Democrats’ Money Problem: The Fall Of ActBlue
01:27:03 Share

The fall of Act Blue would send shockwaves through politics. Yes, it really does feel like rats leaving a sinking ship. When you've got seven senior people at the same time leaving, I don't know, man. It feels like when there's smoke, there's fire. Especially because Donald Trump is president again. And when do Democrats raise the most small dollar fundraising? That's a really good point. When Donald Trump is there. That is the...

With Donald Trump back in office, one of his biggest adversaries, top Democrat Dick Durbin of Chicago, is leading the charge to derail President Trump's agenda at every turn.

And now Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Today, Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, all with equal strong security. But Senator Durbin's plan will result in less competition and less security. That means more risk for your credit and your identity.

Tell Republican senators stop Dick Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Learn more at www.guardyourcard.com. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Just a catch of strays over here. You're in for a hell of a show. Keep the faith. Hold the line and own the libs. It's time for our main...

A very good Tuesday to all of you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial. As always, a full casting crew here.

Fellas, it's good to see you. It's a great day. When I'm rolling up to the studio today, they're like dismantling BLM Plaza with Jackhammer. Did you notice this? I was like, man, we are winning. Did you notice that? I certainly did. We had talked about this like, I don't know, six, eight months ago about how they had repainted that thing every quarter for the last four years. Yeah. I mean, the untold amount of taxpayer expense that went into just repainting it. And then all of a sudden.

It's getting jackhammered out of the ground, and there's all kinds of protesters around, all like Chardonnay moms, by the way. Yeah. I told the driver, I was like, slow down. I want to enjoy this. But did you guys see that? I did see it, and I saw they were pulling the bollards up, which-

eliminated an entire lane of traffic. I mean, 16th Street, which is what it used to be, was a place where everybody would turn. It's not like it was an unused road. No, it's like a major thoroughfare in the middle of the city. And then all of a sudden it was basically inaccessible. Yeah. Imagine how the old Hay-Adams has to feel about it. They're like right in the corner of, what is it, H and 16th. And their corner was entirely...

eliminated, basically, by the BLM plaza. Yeah, but if they complained, they'd probably get firebombed like the church across the street. Remember that? And then all the journalists were like, well, they actually tried to burn the annex between the...

Oh, it was the annex that was the burning. Yeah. And so then it wasn't really terrorism. And then the church went and put a BLM sign to be like, please don't fire bomb us anymore. It's like, OK. The protection racket. Exactly. It was actually Mariel Bowser, the mayor of D.C., who made the ultimate decision to remove the street and change it into something else. And she blamed it on the White House.

My guess is she had so many complaints from people who were like, wait a minute, we actually need to use that street. So maybe just remove some of the bollards. The story I heard is Trump told her that she needs to actually start fighting crime in D.C. or else they're cut off from federal funding. Home rule. And she was like, well, damn, I don't want to be out of a job. Yeah, he's going to home rule that thing. And what that means is basically...

Look, the District of Columbia was never meant to be a government in and of itself. It was never meant to be a state, as Democrats had advertised, the only reason of which would be that they would get two United States senators. You've heard a lot of discussion about that. But it was all political no matter what. I mean, since the inception...

of this country, the District of Columbia was the federal government. It was made to be that. For a reason. Yeah. So that that wouldn't be more important than every other state. Exactly. And then all of a sudden they started expanding, you know, all kinds of...

Home ownership. It just became a dump. And then you had the Miriam Berry days where it was like basically the drug and murder capital of the world. And then they reined it back in. It was actually kind of good for a few years. And then over the last...

Well, certainly during the Trump years, it's like Navy Yard became this like thriving community where all these conservatives are moving in. And then it turned into like the carjacking capital of the world when Biden becomes president. Yeah. I mean, it was basically the George Floyd inception, the people not going back to work, the city sort of emptying out all the things that the Trump administration is talking about. Federal workers not going to work and whatever. Yeah.

and then now she takes a look at it and she's like, look, I got better, bigger fights to, to pick here. And,

In terms of like my dealing with the Trump administration. Well, you shouldn't be picking a fight. You should be thanking Donald Trump. I don't know if you guys noticed, but like I think they reported that in February, Metro, which is like D.C.'s version of a subway system, had its like highest fare gates in five years because of Donald Trump and Doge and this administration forcing these federal workers to show up for work. Well, they can't say that.

They certainly can't say that, but it is what it is. We've got a great show for you today. We're going to talk a little bit about something that we've discussed on this program for, I don't know, a year and a half probably, which is ActBlue. It was, I would say, a seminal moment when the New York Times, which had reported an awful lot about the small dollar political fundraising institution that had become ActBlue,

in the United States of America, but only exclusively on Republicans and how they raised small dollars, all of a sudden turned the table, Kira, in the last couple of months and some very good reporting about Act Blue and some problems that they have. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's troubling. It could happen to worse people. I am heartbroken. It's troubling. So we're going to pick up on where we left off. For those of you OG listeners of the program, you'll understand exactly what it is that we start, but we're going to reset the dial and give you a full lay of the land on that. We also have some exclusive reporting here on the Variety program about the Panama Canal, how that whole deal got done. We've got sources, people who talk to us. They discuss these things.

and some things that you haven't read about in the newspapers. We're going to have all of that. And then we've got a great guest, Andy Boer.

Great line-up. Yeah, he's a considerable congressman from the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, but he also is running for United States Senate, and we're going to talk to him about a whole bunch of things. Guy likes bourbon and horses, and yeah, we like that too. Yeah. So he's welcome here on the Variety. And then we have Variety on the Variety program, which is... Today's Variety is excellent. I could not be more thrilled.

Chevron's latest deep water development, Anchor, is powered by innovation. This breakthrough technology helps enable us to safely produce oil and natural gas at greater pressures, setting a new industry benchmark.

Anchor is pivotal in our goal to produce 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the Gulf of America, home to some of our lowest carbon intensity producing assets. That's energy in progress. Visit Chevron.com slash anchor to learn more. Let's start off with the ActBlue piece, shall we, fellas? Yeah, yes, please. All right, so there's a New York Times piece entitled ActBlue, the Democratic Fundraising Powerhouse Faces Internal Chaos.

This is where this thing starts. At least seven senior officials have left the group, setting off deep concerns about its future as it confronts scrutiny from congressional Republicans. Well, it should face scrutiny from everyone, but only when Republicans are in charge does anybody actually pay attention to these things. ActBlue, the online fundraising organization that powers Democratic candidates, has plunged into turmoil, the New York Times says.

With at least seven senior officials resigning last month and a remaining lawyer suggesting he faced internal retaliation. The departures from Act Blue, which helped raise money for Democrats running for office at all levels of government, come as the group is under investigation by congressional Republicans. They had advanced legislation that some Democrats warn could be used to debilitate what is the party's leading fundraising operation.

Last graph that I'll cover here, and then we'll throw it open. The exodus has set off deep concerns about ActBlue's future. Last week, two unions representing the group's workers sent a blistering letter, trying to get out from underneath this, obviously, to ActBlue's board of directors that listed seven officials who had left. The letter described in a quote-unquote alarming pattern.

of departures that was, quote, eroding our confidence in the stability of the organization. Now, let me just set the table at some level. So what ActBlue is, for those of you who are not, you don't do this for a living or whatever, it's the payment processor in the back end of all digital platforms.

It doesn't control the advertising or the solicitations that people respond to, whether they're text messages or Google ads or Facebook ads or whatever. It's the processor. When you click on whatever you intend to donate and then you go to the donation, it's the thing that rings the till for you, right? The analog to this is WinRed on the Republican side.

And Democrats somewhere along the way over the last two years decided to empower left wing attorneys general like Keith Ellison, for example, to try to raise questions about WinRed and how they have done business with all kinds of different things, filed a bunch of lawsuits and did whatever. And all that did. And then the New York Times dutifully write it up and everything like the Republicans are the ones that are.

the scandal yeah right yeah but all it did really is highlight the problem i mean that's it's it's so common it's like what democrats always do where they project where they're like we don't want anyone to look at us so let's accuse the other side of it and you're right all it did was be like okay so what's that blue up to because act blue is roughly like five or six x what win red ever was and part of the reason for that is that it's not just the candidates it's

And WinRed does this too, but it's not just the candidates that are on ActBlue. It's every single 501c4 nonprofit deal that raises money for every single left-wing entity that you can imagine. And then they get into the 501c6 game, which is those unions that you saw here. So literally everything that is left of center. Right.

is on ActBlue. And they had a 10-year head start over Republicans when Republicans started WinRed and basically modeled the technology off of a lot of things that ActBlue was doing. Because, I mean, honestly, it's smart. It's like you create this network effect where you get everybody on the same platform and a rising tide lifts all boats. You know, the unions are raising money on

on it. The nonprofits are and the political campaigns can come in and benefit from the work that has been aggregating over years from all these various left-wing groups. Yeah. But you put everybody who follows these Senate races closely, always wondered in 2020 and 2022 and 2024, how is it that these Democrat senators who nobody has ever heard of had these incredible quarterly results?

fundraising halls. It just like, I mean, you look at the greatest fundraisers over 2016, 2014, 2016, 2018 on both sides and,

And then all of a sudden in 2020, 2022, 2024, Democrat Senate candidates were raising outrageous sums of money. And the conclusion is not that, oh, they're saying something so wonderful that everybody is like, yes, I need to be on board with that. Because obviously President Trump blew the doors off of their $1.5 billion fundraising for Kamala Harris. So, yeah.

There's something going on in Democrat fundraising. Everybody's been talking about it for you. Everybody in the industry has been talking about it for years. Something weird has happened. Just to level set for a minute, I mean, even Senate races, which are the most expensive other than a presidential race, where Republicans have won.

The fundraising discrepancy on this low dollar, hard dollar, which is the most valuable in all of politics, has been significant. It's like a four to one, five to one. You look at somebody like Jon Tester, for example, absolutely blew out of the water what any Republicans could do in terms of their own low dollar digital advantage. And they still get beat by a mile, but it –

It makes things more interesting when you have these tens of millions of dollars of advantage in all of these races. And they've had this year over year over year. And there had been a lot of reporting done by independent media folks over the last couple of years where there's –

Yeah, there's a donor who had no idea that they had contributed. There are old people who were on reoccurring... Yeah, you get these interviews with, like, 90-year-old people who some reporter will show up to their house and be like, did you make, like, 140 donations to Jon Tester? And they're like, no, no.

Never did that. Well, Act Blue's got a record of all these transactions of you donating. Right. And what Democrats would have you to believe is that, oh, Jon Tester supports men playing women's sports. And it just happened. That's very popular. People want that. So therefore, they're donating on a small dollar basis to let men play women's sports. And Jon Tester is their hero. And everybody is like, wait a minute. I'm not so sure that's as popular as you're leading us to believe.

Yeah. And so, look, all of this smoke has been arising. And I don't know whether or not there is fire here. I mean, we're talking about billions of dollars being processed on the Democratic side. Certainly suspicious that there is such a significant advantage by Democrats forever. And then when you hear stories about people who didn't know that they donated money.

actually donating creates something, well, it's worth looking into. So congressional Republicans have done that.

And according to The New York Times, in recent weeks, congressional Republicans have demanded answers from ActBlue about its security and fraud prevention measures, as well as how the group prevents certain foreign donors from illegally contributing to candidates. The letter from ActBlue unions. Now, this is the people who are actually they have accounts there and they have written in saying they warned that the group was under, quote unquote, fraud.

increased scrutiny and that the target of bad faith political attacks at the hands of ill-attentioned operators. So they're trying to have it both ways here. They want to send a strongly worded letter saying we would never, under any circumstances, endorse any sort of nefarious behavior. But the fact that anybody else has raised it, that's certainly...

Bad faith. They're like, these are bad faith attacks. Unrelated. Seven board members have left. So it's a huge development. It is. I want people to understand, you know, if you don't work in politics, you might not get it. I mean, political campaigns these days are...

funded 70%, 80% by these small dollar donations when you're looking at a statewide race like a Senate campaign. So, like, the fall of Act Blue would send shockwaves through politics. Yes. Yeah. I mean, to me, it really does feel like rats leaving a sinking ship. When you've got seven senior people at the same time leaving, I don't know, man. It feels like when there's smoke, there's fire. Especially because Donald Trump is president again. And when do Democrats raise the most small dollar donations?

That's a really good point. When Donald Trump is there. This is a good point. Because like, you know, politics, our politics today, like it or not, is all negative mobilization. It's like what the other guy said. I mean, some of the biggest fundraisers in Senate campaigns, think about Amy McGrath. Who was she running against? Mitch McConnell.

Right. What's his name? Jamie Harrison. Who was he running against? Lindsey Graham. Beto running against Ted Cruz. Right. Beto O'Rourke. I mean, what it is is like it's not that they're so great. It's that people don't like Democrats don't like their opponent. And it's like so the idea that people at Act Blue who should just be seeing dollar signs with Donald Trump in the Oval are deciding to hit the exits. Right. Tells you a lot. It does tell you a lot. But somebody decided to look into it.

And here's the other thing. Elon is now on this. And he raised this, we're going to get into Elon's stuff and all of that, but we have to tease one merch piece, fellas. So excited about this. Before we get into this, we have talked for the last couple of weeks about how we have, it's golf season. It's now, the weather's getting nice. People are stretching out, they're ready to go and golfing. We got something brand new for folks.

Can we pop this up? Can we pop up graphic two? What you're looking at is the very first Ruthless Variety Program golf gear entitled Gaza Riviera. Yeah. It is what I imagine...

the president donald trump had in mind when he decided we're going to just rejuvenate this area a little bit it's the most beautiful place in the world so gaza riviera is what we have in mind i love the subheader casino golf spa that's just like mr president if you're listening we are trying to manifest this make it happen

If I see Donald Trump on a golf course and he's got some of this stuff, I'll just quit. That'll be the highlight of my life. It's so good. So you remember, go to ruthlesspodcast.com. You can get it in the header of where you're listening to this here at the YouTube channel.

on the variety program, but like and subscribe while you're there. But that, that's, this is a nice high end piece of material. They're a premium because you want to show up with your best. Yeah. If you're on the driving range wearing a Gaza Riviera, your boys are going to love it. It's a conversation piece. I mean, your boys are going to love it.

And as soon as we finish recording here, Michael Duncan is going back to the sewing machine. Yeah. And he is going to put as many of these together as he possibly can so that everybody who wants one can have it. Yeah, I'm going to rub some tiger balm on my knuckles, get rid of that carpal tunnel, and then be right back at it. I love it. So when we come back, we're going to get to Elon. What he had to say about ActBlue. How is that relevant to this larger conversation right after this?

American investment, more jobs, higher wages. It was President Trump's promise when he championed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and American businesses delivered.

Investing in U.S. manufacturing and equipment, increasing wages for American workers, and creating over half a million new jobs. That's why he's fighting to do it again for families, workers, and businesses. Tell Congress to extend and strengthen President Trump's tax reform. Paid for by the Business Roundtable. Learn more at BRT.org.

Before we get into the Elon stuff, I just browsed through the Gaza Riviera stuff. I'm buying it all. Yeah. I'm buying it all. We have a golf trip coming up here in the next few weeks. I...

I'm going to buy this for you guys. I think it's essential. You're paying full price. I know. No discount. I know it. I don't want a discount. I want to make sure that I get exactly. I don't want to stitch out of place. I want the Michael Duncan threaded. That's right. Like he would do for all of our listeners. God, he's great stuff. All right. So anyway, Elon weighs into this deal, right?

about ActBlue. And he claims that George Soros, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman are funding the protests against Tesla. Can we put up graphic one, please?

All right. So what you're looking at in graphic one is a fire, essentially. And this is one of what I understand is several different attacks against Tesla over the last few weeks. You'll noted that the Tesla stock has taken a bit of a plunge because lefties see an attack against Tesla.

Elon Musk's signature industry of Tesla is like their best way of just sort of protesting this situation, which is so classic. So classic, right? You can on one hand accuse a man...

who decided to volunteer to go in to try to make government more efficient as somebody who's profiteering off of it. On the other hand, watch his company suffer as a complete result of that and then not see the disconnect between the two. Yeah, and when most people are upset about something with their government, they write a letter to their congressman. They write a letter to the editor of their newspaper. When the left is mad, they –

start fires on public infrastructure. We just saw this picture. If you could put that picture back up,

I mean, imagine what goes through your head when you're like, okay, I'm going to take gasoline and I am going to light a fire on all of these electric charging stations. That's how you see the planet. Yeah, right. I thought that these people thought that the world was going to end. Well, only when there's Democrats producing the electric vehicle. You know. Yeah.

Only if Stacey Abrams gets a cut. That's it. Then it matters. That's right. That's how you save the climate. That's exactly right. Unless it's entirely wired, we're not interested in your clean energy.

Well, anyway, the protests at dealerships and other locations have occurred even at some tech Tesla vehicles and charging stations that have been damaged, destroyed. And it's not clear if the protests and vandalisms are linked, but there is some, again, more smoke.

More smoke. To suggest, and this is according to Fox News, that investigation has found that five ActBlue-funded groups responsible for the protests, troublemakers. Disruption Project, Rise and Resist, Indivisible Project, and Democratic Socialists of America, is what Elon wrote. All of these operations are, in fact, on ActBlue. Yeah.

And I blew. I'm shocked. So here's the thing. I blew getting money to the Democrat Socialist America. But for you OGs, you've been following as we've discussed this. It is not...

Like Republicans have, where we have a singular processor where you know your money is going where it should be. Democrats over the last 10 years have expanded this out to literally all of these 501c4s that are left-wing billionaires, including Hans Borg-Weiss, who is a foreign national contributing to Democratic nonprofits. They're all...

on Act Blue. Hell, even Pod Save for the California fires ran it through Act Blue. So Act Blue gets a piece of the action when it's supposed to go to help people who've gone through this horrible, horrible situation. Ingesting the data that good, well-intentioned people would want to have to provide philanthropy in some ways. It's given off the top two.

Well, okay, allegedly. We don't actually know that. Well, it takes a percentage of every contribution. Well, ActBlue does as the payment processor. But that's sort of besides the point. But the thing is, it's the data. They want all the data there on ActBlue.

blue so then they can bombard you for emails from the DNC and, you know, raise money to fight Trump. But the thing is, the type of schemes that are being discussed here online are schemes that would never cross a Republican's mind because they know that the media is going to pin them to the wall. That's a good point. And Democrats have...

carte blanche. They are never held accountable for anything that they do. And when they know that they can get away with absolutely anything and the media is not only not going to question them, they are going to praise them. Until this New York Times story that you opened the show with, Josh,

they had carte blanche. Any scheme that they could come up with, whether it's Stacey Abrams giving away the stoves, whether it's these, like, anarchy groups who are starting fires to public infrastructure, they know that they can get away with it because nobody's ever going to call them to the carpet. Nobody's going to say anything. And here's the thing. This has been going on for a long time, all of this. Like, it never really occurred to anybody before

Whose job is the political beat to ask questions about why Democrats raise roughly five times what Republicans do, despite the fact that even when they win elections, it's not by an eyelash? Like, is it just cultural that Republicans are just not interested in donating to politics? I doubt it.

And part of that is the ecosystem that they've built with all of these nonprofits, foreign money, which we've come to understand, a lot of different things that go into raising money for these sort of niche concerns. The one that always caught my eye was Mark Kelly when they became very involved after the assassination attempt of Gabby Giffords, his wife. Right.

in the anti-gun community. And they partnered with Newtown Families and everything else. Bunch of Bloomberg operations, but then a bunch of big funded anti-second amendment type operations. And he built lists, huge lists. And all of a sudden he announces he's running for Senate. Now, I don't know if you've seen Mark Kelly on television. This is not Barack Obama.

This guy is not Ronald Reagan. I mean, this is one of the most boring vanilla individuals, this side of Chris Murphy.

I mean, he is not great by any stretch of the imagination. But in quarter one, all of a sudden he's raising tens of millions of dollars. Out of nowhere. Like people just happenstance, just organically just dropped by and saw that there's an important Senate race that's going on. Oh, he may be worthy of my support. No. No.

He spent years building this anti-Second Amendment coalition on a nonprofit basis through ActBlue doing list-sharing agreements that the second that he decided to run for Senate capitalized upon that. And what that means to all of you is there's a bunch of rules that apply to C4s.

One, it's nondisclosed. Two, as we've come to find out, there are people like Hans Borg Wyss and George Soros and others that are involved in it. And then three, if you have like, you know, a lockdown list exchange agreement, you've basically built on the back of what is a cause to try to eliminate the Second Amendment, a political list that they used quarter after quarter to try to get some guy who's not that impressive out.

to look like a political juggernaut. I mean, think about that. It's a nonprofit group who builds this list of donors, and then it just gets handed over to a Democrat running for office. Well, and it's not just that. Hans-Jörg Weiss also was funding state ballot initiatives in 2024 to pass pro-abortion laws and to try to drive up

Democratic turnout in swing states in 2024. He's a Swiss national. He doesn't even live in the country. He's a Swiss citizen. And, you know, the Department of Dirty Tricks for the Democrats is long and deep. And I think you did a great job, Josh, talking about some examples of that. Reid Hoffman...

You know, Elon mentioned him in this as well. It shouldn't be forgotten that back in, I think it was 2017, the special election in Alabama between Roy Moore and Doug Jones, Reid Hoffman funded a PAC that bought Russian troll accounts on Twitter. So he was colluding with the Russians. Literally. Actually. It was a false flag operation. What the PAC did is bought Russian troll accounts to tweet Russians.

pro-Roy Moore stuff and then pitch to the media that Roy Moore is a Russian asset, just like Donald Trump. Yeah, because it's the narrative. That was Terry McGowan, who runs Pachronim and that whole left-wing dark money operation. I mean, these people are the worst. They are. They're the worst people. Just the worst. Just completely fraudulent people. Just liars. And they lie on purpose and they get away with it. And they have no shame. Just back in politics, doing it all over again. Yeah, so we...

Listen, we brought this up a year and a half ago because we thought this was something worth keeping an eye on. It's now something the mainstream media is interested in. You followed along along the way. Our listeners knew way ahead of everybody else. Like, I don't know where this thing ends. I truly don't. But...

Clearly, you wouldn't just have all your senior staff quit if there's nothing. And like Duncan said, during what should be a great fundraising cycle for Dunn. Yeah, you really should. So one of the things that they were accused of is straw donors. Meaning...

You put the name of somebody who's been a regular contributor. You fund it elsewhere. It's disclosed as the regular contributor, although they didn't fund it. Somebody else did. Right. So it's all straw donor, what they call a straw donor scheme. I don't know that.

And I don't have any proof of that. There's people been reporting throughout the last six months that would suggest that maybe somewhere, some way this could have happened. But that's our question of the day to you. If you had to donate to ActBlue.

What's your straw donor name? So good. Because I grew up with a guy whose dad was named Harry P. Ness. Are you kidding me? No, his name was Harry P. Ness. Harry P. It looked in the phone book. Back in the day, it was where you had a phone book. Harry P. Ness. He went by Harry. And I don't know if I can improve on that.

You know? So, like, what are your names? What would you come up with? You guys got any ideas? Great question. I mean, I think so. I mean, Bendover. Yeah, Bendover is a good one. Oh, is it just a rock song? Yeah. 30 years, Bendover's been a terrific name to choose from. Mom, I'm not going to say one because I know you're wrong. Oh, here we go. Come on, old man. Come on. Here we go. Smug? I'm going to leave it to the comments because I want to read what they get. Okay. All right. Listen to these PG assholes.

Anyway, we're going to get your comments from last Thursday's episode, which was about the president's speech and your favorite line right after this.

Hardworking Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done. Now is the time to unleash our nation's energy to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable, and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn more at LightsOnEnergy.org. Paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

Okay, so remember we're in the comments section. Like and subscribe, like and subscribe. Appreciate everybody that's been doing that. If you do and you leave us a comment, we're going to read all of them. And then we choose a few that we think are representative of the whole, very smart. And to do that, we always start with the voice. Okay, this first one comes from John Ambrose. And Mr. Ambrose writes, my favorite moment from the joint address is

That was great. That was such a great moment. So good. Ambrose continues...

It was a MAGA masterpiece of highlighting a serious issue while squishing his critics with mocking irony. We are so lucky to have President Trump and his team working every day to make America great again. Stay ruthless, fellas. John hit the ball out of the park. He did. That's it. It's not enough. And one of the reasons we exist here on the Ruthless Variety program, it's not enough to show why they're wrong.

You have to make fun of them while you do it. 100%. You got to do it. That's exactly what Donald Trump does better than anybody else. John, great comment. Dunks, what do we got? Comment two is from Deep Root Acres. They write, a statement that stuck out to me during President Trump's speech on Tuesday was, quote, our message to every child in America is that you are perfect, exactly the way God made you. Yep.

He continues to crush and blatantly refuse the woke indoctrination and instead upholds the true biblical and godly principles, also known as common sense. I believe God will bless a man, a president who fights against blatant evil and manipulation. Love the podcast. Keep it up. Blake C., Cedar Falls, Iowa. Blake, great comments. Cedar Falls, great town, by the way. I've spent some time there. Mm-hmm.

That is one of the things that stuck out to me, too. It was like, you know, we're in such a hyperbolic era that when you say something like that, that all of us, you know, not all of us, but many of us believe that it's as God intended. It's so simplistic, but so rooted in God.

who we are, he's right. It stuck out like a sore thumb. It was like, oh my gosh, here's somebody who just kind of gets it. There's also this completely false, you know, line from the Democrats that Republicans are attacking trans children. Yeah. And so it's nice to see President Trump turn that around and say, you're perfect the way that God made you. Yeah. And it's like,

Man, maybe if we had more positive messages to children rather than talking about how broken they are and how wrong everything is and our first solution to every problem is put them on medication, maybe we'd have a better country. Gosh, really, really good point. I love that comment. Smugglesworth, what do you got for the third? Comment three is from Karen Robinette, and Karen writes, My favorite line was, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants?

Nobody knows what that is. I laugh hysterically every time I listen to it again. It was great. So good. It is the comedic timing, dude. The other one that I loved where he's like, this is real. That was my favorite when he's like reading off all the programs. Yeah. Dude, he's just, he's the funniest because of that comedic timing. He just...

He gets it. Yep. Yep. It doesn't have to be serious when they are fundamentally unserious. Yeah. Which is why you listen to the Ruthless Variety program. Listen, a big part of the president's speech last night, or I mean last week, I should say, was about the Panama Canal. Mm-hmm.

It's funny because right after the election, he did a series of sort of declarations, Greenland, whatever. Everybody thought he was just like losing his mind. And the Panama Canal thing came up. It never came up in the context of Joe Biden and everything. I mean, they never were concerned about it. I didn't even know it was – it's like the Venezuelan hostages. Never knew they existed until Donald Trump said something about it. But I remember I was talking to my dad and I was like –

This strikes me as something this dude's going to get done. If he says this and he means it, it means it's a problem. And if it's a problem, I don't think anybody's going to out-leverage Donald Trump in finding a solution. Right. And it's a big freaking deal. Right. The Panama Canal was something that Jimmy Carter signed over for a dollar.

After the blood, sweat, and tears of Americans were shed to create it, to create a passageway from the east to the west, essentially to ship commerce. And we had all that work, and they just handed it over to the Panamanians as if that was just going to work. And everybody sort of lost sight of it because, you know, you don't pay attention to that kind of thing until it's a problem. Well, Democrats didn't pay attention to it even when it was a problem. Donald Trump highlighted it.

And it's like, well, I don't know. This seems like something Donald Trump would fix. Well, lo and behold, six weeks in, the man fixed it. And there was a Wall Street Journal piece that was highlighted last week.

It included some of these details about the buyer, BlackRock, U.S.-based investment firm. The seller was C.K. Hutchison. It's a Hong Kong-based conglomerate that was controlled by Li Ka-shing, one of Asia's richest individuals. Huge Chinese connection there. Obviously, the whole deal was like $23 billion. And you're like, OK, well, how does a Trump administration –

unwind what obviously was seen as a great investment by the Chinese to control both access points. Which is insane when you think about that. Insane. Because it's military and commerce. Like the U.S. military was being charged to move warships through the Panama Canal after Americans died. After we're protecting the whole hemisphere in the process.

So this is really interesting. So this whole thing, this is original reporting by the Variety program. We spoke with multiple people who were involved in the negotiations.

And it started coming together after the Rubio remarks about Chinese ownership constituting a treaty violation for possible violations of international law. I mean, this is like step one. When I saw those, I was like, okay, they do actually have a plan. This isn't like we're going to take Greenland, which we might do that too, but like they actually have a game plan on this. They're going to try to do this. So the previous owner, CK Hutchinson, as I talked about, the Chinese entity, and

brought on Goldman Sachs, an American company, to try to figure out a way to get out of this. They're owning it. They're looking at Trump. Yeah. And they're like, okay. Don't want to be the way that. Yeah. Like I can figure out how to get my money out of this or I can have the U.S. Marines involved. Right. Isn't that, that's basically my take. It becomes a simple choice at that point. That's basically my take. And it was like 45 ports. It wasn't just the Panama Canal. There's a whole bunch of stuff.

Larry Fink, who runs BlackRock, called DJT a couple of days before the State of the Union to alert him that they were going to make moves on this deal. And the Chinese, his basic point was like the Chinese can no longer shut down this canal if we take over. Like this is an American company. This is what we're going to do. State Department helped facilitate this.

all of this. And the end of the deal is, you know, it's $23 billion. It's a big deal. But I think the leverage that the Trump administration put on on day one made it clear to this Chinese operation, we got to get out one way or another. And this American company was, you know, it's situated in a place, by the way, not for nothing, is like, we should probably...

make good on... I mean, it's probably in our best interest of our shareholders no matter what, but it's also probably in our best interest no matter what to make sure the Trump administration sees that we are for good here. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is just another...

This is such a marquee moment in the generational leadership that President Trump has provided. You know, digging this canal in the first place with Teddy Roosevelt and all of these Americans who basically gave their life to shovel through from one ocean to the other, over

Over time, by Democrats, you mentioned Jimmy Carter. They're just like, you know what? China, if you really want it, you can have it. We don't want to get in your way. And President Trump is like, no, this belongs to America. America first.

And I just think like without his leadership on this particular issue, it would never happen. The Chinese would have encroached even further into our hemisphere. It's such a perfect encapsulation of the problem that Donald Trump is trying to fix when he says America first. And that is like for far too long, the altruism of the United States of America has not been reciprocated by the rest of the world.

It just hasn't. It hasn't. It hasn't. And so when you do things like unite two oceans for an entire fucking continent, and then people want to be like, oh, well, you just, you got to pay to go through this thing. Yeah. Now we're going to say, no. Not doing it. We're taking it back. Yep. It's as simple as that. And in a matter of weeks...

You have American, you've seen this. It's not just on this deal. You've seen it with Apple. You've seen it with the AI announcement. You've seen it with a number of manufacturing outfits across the country. They're like, yeah, we'll step up.

We'll do it. We'll change the way our business works. We understand what you're saying. Because that's how Americans are. And I mean, I think that's why so many people are excited about President Trump, because he gives Americans permission to be themselves. Yeah. You know, and to win and to innovate and to just continue to thrive. Yeah.

And, you know, for the last four years, that whole idea was like anathema. You're not allowed to try. You just have to take what the government gives you. If Joe Biden and these Democrat NGOs want to do it, OK, maybe we'll get lucky. I get a call from Tara McGowan and she'll want to do something with our company. No, it's like, hey, Americans...

Have something to contribute. We have the greatest country in the world. Let's act like it. And this is one of the greatest wins, I feel like, of the last 50 years. People will underappreciate it because it is done so quickly and seamlessly without a whole bunch of drama involved in it.

Well, make no mistake, this is an extremely big victory. And you know what? I think that what you just said is starting to become a hallmark of this second Trump administration. It's the sharp use of leverage. It's getting results. It's no drama. You've got already the greatest negotiator on the planet who can bring leverage to bear like no one else, DJT. He said, we're taking it back. So you guys got to figure out how to get this done. And they got it done.

So I think in the end, like what they ought to do is a celebration because you're right. This has gone under the radar. Like they ought to have a CODEL announced down there. I mean, for those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a delegation of American officials that go down there and celebrate this because it is worth celebrating. Yeah, great idea. We'll emcee the thing.

Yeah, even better. I'd be happy to be down there. We'll emcee this. Do you think we could get some of those great hats? Panama? That's what I'm in it for. A Panama hat with the big bill? Yeah, maybe like a DJT signature on the side? While they play Panama by Van Halen? See, we're the right people to celebrate this. We are. We are. There's nobody that they'd rather see. That's right. Nobody would bring diplomatic certainty like the Ruthless Variety Program. Yeah.

Anyway, we got that information. We thought it was worth passing along because it's interesting. Yeah. It's interesting. You only get it here. You only get it here in the Variety Program. You guys ready for some...

Variety? Boy, am I ever. Yes. For this. We got a couple of things that you guys are just not going to believe. For one, it fits right back in your airline thing. It feels like it's so much, so much lately. We had like 500 people tweet this story at us. So, I mean, like we said, we listen to the minions. They wanted this on the show and you got it. You got it. Let's play clip one if you don't mind, Spaghetts. Just a naked, naked person on a plane. Yeah.

Yeah. Is she hitting herself in the head? No, I think those are two middle fingers. Is she doing that or is it double guns? What do we got going on? All the way front to back. Girl, stop. Yeah, for our audio-only listeners, this is a naked passenger going up and down the aisle. She's got her arms spread out. She's turned around. She's like Dick Nixon boarding the helicopter. And she's completely naked.

If I post it. Put some emojis over it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Put some emojis over it. Mushrooms or acid or something. Mushroom or acid. Can anyone guess the airline? Yeah. Can anybody guess the airline? Hmm.

If you guessed Southwest, you would be right. Is it a zoo? Is it a circus in the sky? So according to the New York Post, screaming Southwest passengers strips naked on a plane, shocking fellow flyers, including children. People are wearing less and less on the runway. We've talked about this. Aside.

from this situation. Yeah. Usually it's pajamas. Shorts and the open-toed shoes situation. Disgusting. You know? Thong sandals. Yeah. It's just, you can't do it. You can't do it. A Southwest flight bound for Phoenix, Arizona was forced to return to the gate after an unruly passenger stripped naked and began screaming at the top of her lungs before takeoff. It came as a complete surprise to everyone. One female eyewitness who opted to remain anonymous told 12 News that

Is it a surprise? Is it a surprise when you sign up for Southwest that this kind of stuff happens? Is it really a surprise? They don't even assign seats. I'll tell you, can you imagine if you were going to visit your in-laws in Phoenix and you're like, hey, kids, we got a great –

deal on the flight. We're boarding in the C group. They pushed them to the back. Your family, like your kids are sitting in a different row and all of a sudden some crazy woman walks down the aisle naked. You can't even cover your kids' eyes because you're not allowed to sit next to them because they're sitting in the middle seat between two other people. I mean...

It's a nightmare. Air travel has become too accessible. Yeah, that's 100% it. I just think it's the whole thing sort of breaking down. You remember like the Super Nintendo, like they had the cartridge and when the game didn't work, you took it out and you blew on it and then you flipped it up and down. You hit the reset and you put it back in and it would work. I think the American air travel system needs- We need a blow. We need to blow on the cartridge. Well, I feel like- We need like a 24-hour shutdown where we can figure out what the hell's going on.

I mean, I think Holmes is right. It's become too accessible. First off, Southwest, they just advertise, hey, we will be the cheapest people in the air, except for one of the crazy ones, like the green airline, where it's like they will charge you to use the overhead bit. Allegiant, Frontier. Yeah. So Southwest essentially opened the gates of hell where there's like the next step is now just like pure zoo in the sky. Right. Southwest was like, we're the first that the idea is going to be you don't even get assigned a seat.

Our boarding procedure is we open the door and get out of the way, and then the animals just run aboard. And this is what you get. That's what you get. This has been all along. When you're going to advertise, we're going to be as cheap as possible to put people in the air. And what happens? Let the chips fall where they may. This is what you sign up for. To smug do. Yeah. It's like they throw the hay on there. There's not even seeds sometimes. It's essentially just like animals.

You know what I really dislike about Southwest is the indignity of the drink ticket. Oh, yeah. Like you're waiting at the deli counter. Yeah. The indignity of that sort of thing. And the people who put up with that are the people that strip naked on an airplane. Yeah, that's it. I think you're right. No coincidence. I think you're right. It's a big problem. We've got a second piece of variety for you today. One that you highlighted, Smug. Yeah.

This has to do with scientists, and this was on X Time, I think, tweeted this out. They don't have a magazine, but they still have an X account. And it has to do with the breeding of woolly mice. Yeah. Can we play that one, please? So what you're looking at is three mice.

And they appear to have a much more robust coat than your average mouse. It's more like some kind of a furball. Yeah. The kind of thing that you would purchase for a young child mouse.

And the reason for it is because they've got woolly mammoth DNA. So this has been a process. We've talked about this before, that scientists are working towards bringing back the woolly mammoth, which I fully support. Fully support. For hunting purposes. For hunting and recreational purposes. Like, if we get to the point where you can go to a ranch in Texas, and they'll take you up in a helicopter, and you just mow down woolly mammoths. Right?

Running across the field. Like in Jurassic Park, when I first saw Jurassic Park, and you know, they drive up in the Jeep and you see like all these dinosaurs rolling around and they're in awe. And I was like, but what if you had a machine gun on the Jeep, right? Like that would be the dream. And so the fact that science is finally doing something worthwhile, right?

Right? Like, we're finally getting to the point where they've got it in the mice. They've got them that small. All we got is hopefully, you know, in a couple years we get to the point where they bring the whole damn thing back. Well, the actual mammoth, it's been gone 4,000 years according to this outfit.

And it's an eight-ton, 12-foot elephant-like beast that walked the Earth. They've done a lot of stuff. It turns out, they say our three flagship species for de-extinction. De-extinction is what they're calling all this. The mammoth...

a thylacine or a dodo. I don't know what those other things are. They say the thylacine, the Tasmanian tiger, which is like, okay, whatever. But like, everyone wants the mammoth back. Yeah, a dodo is a flightless bird. Oh, is that what that is? We don't need that. They don't need that. What do you need that for? We need a woolly mammoth. It seems like maybe it's the easiest one to do. And why not the T-Rex? Woolly mammoth, T-Rex, maybe the raptor. Okay, we saw the movie. But that's the thing. I think if they're careful, we can do it. Yeah, right.

But Duncan's a big fan of the vestigial arm. The vestigial arm. That arm meat would be so tender. Because it doesn't get worked out at all. It's like a turkey leg from the state fair. It's got to be so succulent. That would be so cool. Maybe B-dubs would sponsor something. That's exactly right. And they have some of the best flavors. Asian zing. Like a T-Rex Asian zing wing would be fantastic. I mean, lemon pepper T-Rex arm. Oh, yeah.

That's so good. Anyway, keep your eye on all that. Once they get it here, we're probably going to hunt it. Oh, God. I hope it's not. Somebody's going to invite us. I want that so badly. If Smug can't get a bear rug, he should get a woolly mammoth rug. Yeah. Well, we should hunt it, or these animals should fight each other.

Yeah, that's another one. One thing I noticed about these mice, they didn't have the tusks yet. I think as soon as they get those tusks built into the mice, we need to have a situation where those mice fight regular mice and we see who wins. I mean, the pay-per-view receipts on that would be insane.

And I mean, who knows? Maybe like they'd be good at taking out rats. So then you just unleash them on the New York City subways. And then I think the woolly mice are better than having the rats. No question. With the tusks, they'd be cleaning house. Yeah. I mean, we ask the important questions here in the Ruthless Variety Program. Where are the tusks?

Where are the tusks? You say you've replicated the woolly mammoth. Great point, Ash. Where are the tusks? Right. It's important. What they could have done is just sort of soap and watered that thing, fluffed up the coat a little bit, and been like, hey, we got a mammoth. I think the follow-up story is going to be like, congratulations, they now have the tusks. Also, all of their necks immediately snapped. They can't drag their little mouse heads across the...

Anyway, we'll fight them. We'll fight them nevertheless. We're on all of that as we are all animal news and air travel news just for you. With that, I think we're going to have to get to our guest, Andy Barr. I want to welcome to the program an old friend of ours. He's been here several occasions, although I think this is his first time in studio.

He's brought some gifts, folks, that we're going to get into in a minute. Andy Barr, how are you, sir? Josh, good to be with you. It's an honor to be with an official White House correspondent. Thank you. From our own region. You grow up hoping that you can make the big time and then you ask a question at the White House and all your friends hate you because of it. It's just unbelievable. You really can't get better than that.

And by the way, and also my wife's favorite podcast. Oh, wow. Yeah. I learn more about the job that I do every day from my wife after she listens to your podcast than what I learn about my job on the house floor. And it's well understood in the Barr family that Davis is our favorite of the Barr family. Definitely. No question about that. Congressman, you are a congressman from Kentucky, and I have one request for you.

Because I have to hear from my friend here from Cincinnati constantly about the state of Ohio. I was wondering, is there anything in the works here maybe to annex Cincinnati into Kentucky so that we get less Ohio talk here on the Ruthless Variety Program? You know, we don't need to do that because we've already taken over their airport. Yeah.

You know, the Cincinnati airport is in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In fact, it's CVG for Covington, Kentucky. The metropolitan area of Covington, Kentucky is actually the code for the Cincinnati airport. Yeah, that's right. And a lot of the guys who play for the Bengals and a lot of the big wheels in Cincinnati live in northern Kentucky. That's right. For a reason. Exactly.

We've got limited time with this guy. Listen, one of the things that you are amongst a senior congressman, a policymaker, a valued voice within the Republican Party, is a chairman of a bourbon caucus. Yeah, the chairmanship of the Financial Institution Subcommittee, you know, with jurisdiction over the Federal Reserve System, the bank regulars, not nearly as important as chairing the bourbon caucus. That's right. Exactly. And the White Oak Caucus, of course.

We all know as bourbon lovers that bourbon by law, by statute, has to be aged in a virgin, brand new white oak charred barrel. Yes, exactly right. And if it has any authenticity whatsoever, it has to be in Kentucky. That's right. That's right. 95% of all bourbon whiskey is Kentucky.

Distilled and aged in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the other 5% is counterfeit. I remember passing many cents of the Senate resolutions indicating that you may have whiskey, it may be great.

But if it's in Kentucky, it's a bourbon. And if it's out, it's not. That's right. Is it tough to be chairman of the Bourbon Caucus? That must have been like a knife fight in a toll booth trying to get that job. But a lot of guys who would want it, I'd say. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it is a bipartisan caucus. I'll say Morgan McGarvey, the Democrat from Louisville, and before him, John Yarmuth. They're my Democrat colleagues. And they...

They act like this tariff thing is a big problem, but I want to share with you all a story about working with Howard Lutnick in this America First trade policy. Oh, yeah, tell us.

and how the administration's policy is really opening up markets for Kentucky bourbon. So there's a new distillery in my district called the Garrett County Distilling Company. It's really an American dream story because it's owned by an Indian American, first-generation Indian American named Shashi Reddy. He came to the country with $700 in 1995. Wow.

He's become a billionaire and a serial entrepreneur. He took Budweiser to India. He invented Casemate, the cell phone accessory company. But now he has started this distillery with this vision that the sweet corn-based Kentucky bourbon matches perfectly with the spicy Indian palate. And it's a 1.4 billion population market. And-

The only whiskey, really, that's penetrated that market is the legacy Imperial British Scotch. It's the Scotch whiskey. No good. No good. No good. And in fact, it's blended down Scotch. So it's really the crappy, crappy whiskey.

The taste tests in India are just off the charts. Well, you imagine you drink Dewars all your life and all of a sudden you show up with one of these things. Exactly. Pair it with a Vindaloo. And so – but here's the challenge is that it's a protectionist country and they have 150 percent tariffs on our bourbon exports. And so there's no market penetration. So incomes –

Donald J. Trump and Howard Letnick, the new Commerce Secretary, and they say, "No, no, we want reciprocity. We want access to this 1.4 billion person market." And the threats of tariffs, guess what?

like three weeks in to the new administration after we met with Lutnik and we told the American dream story of Shashi Reddy, guess what? India reduced their tariffs by 50%. Wow. And we now have actually an advantage, a competitive advantage over the Scotch exports into India. That's not a story you read about in the New York Times. You don't read about this. And so this does illustrate the power of the Trump tariff policies in

And the conventional wisdom is that the retaliatory tariffs from the EU, it's going to wreck the bourbon industry. Obviously, we're watching that. But we want reciprocity. And this is how we can actually help the bourbon industry increase massively their exports. It's a really good, I mean, again, you get a very one-sided set of circumstances in terms of

how people are looking at tariffs and whatever. You saw Canada, for example, totally retaliate against the bourbon industry. All kinds of different fears. They seem to have remediated some of it and some of it comes back. It's all kind of back and forth. It strikes me as a negotiation. What you just laid out is...

is the negotiation actually can be a net help in the end, certainly if you've got another 1.5 billion people who are now in the marketplace. Yeah, and Howard says we're just getting started. I mean, the Commerce Secretary says we're just getting started. And, you know, if we can continue to bring down those tariffs in a market as open,

as huge as India, this is absolutely game changer for Kentucky bourbon. That's amazing. So what do we start with here? I mean, this is like, I'm not going to let this sit here as a display piece. I mean, this is something else. I'll tell you, I'm starting with Colonel Taylor. Are you really? Good for you. You guys do what you want. That's a smart move. I think I'm going to have a sip of that Weller. I'm going to go with the Blantons. Yeah.

So good for you. What do you want? I'm going to start with Double Oaked. Brown Foreman. Right in your backyard. Yeah. So this is Woodford County, Kentucky, in my district. And Woodford Double Oaked is a Louisville, Kentucky-based headquartered company. Beautiful grounds. And the distillery itself is right in the center of my district area.

in Woodford County. And this is a really, really tasty. Cheers, guys. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks for bringing this in. Cheers on down. You got it. Oh, man.

My goodness. So smooth. It's no wonder why the Indians love this. I mean, you just one taste and they're like, yes. This is so much better than what the Brits have been shoving down their throat for the last two generations. So let me tell you a story about this. I'm on the Foreign Affairs Committee as well. And this is really related to foreign affairs. So one of the first impressive people I met in this job.

Was the ambassador from Lithuania to the United States. Guy named Shigemontis Pavilonis. Love this guy. Reaganite, freedom loving. I mean, this guy, this guy is our kind of guy. Like he, he loves freedom. He's an anti-communist and, and, you know, was renegotiated.

kind of raised in the era of Ronald Reagan, but in Lithuania. Yeah. So he becomes the ambassador. He meets me and he says, you know, Andy, Kentucky, Lithuania, we have a lots in common. I said, really? He said, yeah, you love basketball, University of Kentucky basketball, University of Louisville basketball. And Lithuania, we almost beat Dream Team. And I was like, wow, that's true. You've got a lot of NBA players from Lithuania. He said, we've got a population about 4 million people. You've got about four and a half million people, similar size place. Yeah.

And we like to drink, and you like to drink. But he starts drinking the Kentucky bourbon. I actually bring him to Kentucky. He brings his agriculture ministry guy. I take him to Rupp Arena to a college basketball game. Oh, man, I bet he loved it. Take him on a tour to all of the distilleries. Is he just shit-faced by the end of it? So, yeah. We do all these taste tests at all these distilleries, and we go to this Kentucky Chamber of Commerce dinner. Oh, God. And he's a little, you know.

He's had a little too much to drink. And he stands up and he says, I want to propose a toast. And he raises his full glass of bourbon and he says, I have come to realize that vodka is the drink of the occupier. Laughter

But bourbon is the drink of freedom. Well said, sir. I said this to my friend, my new friend Shashi Reddy, and the analogy is, of course, the British occupation. So scotch is the occupier and bourbon is the drink of freedom. It's the drink of freedom. There's no question about it. Cheers to the drink of freedom. I cannot thank you enough for bringing this on in. So, look, tell me.

We are six, seven weeks in. A lot's happening. Amazing change.

in almost everything. I know the Commonwealth of Kentucky, not quite as well as you do, but pretty well. Pretty well. Pretty well. And I got to imagine that people are pretty pleased about the results of what's happening here. A lot of MAGA in Kentucky, let me tell you. My district's a little different, as you well know, because you helped me on my 2018 campaign. It's the only swing purple district in Kentucky. So

It's kind of like the house floor on the joint address night. We had some cheerful people.

And we've got a few grumpy people. You get a couple of bingo cards in there, like the auction pallets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got the grumpies who have come out and protested our office and they're calling for town halls. We haven't heard from these people since 2018. Yeah, right, right. But no concerns about the Biden administration. No, no, no. They never demanded the town hall meeting. Right.

You know, I did the town hall meetings, and we still do copies with your congressman and whatnot. I don't know anybody – before you get into the explanation of that, I don't know anybody who's more accessible than you are. I mean, you – first of all, you worked very hard to get that district. As you said, it is a purple district. It didn't used to be. It used to be blue.

just a flat blue district. It was for years. Andy, I remember when we were trying to talk you into running for this district, it was one of those like, ah, you know, he's a good guy. We think he'd do pretty well, but he's probably too smart to do that. You know what I mean? Tough assignment. It's a tough assignment. But then you like, you came, you did it, you came back, you kept working at it. And then you look at the course of your congressional career and how you've served that district and

And it's made a lot of people who are like probably center left, center right. The right has become more right, more red. Right. Your blue collar, which had historical ties to the Democratic Party, has gone entirely red. And then you like, you know.

cylinder it off a crazy part of Lexington that looks a lot like Berkeley, California, or like what I imagine the center of Harvard looks like. Yeah, it is. It's a college town. So think Madison, Wisconsin, Austin, Texas, Berkeley,

Yeah, we have the anti-Semitic protests. It's the whole thing. Which is why? The whole thing. There was a story that I heard, and it was a friend of mine who heard at a cocktail party, probably drinking bourbon, that their daughter took a freshman class at the University of Kentucky in the sociology – it was a sociology class. At UK. At UK, who assigned a paper –

to this young Republican freshman college student, and the assignment was the case against Congressman Barr. Oh, my God. No. And so my friend who overheard this at the cocktail party— This was the assignment? The assignment from the sociology professor. And so he said, oh, well, I assume like half of the class took the one point of view. The other side of the class took the case for Congressman Barr. Oh, no.

No, the grade depended on every student writing the case against Congressman Barr. At a public university. At a public university. So this is kind of what those of us who represent, you know, woke college campuses that we deal with. We're not complaining. It's made me a better congressman. It really has, the diversity of the district. And in fact, in 2024, there were 12,167 to the vote. Yeah. Kamala Harris, Andy Barr voters. Now, who are those people?

They're not people who agree with me. Right. Yeah. They're people who, and I credit this entirely to my staff.

They make me accessible. Yeah, we do. We do listen to them. We travel the district. We're accessible. But we also do outstanding constituent service. Yeah, we get them their passports. You know, a huge part of it is you're like a lot of conservatives who are not afraid of people who have different ideas. In fact, you welcome it. You know that your ideas are better because you're conservative.

And if somebody approaches you with a different idea, well, that's America. That's just the way it goes. And the left can't understand that. I don't get why they can't understand it, but they really can't. And it's like conservatives are the only ones who are willing to have a conversation with somebody else. Yeah. Look, it's different, Andy, in that you –

Look, there's an awful lot of your colleagues redistricting, and this isn't a Republican thing, it's a Democrat's bipartisan thing, that they've been put into districts you can't possibly lose under any circumstances. You have not. Your district looks safe.

in large part because of the work that you've done year over year. But like this guy got the first crack at Amy McGrath. Yeah. Remember that in 2018? Ultimately ran against McConnell in 2020. Yeah, it was really funny that she lost to you and then thought she deserved a promotion. Well, that was a knockout fight. Yeah. It was a big fight. You know, Josh helped us with that and preparing for some of those debates and whatnot. But

You know, she had a she had to her credit. She had quite the resume. She served her country and that, you know, she after coming out of the primary, people thought she was Republican because she was a Marine fighter pilot.

You know, my district is interesting because it's a swing district, not because it's like Fitzpatrick's district, a suburban Philadelphia district where it's all kind of anti-Trump suburbanites. It's a swing district because it's got a little bit of everything, a blue university, woke town surrounded by some of those swingy –

you know, suburban voters who... There's a lot of people who are going to resonate across the country that are listening to this. I mean, this is basically the new politics of a lot of different sort of urban, suburban, ex-urban areas in this country. And those suburban voters, you know, they were voting for Republicans pretty reliably and they switched. Yeah.

You know, after 2016, for whatever reason. But here's the flip side of that. The flip side is that my rural areas, the small towns, the factory towns, the farms, the coal mining, coal adjacent communities, all MAGA. All MAGA. And in fact...

Those were the Democrats only a few decades ago. They were the Democrats. They were the yellow dog Democrats. In fact, in that campaign running against Amy McGrath, I'll never forget, I went to church in a rural part of the eastern part of my district. And as I was walking to my car after the pastor introduced me to everybody in the church...

A lady came up and grabbed me, and she was shaking her finger in my face. I said, oh, it's one of these. And she says, don't you ever cross my president. And I said, ma'am, you mean President Trump? And she says, you know who I'm talking about. And I said, well, yes, I do. In fact, you may not have known this, but President Trump was in my district last week.

He was campaigning for me. And in fact, we were in a big rally. And she goes, I know I was there. And so she goes on her way. And, you know, I was admonished to make sure that I was loyal to Donald Trump, which, of course, I am. But the pastor, he said, you don't know who she is, do you? I said, no, sir, I do not.

And he said, she is. There's a reason why you don't know her. She's the chairwoman of the Montgomery County Democratic Party. No kidding. Yes. And so I have told this story to my liberal Democrat friends in Congress and they can't believe it. Yeah. But that's what's happened in rural America. Yeah. Yeah. Rural America is not about Republican Democrat anymore. It's MAGA. Yeah. And you're either with them or you're against them. Yeah.

And they want me to be with them, and I am. Yeah. Man, that's such a great story. Andy, before you get out of here, I'm going to hold your feet to the fire on a couple of things. I've noticed there's a very damaging piece of opposition research that has come out about you. Democrats are really handing their hats on.

I don't know this. What is this? Well, listen, Kentucky, there's a Democratic governor. Yes. They've been known to be competitive statewide. And, you know, they look at ambitions of people and pedigree of people like Andy Barr. And they're like, well, let's make sure that we take him down a peg. So they've got what they think is an absolutely killer piece of opposition research. I can't wait to hear this. As it turns out, Andy Barr here.

in a moment of youthful exuberance, may have at one point been in possession of a fake ID. No. Is that possible? You know what? That's the rumor. That's the rumor.

That's the piece of DTRIP research. That's what they've got? Those guys are good. Those opposition researchers over there at the DCCC. They're good. That might actually help raise that. In Lexington? In Lexington. I think it's a prerequisite for the chairman of the Bourbon Caucus. I mean, it's got to be, you know? You're not trying to get in early. You're not eligible to be chairman of the Bourbon Caucus. I mean, let me tell you.

Guilty as charged. Just a youthful interest in the product. It was. I was researching. I was researching. I knew that that was my great ambition in public life was to be the chairman of the Bourbon Caucus. I was on spring break. I was a pledge in the fraternity, and I just wanted just an early crack at it. Yeah.

I mean, it's amazing, right? I mean, look, you've been in a targeted district. Now you're not. I mean, they don't target you any longer because of where you're at. But you've been in a targeted district long enough that they just try to unearth anything they can against you. Well, they did. They found that little tidbit. But that's okay. You know, here's the bottom line is, you know, if you want to win that district, any swing district...

Or I would argue if you want to win Kentucky statewide, you've got to win the swing districts, right? Yeah. And there's no way in 2025, 2026, 2027 in the era of Donald Trump –

That any Democrat can win statewide in Kentucky unless they do what our governor did, Andy Beshear, which is win my district, the swing district, the purple district, the central Kentucky district, where you've got the University of Kentucky and some of the more woke liberal elements there. He did it.

And to his credit, he won my district convincingly by 19 points in 2023. And this is a district that I won by 25 points just a year later. It takes effort. It takes work. If you look at my colleagues in these swing districts, like a Lawler or a Fitzpatrick or Valadeo in California, man, I admire the heck out of them because their districts are a lot tougher than mine, a lot tougher than mine.

My district did vote for Donald Trump because the MAGA areas and the rural areas just overwhelmed the liberal core. But, man, these guys and gals who win these districts that, you know, Biden won or Kamala won, man, kudos to them because they're working hard. Yeah. Yeah. No question about it. I mean, look, you...

Again, I've changed a purple district to a red district. Your influence within Congress has increased as a result. Hell of a good guy is a bourbon caucus chair guy. He looks at one of the top five guys in all of Congress. And I mean this. You know, we hang out with everybody and we do these kind of things with everybody. One of the top five guys to hang out with.

Consequently, people are talking a lot about you perhaps running for a statewide office seeking the Senate. Andy, what do you think? You know, I've been doing that due diligence, just like maybe I did the due diligence when I was in college. But getting a lot of great encouragement. And, you know, bourbon is kind of an emblem of that because—

What I'm really proud about and maybe why Democrats who don't always agree with my votes and maybe what it is that they see in me and why they cross over, including people who don't like this president in my district, but know that I am MAGA and I am loyal and I am America first and I'm backing him 100 percent. Why do those people vote for me?

Because they know my work advocating for the signature industries of Kentucky. They see me, they see that guy is for Kentucky. Right. Yeah. I'm for the horse industry. I've been for the auto manufacturing industry because we're a powerhouse with the largest Toyota manufacturing facility in the world in my district. Yeah.

Everybody who knows me from my very first campaign knows that I campaigned on advocating for the Kentucky coal industry. So there's one thing that nobody can accuse me of, and that's not failing to represent Kentucky. They know that I am all about Kentucky. Yeah, no question about it. You know what's funny, and you don't have to answer this, but what's funny from my perspective and probably your perspective is we all work for McConnell. Yeah.

This is a seat that I used to joke with McConnell that my kid, who's now five, would probably be the chief of staff for McConnell in 2050 or something like that because it just seemed like it was just always in his. But all of us who have had any sort of tangential relationship to Kentucky at some level –

have had a relationship and probably started our careers in some way with McConnell. And one of the things that I really like about you and the way you handle your entire public career is a level of authenticity. And you haven't denied that you started like we all started. Yeah, I interned with Senator McConnell in the summer of

of 1993 the same summer that I had my little fake ID issue. So... It's all making sense now. But I'm not going to blame him for it. I'm not going to blame him for it. It was all on me. It wasn't for McConnell. It was all on me. I'll take the blame for that. You were just working hard for the Commonwealth. I...

That's all on me. Listen, but this is one of the things I mean, look, if you choose to get into this race and we'll see how this whole thing goes, like listeners are going to find out that this Kentucky Senate primary is one of the things that the media will focus most upon because it's a challenge amongst Republicans. And most significantly, it's against a McConnell campaign.

Kentucky that has, you know, over 40 years become a deep red Republican state under his leadership against a Donald Trump MAGA universe, which is not at all what it is like these two things intersected for, you know, the better part of four years now, especially on the federal judiciary. And I think both Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell deserve credit for transforming

the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court into an originalist Supreme Court. And they work together on that. And I'll tell you what, that is a heck of a legacy. And I'll tell you what, our country is better off because we have a conservative, originalist federal judiciary that is going to defend and uphold this president's agenda. Yeah, no question about it. I guess just to finish a point on this,

Everybody is going to want to reinvent themselves, right, in this race where, you know, oh, we don't – I've noticed already people trashing McConnell and trying to become something they're not. What I've appreciated about the way you've handled this is you've handled it the same way you've handled the 6th District, which is I am who I am. I represent who I – you're going to vote for me.

or you're not. Right. But it has nothing to do with anybody else making some sort of evaluation about what you think I am. You know, as the congressman from the 6th District, I often, especially over the last decade, they have asked me, so many reporters, or sometimes constituents or others have asked me, are you, so you're from Kentucky, are you a Rand Paul Republican? Yeah, right, we used to do that. Or are you a Mitch McConnell Republican? Yeah.

And I tell them I'm neither. I'm an Andy Barr Republican. I'm my own guy. And my voting record is my own voting record. And it's transparent. And you can see how I vote. And you'll see, I'm for Kentucky every time. Every single time I'm for Kentucky. And that's a reputation that I really relish. I appreciate that. And that's what people want. The reason why everybody is so MAGA is because in Kentucky, you have a population of people who have been just complacent

Completely run over by our society. Everybody in New York has run over everybody in Kentucky time and time and time again. And then all of a sudden you have Donald Trump who's sticking up for people who have never been stuck up for in the past other than like people like you who are looking out for the coal families, who their industry and their their livelihood has just been completely crushed.

My Democrats decimated. And what they're looking for is somebody who is authentic, who is actually going to stick up for them. So what they love about Donald Trump, it's why it's why you've been elected over and over and over again, because of that authenticity, because people are looking for somebody who is going to provide a voice for them. Exactly. That is exactly right. That's and that's exactly why that chairwoman of the Democratic Party in the eastern part of my district said,

voted for Donald Trump and not only voted for Donald Trump, but wanted to make sure that her congressman, who was a Republican who Donald Trump campaigned for, was always going to be with Donald Trump. So I always have to remember her.

The Democrat chairwoman of the Montgomery County Party about why, you know, I need to support this America First agenda and why I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No question about it. So, like, you know, when you're doing the bourbon trail thing, you look at these things, you can't pick amongst children, can you?

Yeah, it's like choosing your favorite child. Right, right. I'm not allowed to. He really is. But here's a little secret. They're all great, but I love Blantons. This particular Blantons comes from the White Oak Caucus Special Barrel Pick. This is an initiative that Bruce Westerman is helping us with this, G.T. Thompson, where we're going to try to reforest –

the white oak to regenerate white oak for the bourbon industry. And, you know, this is, you know, who says I'm not an environmentalist, right? But the other one is Weller. And Weller, for your audience who likes bourbon or have heard of the Pappy Van Winkle, which is a very expensive, hard to get bourbon. Weller is a great bourbon because it's basically Pappy Van Winkle, young Pappy.

Yeah. It's the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. It just comes out of the barrel a little earlier. That's incredible. Well, it's a vibrant industry. I know I've enjoyed more than anything else getting to know the people who put this stuff together, the passion involved in it. Uniquely American product. Absolutely. And if you're choosing your spirits...

You can get tequila, you can get scotch. We all enjoy a tequila night, no question about it. But this thing, I mean, this is supporting Americans, no question about it. You got it. Kentucky is the land of the pioneers, Daniel Boone. We've got grit. We're the tough people. And we're the coal miners. We powered America. And every so often we want to relax.

And, you know, a great bourbon man once told me, don't leave a bourbon bottle unopened. Even if it's one of the premium brands, you got to open it because it's not about the juice in the bottle.

It's about pouring a glass for yourself and your friend or your father. Enjoying it. And enjoying it, and then that's a memory. That's very good. That's bourbon. Bourbon is not a drink. It is an experience. It is a memory. Unless you get to the bottom of it, in which case there's no memory at all. Well, that's why they call it the drink of freedom. Yeah.

That's exactly right. Listen, Andy Barr, thank you so much for coming in here. Really appreciate your time, and keep us up to date with what you're doing. All right. Great to be with you guys, and keep up the great work. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Man, what just an outstanding guy he is. And the bourbon. I mean, you cannot beat a guy from Kentucky bringing bourbon to the variety program. He knows his way right into our hearts. He's been a good friend for a long time.

No question. We got to love. I mean, he does know us. Yeah, he does know us. We're easy to please. We're easy to please. No question about it. Remember our question of the day. What fake name would you use on Act Blue to cover your tracks?

We've got our ideas. Great question. And you know what? Next time, you're going to have to. You're going to have to. Yeah, for sure. When we get back into the comments, I want you guys to get. I don't want to steal any from the minions who reply to that. Yeah. And Harry P. back in Minneapolis. Amazing. Keep your ears on, pal, because it's coming at you. Like and subscribe to the YouTube channel. And with that, I think we have done it.

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Congressman Barr, and thank you so much to our listeners. Remember, if you have not yet subscribed to that YouTube, it's more fun and video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you on Thursday. Stay ruthless.