What Is Really Behind The Democrats’ Civil War?
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This civil war is no joke. The tension between the House and the Senate is very real. In the leadership of the same party, there is tension. But you also have to have a healthy respect in knowing that you don't know how best to whip the other person's caucus. You may have disagreements. You may think it's stupid. But they probably have a better idea of what their membership looks like than you do. So you always lay off party leaders of your own.

I mean, you can talk in private, but you never make that public. Well, all that's out the window for the first time, literally, that I can remember. I really don't remember.

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Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I am Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, left or right across your radio dial. At times like these, when your political opposition is imploding...

And we've talked about this for a couple of weeks. You just sit back, you relax, you enjoy. One of the things we love to do on the Variety program is think about, you know, things that irritate us. Not a lot that irritates me right now, other than just sort of the opposition being as they are. But it's nothing short of a civil war going on in the Democratic Party. And that's the thing is, you know, we've got basically a lot of Democrat House members asking AOC to primary Schumer straight up.

Just being like primary, openly. They're like, primary Schumer, take him out. He's got to go. It was so funny, dude, because like we called it last week in our episode of exactly how all this would go down. Like literally to the T. If you go back to last Thursday and you listen to the show, we just described exactly what was about to happen. The Democrats heard it and they're like, okay, let's do it, guys. They're like, yeah, that's right.

My favorite part about it was like we knew that Dem leadership in the Senate was going to blame Elon Musk and Doge and all this for why they actually had to vote. That's what they want. Right. And then Schumer actually did it to camera on Twitter and immediately like five thousand people are in his replies being like, we hate you. We're voting for AOC. The guy had to cancel his book tour.

He did. He did. And now AOC wants to primary him. And the only thing Schumer has is to say, good luck finding another senator who can move and shake like this.

And then also, like, it gets even better. Because then over the weekend, you've got former Arizona center Kirsten Sinema just, like, showing. It's like you've got a WWE wrestling match going, and then the guy, like, sneaks out and pulls a steel chair and just, like, hits someone. That's Sinema right now. She's, like, waiting on the outside of the ring with a steel chair, just, like, clocking people, calling them out for, like, I thought you said the filibuster was racist. Now you're for the filibuster.

Philadelphia? What's going on here? The backstory is worth exploring on that. We're going to get into all of this in a lot more detail. But the backstory, the cinema thing is they basically ran her out of the United States Senate. She was the first Democrat that won a seriously contested race in Arizona in like, oh, gosh,

40 years or something like that. She was like the queen of the Democratic Party for a short two years. And then she looked around and she was like, maybe we shouldn't be totally crazy because we might not always have power. Maybe the filibuster is something that is worth preserving. And she was one of two or Joe Manchin being the other that voted against getting rid of the filibuster. Right. And the Democratic Party, they shouldn't even get to run in the primaries.

No. She had to like take her hat out of the ring. She was like a code pink activist. Like she was a liberal left wing person and she wasn't far left enough for where the Democratic Party was at the time. So she's come for the receipts. Yes. So good. And they ran around for that precisely that issue. And then they went ahead and filibustered at least the vast majority of the conference.

filibustered a continuing resolution, which literally, I'm not kidding you, it's the Biden budget. It is just to keep the lights on. And they're like, no, filibuster. And then she's like, mm, mm, mm.

I got receipts on all of it. And she went through, she spent the weekend going through all of the people who had pledged and voted to eliminate the filibuster who now saw it as a critical tool. No, she had spreadsheets. AOC kept trying to come back and reply to her and then she would, cinema would keep coming back with screenshots. It's like,

This is an amazing time to be a Republican and a conservative in this country, just watching them go after each other. They're in bad shape, buddy. They're in bad shape. It's a rudderless ship. There's no question about it. I think on Thursday's show, we're going to do some kind of an overview of all the positions that Donald Trump has forced Democrats to take over the last eight weeks, which is shocking when you add it all up and look at it in one place. Don't miss Thursday's show because we're going to put it all there. Mm-hmm.

But there's a number of other things that have been happening here where they don't have a leader of their party, clearly. They don't have any direction in terms of a strategy on how to oppose a Trump administration. So it's like you're a conservative. You're sitting back and you're like, man, this is fantastic. There's like nothing wrong.

In my lifetime that has been anything like it, the only thing that concerns me, and Ashbrook, we were talking about this earlier, Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball. Fellas, listen, you're a baseball fan, you're not a baseball fan, but it's America's pastime. Right, right. And unfortunately, it starts tonight in Tokyo. I mean, like, I'm glad that Japan is a part of Major League Baseball. They're sending some athletes over and they're a part of it. Like, great, great.

The first game should not be in Tokyo. The balls are rubbed with mud from some river in New Jersey thrown to a bat made in Louisville. There is no reason on this planet why Major League Baseball should start in Japan. It should start in America. I mean, we're doing so much good stuff. Rob Manfred needs to go. He does. This is the Major League Baseball commissioner. This is the guy that, remember, moved the All-Star game out of Atlanta because he got shaken down by Stacey Abrams. Oh, it's the same guy who made the show? Same guy.

And now he thinks it's a good idea to take two Major League Baseball teams and start America's Pastime, the first pitch, being thrown in Japan. So I'll say this. I think it is absolutely America's Pastime. And definitely, I think because it is America's Pastime, the first game should be in America. No question. Yeah.

But play as many games as possible in Tokyo. It's like one of the few civilized parts of the world left. I don't have any problem with Japan. You can go see a game and not get robbed trying to get into the place. You want to go see, like, you can go to Baltimore to see a baseball game. You're lucky if you don't get shot. It's the symbolism of the first game.

You know, this is a sport that began in America every season that should start in America. I will not bring up where it used to start. The first game should be Yankee Stadium every time. It's Kirby Puckett, not Kirby Cuckett. There you go, buddy. There you go. That's what I'm talking about. And Ken Herbeck and the rest of them. Yeah, Lee. I mean, we used to be a country. Anyway, so that's the only thing that I can think of this week that I'm irritated about. I did get a great story, though.

What's that? I got a great story. On the way over here, I got a great story. Oh, we're going to do it? Yeah. This is a great story. Is it? And you know, it's apropos, we're drinking Maker's Mark. We are drinking Maker's Mark. And...

I got a story. We have some friends. They work in and around Maker's Mark and that kind of thing. And I don't know if you guys have all been down there. I've been down there. Absolutely gorgeous. No, I've always been waiting for someone to hook up like a bourbon trail tour. Yeah. You know anyone from Kentucky? Y'all know anyone? I don't know. Maybe if you showed up for – How about your friend? Maybe if you showed up for the interview for the guy who was chairman of the bourbon caucus, it might have helped. I said hello and I had to go. Yeah.

And now I enjoy the fine bourbon he left because he brought some good stuff. Thank you so much. This is the story of Gus the Murder Donkey. Yes.

And Gus, the murder donkey, is a sort of tale that begins with the fact that this is a beautiful stretch of land. That the reason that Maker's Mark is as successful as it is, is it literally lives off the land. They have this beautiful stream that they've created different little aqueducts for. It runs through the center of the land. And then the rest of it is farmland where they harvest literally what they use for the bourbon. Yeah.

So they're very like agronomy focused folks. I mean, these are sustainability, live off the land type people. And they have this beautiful stretch of land that they were reliably told would be better for the vegetation and whatnot if they had sheep. The terroir, if you will. Yeah. It's important. They had sheep. They

They needed sheep to, you know, apparently those things go out there and they kind of like till the land of unwanted vegetation amongst the crops. Yeah, sheep eat grass. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't. It's like sustainable lawnmower. Yeah. They're like a lawnmower, essentially. You put a bunch of sheep in the area. But they found out very quickly there's also coyotes there that were taking down the sheep and they can't have that. You can't just like keep throwing sheep out there. You have to protect the herd. This is in Kentucky? Yeah. Coyotes out in Kentucky. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, the first thing you do is you get a couple of shepherds, you know, because they guard the... But they're not up all night. You know, the dogs, they sleep or whatever. And so they were told by locals in the area, the best, literally the best fighting dogs

- Coyote is a donkey. - I've heard about this. - Yeah, donkeys, they hate them. And they love protecting the sheep. - Yeah. - Why? - I don't, maybe we'll find out in the rest of the story. - It's just a mystery of the animal kingdom. - It's a mystery, but they love it, they love it. And this is part of why we're an animal fighting podcast.

Anyway. They're like a great utility animal. They do a lot of wild shit you wouldn't expect. Donkeys care very much for sheep. Well, and they've got a hell of a hoof kick, too. When there's storms and such, you keep them in your horse barn. They calm the horses down. They're also like therapists for horses. These things do a lot of work. They're a five-tool player. They do. They do. And apparently what you're supposed to do is get almost a motherly-like...

female donkey that comes in and just sort of takes care of the herd. They missed the gender specific portion of this. And so what they did is they bought it, brought in a male donkey, which at first was great. Big old male donkey looking after the herd. His name was Gus, Gus, the murder donkey.

And what Gus did was initially like very well protective of the herd. Like he did. They were like, this is really working out great. And one of the things they do at Maker's Mark is they have this beautiful setting where they have like bachelorette parties. They have weddings and stuff. It is really one of the most picturesque places you're ever going to go. If you're going to go to do any kind of bourbon distillery, make sure that's on your, your area because it is gorgeous. The farmland and everything. It's gorgeous. So they have this bachelorette party that went out there.

And they ushered the bachelorette party out to this sort of symposium area in the middle of the field with the sunset. And it's just gorgeous, whatever. And as soon as they get up there, Gus is having a, shall we say, an intimate experience, perhaps forcibly, with one of the sheep. With the sheep? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Gus is hauling off. This is like an abomination to God. Gus abused his position of power. Gus was there to protect. Gus let us down. Because in front of like these 12 women who are at a bachelorette party, Gus is literally banging the lights out of this sheep. And so one of the farmers, obviously they can't have this.

So one of the farmers runs out and is like scaring Gus off the sheet. Gus jumps off, you know, sort of like takes a couple of steps back, legs akimbo and is looking around. You can only imagine what Gus looks like in this particular moment. Probably whipping around the fifth leg. Like Gus, Gus is confused.

Gus doesn't know what's happening. All they know is that Gus shouldn't have been doing that to that particular sheep. So Gus is kind of like looking around with a bachelorette party observes and he makes a clippity-clop full sprint towards another sheep that he's seen in the herd and immediately mounts it and starts banging the thing. Except this particular sheep.

has got some fight in her. And she starts kicking and bucking, throws Gus off. And Gus, like, stumbles, falls down, and, like, immediately gets... Has this donkey gotten into the product here? Is this guy just, like, at a bachelorette party, bourboned up, being like, I'm in the mood? He lost sight of his mission, for sure. Yeah.

But he stands up and he's now been embarrassed in front of the 12 women. And he promptly stomps the sheep to death. No shit. Holy cow. Gus the murder donkey. So therefore, Gus the murder donkey. Is he still on the job? Nope. He was there for like three days. This is three days? They got him off of there. Now, what is the, you know, I'm not a zoologist.

But they're both hooved animals. Is it possible to have a half donkey, half sheep? No. Do you think that's physical? I don't think so. John Ashbrook does not have a degree in animal husbandry. I have flummoxed as to how Ashbrook thinks that the hooves are the key between procreation. You never know. You just never know. They could be. I mean, I guess like the – it's –

He's like, "Giraffes, donkeys, hoes, maybe it works." So this, I'll make it quick. This reminded me, I love watching documentaries on YouTube. I'm watching this documentary about this sad thing that happened in Colorado where they reintroduced the wolf. You're talking about protecting coyotes as well. So they held an election, a vote, and they were like, "Should we allow wolves back in Colorado?" Because they all got hunted away. Now there's so much farmland and such in Colorado.

And they showed the voting. And it was like Denver and Boulder voted yes. Every other part of Colorado, all the rural areas, no, don't bring it back. But there were like 51% of the city dwellers voted to bring the wolves back. And they've been just fucking up all the livestock that these farmers have. But here's the thing is, it's not like you can shoot the thing because they're still a protected species. Oh, no. So they will fine them. They will put this person's family business out of business and

You just have to let it happen? Wolf, you just have to let it happen. And like, it's because these idiot city people made this decision. That's...

Well, when you're in danger, they let you do it. So secretly, if you can kill these wolves in Colorado, I say do it. Well, I have a new mission. I say do it. They're horrible. I have a new mission for Gus the murder donkey. Let's get the murder donkey out there. Let's send him out to Colorado. Send him to Colorado. Great idea. I'd love to see the murder donkey, Gus the murder donkey versus this wolf population and see what happens because something tells me that those wolves, they think they're going to have an edge. I'm not sure about that. Not sure. Yeah.

Gus is not to be trifled with, as everyone has found out. But if it's illegal. Just kill the sheep. My God. If it's illegal, the cops in Colorado are going to handcuff his hooves behind his tail. All right. So listen, we're going to get back to politics here in a minute. I want to take a short break. But when we come back, it's the Democratic Civil War like you've never seen. There's clips, laughs, a lot of fun right after this.

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We've seen it before in some ways where Democrats have sort of lost their view of things. But in the modern culture, it's basically been a progressive ever since Obama. It's been just a progressive leftist thing where they all follow the leader. No such thing as a moderate Democrat anymore. They're just all kind of the same. But when they're stuck between just clearly idiotic.

And the progressive left, like there's a few of them that are like...

Like, do we do we want to take the cyanide pill? Like they just ask the question, do we want to take the cyanide? And they're like, yes, you dumb shit. We take cyanide pills around here. And so there's become this debate. And and you've seen the progressive left become the dominant force of pushback, media consumption. And some of these things you won't believe, because like when I was in leadership offices, that the tension between the House and the Senate is very real.

In the leadership of the same party, there is tension. But you also have to have a healthy respect in knowing that you don't know how best to whip the other person's caucus. You may have disagreements. You may think it's stupid. But they probably have a better idea of what their membership looks like than you do. So you always lay off party leaders of your own.

I mean, you can talk in private, but you never make that public. Well, all that's out the window for the first time, literally, that I can remember. I really don't remember ever having this, what you're about to see in clip one.

- Leader Jeffries. - Leader Jeffries, Senator Chuck Schumer is from your state. He clearly has a different view of this than you. He is not saying, "Let's go back to the negotiating table." He's saying, "Let's take this vote." So, have you lost confidence in him, the fact that you guys see this so differently? - Next question. - What?! What?! - Have you lost confidence in him? Next question. - Next question!

It doesn't take a lot to be like, I don't know. My sense is that he probably understands his conference better than I do. We're all trying to work towards the same goals here. I may disagree with this one, but we've got a lot of things that we need to accomplish here. None of that. No. They're in a bad way. Next question. Yeah. And he knows the backdrop of this is what you were talking about with AOC. I mean, this is...

such a toxic situation they're in that imagine how bad it is in private that publicly they're like that. It must be hell. I think the only thing that comes close to it, Smug, is where Democrats found themselves after that disastrous Biden debate performance. Yeah. You know, where it started to leak out in public and you had Nancy Pelosi being like, we don't know if this was

incident or a condition like an endemic issue right and like that's what this sort of feels like yeah where it's like it takes so little to tamp down the media talk about whether you have faith in chuck schumer and you couldn't do the bare minimum in the biden debate moment they had an excuse they had a brain dead president who the media was protecting but he was brain dead

This is all Democrats have on full display for the American people, and they still can't get it right. They can't do it. All they have to do—

It's sort of bandy about what is a strategically good unifying opposition to everything, which is what they, I mean, they don't have to pass a damn thing. They don't have to do anything. They have no responsibility. All they have to do is come up with a message that basically unifies everybody. And they're like, no, let's depose our leaders. Let's go like a level below this. When you get this at the leadership level,

You also have this downstream. Let's enter Jasmine Crockett, one of our favorites here in clip two. Last week, you were one of those who participated in a Choose Your Fighter video. It got some criticism online, including Democratic Senator John Fetterman called it bizarre and reportedly mocked it in the Senate hallway. I will say that your punching looked better than some of your colleagues'.

He's been, Fetterman has been criticizing your party for undignified antics and a sad cavalcade of cell phones during the president's address to Congress. What's your response to Senator Fetterman? He's not the one to talk about anything. I mean, this is a guy that doesn't seemingly want to own a suit, own a suit. I'm not really sure, but I don't show up in hoodies when I'm going on the floor. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. So I actually, you know what?

I mean, look, Fetterman's 100% right. And like nowadays, I feel like more than 50% right on the stuff that he's talking about, which is wild in and of itself. But if you're going to come at him, that's a hilarious way to come at him. He's like, does he own a suit? I don't know if he owns a suit. Luxury me about decorum. Luxury me about decorum. Suitless.

Here's something I'm curious about. When did Jasmine Crockett arrive to the House? Because it feels like after Inauguration Day, she's like number three Democrat I see the most. Yeah. She just stole the AOC thunder. She did. She's the new AOC. Yeah. She's like the most vocal in public at this point. She also happens to be...

Easily the most like she's got a most media friendly personality. So that's what I was going to get to here is I I think we've seen a lot of her because the media wants us to see a lot of her. I think they know one of the biggest vulnerabilities of the Democrats is that they lost the presidency and the Senate and the House and they changed everything.

Nothing. No, I know. Yeah. Same leader in the House, same leader in the Senate. You know what I mean? It's like the same, you know, loser fest over at the DNC. That's a really good point. And so the media sort of does the work of the Democratic Party for them in that, like, they're the scout, you know, team. Yeah. And they're out there finding, like, the next AOC for the Democrats. This ought to work. This lady. It's so true because it's also based in one of the

fundamental rules of the Ruthless podcast, that the media only tax Democrats when it benefits another Democrat. So they must think that helping Jasmine Crockett

helps their party in some way. Right. Yeah. Look, just to wrap this whole segment up and we're going to get to more of this in the fallout of Schumer and everything else and more Democrats. But I mean, the reason that this happened, in case you didn't follow the news on Friday and throughout the weekend, is that they they actively threatened Chuck Schumer did on Thursday of last week, Wednesday night, I guess.

They were going to shut the government down. And it was over like a budget that had been passed by the – including all of the Democrats who voted against it. They wanted to pass this into March and then they were going to say, well, our strong moment here is we want 30 days, not another six months. Like there was no articulated reason. They didn't say –

well, we disagree with this policy or we want this policy. I mean, there was nothing benefiting the American people. They could have picked anything, right? That's the thing. And the media criticized for this as well. It's like you could have picked one thing that is super popular and say, or lie or whatever, and be like, Trump's going to cut X. We demand that you say X is important before we agree to pass this. There was no actual ask in this. It was just nothing. They couldn't even lie.

Yeah. They weren't even capable of it. It's the laziest damn move ever. Yeah. Right. I know. Like, just at least lie to me.

But, you know, the conversation that we had with you, dear listener, on Thursday was that we didn't know if they had the balls to do this because, one, it's a total box canyon. There was no way out. And you're not actually fighting for anything on behalf of the American people. It's basically a process argument, which you're destined to lose and lose big. And it was just a matter of time before they did that. Schumer at some level understood that and was like, OK, well, I'm going to walk back everything I said 24 hours previous and

And I'm going to just try to find eight votes to make sure that I pass what they're doing so we live to fight another day. If you're talking about how to preserve the Democratic Party for a long period of time, that's not a dumb decision. Right. Recall that that vote was all Republicans except for Rand Paul, who doesn't play team ball. Yeah. And then all Democrats except for I think that what did they find, like 10? Yeah.

Something like that. Something like that. Democrats to take it off their plate. But it was smart. It was smart to walk it back if you're Chuck Schumer, but you put yourself in this position in the first place. Like, that's the thing. It's like getting that far out over your skis. Which is why we did the show. That's why we did the show on Thursday. Like, doing that was just so wild and does not express a lot of confidence in your ability to actually go.

govern that caucus. It's like, what are you thinking? Like, if you actually do that that early, walk out over your skis and then have to bring it back 24 hours later, like, you don't feel that confident in your position as leader. It's like, you don't pull your gun out if you're not willing to shoot. Yeah. And they waved her around hoping to get the job done, and no one took them seriously. So people are all fired up about Chuck Schumer. We've got AOC clips. We've got Democratic poll numbers, which are like the absolute basement. You want to stick around for that. But we also have an important announcement. Fellas. Yes.

It is the fifth annual Hack Madness tournament. Oh, yeah. It is going to happen this week. It is going live on Saturday. Special. For those of you who are new to the program, this is where we pick 64 of the biggest hack journalists in all of government politics coverage. We seed them, 1 through 16, four brackets.

I think we have a couple of play-ins. Play-in games. Yeah, as one does in March Madness. Well, it's serious. Yeah, it's serious.

And then we vote. And explain to the listeners, Smug, exactly how this thing works. Sure. So it's the fifth annual now. Yeah, fifth. Like Holmes said, we pick 64 plus the play-ins of the biggest hacks in media, folks. This is the time of the year. You hold them accountable. And then on my Twitter or X profile, x.com slash comfortably smug, I will have it pinned. And then you vote. Vote for each game, each matchup of these 64 hacks.

And it's a Twitter poll, right? It's an ex-poll. And then you vote who advances. And it's just like March Madness. It eventually goes down to 32, 16, 4, 2, until there's finally one biggest hack of the year. We've had previous champions like Brian Stelter, Jen Rubin. Oh, yeah. It's Taylor Lawrence. In a brand new media environment under Trump 2.0, you have a brand new... And so many have been run out. Exactly. There's no guarantee that...

that Jen Rubin is going to win again. I mean, we've had over 10 million votes cast in this thing. It takes on a life of itself. So if you're new around here, get involved, and you're going to want to see this election show. You're going to want to see it. It goes live on Saturday, a regular Thursday show, but then a special offering on Saturday, which will give you your full brackets. Voting begins almost immediately. Can't wait for that. It's one of the most fun things we do here on Ruthless. We're going to get to more of the damn Civil War right after this.

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All right. So, you know, it's one thing for Democrats to openly question whether their leaders should be leaders. It comes with the territory, you know. I mean, this is a tumultuous time to be a lib. And they're focused on that. AOC, because she's from New York and Chuck Schumer's from New York, is taking this a step further in the...

sort of interesting. There was a couple of years ago where maybe she would primary Chuck Schumer. Well, that's arisen again. People are talking about it in a very real way. She's a chance to cool that off and just say, hey, you know, let's move forward as a party. There's very important things for us to accomplish. What does she do? Clip three.

Chuck Schumer, I guess the Senate Democratic leader, your senator, said at this meeting that he is going to vote for cloture. He is going to vote to allow there to be a simple majority vote. You think that's wrong? I believe that's a tremendous mistake. There it is. Tremendous mistake. I mean, look, it's her senator. They're in the same delegation. There has been two, four years of rumors about whether or not she is

personally would primary Chuck Schumer. Not enough to not be the leader, maybe not a senator at all. I mean, I love it. I love it. I love it so much. You know, like we talk about this a lot on the show, you know, that obviously the media is left wing and wants Democrats to win. But what they love as much as they love that is conflict. Like political journalism in its essence is always conflict. They're looking for conflict in every story.

And she just gave it to them. And so I hope this whole story arc lasts the next two weeks. Well, they also love the left. And they know in a state like New York that the Democrat is going to win. So here's their chance to move Democrats even further to the left than they already are and supporting somebody like AOC. Well.

Well, the American people have had a good look at all of this and they've seen what Democrats have come out for over the last eight weeks and this little parade that they've had over last weekend. And they have some results. Graphic one, please. Twenty nine percent favorable. Twenty nine.

This is a party that not long ago was over 50. Yeah. And from a registration standpoint has always had an advantage over Republicans. I know we're going to get into this more on Thursday's show, but I just wonder, I mean, call me crazy, but like, do you think fighting for LeBron to be able to play in the WNBA has anything to do with that? Do you think that like,

trying to force the Trenderagua terrorist gang to come back to America. Bring them back. You think that has anything to do with it? Maybe like the college kid threatening Jewish kids on campus and, I don't know, using all the talking points of Hamas as something to do with that. And inviting Hamas to speak at campus. I mean, it's just, they have really found themselves, we'll get into this on Thursday's episode, but

But issue after issue, Democrats are hellbent on picking the side that 80 percent of Americans are against. Yeah. They want to pick every horrible fight possible and just go after it. It's unreal. It's the byproduct of Trump derangement syndrome. Yeah. Right. Is that, you know, a healthy political party looks at a wide range of issues.

and finds areas where the party in charge is underserving the American people, they become a topic of discussion at some point. They really seize on it and they push it. The problem with these guys is that anything that Donald Trump says he's for, they say that they're against. And they now have a president that's eight weeks in who's been like, I don't know. I think deporting terrorists is a good idea. And they're like, that's unconstitutional. Crazy.

I think that having murderous illegal aliens in this country is something we ought to end. We should get them out of here. And they're like, there's constitutional problems with that. Listen, I think it's also a byproduct of a fawning mainstream media. When Democrats can do no wrong in the eyes of mainstream media and when the mainstream media is completely staffed by Democrats, those organizations turn into mini DNC groups.

basically. And so every single one of those news outlets is having a conversation that is the same conversation that's happening at the DNC. Are we left-wing enough? And so you have all of these elected Democrats who are trying to pander to the left-wing because the only opinion

opinion that matters for them is the mainstream media. But like Democratic voters don't even agree with the Democratic Party at this point. You know how low approval has to be for overall for it to be 29? They're losing majority of Democrats. The Democratic Party's favorable is underwater with Democrats.

Like, think about that. I heard to your point earlier, Ashbrook, I heard a question in the briefing on Monday about these, you know, deporting these trended Aragua or whatever. The Venezuelan. Venezuelan criminals. The question was, OK, so outside of some tattoos and maybe being in the wrong place at the wrong time, how do you know that they're members of this cartel?

I mean, just think about having to parse this. That's a serious journalist in the briefing room asking that question. I just, but it's so, I think you're right. They're like, oh yeah, he has this teardrop tattoo, but how do we know he's committed murder? But it's honestly, it's the thing. And it's what we came back to when we did our show right after the State of the Union. We were like-

Look, we understand where Democrats are opposed, opposed, opposed everything. So you don't clap for stuff, you don't get up or whatever. What the American people see is not the conversation that you're having at the Georgetown cocktail party with a bunch of a feat journalists. What they see is you don't think it's a very good idea to get Venezuelan gang members out of this country. Right. How I mean, like the story could have consisted entirely of tweets from the Trump administration. Hey, here's a great thing we're doing.

And it's wonderful. Everybody on the right would have been like, yeah, cheering them on. But what Democrats couldn't resist was like their left wing impulsion to say, no, we're not allowed to get rid of these people. Right. And therefore there's conflict. So everybody's paying attention to it. And every normie out there, including most of Democrats, according to this number, are like, yeah, hell yeah, we're getting rid of the terrorists and Democrats.

are left saying like, no, do not do that. Can we see this graphic on, meanwhile, what has this effect been on Trump? Yeah, the other side. Here's the other side. This is according to CNBC. Trump's approval rating of 47%, according to NBC News, is the highest ever. The highest ever.

That it's ever been. So Democrats have hit the lowest ever and Trump's hitting the highest ever. I wonder if that has something to do with the Democrats being completely insane and taking the 20% side on every issue. It has everything to do with it. Everything to do with it. And more than anything, folks, it is a rudderless ship. All of this is the exact downstream result of Democrats having a rudderless ship. You had the Obama, first of all, you had the Clintons.

for 20 years. Then you had the Obamas all through the Biden administration. Almost 20 years ago. And now they're looking around like, is it Jasmine Crockett? Yeah.

Is it Chuck? Like, I don't know. Like, who's running this? Like, it's not Michelle's podcast. Oh, geez. What did she get, like seven downloads? Yeah, seven views. I mean, geez, it's just so ugly. Anyway, so that's our question to you, our question of the day. You got to like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. Thank you for joining us today. But hit that like, hit that subscribe, and answer this question, who is the leader?

Who is the leader? Yeah. Is it still Obama? Like, who's the leader of the Democrat Party? Is it Jasmine Crockett? I don't know. Stephen A. Smith.

It could be. That's my vote. It could be. It could be. I think it's still George Soros. Yeah, that's a good answer. That is ultimately a great answer. So anyway, when we come back, we're going to answer your question that we posited to you last week about the possibility of a government shutdown because many of you had all of this fantastically framed. We'll get to it right after this. 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.

So our question to you last week, and we provided a fair amount of guidance on this, which turned out to be instructive, was were the Democrats all talk or are they actually going to shut down the government? Your answers, fantastic. To do that, we always start with the voice. First one comes from Lorenda Leach.

Brilliant.

then they have to. Nailed it. Well done, Lorinda. Well done. She called it. Very, very smart listeners to the Ruthless Variety program. Harunks, what do we got for two? This is from Lisa Marie. Oh, Lisa Marie, great minion. Oh, yeah. Great friend of the program. Thank you for writing in. Lisa Marie writes, 50-50 on the shutdown. Dems are so emotionally unstable, it'd be an angsty thing to do. But it's so pointless, and it only takes a few to wake up from their self-indulged

fanfic horrors to avoid it. There it is. I mean, that's them in a nutshell. Yep. That really is. They nailed it. All right, Smuggles, what's the last one? Comment three is from Timothy Morrison. Timothy writes, they will make a big show of being committed to shutting it down, but they will quietly pick just enough vulnerable senators with elections coming up to vote yes so that it barely passes.

They'll make a bit of noise publicly about people crossing over, then get media to shut it down and move back to crying about everything else again. I mean, this is like basically just what happened. Then the weak senators up for reelection will use it to try and shore up moderates in their district by claiming they voted to avoid the shutdown. I don't think it will work. Hopefully it won't anyway, but I think it will pass with exactly the votes it needs, no more, no less. I mean, like, that was their game plan. Timothy. That was their game plan. Timothy.

Nostradamus. Nostradamus. Nostradamus Timothy. What a fantastic bit that was. Although, Ossoff? Did he vote to shut it down? I think he did, which is surprising. I don't know. This is this cat in Georgia.

That has absolutely no business being a United States senator. Total zero. Very tumultuous time within the Republican Party. A runoff that happened as people were questioning election results and all kinds of things. I mean, the minions trolled this guy into proposing to his girlfriend. Yeah. Like, this is a longtime story. This guy's life. I mean, continue, continue. Yeah, it's becoming like an accidental senator. But he's now like going through.

all of the machinations to try to seem like he's a normal person because he's up for re-election in the great state of Georgia, home, by the way, of the great Governor Kemp. Should he seek to have something to do with that? He voted nay. Voted nay on the cloture vote. Yeah, so he wanted to shut it down.

He wanted to shut it down. What a zero. I mean, the guy doesn't belong in the Senate. It's the one piece of Timothy's point where he was saying that, like, you know, some of these vulnerable senators would do it. And he was right.

But that guy didn't get on board. He's just a full-on leftist. No, right. He also voted to let LeBron James play in the WNBA. Sure did. I know Lachin was watching that just like, mm-hmm. Taking notes, man. That's going to be tough for Ossoff. I don't know if he's got it in it to win. Referring, of course, to the new executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund that has a particular interest in the great state of Georgia this time around. Oh, yes.

All right, listen, more news on this. We're not stopping here. One of the reasons that we've kind of gotten to a little bit in our discussion about why these guys are so unpopular is what they're doing. And one of the things that came out over the weekend, Trump, this is the way that the media frames it, is Trump defies judge, deports Venezuelan gang members. Can we play clip four, please?

President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act today. Now a federal judge is considering a wide-reaching order to block him from deporting non-citizens under that act. The president took action saying the U.S. is being invaded by the Venezuelan gang Trende Aragua. Earlier, a federal judge had granted a temporary restraining order barring the president from deporting five Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act. It's only been used three other times.

Yeah, well, all that notwithstanding, you got the news. Let's hear the other side of this story. Clip five, please. I can tell you this. These were bad people. That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres. That was a bad group. You look at them and you look at the crimes that they've committed and you take a look. You don't get any tougher. You don't get worse than that. You understand that? Listen, he's right. He is. It's a bad, bad bunch of hombres. What happened...

was that they were found, rounded up, which, God bless it, I can't believe there was ever an administration that thought that these were serviceable American citizens. Thank God for Tom Homan. I mean, thank God for Tom Homan. They found these people, and then they plucked them out, and they sent them back. Right. And in the midst, while they were airborne...

A judge said, well, you can't do that. Right. Which, first of all, is nonsense. Can you believe there's an American judge anywhere? They'd be like, oh, yeah, no, it's very important to have murderers stay in this country. Insanity. They're illegal. For starters, they're illegal. It has nothing to do... Like, say there were... No crime was committed. It's still fine to send their asses back. Because they committed a crime in the first place. Right. Entering illegally. But you're a part of a criminal gang that is...

Noteworthy for rapes, murders, mayhem across this country. And those are the people that were sent back. The administration maintains, I think rightly, that these things, they were already airborne on their way back. You had a chance to weigh in on that. Right. But you didn't. Right. And this was already an action that was been taken. Yeah, we're in international waters. We can do a cockfight out here if we wanted to. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. I'm not turning this plane around. Here's the thing. It raises the question, why in the world is the hard left waging war on these grounds? You know, they expect people to believe that these guys are here to work a nine to five and hope they can max out their Roth IRA. They're here to kill people. You know what I mean? They're here to take over apartment buildings and terrorize Americans, sabotage.

Send them back to the prison where they came from. There is no reason why they should be in our country. And the left is like, no, judge, please, God, let these terrorists stay in our country. Why are they fighting on that ground? I'll never know, but I'm not going to try to stop them. It's just fantastic. And did you see the White House, by the way?

They're so funny. They're so funny. They put out this video that Wolf just popped up on the screen, and over the top of it, they played the music to Closing Time, that song from the 90s. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

Look at these guys. So this video was originally tweeted out by Nea Boucle, the prime minister of El Salvador. And, I mean, he's turned that country around. Like, murders are down, like, 95% since he got elected. And one of the things he did is he built this, like, super prison. And he had the military basically just, like, this is a novel idea.

Put all the criminals in jail. He just put all the criminals in jail. Whoa, crazy. Crazy idea, right? And then all of a sudden, murders go down. Everyone's happy. And he tweeted out, he was like, El Salvador is happy to imprison these violent terrorists and murderers for the U.S. at a small cost to the U.S., cheaper than it would be for us to have to jail these horrible people.

And further, I think this is amazing that the Democrats take these kinds of positions, the judges specifically. Right. Because if you see what has happened over the past year, whether it's things like crime or illegal immigration...

So many Americans have shown again and again, they're sick of this. They're sick of this like progressive idea that no, it's actually the terrorists and the criminals who are oppressed and we are their oppressors. Like this dynamic they created of how like actually

you taxpayer are the oppressor you're the bad guy and all these people entering our country illegally committing crimes murders stealing from stores the reason you go to your drugstore and everything is locked up is because you're an oppressor everyone's sick of it they're so sick of it they've had to live through covid being told you're an oppressor unless you go out and riot for george floyd like everyone is tired of it and for the judges to take this position you saw the immediate reaction people like you're telling us to bring terrorists back to this country

It's been barely 20 years since September 11th. Are you being serious? That's how a major party gets into the 20s. That's how they do that. And I saw this clip yesterday of a journalist, going back to what you were talking about, the absurdity of the question, a journalist asking Tom Holman,

about the alien sedition. This is the Alien Enemies Act that we're talking about, where they invoked, which is a 200-year... Oh, it's too old, and so then we can't use it. Yeah, yeah. It was basically their argument, right? Fucking unbelievable. People object to this old law being used to deport...

It's too dusty. We can't use this one. Yeah, his response was, it was roughly the same time as the Constitution. I think we still respect that. Exactly. They don't. They're like, no, that's dusty, too. No, that's dumb, too. We shouldn't do it. These fucking people. And here's the thing, Smug. I agree with you on all that stuff. It's crazy that they're so ideologically conditioned by all this George Soros money and these fucking prosecutors who let people out of prison that this is apparently what they believe in. I don't think they actually believe it.

And I think they know why they got to 29%. I think the one thing that supersedes all of it, the ideology and everything, is this compulsive need to oppose everything that Donald Trump does. And so they just can't help themselves. And it's the same thing as the CR, dude. It's like they didn't actually have an objection. They didn't go to a single thing and be like, this is what we want to fight for for the American people. He's just doing it. They didn't give a shit. Donald Trump's doing it. I want to be against it. Oh, Donald Trump's getting rid of violent criminals and deporting them. I'm against it.

It's just a knee jerk, you know, reaction that they have to do. Otherwise, what is it you say you do? Well, I do think there's a lot of truth to that. But but, man, I think that the left is so powerful in that party. Yeah. George Soros and Hans Borg Weiss and all of these people who hate our country and want to see it fall apart are more than happy to fund these people and let.

our country fall apart. Let's get that number lower. 29 is not low enough. They're on the way. Wait till they oppose tax relief for working Americans because that's on its way. Yeah, that's right. All these other things, all of a sudden they became free traders, by the way. Which is incredible. I can't wait to hear them defend taxes on tips. It's just going to be so good. It's fantastic.

So anyway, I think the one thing that we can do here, fellas, to try to put a bow on what is just a brutal time for the libs is to play a game of Demerjurno. Yes. Oh, great idea. Should we? Yeah. Do you want to do a quick recap of what this game is, Donks, for our new listeners? For our new listeners and viewers, of which there are many.

Denver Journal is a really fun game to play, particularly around like huge media stories where there's just so many takes. There's so much content out there from Democrats and from Democrats masquerading as journalists. And this game is, I...

I read four statements, three of which have been made by journalists, one by a Democrat. And my colleagues here have to pick who is the Democrat. It's a very difficult one to pick. One of the hardest games that we play, we generally do it in our live performances because it's just a real crowd pleaser. But I think we should hit that music. Let's hit it. Yeah.

Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno, Dan Morgerno.

Nobody knows. Still too long. Nobody knows. We always talk about the stanzas being too long, but what I want to draw attention to is the final line. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And for the last two decades in this country, you don't know who's writing the story, whether it's a Democrat or a journo. And that's the beauty of this game. It's so good. All right. What do we got here, Duncan? Spaghetti get exhibit one.

Got to take notes in this game. A true leader would use this as a moment to showcase why he should remain majority leader. Wow. Meaning Schumer, obviously. Explain the decision he made and showcase a plan going forward. His canceling a book tour rather than facing Democrats and being proactive is part of his problem.

Wow, that could be a Dem. I mean, it is trying to diagnose an issue within their party. Also, it could be a journo because they're too dumb to know what a majority leader is. Yeah. He's the minority leader, but we'll continue. Yeah, that's fair. Exhibit number two.

Oh, my God. Oof.

It's why this game is so tough, because those both sound like Democrat operatives. And you saw journos almost goading Dems to be like, shut this shit down. Oh, man. Okay. All right. Exhibit number three, please. The party's base is right to be angry at Chuck Schumer, but the country's fate hinges on the fight against Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Okay, wow. Oh my God. That, I mean, dude, come on. So many of these, I mean, every one sounds like it should be a Dem activist. Not a single one should be a journalist. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Exhibit number four, please. People keep telling me that I don't get it. They just want to see the Democrats fight harder. But I totally do get that. The desire is for Democrats to take expressive action.

Most of the caucus agrees with that. And Schumer is being responsible. Okay. I've got... Those are our four.

Listen, we like to talk these things through before we get a little bit into it. I think that that last one, in my view, is a perfect encapsulation of a journo. Yeah, I'm agreeing. The last one, number four? Yeah, because in my view, there is nothing that is a journalist that is not an establishment Democrat. Right. That's what they are. That's what, you know.

There are some journos that are activists. You get the Harwoods of the world and all those folks who like to advocate for an outcome. But most journos find themselves in just protecting the Democratic Party.

Like all the journos who defended Joe Biden, even though he had dementia. That's an establishment. And then he went on national television, his brain melted, and then they were like, I'm shocked. Yeah. I never saw this coming. That's right. That's what an establishment Democrat is. In the final clause of that final sentence in number four sounded to me like a journo protecting their beat. Mm-hmm.

Schumer is being responsible. Yeah, that's how you get an interview with the minority leader in the United States Senate. Can I wrap a bow on number four? Can I pull that up on the screen? Number four, this is why I thought it was a journal. See that? But I totally do get that. There's this annoying online journal thing, this millennial compulsion to speak like

they're hip and talking for us, but I totally do get that. You're a journalist, man. Just write the sentence. Speak with authority. Like, you know something about the subject, but I totally do get that. Get the hell out of here, dude. They're so scared of outrage against them. Yeah. They're the softest. They are the soft skin people. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. So I'm going to go to number one was the only other one that I thought was absolutely a journo. Uh,

This is a true leader. Yada has canceled a book tour rather than face Democrats as being proactive. It's part of the problem. What they're doing is discussing the amor. It's not that he's the problem. It's his choices within on how he described what he was doing. So you preserve enough that number four was doing overtly and saying that like his decision wasn't the problem.

It's the fact that he chose not to articulate it well enough to the American people. The Democrat can never be the problem. They can never be the problem. That's exactly right. It's a discussion of the problem and also a diagnosis in that last sentence. His lack of strength is what's standing between Democrats and Victor.

And, yeah, forever immortality. First Ballad, I'm a famous guy. I agree with you on that. So I'm hearing you're between two and three. So I'm between two and three. I'm ultimately going to go with number three as my damn operative here, just because I thought that the rollover and play dead component of number two was...

It just had all the hallmarks of what a journo would give me. Okay. And I thought – I just thought three was – can we pop that up one more time? Fate hinges on the fight against Donald Trump. That's a little bit more. Yeah. That's a little bit more. My read on this is when it says that like but the country's fate hinges on the fight against Elon Musk and Trump.

I thought this was Duncan trying to pull the old switcheroo of being like, this is so partisan, so crazy, that of course it's got to be a Dem, but...

The surprise is... It could be a Game Master's surprise. That was my guess. So you're going to go with two? I'm going number two is the Dem. Okay. Okay, can we pull number three up one more time? Because number three is my Dem. And part of the reason is because there's a statement at the beginning that seeks to align with the left against Schumer. And a Democrat right now is reading the tea leaves and knowing that there's chaos and assuming that AOC and the young left is the new Democrat party and

and is seeking to align with them and against Schumer while also reminding people that the real fight is against Trump and Musk.

And I think that number three is a joke. It could be like a young Senate Democrat who still wants their committee assignments. Right. Still wants, you know, they haven't, they're not going to go all in against party leadership quite yet, but they want to express their concerns. It's a contrast. Yeah. They're different. I mean, all four were unhinged, to be clear. Okay, so Holmes and Ashbrook are on three. I'm on two. Yeah.

And Smug is on two. As the Democrat, yeah. Okay, so by process of elimination here, can we pop up who was Exhibit 4, please, Spaghetti? Oh, yeah. Matt Iglesias. But I totally do get that. I told you it was a tool. I called it. But I totally do get that. It's like this egg motherfucker. Left-wing journo, Matt Iglesias. Yeah, got it. Okay. Okay. Now, Exhibit number two. Uh-oh.

Smug was wrong. That was Stephen Dennis at Bloomberg. Democrats have decided to embrace the rollover and play dead strategy. He's really gotten out there, man. Bloomberg. Like 10 years ago, he used to be semi. He's really gotten. Bloomberg as a whole. Their political reporters have just gone as far left as you can go. Not a surprise if you've been paying attention. The rollover and play dead strategy.

Because they've swung at every fucking pitch that has come their way. Like, oh, illegals in America? Yep, we oppose it. Terrorists in America? Yep, we oppose it. Men and women's sports? Yep, we oppose it. Like, literally every single thing.

that you could possibly, they have not rolled over and played dead on a single thing. They've literally swung away at every single pitch that Donald Trump has thrown. That is not a roll over and play dead. That is a dying by self-inflicted wound strategy. They care a hell of a lot more about the left than they do about the country. So it's down to one or three. Spaghetti, let's put up number three, please. That is from Michael Kansky at the New Republic. Wow.

Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. And exhibit number one, Spaghetts, is from this guy at the ACLU. Oh, man. Maybe if he spent less time defending terrorists, he'd know that Schumer was minority leader.

I mean, that's why this game is so hard. This is crazy. This is a very hard game. It's a very hard game. We were all losers? Yeah. Wow, good pull, guys. Actually, it's just the American people who are losers of the state of journalism today. That's the lesson we take away. That's what it is. It's tough. It's a tough game. Horrific. Nobody knows. The point isn't to win. Nobody knows. The point is nobody knows.

I love it. So remember our question of the day. You've got to like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program in order to do so. But our question of the day is who's the real leader of the Democratic Party? Nobody knows. Might be journos of that, too, but I'd be interested in your discussion on that. Remember, we've got merch up there. There's some great golf gear, all kinds of other things. Take a look while you're there. And in the meantime, wait for the brackets. They're coming out Saturday.

This is going to be a hack madness spectacular, the likes of which you've never seen. Got to get on board. Set your timers. We're going to do that Saturday. With that, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much to the Minions. We love to see our YouTube numbers go up. Like and subscribe if you have not yet, and send it to a friend and make sure they do too. So until next time, Minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless.