Biden Media Coverup, Plus Democrat Candidate's Shocking Secrets
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Do you worry that you damaged him at all? I don't doubt that you got hugs and handshakes behind closed doors today. The guy was right. And maybe even publicly, some of them, because they like you personally. But I've heard a lot of really nasty stuff about you from your Democratic colleagues. I mean, just like...

Oh, yes. So this is one of the gentlemen who has written this book who now seeks to uncover this hidden truth has been concealed from all of us. Seems like there was some concealing done of his own. I mean, just like that line of questioning he had with Dean Phillips, who Duncan has pointed out. Dean Phillips is right. He was pointing out these facts that were apparent.

To so many folks. And pointing it out when it cost you something to point it out. It cost Jake Tapper nothing. In fact, the inverse. He gets to make money now pointing it out. And he hit it at the time when it might cost him something. That's entrepreneurialism. You know, for a bunch of socialists, these guys figure out how to make a buck every once in a while, don't they?

He's Donald Trump's number one enemy in Congress, Chicago Senator Dick Durbin. And now Dick Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Today, consumers have thousands of choices in credit cards, all with equal, strong security.

But Durbin's plan is less competition and less security. And that means more risk for your credit and your identity. Tell Republicans in Congress, stop Dick Durbin's takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. Keep the faith, hold the line and own the lips. It's time for our main...

Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. Good Thursday to you. If you're looking for fun, you have come to the right place. I am Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial. Fellas, we have a sheet that we've put together here. We've had a lot of fun on this program. That's why you listen. There's a lot of important things to discuss from time to time. We have a very serious show on Tuesdays.

It's time for some laughs. Yes. I'm going to call it. This is going to be a top five. I'm not kidding. This is this. There's a very good chance. This is an all time top five episode. Huge congrats to the folks listening because man, this is in for a treat. Yeah, you are in for a treat. Uh,

You've got the president overseas making deals, doing things that he does, all things that we've discussed here on the Variety program. Domestically, there's been, shall we say, a little bit of an introspective component to the Democratic Party, the minority party, in large part because of a new book that's come out and a lot of discussion about the cognitive decline of our former president, what people knew.

How they knew it, when they knew it, whether they were contributors to concealing such a thing. We are going to get into the nitty gritty of all of that. And we've got something inspired by one of our listeners that is an award show.

of such that are just highlighting what is truly excellence in this genre. This is going to be so good. This is going to be a great episode. You will love every bit of that. Then you'll recall a couple of weeks ago, there was a journo turned politician who announced that

Her intent. Jerno turned politician, but you repeat yourself. Yeah, exactly. It is a little bit of the same thing. No question about it. Hannah Trudeau. And the reason that we took great interest in Hannah Trudeau is because, well, one, it fits into the same sort of construct. So we thought it was an interesting story. But second of all, most importantly, she engaged us. Said, well, I'd like to talk to all of you about that. So we reached out.

Then we reached out again, and then we reached out again, and then we publicly reached out, and then we reached out one more time after that to get her to sort of like frame up what it is that she – we're not trying to be adversarial. It's an interesting story, one that you, the listener and viewer, we thought would be pretty interested in. Raises a number of questions. Gave her a week and a half. No show, right? So we're going to cover some of the questions that we had –

for Ms. Trudeau in a potential run for Congress. She's exploring a run. So these are the kind of things that would come up if she files her candidacy papers. And so I see it as a public service, both to you, the listener, and to her as a potential candidate. And perfect to go with our opening theme of like, okay, the whole Joe Biden cover-up, were the journos involved? What did they not know? What were they helping the Biden cover-up with? You know, like the whole theme of like the blurred line between Democrat politics and journalism. A hundred percent.

And then we've got, as we always do, some terrific variety for you that you will appreciate. We're going to play our game, King of the Hill, our feature presentation here on the Variety Program because it's Thursday. And we're going to get into that. Finally, in this just action-packed episode, we've got a guy named Pat Harrigan. You may not have heard of him. He is a congressman from North Carolina, a genuine congressman.

American war hero. This guy, like many of them that we talked about here and with over the last couple of years, inspired to service. This is somebody who served his country in unimaginable ways.

but never really had an inclination to get into politics until Joe Biden and until the disaster that was the Afghan retreat. He's going to unpack some of that for us. Yeah, and I think we pride ourselves here on the Ruthless Variety program of highlighting stories you don't hear a lot.

Yeah. From politicians who we appreciate and admire that maybe you don't see in primetime cable every night. So it's nice to be able to have that. Yeah, I got a feeling. So I was fortunate to sit on this interview was phenomenal. Hands down one of the best interviews we've ever done. And I have a feeling you're going to hear a lot more.

about him from him. This guy's a rising star. Yeah, this interview was incredible. Real American hero. Yeah, once he's on your radar, he's not going to fall off anytime soon. Let's just put it that way. But let's just jump right in. Because unless you haven't been paying attention to anything this week, which I, you know, we got life going on, but there's been an entire political conversation around this new book by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper that attempts in some ways to sort of

Uncover in their way, uncover what they see was this plan of deceit to try to keep quiet the decline cognitively and physically of Joe Biden while he was running for reelection.

This much is clear. We let our show, probably 300 of them, with quotes directly from the... This was not a mystery to you as the audience you've laughed along with us. It was to these people, evidently. And so they are now unpacking all of that in public view for us to discuss. But we...

We don't just allow that. Nope. The name, you see the name of the show, it's called Ruthless and it's called Ruthless for a reason. You can't just get out from underneath the,

All of that without paying a touch of a price. Well, no, and it's very convenient that today is the day they're rolling out a book because, you know, Joe Biden, the Democrat, has nothing left to lose. And they, as Democrats, have nothing left to lose in the process. No question about it. So one way to set this up, it's from our good friends over at Fox News in clip one.

THIS IS A BOMBSHELL. IT'S A NEW BOOK THAT IS REVEALING HOW THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CHARACTERIZE IT. THEY LIED TO US FOR YEARS ABOUT HIS CONDITION. AND JUST HOW BIG OF A ROLE DID THE LEGACY MEDIA AND THE PEOPLE IN HIS CIRCLE PLAY IN COVERING IT UP? A PRETTY BIG ONE. AND JONATHAN ALLEN AND AMY PARDON'S BOOK "FIGHT," WE LEARNED THAT BIDEN'S AIDES NEEDED TO GUIDE HIS EVERY MOVE.

And they went as far as to put fluorescent tape on the stage floor so he knew exactly where to walk. Well, now there's another book, and it claims that staffers even considered getting him a wheelchair.

PART OF THE BOOK SAYS, QUOTE, BIDEN'S PHYSICAL DETERIORATION HAD BECOME SO SEVERE THAT THERE WERE INTERNAL DISCUSSIONS ABOUT PUTTING THE PRESIDENT IN A WHEELCHAIR, BUT THEY COULDN'T DO SO UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION. SO POLITICS OVER THE HEALTH OF THE PRESIDENT. WOW.

And according to the book, Biden's own doctor, Kevin O'Connor, was worried about him dying. Quote, long privately expressed concerns Mr. O'Connor did about the toll that the presidency was taking on Biden's health. O'Connor sometimes quipped that Biden's staff members were trying to kill him while he was trying to keep him alive. OK. All right. All right. So big, big thanks to Kayleigh.

For setting all that up. I think she walked through the highlights. Very, very well done. So as the media, much of the legacy media tries to get out from underneath this, people at Fox News, of course, covered this all along. And so they're kind of getting some kicks out of this, as we are, and you, the audience, who've been listening to us. But how are Democrats processing all this? I mean, you heard tortured explanations from Boot, Petage, who is out there discussing

doing his thing, like trying to get out from underneath it without being too saucy. Yeah. He had the brave stance, brave stance of maybe, maybe, maybe Biden was the problem. That is the kind of hard hitting analysis that you look for. Just speaking like a McKinsey consultant. What did he say? It's like, I don't know. We're going to have to check our synergies and circle back on that. Go back to the bread prices. That's it. Go back. Right. Same sort of bravery he showed when he

floored every single household in black neighborhoods in South Bend. This is his hobby horse. It's his hobby horse. Every time we talk about boot. You can't bring up boot without him going there. So the highest ranking Democrat in all of Washington, D.C., a guy named Chuck Schumer. How did he handle it? Clip two. Did you really not have any idea that he was not fit to serve a second term?

Amazing.

Amazing. That's it. That's all, folks. It's like an old Looney Tunes episode. That's all he's got. There was this great tweet of, I think it's a line from the book, where Schumer is telling the authors of the book...

that while he was having a phone call with Joe Biden, it kind of became clear to him that Joe Biden didn't know what the hell was going on. Well, he forgot why he called. Yeah. He was like, oh, you know, I don't even remember why I called you. And Chuck Schumer's realization, he says this himself, this is a direct quote from Chuck Schumer, was, I became worried, not because the president was losing his mind, but because if word got out about this, the optics would be horrible. Oh, the political consequences. He's not like...

I worry about the country. Our president has lost his brain. It's like, boy, I hope the public doesn't find out about this. What a perfect little vignette into people like Chuck Schumer. That's the most telling thing about Chuck Schumer I've ever heard. They worry not a moment about you, the American taxpayer, the American voter. They don't worry about any of that. What they worry about is their handle on power.

Whether or not they're – boy, this would look bad, huh? Well, I love that the cover-up continues. Like that's what we're seeing, right? Yeah. That's 100%. You're seeing the Chuck Schumer's – We're looking forward. Medicaid cuts. Yeah, yeah. Cuts. Because, of course, it benefits a guy like Chuck Schumer to stop asking questions and continue doing what he's doing. And the Democratic establishment that failed everybody doesn't have to make any changes. There doesn't have to be a single autopsy. They can sideline Democrats.

David Hogg. They can sideline Dean Phillips. All the people who ask questions and say we need to change things or turn the page, they get silenced and the people like Chuck Schumer get to keep doing their job. Yeah, and it's like... We're looking forward. It would be really difficult if someone was like, sir, why are you a bald-faced liar? Yeah. You know, if somebody in the Democratic Party had...

I don't know, just the wherewithal to ask that question. I'm not sure he has an answer. They sent Hogg to the slaughterhouse in record time. In three weeks, it's like, oh, actually, that election was rigged. They went from show me your Hogg to cut off your Hogg. Pretty much. You'd expected it. Well, they're transitioning. As their party does. So one of the authors of this book, it's very hard for me to transition out of that, by the way.

He himself has a pretty extensive history. Why don't we go to clip three, please? How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that? It's very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable. You are no... It's so amazing. It's so amazing to me that...

and figure out an answer. A cognitive decline. President Biden embraces his stutter talking about it while Trump mocks it, exaggerates it, belittles it. He's sharp physically. I mean, mentally. Yeah. I think the question is physically, right? Right. More so? Right. Right. And the guy who's his chief opponent is only three or four years younger than him. Exactly. I mean, you have questioned President Biden's age, mental fitness, ability to lead of those supporting Biden. You said, quote, shame on all of you pretending everything is OK. You're leading us and him into a disaster. Do you worry that you damaged him at all?

I don't doubt that you got hugs and handshakes behind closed doors today. The guy was right. And maybe even publicly, some of them, because they like you personally. But I've heard a lot of really nasty stuff about you from your Democratic colleagues. I mean, just like, what is he thinking? Exercise and narcissism. Dean Phillips, the guy who was right. About President Biden's mental fitness and acuity. Hmm.

Oh, yes. So this is one of the gentlemen who has written this book who now seeks to uncover this hidden truth has been concealed from all of us. Seems like there was some concealing done of his own. I mean, just like that line of questioning he had with Dean Phillips, who Duncan has pointed out, Dean Phillips is right. He was pointing out these facts that were apparent.

to so many folks. And pointing it out when it cost you something to point it out. It cost Jake Tapper nothing. In fact, the inverse. He gets to make money now pointing it out. And he hit it at the time when it might cost him something. That's entrepreneurialism. You know, for a bunch of socialists, these guys figure out how to make a buck every once in a while, don't they?

I mean, it's like, oh, I can conceal this and then point the finger. Yeah. Well, look what you've done. Look what you made me do. I mean, just like a battered wife. The gall of Tapper to be like, I've heard a lot of people say nasty things about you for pointing this stuff out about Joe Biden.

Yeah. Don't you feel bad? You could cause Dems an election. Don't you feel bad about it? Like, dude, you're a journalist. Aren't you supposed to be asking questions instead of trying to help Dems win an election? Like, what is your purpose? Well, it is a little bit like the nice house. Be ashamed if something happened to it. Yeah. Deal. That line of questioning. Well, anyway, you get a little flavor for what it was that he was up to during the course of the election, which obviously has changed significantly now that there's not a single vote to be cast that matters. Hmm.

One way or another. There's just money to be made. There's just money to be made. But Tapper, of course, wasn't the only journalist to shamelessly cover for Biden's decline. When we come back, we're going to have something brand new for all of you. A brand new award ceremony as such. We've sort of colloquially named it the Tapper Award. And it's for excellence in covering the Biden decline. Mm-hmm.

Concealing is really the right word. The Biden decline. We're going to get to it right after this. The Biden pill penalty is crippling the development of life-saving drugs for cancer, Alzheimer's, and other deadly diseases. It's already slashed funding for pill-based medicines by 70%.

Thankfully, President Trump is leading the fight to end the Biden pill penalty. President Trump's plan will unleash innovation, lower costs, and save American lives. Call Congress, tell them to stand with President Trump, and include a repeal of the Biden pill penalty in the budget reconciliation bill. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tappers. Our first nominee, Joe Scarborough, in an unflinching homage.

To a few good men, Scarborough passionately channels Colonel Nathan Jessup to defend Joe Biden's mental acuity. But comparing that guy's mental state, I've said it for years now, he's cogent. But I undersold him when I said he was cogent. He's far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he's better than he's ever been intellectually,

analytically. Oh, my God. Because he's been around for 50 years. And, you know, I don't know if people know this or not. Biden used to be a hothead. Sometimes that Irishman would get in front of the reasoning. Sometimes he would say things he didn't want to say. This is...

And I don't really, you know what? I don't really care. Start your tape right now because I'm about to tell you the truth. Here it is. And F you if you can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically is the best Biden ever. Amazing. Not a close second. And I've known him for years. The Brzezinski's have known him for 50 years. If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't say it.

Our next nominee, Brian Stelter. Faced with his most intellectually challenging role yet, Stelter assumes the role of a computer science professor to explain how AI and cheap fakes are lying about Biden's fitness for office.

The White House press secretary used the phrase cheap fakes, the idea of cheap fakes. Let me explain what that is to people. We've been worried for years about AI deep fakes, that computer generated images are going to trick people into believing something that's totally false. Cheap fakes are a little bit simpler. They're cheap. They're just distorted, out of context videos, chopped up in certain ways, constructed in certain ways. That's what we're seeing. That's what the Biden administration, the Biden campaign is so worried about right now. But make no mistake, they are

about this. This is a real problem. This is not some made-up fiction. The videos are oftentimes made up, but the problem is real because some of us, Abby, watch a 40-minute speech by Biden. We see the full context. Other people only watch a five-second clip, and that's going to be something that's going to, I suspect, follow Biden for the rest of this campaign. Our next nominee, Sonny Hostin.

In a stunning heel turn against the independence of a special prosecutor, Hostin claims there's a conspiracy of lawfare by Donald Trump and Robert Herr that is unfair to Joe Biden. I actually disagree with the assessment that this special counsel that was appointed by Trump was nonpartisan. There is no way that a prosecutor puts, summarizes things in a report that

that are not contained in the transcripts. That is not how the procedure is done because I have actually... Only Democrats can try cases against Democrats. No. What I'm saying is... No. Back in the day when I was a prosecutor, I didn't know which of my colleagues were Republican, which were Independents, which were Democrats. But it's public records who appointed them. Yes, that's true. I was in the Clinton administration and I was also in the Bush administration. But, and that's frequently the case...

But this prosecutor was very partisan, and I can tell from the report. And now, our final nominee, Nicole Wallace. Sometimes an actor completes a character transformation that would make Daniel Day-Lewis jealous.

Enter Republican press secretary turned Democrat mouthpiece Nicole Wallace describing Republican disinformation that makes Biden look old.

There's a growing and insidious trend in right wing media, broadcast, print and social media. It is to take highly misleading and selectively edited videos of President Biden directly from Republican National Committee social media accounts and then use those videos to spread messages virally to cast doubt on President Biden's fitness for office.

Here is this headline from the New York Post. Is she going to cry?

It comes less than one week after the New York Post made a cover out of another piece of deceptively edited tape, calling him meander in chief due to what they claim was Biden walking away during a skydiving demonstration during the G7 summit last week. The only problem is that the full video, which emerged almost instantly, shows Biden was going over to congratulate one of the skydivers who's cropped out of the video entirely.

Both the articles are based on cheap fakes, videos of real events that are intentionally manipulated to fool viewers, released on an RNC opposition research social media account with zero independent fact-checking by these so-called journalists and spread throughout the right-wing ecosystem.

Truly magnificent journalism for this year's Tappers. I am so happy we did that. Seeing those clips just makes you so much angrier with this debate going on of like, how was the press like fooled by like they were fooled. They were helping the Biden people cover this. I will tell you, each of your submissions had something special about.

But I think Nicole Wallace is going to win this one. You're putting the thumb on the scale. Well, here's the thing, folks. The winner is up to you. Bingo. It's up to you. If you like and subscribe and submit your winner in here to the Ruthless Variety Program on YouTube, and we will have something on X on the main account at Ruthless that allows you to vote, we'll tally all that up. Like and subscribe.

Submit your deal. Next Tuesday, we'll announce the winner of the 2025 inaugural Tapper Awards. If he's going to put his thumb on the scale, I'm going to say I think Tapper, I mean, like, the award should go to Brian Stelter for that. He deserves the Tapper. I mean, let's be serious. We're all going to make a case? I'm not going to make a case because I respect democracy and I respect the audience. I respect democracy. I'm done with it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

It's time for action. Well, don't forget to submit your vote. And when we come back, we're to get to your comments from last episode when we talked about the civil war that was raging in the Democratic Party and what message Democrats will finally land on in the midterms. Your response is right over this.

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Fellas, that was a hell of a inaugural edition of the Tappers. I can't wait to hear what the audience thinks and what they've come up with. This was inspired by the audience in and of themselves. I can't wait to get the DM from Jake Tapper.

Whenever you call him out, he starts crying. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it. I'll hear from you soon, Jake. It's a very prestigious award. There's only one winner, and the winner will be nationally renowned for their efforts over the course of 2024, and I think it's something to be celebrated. We've tried everything. We've tried reasoning with these people. We've tried changing their behavior. We've tried educating them, and what I've realized—

15 years in politics is that the only politics that matters is the politics of ridicule and mockery. Yes. That's the only thing that matters. That's the only way you change behavior is through shame. Yeah. Yeah. And the shame really doesn't come or be internalized in any real way unless you're being laughed at. Yes. Bingo.

That's fantastic. All right. So we're going to get your comments of the day from Tuesday's episode where we talked a little bit about Democratic messaging and where you thought that they would land. Great responses. To do that, we always start with a voice. First comment comes from Mary Woodford. And Mary writes, regarding the question of the day, I have no idea.

never seen the Democrat Party stand for anything besides redirecting taxpayer money and government regulation to causes and industries they judge to be best, regardless of the effectiveness of such efforts. Great point. The report card is not pretty. Now that DEI and racism are no longer winning issues, they have a real problem. What else? With Trump co-opting the field on so many interest groups the Dems thought they owned, they may be SOL.

They may surprise us with their creativity, but so far, even sophisticated Dem commentators can only say the party needs a better message. I have yet to hear one. Mary. Incredible. Just throwing darts. Incredible. Great work, Mary. Thanks for listening. Next comment, Dunks Runks. This comment's from Nanku. Nanku writes, what message will Dems settle on for the midterms? This is too easy because they only have one.

We're not Trump. Yeah. Sadly, that's going to be it. I mean, if you're looking for what it's going to be, I think they pretty much nailed it. You know what's so funny? Is there people that are going to cash million dollar checks to give that advice? Oh, yeah. They're going to look at polls and be like, well, the polling shows there is a

majority. I think we need to run against Trump. And they'll sit there very sophisticated, break down like cross tabs and pulling like metrics and they'll try to introduce like these new fangled things. Well, the audience intensity shows. Well, we're using AI micro-targeting. Yeah, yeah. We've run through the AI machine and we found this thing that you fucking knew was going to happen two years ago. Congratulations, geniuses.

Comment three, please, Smugglesworth. This comes from Patty Glenn, and Patty writes, the Dems, or what is being presented to us as the Demon Rat Party, will be pushing lies about the big, beautiful bill.

They're counting on Hakim to start them off with a big people will die fear statement. Then the minions will follow with scripting to chase the fear flags. They're going to bet their midterms on fear of success because their base is typically a crowd of failure to launch confused idiots. Nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. Absolutely nailed it.

Great set of comments as always. Remember, like and subscribe. You can vote on the first edition of the Tappers this time around, so everybody's got to get in on that. Do it on X. Do it on YouTube. Get involved. It's going to be a fun time on Tuesday, I promise you. Listen, when we come back...

Hannah Trudeau. And if you caught the episode, which I know you did, because we did on a couple of them, is a journo that turned sort of politician or at least exploring whether she's going to make a run for Congress in New Hampshire. We had questions and she indicated she'd like to come answer, hasn't done that. We're going to get to the questions that we may have

that may help out our candidacy in many ways because these are things that, you know, when you go through the course of it, they're helpful for somebody who's looking at running to now. Right after this.

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Okay, so there was a journalist. This is a tale of a journalist who worked on Capitol Hill for a publication called The Hill.

with a beat that was unclear, but a journalist nevertheless, who popped up in our feeds because she had broadcast through, I think it was Playbook, and then a lot of other different publications in town that she was no longer seeking a career in journalism, that she would seek to become a politician and run for Congress in New Hampshire. Which party did she say that...

Well, that's what caught our attention is that it's kind of one of the same. She was the Democrat. Wow. But really one of the prime justifications was that she was tired of Democrats letting their voters down. And she, as a journalist, knew how to fulfill the expectations. Key motivating factor for most journalists out there is to help Democrats do better. And who knows more than someone who writes their...

their work on a day-to-day basis. They try to mold and shape into the most helpful messages that they can. And sometimes Democrats just don't live up to the expectations that the journalists set for them. And so you have to run yourself. So as we were having this discussion, lo and behold, Hannah Trudeau pops up.

Which I thought was like a fun younger generation of politician type thing. And that we know that everyone on Capitol Hill listens to your particular podcast. And if I'm going to launch right, I'm going to come in and address these things, the questions that you have. And I'll reach a different audience. And I was like, you know what?

I kind of like it. Sounds interesting. Yeah. Something new, something fresh, dare I say authentic, a journalist telling everybody what we all know, that they're all Democrats anyway. And she's just saying it. Yeah. So she says and tags us right up front in an X post. Let's talk.

My ties to broken policies and promises that fail the working class go well beyond what I've covered as a journalist. I've lived it.

Would love to debate and discuss DMs open. All right. Well, that's pretty unambiguous, right? I mean, if you're going to do that publicly to us, I mean, look, again, the name's on the sign. The name's on the sign. This is not, you know, it's not like, come in and have a long conversation podcast. It's the Ruthless Friday program. And so, like, she knew what she was getting into when she did that. And so we were like, you know what? In good faith, let's just take her up on that.

So we posted on our main ex account. Welcome. Like you let us know what your dates are. We're ready to go. And then we didn't stop at that. We DM. She said DMs are open. Fellas, I hate to report the DMs were closed. She would not.

read or respond to any of our DMs. And then in a personal capacity, we reached out to see if, again, her offering of an appearance here on the Ruthless Variety program was something that we could accommodate. And trust me when I say accommodate. Like, we were ready to just sort of roll back the busy schedules of all of us and come in to do this, because it's fairly new. It's for us. I mean, we haven't...

entertained a lot of Democratic aspirants. And that's the thing is, so, I mean, you saw, you know, especially right after Biden or Kamala Harris got smoked, that there was like, you saw Gavin Newsom go on Charlie's podcast. You know, Pete jumped on that comedian's podcast. You know, they're trying to act, you know, like blur the lines of like, oh, you know, I'm not just going to stay to like left-wing stuff because no one's listening to left-wing stuff. So we thought, you know, this is an opportunity. This would be a smart play.

Yeah, smart play for everyone. Good for our audience, good for her. We could cover a lot of ground. So we had some questions that we wanted to ask, but we gave her two weeks and she didn't even reply to say like, well, maybe like three weeks from now, maybe I'm out of town and I'm trying to get this thing running maybe a month from now. We would have worked with her schedule, but she didn't even respond. It was just that one thing to the public saying her DMs were open and she's ready to schedule an interview. And then after that, nothing.

So I kind of started poking around a little bit and there was like some questions. First of all, everyone was kind of sending us some things, just some observations that we didn't know. You know, I mean, look, we're not like working on a campaign here.

Which we've done and we know how to do. So you know what it looks like when it comes in of people who aren't necessarily associated with a campaign but have information that they're distributing around on certain individuals. And we just wanted to know what the authenticity is of any of that and how it squares. Well, and I think we had good reason to doubt.

A little bit of that authenticity because in the episode in which we had covered Hannah Trudeau's announcement of an exploration of this running for Congress, we put up this Instagram post of this photo shoot she did in Manhattan. Yeah, there it is there on the screen for you. Pretty glamorous there. What was the publication that did the shoot?

There was no publication. We don't know what the publication, but it's in the style of like a Vanity Fair type thing. Like you don't see journalists typically in ball gowns in front of what is, you know, is that a Victorian type setting, old man? What would you, how would you characterize that particular backdrop?

It's a well-appointed sofa. Very well-appointed. I would say sort of a Victorian look. It's just a little old school with some buttoned up. But what's weird about it is after we ran that episode and after Hannah had said she was interested in coming on and debating these things, that post was deleted on Instagram of that photo shoot in Manhattan.

Yeah, which is interesting because, again, these are the kind of questions that we would pose to Ms. Trudeau is, is it in fact true that these were deleted? And if so, why? I mean, they live on the Internet like we had it. We already had it. What was the point of doing that? And we're not working against it. Right. We're just trying to find out why you would want an image like that to go away.

Right. And I naturally sort of assumed that it was some sort of magazine or publication or something, but it sounds like maybe that wasn't the case. Another question she could have answered. What kind of a photo? Yeah. Like which magazine was asking for that? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, like, is it those the kind of things that you have a.

You know, you hire somebody to come in. Well, especially because this is a person who wants to run for Congress in New Hampshire. Right. And not a lot of people in New Hampshire have a place in Manhattan. Well, you know, I mean, let's just start there. Yeah. Let's start there. And much less saunter around in ball gowns in a Victorian backdrop. But be that as it may, those are all questions that you could have answered. Another one that came up because if she when she was rolling out her potential candidacy,

She says here in graphic three, as a New Hampshire girl who grew up working class, I'm demanding more from our Democrats. I shared some details with NBC News. So clearly very public. She wants all this very public about why I'm considering running for Congress in my home state.

So she's definitely their messaging here at the beginning was expect more out of Democrats. Second tier is and this is the kind of thing when you do this for a living, you look at like what are the sequence of messaging that you're trying to get like imprinted on. So what she's doing as a journalist who's good at this kind of thing is working class, working class, working class, working class. Right. She's trying to.

earn that working class bio, which may have been why the Vanity Fair style photo was deleted or not. I don't know. She could have answered that. But I mean, it's another question I would have liked to have asked. You are working class. Is that why you decided to go to a working class publication like NBC News? That would have been a question worth asking. And then there was other things that showed up.

where there were folks who sent us...

Instagram stories that Hannah had shared with the world about her life and times that we don't know whether they're her Instagram. Like, it could be a fake Hannah Trudeau. There could be someone just sort of masquerading as a Hannah Trudeau who has the exact same biography as this particular Hannah Trudeau. But one of the things that caught our eye with the working class component in mind was

was Graphic 4, where she's selling a Ferrari. Oh, interesting. Unrelated vacation post, I'm interested in selling my Ferrari. Oh, okay. Currently in Miami, having it shipped from Florida to D.C. later this month, and crowdsourcing best luxury buyers, collectors in the DMV area, if you know about the topic. Again,

I don't know. I'm not a personal friend of Hannah Trudeau, so I can't vouch for the authenticity of all this, but it looks like it's her Instagram. It's been pulled here. It's just sort of a jarring deviation from the working class component. It begs the question, what is your definition of a working class? I don't know a lot of working class people in New Hampshire who are driving a Ferrari to the mill. No.

Like, is it like, man, these people in journalism cry about their salaries and they're pushing Ferraris. Like, are you for real? Well, we had questions about. Right. Yeah. Another subject we could have asked about. I'm sure she could have provided some clarification. Is that the source of income?

for a journalist on The Hill? Is there other supplements that we don't know about? Clearly voters, I mean, look, we're just a humble variety program. Yeah, no, The Hill is a very well-capitalized publication and maybe so well-capitalized that what they're doing is paying people enough to buy Ferraris. It may not be the case, but again, something she could have cleared up. Something she could have cleared up. And again, if it's not her account, well, let's talk about that then because someone's doing her dirty. She could have

Mm-hmm. How this is all just a, you know, like a kind of a Joy Reid type... Maybe some sort of cheat fake. Time-traveling hacker cheat fake. A time-traveling hacker or, you know, whatnot. But again, we're open to any sort of explanation. We just wanted the people to be informed. So then there was more. And...

We're worried about the finance piece of this because of the working class and the Ferrari and all of those things. And if they lead together and happen to be true, what else do you got going on? It raises the question. And Duncan, my understanding is that there was a website that popped up that had certain profiles associated, again, with the...

with the same picture of Hannah Trudeau that, you know, may or may not be authentically Hannah Trudeau, although it had the same biography. Correct. And so, again, if this isn't her, she's being done dirty, something she could have cleared up. What was the name of the website? So the name of this website is called Luxie.com. I'm familiar with that one. Yeah, Luxie describes itself as the best...

elite and selective dating site in the world. Okay. Selective. That's an interesting term in a dating site. Luxie pairs outstanding and sophisticated singles for our efforts and remarkable dating community. And I would note...

You know, they say when you sign up, we tried to do some due diligence on all of this. Well, it's important as a variety program to have the integrity of reporting. May I offer an aside here, which is kind of comical? Please. We have a cell phone here at the Ruthless Variety Program, a work cell phone. What?

We're all married men. Yeah. You can't go signing up for something like Luxie. We're not going to sign up for Luxie, the elite selective dating website on our regular cell phones. So we had to use the company phone. Yeah. We made spaghetti do it. We made spaghetti do it.

Hey, Michael, one of the bullets. I wanted to peruse just so I could maybe do a little due diligence to find out more about just to dig this thing to ground. You know, the first thing they send you when you sign up on Luxie dot com.

is a message to your profile saying, this is not a website for sugar daddies and sugar babies. Interesting. It's interesting. Interesting. They feel they have to say that. Can I raise this, guys? Because there's a bullet from the website that did catch my eye, and it's a data point. They say 60% of our members have a verified annual income of more than $200,000.

Euros, I believe that's the symbol they use. 41% verified income greater than 1 million euros. So this is not described in terms of American dollars. I don't know how many people in New Hampshire are – Is that working class numbers? Just if you go back in the envelope, is that working class New Hampshire? I think working class New Hampshire, it's a deal in euros.

Yeah, when you go to Home Depot and you pull out your wallet, you're usually spending euros. It's generally in euros. And also, you know, clearly seven figures or above in the euro context is roughly a dollar match in many, many places, if not more. Better now, thanks to Trump. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So, I mean, look, there's another thing that caught my eye when they say that we make sure only sophisticated, successful people

of quality join our platform. So that coupled with the advertising of what the income ratios are gives you a pretty good indication of what this website is. Now, whether or not Ms. Trudeau added her profile to this or not is something she could clear up.

Mm-hmm.

where she notes many things. Some of the things that I wanted to know about, this charm score. Score, yeah. Yeah, this charm score thing. I think it's like a like or a poke. Yeah, it's a metric that reflects a user's personality and their interactions with others on the platform. It's designed to identify and promote the most engaging, appealing singles. So it's like a singles website. Okay, okay. But this thing, you know, like 419, I was just kind of browsing around. I was like, I mean, that seems like a...

I saw a lot of teens, like 15, 16, 17 on the charm score. The profile has a healthy charm score. There's a healthy charm score. So if someone is doing Hurt Dirty...

They're doing it with an awful lot of effort because it occurred to us in our brief interactions on this reputable site that it would take you a long time and many interactions to get a charm score such as this one. Spaghetti, you didn't charm anyone on Luxie, did you? Did you charm anybody? You didn't give him any charms? No charm. I mean, you are quite charming. Did we put his face on it? No, we didn't put his face on it, but we did get an angry text message from his girlfriend.

Oh, she was upset? She was upset. She didn't care for it. Well, we just had to do our due diligence. Did you blame it on the fellas? Yes. He did. He blamed it on us. We're happy to take the blame. We can take the heat. It's better you than me, pal.

Better you than me. So but she's got, again, a way of describing herself because, you know, you put your profile up and alleged like if this isn't her, this would be a question that we would ask. Like, did you say this? Hi, I'm Hannah. I work as a senior political correspondent splitting my time between D.C. and the weekdays, New York and Miami.

For fun. No mention of New Hampshire. It's interesting, right? Because if it's not her, that's an interesting place to run for Congress from in a place that you don't live or visit. I mean, we've got three locations in three different areas, two states and one district, and none of them the Granite State. That's an excellent observation. Yeah. Have traveled a lot for career and play and crave more. Big heart, workhorse over a show pony.

Enjoy cooking, reading, and history. An avid observer of people. Curious, active mind. So we had questions about all of that. And that was just something that, like, you know, you all occasionally in your work bio or, heaven forbid, you run for office, you have to describe who you are. I'm sorry. Putting workhorse over show pony in your bio is just funny. That's funny. Yeah.

I just wanted to know what it means in the context of a dating site. And again, I don't know if this is, but this is a question she could have verified. But in the context of a dating site, what does a workhorse over a show pony mean? What does it mean? Like, I understand if you're applying for a job, they're like, yeah, I'm not going to go out and like talk a lot about my work. I just put my nose to the grindstone and I get it done. Like, that's what a workhorse means. In the context of a dating site,

What do we mean? What do we mean? It's just a lot. But perhaps, as you mentioned. It could take several different connotations depending upon how she allegedly meant or if it's someone else. That's right. Maybe someone did her dirty. Maybe somebody did her dirty. But, you know, these are the kind of questions that one would ask.

And so then she changed her profile pic from the one that we had previously seen. On Luxie. Okay. On Luxie. Or allegedly. Somebody did. Somebody did. Which she could confirm, but she's chosen not to. In Graphic 9, she's on a boat.

And I'm noticing from the backdrop of the boat with the palm trees, it doesn't look a lot like New Hampshire to me, guys. I don't remember. I noticed her charm score went up. One up. One up. Hey, 420 on the dot. Yeah. 420 on the dot. An interesting thing. We don't know the crown and all of that, what that means. The other thing is, guys, if somebody is doing her dirty, they have access to an awful lot of photos.

Not only that, but there's a bio internally that accurately describes what she does and things like that. So, I mean, this is really a ruinous villain. And the other thing is that – Terrible person. Yeah. I'd want to know – the website says that they do, like, the background check on everyone who's applying. Yeah.

Was this clearly a verified profile? That's one of the things that Luxie advertises is that in order to be a part of it, like you've got to verify who you are, what your income level is and things like that. And so if, again, someone is doing her dirty, an alleged ruinous villain,

They would have to have access to many aspects. They would have gone to great lengths. Yes. Well, I want to note something in that is that you can sign up for Luxie like we forced Spaghetti to in an unverified profile. Good point. But what Hannah or allegedly whoever this person is who created this account, if it wasn't her, they have the black...

banner there on the profile. What does that mean? I think it's an additional level of... Verification. Some sort of verification or authenticity or something. Sometimes websites, in order to get verified, they need a picture of your driver's license. Who knows? Something like that. I don't know if that's what Luxie does, but there's an additional... We didn't keep it on Spaghetti's work phone for long. You know...

And that's on him, frankly, for not actually getting that level of research. No, he needs to. He has a girlfriend. It's not like he was there to do anything other than trying to expose the truth for a valued listener. You know, we could have explained all of that. Well, there's good news. One thing I wanted to add. Can we get the graphic up that I just sent over your Weywolf? This was also posted to this Luxie profile.

About my match, what this individual wrote, what they're looking for. Mm-hmm.

Revels in the absurdity of life, well-read, loving, devoted partner, chivalrous, wants to adore his girl. It's interesting. All of this seems like a very thoughtful thing. Provider is an interesting connotation. It is. And if she were to write that, I'd be interested to know...

exactly what that means because remember we started this thing trying to verify that this is in fact her and then we saw like what was an alleged Ferrari post and knowing what your average journalist make on Capitol Hill and then you add the provider piece to it like there's questions. And then Lexi will send you a message this is not a sugar daddy website. How does a working class granite stater who works in D.C.

have a Ferrari to sell in Miami? Oh, you're saying provider may be an invitation of sorts. I don't know. It could be. But again, these are the kind of questions that you could clear up in a short amount of time here on the Ruthless Variety Program with a very open-minded audience.

The good news is, fellas, she met the love of her life on this. If we go to graphic 10, we've blurred out because we're courteous who the love of her life is. But there's a gentleman there who she has apparently fallen in love with. And this was on her Instagram. Could have met anywhere. Could have met anywhere. But there's some suggestion. Maybe New Hampshire. Yeah.

You know? I don't think those- Home Depot. Again with the palm trees. I don't think those palm trees are indigenous to New Hampshire. It's the Home Depot Garden Center where they've got palm trees and everyone just parks their Ferraris and they let you pay in euros. It's Manchester. Is that right? I think that's right. The Home Depot, Manchester. She had a little bit more in Graphic 11, an ABC Kitchen date.

Okay, again, gentlemen. Listen, maybe ABC Kitchen decided to open a location outside of Manhattan in New Hampshire. It's, you know, working class people might want to just go to ABC Kitchen in New Hampshire. Yeah, like a quick service type place. Yeah, like an Applebee's but where you wear a ball gown. They got Ferrari Valet. A Ferrari Valet Applebee's with a ball gown. Because that's, I mean, look, in Manchester it's very high-minded. I would point out, it just has to be said.

This man looks a lot older than her. Let's just say that. But again, if you go back to, you know. I think Lexi DMed or sent a message saying that this is not a sugar daddy. You never know, fellas. Michael, they said it's definitively not a sugar daddy website. And look, I'm not here to shame anyone about an age gap in their relationship. No, but they said it. But in looking at the sequence of events here of a grand ceremony.

working class person who has a job in D.C. but a photo shoot in Manhattan and also spends her time in Miami and has a Ferrari to sell and is dating a man that would appear in these photos. We blurred out his face but appears much older than her. Well, in the interest of integrity to our audience, we can tell you before the blur this was a gentleman who appeared.

Many decades old. But let me just stop you before you embarrass yourself. We began this program with a cavalcated journalist warning us about cheap fakes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And you never know what you're looking at. And therefore, maybe he's younger than he appears. And we're just being duped. Could be the case. It could. Could be AI. But going back to our original set of questions about trying to authenticate this stuff.

If there is this ruinous villain, as we've described this person who has taken it upon themselves to create all of these various fake accounts in her name with her bio and all of these things.

They've also gone to great lengths to try to chronology out a lifestyle in many ways, just a life, right? So it's like the ups and downs. You can follow along on a daily basis. And one of those things was a Trouble in Paradise, graphic 12th.

Okay, well, she's happy to report on the Instagram, again, could be the ruinous villain, could be Hannah Trudeau questions that we could ask her that she could provide an answer to that she's happy to report we've worked everything out, indicating that at some point her and the gentleman that she may or may not have met on Luxie.

Yeah, now, could we put that back up? I just want to draw special attention to the emojis because you have a heart, a cat, and then a tree that is native to Manchester, New Hampshire. And what I'm wondering is... It's the palm tree state. Yeah, was this where she... where somebody tried to allege that she was working out the campaign strategy, you know, for New Hampshire? Yeah, maybe like a... you know, when they have those breakout sessions and such, like a campaign...

Diving into the crosstops. Yeah, and that's where the palm trees. Look, I don't care if you're a Democrat who pretends to be a journalist or you have a Ferrari to sell or you're going to date a guy who's decades older than you on some dating website. What I care about is that then you run for Congress and pretend to be some working class granite stater who's putting on a lot of hours in the mill. Like, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense. Maybe she's been duped. Maybe this is all cheap fakes and fake accounts and all this sort of stuff. But maybe show up here and we could have had that discussion. That's it. Well, and here's the thing. That's it.

You don't fuck with the Ruthless Variety program. You can come at us. We are very, I think, thoughtful individuals who will allow you to come discuss whatever it is that you'd like to discuss. We have a very open and candid conversation. We're not lacking in confidence about our ability to do our jobs. And we suggest that, like, you come do yours. So when you engage us and say, hey, I want to come on this show. Would love to do it. And then you try to ghost it.

Well, this is the sort of thing that happens. You can ask Caitlyn Jenner about that. Come correct. Yeah. If you're going to try to book yourself on this show...

And then you ghost and you pretend like none of this was ever going to happen. Well, this is the result. And so I'm sorry that we didn't have the opportunity to actually have a further discussion about this. Maybe some clarification is in order. Again, we are asking questions. This is we're not diving out an apple. By the way, we got a lot more.

We got a lot more. But what we've done here is just to provide an open invitation with some questions that I think us and ultimately the good people of New Hampshire, if she chooses to run, will want an answer to. Right? Simple as that. Simple as that. Simple as that. A thoughtful presentation from the Ruthless Variety Program. Now let's have some more fun. Yes. And there's more. And there's more.

It is time for a game. It is time for a game. Our feature presentation here on the Ruthless Variety Program is a game called King of the Hill, where we take people who formerly were associating themselves with the Republican Party, tried to be conservatives, and then in the era of Trump, completely turned themselves around. The reason we chose them is that there's no more psychotic person on the face of the planet than somebody who tries to re-engineer their ideology based on the inhabitant of the White House.

Yeah. And you see it on a daily basis. It's the zeal of the convert. It's the zeal of the convert. It's what I love the most about this game. And so Ashbrook, I believe, is our defending champion. Yeah, Bill Crystal. You have Bill Crystal. And now Smug is the challenger. Smug, who are you bringing to the table? Sherry Jacobus. Oh, you brought her back. Sherry, my Sherry, is back in the game. I am Judge Holmes' bailiff. Yeah. Let's go ringside.

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for Kim in the red corner fighting from her own Twitter account. Jerry, my Jerry Jacoba.

And now, in the blue corner, fighting straight from Piero Madai's checkbook and current champion of the world, Bill Warr, now War Forever Crystal!

It's good every time. Every time. It's good every time. Well, as the bailiff of this court, I'll instruct the two litigants that we always start with the champion. And for that, John Ashbrook, you have the floor. Well, my dear friend...

I will pull up the exhibits. Bailiff, can I get a time? Is counsel not prepared? Ill-prepared for my court. Is he not prepared? It reflects poorly. Exhibit number 11, please. Spaghetti, do not... We have a tight docket. Disregard.

How many Republicans have spoken out against Trump's threat to habeas corpus? How many Republicans have spoken out against Trump's gift from Qatar? How many Republicans and Republican-adjacent elites put the Constitution above Trump? The answer, vanishingly close to zero. That's Bill Kristol, 8, 10 p.m. on May 11th. The whole, like...

The structure. The run-up, yeah. Is just a full defamation of the actual stories. Once published a conservative weekly magazine. Smug, what do you have? My question is, do I want to win this in two rounds? Wow. I think I'm going to do it. A bit of a Babe Ruth? I'm just going to do it in two rounds. This is for all the listeners. You deserve such a wonderful show. Okay. Exhibit one, please, forgets.

This is from Sherry Jacobus. Sherry writes, discussing the Biden-Journo cover-up situation, can't rule out the possibility that Trump-Putin had Biden poisoned. Oh my god. Putin has a long history of this, and Megyn Kelly strongly suspected Trump had her poisoned before she hosted a debate with Trump. No way. Which is just not true, but... Oh. Oh. Oh.

I can't judge this. This isn't a fair fight. This wouldn't be sanctioned. Round one to smug. I mean, that is an illegal bat to the head. Poisoned? Poisoned. She's been poisoned. And then airdropping Putin into it, too. Oh, it's just amazing. She can't help herself. So to seal this, I don't know if I want to win this just like on a normal nuke or one that's just like tailor-made to Duncan. Why don't you give us your... I'm going to tailor-made it. It's 13, please. I want to apologize to everyone for how offensive this is going to be.

So on Mother's Day, Sherry Jacobus posted a photo of a

Ivana Trump's grave. No. No. Happy Mother's Day from the Trumps. But it gets even worse. No, no. You have perhaps the worst misuse of the internet where she puts it up on a computer screen and takes a photo of it to send out, but it's at an angle. It's skewed. No, she actually photographed her computer screen. She took a picture of a meme. That's the way that she actually, so she didn't screenshot it. She took a picture of the meme. Holy shit.

Yeah, so that's on a monitor, and then she took a picture of it on her phone, and that's why it's at an angle. Can the bailiff ask for clarification? Now, to me, I'm not familiar with Ivana Trump's gravesite. God rest her soul. I mean, the mother of Donald Trump's children. Obviously, I'm not totally familiar with what the site looks like.

That, to me, I'm not sure why else you would put it on there. Sure. That's it. That's all of it. And the discussion and the replies to the tweet were all about that. Oh. And she was proud of it. I am. I am. Shocked. Okay, John. Okay. Exhibit seven, please. Spaghetti. Bill Kristol on immigration. The former...

A conservative magazine publisher writes, and if I may address all the Democratic consultants who will be admonishing me to cool it on immigration, who will be telling me that it's not a, quote, kitchen table issue and that it, quote, plays into Trump's hands and all that crap. What Trump is doing is un-American. Fight him on it. You know what I love about this?

Is somehow the conservative commentator Bill Kristol, as you pointed out, published a weekly magazine in conservative thought, has somehow gotten to the left of the Democratic Party on immigration. On immigration. He's gotten to the left. No, the Democrat consultants, these people, these soulless, bloodless. They're crying uncle. They're like anarchists are like, please don't bring that shit up.

They don't have the courage to fight as hard as Bill Kristol. He's like, no, double down, open the border. I mean, that's wild. In any normal circumstance, that would be a round winner. It would. But it's not going to win against Happy Mother's Day from the Trumps at a grave. That's never going to happen. It's just not. There's nothing that can beat that. That is amongst the highest of nuclear weapons that have ever been deployed on King Kale. It's a very fair decision, I must say. Smug.

It sounded like you had another take. I would just love to hear it. I want to throw it out there. Throw it out there. Oh, this is just a bonus for you, the listener. A bonus for the listeners because we love you so much. Can I get Exhibit 6 up there?

Sherry Jacobus, the new American pope was chosen to counter the evil of Trump, argues Cliff Schechter, who gives a cogent historical perspective that makes a lot of sense. This is the reason to what amounts to an American, quote, Antichrist. No. In Trump. Antichrist? Yeah. So that's the theory that Sherry had. Antichrist. Well, you don't want it with either one of them. Wow. But what you played goes in the annals.

Annals. It was my gift to Judge Duncan. Oh, thank you. He loves the misuse of the internet. I love it. That's just like, oh my God. A photo of a computer monitor is right up my alley. My goodness. My goodness. All right. We've got a real treat for you here. We have Congressman Pat Harrigan. Trust me when I say you're going to want to stick around. You're going to want to listen to what this guy has to say.

Well, it isn't every day that you have a genuine war hero here at the Ruthless Variety Program. What we do today, he happens to be a congressman. He's got a lot of great stuff. Real rising star from what I hear. Yeah. Pat Harrigan, how are you, sir? And you've got it all wrong.

Definitely not a war hero. That was my guise. And rising star, certainly not. But it's great to be here with you guys. Well, you have people with differing opinions that we have solicited information about you. And listen, let's start a little bit about your background. You're relatively new to the scene here. Yeah.

And not everybody knows your background, Green Beret. Tell us a little bit about your sort of life and times that led you to what is now kind of a lifetime of service. Yeah, I grew up split in time between San Diego and a really small town in western Wyoming. So I spent school and sports. It was all in San Diego. And then all summer, month in the winter, I was up in Wyoming.

And kind of got the best of both worlds growing up. Big city, watched Reagan country descend into a liberal cesspool and got like my values and character out of Wyoming. Right. And, uh,

My mom was Catholic. Dad was Protestant. Didn't really grow up with really... They kind of decided on nothing. They're from that generation that those two didn't get along. And I found Christ when I was 17, Billy Graham Crusade. I actually watched it on television. Really? Yes. That's one of those kids, young age, you're like, wow.

He actually has it put together. And was just up doing a Northeast College tour with my folks and felt compelled. We were close to West Point. I was like, let's go check out West Point. And drove through those gates. Was there a family history? Military service? No, just my grandpa, World War II. Yeah. So he was D-Day, Battle of the Bulge. So you got to grow up listening to those stories, right? And he had, later in life, he had Alzheimer's. And it was always really...

hit home with me when he could never remember what he had for breakfast, but man, he could remember June 6th, 1944. Yeah, no kidding. Just a play-by-play. No kidding. That's absolutely incredible. And so that had such an impact on his life, and I never forgot that. But just driving through the gates of West Point, I felt compelled that that's where I needed to be. Yeah. I mean, look, we've had a lot of West Point folks on here. They tell a similar story.

Not everybody goes through the process you did and were involved in everything you were. It's Green Beret deployed. I mean, you saw some stuff. I imagine that tells you a lot about life, leadership, all the sort of characteristics that you're trying to bring into Washington, your decision making and everything else. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, people hit on West Point because it's a free education. You learn real quick as soon as that first bullet snaps right past your head.

it is not free. It comes at a cost and a very significant cost and goes downhill from there, honestly. But yes, I learned at a very young age. I was 23 years old, got deployed to Afghanistan, took my infantry platoon at the time because in the army, you can't go directly into special forces like you can if you're in the Navy. You can go directly into the Navy SEALs, right? You can't do that in the army. They require you have four years of experience as an officer. So I was in the infantry first, but had a very special forces mission, had a

small air access only combat outposts north of Kandahar in the Argandab Valley. So I was 23 years old, had over 300 guys underneath me, had my 40 Americans, and then was directly partnered on the base with all the Afghans. And my closest boss was 75 miles away from me. So it was really a very unique, dynamic environment. It was very kinetic environment.

because of the area that we were in was not a good area. And boy, it grows you up really quickly. Yeah, I mean, it's a big leap. Five years before, you're in high school. That's right. No, that's exactly right. And now you're responsible for everybody's lives. Yeah. And, you know, broader picture,

the strategic mission set that you've been given, you're playing into, you're playing a small part of, but as we all know with where media is and how things move on the battlefield, even the smallest, youngest, most junior level person can have strategic impacts. And so, yeah, it grows you up real quick. Yeah. Manage to figure out how to take care of your full team as best you can. I mean, tell us a little bit about the experience because you,

You know, everybody's got a little different version of their experience when they're deployed. But it seems like you've sort of taken pieces of all those various experiences and kind of like

internalize them to your life and the way that you've pursued your post service career. Yeah, I definitely had no interest in going into politics, mainly just from seeing the confluence of what politics does to military operations on the battlefield. And you didn't grow up with anybody that was particularly political or anything.

No, not at all. Honestly, my mom was a Republican. My dad was a Democrat. So I kind of saw both sides, but both, I would say, were fairly moderate. My mom, maybe a little bit more extreme. Was she the Wyoming sector of that? Opposite. Oh, really? Opposite, yes. Yeah. No, my mom, a corn-fed Illinois girl. Got it. Yeah. But it's something that...

ultimately I didn't get interested in until the fall of Afghanistan. Okay. And I knew that with the fall of Afghanistan... So many people, so many of your colleagues tell us the same story. And it's not just about that it happened. It's not really about what it meant from a service perspective or a sacrifice perspective. What really genuinely frustrated me about it is I believe they condemned the world to conflict. And when America fails to lead, the world burns. It is really...

That simple. And we just loosed the chains of darkness all around the world. And look what's happened in the last four years since it happened. Yeah, 100%. World's absolutely on fire. President Trump's doing everything he possibly can to try to turn the temperature down. But man, what a lift. Yeah. It's a huge lift. You see that from a ground level. I imagine you have a certain unique appreciation and actual...

emotions associated with everything you'd been through, the people you'd seen lost on behalf of a mission that all of a sudden was sort of given away at the end. Yeah. And is that, is that your experience? Is that kind of, is that one of the feelings that you had?

Without a doubt. I mean, I didn't sleep for three days. My wife will tell you, like, I was an absolute wreck. I just could not comprehend. And this is part of it, too, right? Like looking, a leader's responsible for everything the organization does or fails to do. That's a military truth. That is also a political truth, right? So when you look at the chief executive of our country and the leadership that we have,

You've got to understand, he came into politics on the back end of Vietnam, right? He wasn't responsible for Vietnam, but he watched what happened as we descended into the failure in Vietnam in the fall. And 50 years later, learned nothing throughout his entire time up here in Washington, D.C., and allowed the exact same thing to happen in Afghanistan. I couldn't believe it. Yeah.

I'm curious with guys like you who are obviously very accomplished, smart. You've got all the military background and incredible experiences during that. Is there a moment that you can think of while you're deployed, whether it's in combat or anything else, where you think to yourself, man, if I get out of this, I'm definitely going to dedicate myself to figuring out how to make sure that we –

improve XYZ, that we take a different look at XYZ. Because everybody's kind of got a different story that leads them to a public service political career with no political background whatsoever. And a lot of your colleagues who've had not the same but similar experiences in combat and everything else, there was kind of a moment or something that they thought, well, all right.

I'm going to have to really dig deep because if I get out of this one, I'm going to give back something and it's going to change this. Yeah, it's actually when I decided to effectively end my career. And I've not talked about this publicly. It's not something that I ran on in any way, shape or form. But now that I'm here, it's kind of like, okay, well,

Let's learn from all this, right? Back in 2015, my Special Forces team, we were stationed at Bagram, and we lost Kunduz Province, Afghanistan. It was actually the first time that we had lost a province in Afghanistan since we took it over in 2001.

And we got sent up there to put out the fire, to take it back. This was a huge embarrassment for the Obama administration. The agency did not understand that this was happening or about to happen, caught everybody totally flat-footed, and they sent 24 special operators to go clear a 300,000-person city. Wow. And we did it. And we did it. Wow.

And it ended. That had to have been a harrowing just as you're going in. You're really. It was four days of my life that I relive every single day. Oh, my gosh. And I'll tell you, like, couldn't be more proud of my guys, my team, what they did against all odds. You get a trust beyond trust at that point if you're dealing with 24 guys. 100%. Yeah. And it was amazing.

something that ultimately ended with the strike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital compound in Kunduz, Afghanistan. And that's what everybody remembers from that. They don't talk about the four straight days of fighting that happened before. They don't talk about running out of ammo twice. They don't talk about the work that had to be done in order to accomplish the mission. And they tried to really...

And they were investigating my commander for war crimes. Jeez. And so I saw the influence of politics, right? These politicians came in and said, guys, we need you to fix this. This is a national emergency. And they didn't give any input throughout the entire operation. And I asked for it every single day. I said, this is so hot. We're going to run headlong into national strategy here. I need an answer on what our rules of engagement are because the existing ones don't work.

Yeah, you're the teeth of the enemy. They're not going to ask for your paperwork. Yes. Right? And they were quiet for four straight days. And so what they did is they intentionally didn't make a decision so that they could come pin a bunch of medals on our chests or, you know, as I said in some sworn statements that ended up getting published, they could sidestep the bailiff as the gavel dropped on the judge's bench. And...

That sucked. That absolutely sucked. There was no support in the background, in the back end. I hated the Obama administration for it. It's the reason that I left the military. And I actually said, I'm not doing politics ever.

I want nothing to do with it. I mean, I had a business that I started on the side. That would be your initial reaction to all of it. Give me as far away from this shit as possible. Yes. And so to come back to your original question, was there that one moment that said, I need to go change this for the rest of my life? I will say that moment took me the opposite direction and made me go,

leave the military and like find a hole and just work on my business, work on my family and, and, you know, basically just push the government off as far as I possibly could away from my life. Yeah. And. Cause it probably reminded you of the worst four days you ever had. Yes. Government in and of itself. Yes. And that all stopped. Yeah.

the day Afghanistan fell. And I came completely right back into it the other way because I just realized, like, I got two little girls at this point. Their names are Reagan and McKinley, really solid Republican names. Great. Really thoughtful names. So everybody out there, too, our dog is named Truman, so we name our dogs after Democrats and our kids after Republicans. That's sad. It's kind of a fun thing my wife and I have. That's fantastic. A little conservative bona fides there, right? Innately a

And this will happen before. So look at the dogs. Yeah, that's right. I love it. That's great. But, you know, we just realized, like, look, my wife and I stared at each other. We're like, our kids are not going to have the same opportunities in their lives that we had in ours. If we actually don't go do something about this and get these failed leaders who have led us down the road to failed outcomes in this country and across the world out of Washington, D.C., we've got to get them gone.

Ben, I'm really glad you decided to do it because the perspective that you have is something that is not like shared by the establishment in Washington, D.C. And until people like you step in and show leadership and actually change the shape of Washington, D.C., nothing's ever going to change. And so like very grateful that you decided to do it. You talked about the global reaction to the fall of Afghanistan. I mean, obviously your personal reaction, but

you know that our international adversaries are trying to take advantage of us sometimes in very apparent ways, sometimes in behind-the-scenes ways that nobody really notices until somebody like you, Ray,

raises the flag. And one of the things that I understand you're working on is this issue where a Chinese umbrella company is actually taking a big stake in GNC, where it's a place that everybody is getting their supplements and getting their vitamins. This was all news until you sort of brought it up to us. We didn't

We all grew up with GNC in every... Yeah, it was an American company. Right, it was an American company. Yeah, and nobody knew that all these GNC locations on military bases were controlled by the Chinese, and they are also accessing the data and collecting it for their own use. Well, or have the ability to, right? And that's the concern that we have, and that's what we wanted to investigate, because at the end of the day...

You've got to understand, GNC was a wholly owned American company. Until 2018, they sold a 40% stake to a firm called Harbin Pharmaceuticals. They're wholly owned by the Chinese Communist Party. And then GNC actually went bankrupt in 2020. And Harbin bought the remaining 60% out of the bankruptcy process. So it took total control, 100% ownership of GNC.

And that's how GNC operates all over the country, right? But it operates 83 locations on our military installations across the country. But that's how you had a wholly owned American company become a company wholly owned by the Chinese Communist Party.

operate 83 different retail locations inside the bases, right? So everybody up here in DC, I think we all know has been very concerned with trying to figure out how do we curtail the influence of China and other adversarial nations from buying land around our military bases while simultaneously everybody is focused on that. Yeah. It's so funny. We're missing. They're on the base. They're actually on the base.

Huh. And we got to stop that first, obviously. I mean, it's wild. It's kind of the next iteration of taking care of your guys. I mean, you come into contact with this. You understand that this has happened. Tell us where this is leading. I know you're investigating all of this. Look, I think you got to look at the bigger picture strategically. Right. We've been we've never been as weak as we are right now for such a long period of time since long before World War Two.

And so the world is changing. Our adversaries know that they can fight us because we've been so weak for so long. I like to say, look, if you want to fight, be weak. We've been weak for a long, long time. And basically broadcasting the world. 100%. And we've got to understand that our adversaries are taking advantage of this, particularly China. China is the most capable.

and significant adversary that we have ever had in this nation's history. And far surpasses any of the capabilities that we saw in World War I, World War II with our adversaries. And their ability, their desire...

to have a pernicious impact on every single piece of our societal fabric cannot be understated. And when you look at how many trillions of dollars worth of intellectual property they have stolen from this country, and whether it's from our universities, our research universities, there's a difference there, whether it's from our national laboratories, whether it's just commercial companies,

It's straight theft. Industry theft, right? Or it's direct military theft, right? From hacking or other types of theft. I mean, we've got to understand this is trillions upon trillions upon trillions of dollars. And they are then using it to copy our technologies and use it against us. That doesn't work. And so we have to isolate our greatest adversary first.

Meanwhile, understanding that we're in a paradigm of we're trading with them, we're going to continue trading them with them. I mean, we basically did full and open trade with Nazi Germany until 1943, a couple of years after the war started, right? People don't realize that, that we can have a positive relationship while having a very negative relationship with an adversary.

In real time and that's where we are with China. I'm just trying to get people to understand that because it's complex It's extremely everybody acts like a parallel economy is just sort of the goal. It can't be no it's not Realistic that's right. What is realistic is understanding what it is. They're trying to do in the broad scheme of things Yes, and then taking action Domestically right to ensure that you're protecting yourself right and in combination with that right like we don't want to fight wars We don't need to be fighting

So the best way to win this future conflict is to actually not fight it. It's to properly deter it. And the way you do that is through strength. And we have to understand, like, I'm trying to set and educate my colleagues here in Congress that we need to set the conditions for us to properly deter that conflict. That doesn't happen unless we start winning the economics of conflict. If you look back all the way to World War II, right, we're super proud of our military. Everything that we stand for, we have great pride in all of these incredible men

technologically advanced assets that we have. We also have to step back and realize we have not won a conflict since World War II except for Desert Storm. And we have to ask the question, why? That...

fit into this tiny little box that the enemy situation perfectly fit the type of military that we have decided to build and the industrial base that we've decided to invest in. But outside of that perfect little box, we have to realize we've become incredibly good at producing the high-cost problems to our enemy's low-cost solutions. And we're losing the economics of the war. So if it goes beyond...

a two-week period of time, we're fundamentally going to lose because we're going to be underwater on the economics and our adversaries can endure us. To me, that's one of the most critical things. The story you told earlier of your context of... Provides so much context. I've initially had such disdain for politics, given your experience. But now we're so fortunate that we're having young folks like yourself who served in these conflicts, who've seen what it's like now being able to offer input in this process. I mean, recently in the news, we have like...

Boeing is billions over budget, way late on delivering Air Force One. But that is like a problem you've tried. You're tackling when it comes to spending in the military, like you just described, like

spending thousands of dollars to shoot down a $10 drone from China just bankrupts the US. In two weeks, if we got into a hot war with China, we'd be out of missiles before they're out of weaponry. Yeah, we got stuff that does a lot of cool things, but when it's unnecessary for the problem that we face, right? And that's my point in Ukraine, right? Like this town in our media likes to cast a narrative that

People either want to be totally isolationist, they want to come up with a new version of the Monroe Doctrine and completely pull back from world affairs, or you have a moral obligation to support the

Ukraine in their defense against Russian aggression, and we should continue to write them a blank check, right? Those are kind of your two options that people put you in. And my point is, both of those are completely irrelevant if we're shooting million-dollar missiles at $50,000 drones. Because the incredible financial takedown that Ronald Reagan orchestrated against the Soviet Union is actively being orchestrated against us by a combination of Putin and Xi, and we don't even

realize we're the frog that's getting boiled. That is so true. Can I ask you just because, first of all, what you just said made total sense. People like you have one of two reactions when they get here and they start having these conversations. They realize that one, there's an undereducation problem amongst their colleagues and either frustrates them beyond belief and gets into a point where they're like, well, I mean, what am I doing here? Like this is, I'm just yelling at the moon basically. Yeah.

Or it sort of excites them about the opportunity to actually be able to have real change. It seems like you fit into that latter category where you're just not going to stop talking about these things until you get everybody understanding basically what your experience and your view of this is and how it can be more practically executed.

Yeah, I'm not going to stop until we win. Yeah. Right? Like, I'm taking this time away from my family, and I've got a picture on my phone. Yeah. It's got my wife and my two girls. Yeah. And I look at it every day, and I say...

is what I'm doing worth being away from those three girls? And to the extent that the answer is still yes, I'll continue to be here moving towards what we need to actually accomplish to set the conditions for the next generation of Americans to be successful and for the free world to be able to exist. And we are very far from that right now. But I'm so hopeful that

Because we have all the right ingredients to be successful if we actually just do a little bit of critical thinking. Yeah, that was kind of my last question is your level of optimism. Because I do. I mean, look, we all believe still the greatest nation on earth and it's not even close. Yeah.

still have the capability of outperforming the rest of the world in every cylinder that we're talking about economically, militarily, and everything else. It's just a matter of sort of reorganizing and getting to a point where we're fighting today's battle rather than 60, 70 years ago. You still have optimism we can get there in our lifetimes. I have incredible optimism. And look, I think what's at stake is how much pain we're going to go through on the arc of getting to where we're destined to be. Yeah.

A lot of battles on that. There's a lot of battles there. And we can either have a little bit of pain because we get smart and we start making the right decisions, which President Trump is trying to do around the world, or we can really make it painful on ourselves by continuing to do the things that we've always done the way that we've always done them. Can I ask, this is a current, I mean, it just happened yesterday in regards to Syria, and I know you've had some experience there. President Trump in Saudi Arabia talking about

taking sanctions off Syria, hoping that they will become part of this larger effort for good, where you've got common purpose in a region against players like Iran funding Hezbollah and Hamas. Do you think that's possible? Do you think that's the right...

move here. Clearly, it was well regarded in the Arab community and it signed a gesture of goodwill, if you will, sort of repairing the damage the Biden administration did, picking up where we left off with the Abraham Accords and moving to this, you know, hopefully larger picture with peace and prosperity and sort of a shared purpose.

Is that the right path from your perspective? Yes, I think President Trump made the right decision. And I think, like Ronald Reagan said, we've got to trust but verify. We can't be the world's police. We cannot be everywhere losing our treasure to things and trying to accomplish objectives that are fundamentally not achievable if we actually sit back and think about them. Because I can't imagine. I mean, for a guy like you to actually have boots on the ground in this situation, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things. So I've never been to Syria. Yeah.

But my guys have. Yeah. And certainly everybody that was involved in my former employer. Yes, those guys have been rooting around there for a long time. I stay in contact with them. But yeah, we have a fresh opportunity. And I think that we have to allow enough leash to

for good things to potentially happen, for the flowers to bloom a little bit. But we've got to keep an eye on it, right? Because, and look, this is across the Middle East. Like our biggest concern, our biggest strategic objective there is to make sure that whoever's in power

Whatever people are running around there, they are not training and exporting terrorism that will ultimately affect us on our shores. That's our focus. And as long as we can set the conditions for that to happen, our strategic objectives are met. Yeah. That makes so much sense. It really does. Incidentally, how much shit do your guys give you? You're like a congressman now.

I can only imagine what the text chain looks like. I know what my buddies in high school would be like, look at Mr. Big Time. Ties and suits. More than I'd like to admit. And I have not yet given them a fantastic opportunity to make a mistake where they can really highlight it and make fun of it. Where I've made it significant, like falling asleep in committee or something like that. I haven't done that yet.

I'm going to try to keep my nose clean. I'm working hard to do that. It's almost why you're doing it. Now, if I didn't have as good of a team as I have, I think I probably would have already made those mistakes. No, it's true. You always think we've talked about this being involved in politics and whatnot. The high profile mistakes and things you're like, I don't know. My buddies can't see that.

I can't have him bust my balls. That's right. That's great. Well, listen, you are a terrific member of Congress. I'm so happy that you've decided to do this. Can I do three quick personal questions for you? Go for it. These are just like off the cup. Yeah. Last meal on Earth, if you could plan it, what would it be? Quesadilla.

That's it? Yeah. Just straight up K-Tier? Great answer. Super simple. Just cheese and a tortilla. That's it. That's awesome. Fantastic answer. This guy's green beret through and through. It's unbelievable. He's like, I don't know, maybe a piece of gum afterwards? Let's get weird.

All right. So with the benefit of retrospect, now that you've lived this incredible life of service and you're now a congressman and all this, if you go back in time with the benefit of all of that and choose a different path.

Like, what would you choose? I mean, if there was something... Like, Ted Cruz, for example. Yeah. He tells us he wants to be an NBA power forward. That is not an achievable goal. Nor was it ever an achievable goal for Ted Cruz, but that was his answer. So it doesn't have to be practical. Like, if you could be one thing, what would it be? Exactly what I did. Yeah. No kidding. Like, when I...

Found my faith. You stop living for you and you start living for a much higher purpose. And anything after that, like that one mission that we talked about, right? Yeah. I've had several of those across my time in service. And I shouldn't be here.

And every day that I've gotten since then is a total bonus. I mean, my kids, my companies, the people that I've gotten to meet and work with, the folks that I work with today. Honestly, I mean, everybody knows staffers are super young. Like I call them young kids, even though I'm pretty young too. I'm 37. But just the ability to have an impact on them and watch them grow and watch them start making really great decisions in their lives, let alone functional ones that help the office. It's all just gravy. Yeah.

It's totally gravy. That's really well said. All right, so our last question is a little esoteric, so you've got to bear with me for a minute. Our view is that every successful person on the planet is driven by one of two things.

And this is not a political answer. You just kind of got to like, there is no right. It's a 50-50 split. Sure. It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it doesn't mean that the agony of defeat people are all focused on the negative side of the thing and the thrill of victory people are. It could be motivational. Yeah. I think the Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is the prototypical agony of defeat. Yeah. Right? I mean, he like maybe the most successful professional sports athlete of all time, but

but every day he found a reason to find somebody who slighted and doubted that he could actually do it, and that's what got him up. That's what made him work a little bit harder. On the other side, if you're taking with the sports thing, Phil Mickelson is a perfect thrill of victory guy where he's like, I've hit a two iron 280 over water before. I think I'd probably do that again. He's like, yeah, I can do it. And you're like, that's a really dumb play. But he's like, well...

I've done it before. I could probably do it again. You know what I mean? So it's a mentality that you take as you approach your life and the challenges before you. Where do you think you find yourself on that spectrum? I don't think I've ever been driven by fear, so I'd have to say it's the Thrill of Victory. It's a 50-50 split. I swear to God. Some of the people, you know, without meeting Pat, you came in here, I would have been like, he's going to be an agony guy.

And then you listen to him talk for like 15 minutes and you're like, no, he's definitely a thrill guy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Douglas MacArthur said there is no substitute for victory. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of truth in life to that. It's true. Although I think Douglas MacArthur, I think he was an agony guy.

You're probably right. You're actually probably right. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure. Keep us updated on what you're working on. It's really important stuff. Definitely. Thank you guys. Thanks, Ben. Yeah, great to be with you all. Totally.

Man, he is so great. And the thing that everybody didn't get to hear was the back and forth between him and our own American hero, Lee Wolf. Oh, yeah. Who was in Afghanistan and they were shaking hands and talking about what happened over there. And Lee said, Semper Fi, buddy, because, you know, Lee is a Marine Corps man. And...

Harrigan was like, oh, I didn't know. I'll bring crayons next time. So it's just like ball buster. It was a great moment that I figured everybody needed. You do need to know that because, look, this guy, you look at him, he sits here, he emotionally recounts his stuff. And like, you know, if you're cynical people like we are, imagine many of you are. You're like, this seems a little perfect.

Here's this big, handsome guy with an incredible record of service, like an absolute hero, unquestionably, who's in Congress. Like, what else do we got here? But then you find out he's a ball buster to boot. He's a regular dude. Yeah. Look out. Yeah.

North Carolina is sending our best. I mean, this guy, keep an eye on him. He's going to be a star. You got something to brag about. No question. Remember our question today. It was involving the Tapper Awards, our first and most significant award ceremony here on the Ruthless Variety Program, where you, the listener, get to vote on one of four absolutely qualified nominees, the likes of which...

I'm not sure we're ever able to replicate, but we're going to try our very best. You like and subscribe. Put your thing in there. We'll categorize them, get them all back to us. And on Tuesday, we will announce the winner.

With all that, fellas, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode, gentlemen. Thank you so much, Congressman Pat Harrigan. And thank you so much to the listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube, hit that subscribe button. It's more fun in video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line and own the libs. We'll see you Tuesday. Stay ruthless.