What would you do if you had the pen? You got to like and subscribe to do it. Thank you for all of you who have done it and tuned back in. This is going to be a wild ride, fellas. We're going to have a lot of fun. And we've got some great guests coming up.
That gives you information, like stuff you need to know. Like, you know, you don't get that in the newspapers and you certainly don't. People we're talking to, they're not going to talk to anybody else on that. They're the kind of candor that they are here. So stay tuned. The next couple weeks are going to be a real burner. We're going to love every minute of it. So with that, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, remember, listeners, subscribe to YouTube. Hit that like button. Leave a comment.
And we will see you on Tuesday. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you Tuesday. Stay ruthless. Hardy Fiber Cement Siding handles conditions that can cause damage to vinyl. From fire to hail, Hardy Siding stands tall through it all, helping trade professionals look their best when they recommend Hardy Siding and Trim. See the proof at jameshardy.com.