What Is Driving Trump’s Historically High Approval Rating?
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Americans saw what happens when the left, when the media,

decides for four years what the policy in this country is going to be like, and it was absolute chaos. And so now Americans are very aware of what happens when you don't have President Trump watching the border, watching the economy, keeping Americans safe. And they're resounding, like, these are incredible numbers. And the only people in all of the world that seem to not understand that when you talk about something and then you go do it, that that's just, like, part of what you do here are Democrats. Mm-hmm.

They're like, oh yeah, well, he's actually doing all the things that got him elected. What an outrage. Yeah. Like Americans, this is a politician actually followed through on what he promised. Aren't you mad? It's like, no. We finally beat Medicare.

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

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Just to catch up 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. Good Tuesday to you and welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. Josh Holmes comfortably smug, a missing old man.

Michael Ducken out on assignment and our White House correspondent John Ashbrook there at the end. How are you, sir? Wonderful to be here once again. Terrific. Everybody doing well in this post-football part of our year? Yeah, I had a great time at a friend's Super Bowl party. The good news continues over the weekend. It's like it never stops with the Trump administration. Yeah. Ready to get this rolling. Yeah. I mean, it just feels like

There's many things out there that would lead you to believe that we're just back and we get new news every day. I've told a friend at a Superbowl party was like, uh,

Trump had kept a list of my grievances over the last 10 years and was just systematically checking each box over the first 20 days of his presidency. Because, like, all this stuff leads you to believe you're back. But then, you know, you see, like, the pregame show and everything leading to the Super Bowl and the cultural shift that is remarkably evident to anybody who watches. It's hard not to see, like...

We're back. It couldn't have come at a better time because this time of year, especially post-Super Bowl, before spring training gets started, I mean, you get the Daytona 500, but there really isn't a lot to consume from a sports fan standpoint. Now that President Trump is just like rolling through things left and right and the culture is shifting, there's a lot to watch. Yeah. You got a good team to cheer for. It's America. Did you guys see he banned the penny?

Yes. That's what I'm talking about. It's the funniest thing. It just makes sense. But my favorite part of the initial write-ups of the penny were like industry association groups, like Big Penny, essentially. They were like, well, now the nickel's going to cost more. Yeah.

And like big nickels, like, no, no, no. No, we're all good. It gives you a good idea. And all of the Doge stuff, we're going to get into some of this stuff during the course of this conversation here today. But like, you understand Doge.

very clearly why it is that it's so difficult to do things in Washington. Because every single thing, regardless of how meritless it is to the American taxpayer, has an industry association group that is hell-bent on ensuring that you don't make a move. Enter Big Penny. It's unbelievable. And like...

You look at this from a very simplistic point of view. It's such a problem for Democrats and entrenched groups like that because you can have something that is so logical. You're like, huh, I didn't even realize that. It costs two cents to make one cent. Seems like a good idea. And now they have to take the other side because they just want to oppose Trump on everything. It's like the USAID thing all over again where it's like 90% of people can see the logic of this and you're going to take the opposite side. Well, it turns out it's not just happening in a vacuum.

Which is gratifying because it feels like for those of us who follow this along closely and tell you, dear listener and viewer, exactly what it is that we're hearing and thinking and getting people in here to sort of validate what it is that we're talking about, you worry at some point that people vote in elections and you just kind of like, you know, you tune out. Not the case. No, no. Not the case. As it turns out, there's a bunch of different stuff. We're going to get into this in one second about Trump's approval rating and everything else. Sky high.

They're seeing this. People are actually consuming all of this. And like, you know, I mean, we went through that era in the first Trump four years where media ratings and publication sales and all those went through the moon because of the interest in Donald Trump. Now, they thought of it as a, well, we're just going to castigate the guy. And that's what the audience thought.

wants and they did build an audience as a result of that but a very narrow audience as a result now they're all paying the price they're laying people off but the audience remains and it's not just a negative audience as we will soon find out when we talk to you about this we're also going to talk to you about how democrats have basically tried to fashion their opposition we talked last week about the usaid thing and like they don't know what the hell they're doing

But now they've got judges and they're trying to do this through the legal way, just basically stop Trump at all sides. Some familiar faces. We're going to talk about that. We've got some variety for you. It'll be fun. We've got a mystery clip involved. Wolf has cooked up a little something. Can't wait to see that. Which he assures me is very funny.

But he won't tell me what it is. Well, we'll be the judge of that. Yeah, we're going to check that out. And then we've got a great guest, Austin Bishop. He's the CEO of the New American Industrial Alliance. This is a topic of conversation that is happening in D.C.,

You probably don't know who Austin is. Very interesting guy. Somebody who was sort of foisted into an advocacy role, in large part because government just didn't get it for a lot of different years. Well, you know, in a Trump administration, now there's new opportunity to talk about new industrial America in a lot of different ways. So he joins us on the program as well. Should we get right into it, fellas? Let's get it rolling. Great idea. Let's get right into it.

to learn more

Okay, so I don't know if you all saw it. Let's put a graphic one. This is from this YouGov poll. And Axios writes, President Trump's early approval ratings show he's settled into office in a better spot than 2017. Trump left office in 2021 with the lowest approval ratings of his White House tenure. But in the early days of Trump 2.0, they have ranked amongst the highest ratings of his political career.

I mean, no surprise. Fifty three percent of Americans approve of Trump so far, according to a newly released CBS News. You know, they hate to print that they mean in the worst way. And, you know, something you said a minute ago made me think that this Trump start is

is so different in one big way that we haven't really talked about. It's that he is controlling the conversation. Remember at the beginning of his first term, the media was controlling the conversation all about stupid Russiagate and all of these dumb hoaxes.

that Democrats were driving, that the media was driving, and now he is driving absolutely everything in the conversation. Very different, and it's just another way that he learned how to do the job in the intervening years. Plus, you know, he has an advantage in that Americans saw what happens when the left, when the media intervened.

decides for four years what the policy in this country is going to be like, and it was absolute chaos. And so now Americans are very aware of what happens when you don't have President Trump watching the border, watching the economy, keeping Americans safe. And they're resounding, like, these are incredible numbers. To me, when you break it down, the most impressive fact was among, like, 18 to 29 votes, Trump's up 10%. Plus 10.

Yeah. I thought Democrats controlled the youth. That's the thing. Like, wow. Well, a lot of it goes back to what we were talking about with Alex Brishwitz last week. You know, this new demographic of voter that's interested in politics and interested in President Trump. And like the thing that's so gratifying about this is and there was a bunch of things in the crosstabs that would tell you about it that we'll get to. But like people heard the campaign message and they understood the campaign message.

And the only people in all of the world that seem to not understand that when you talk about something and then you go do it, that that's just like part of what you do here are Democrats. They're like, oh, yeah, well, he's actually doing all the things that got him elected. What an outrage. Yeah.

Like Americans, this is a politician actually followed through on what he promised. Aren't you mad? It's like, no. Oh, my gosh, he's securing the border. Holy smokes. They have a very heavy lift because it is exactly that. And when you specifically talk about the young demographic, right, they've been told for years under the Biden administration that like,

eh, set the bar lower. You probably will never own a house. You have to accept that. Sometimes prices just go up on things. Just deal with it. Set your standards lower. You'll probably never be able to afford a house or it's too expensive to get married and start a family.

And then there you have someone who comes along and says, no, no, the economy doesn't have to be terrible. You should be allowed to realize whatever dreams you want in this country. And it resounds with them. It's happening. And we're going to talk a lot more about this poll and a whole bunch of pieces of it that fit into why it is that President Trump is not only the highest approval rating of his career, but

But the mandate continues. And, you know, the tough decisions that Democrats had hoped would sort of recede the waterline of support for President Trump have done nothing but gone up and become like he can keep taking bigger bites at this apple, which is good news for those of us who've

wanted him to have as much of a reach as he possibly can. So we're going to get into all of that, but we do have a very important announcement. Huge announcement. A very important announcement. And this is, you know, look, we like to pump our own tires here a little bit, the Ruthless Variety Program. Turns out we're going to have our 500th Ruthless Variety Program right around the corner, February 19th.

Man, it's a lot of variety. Every single week, twice a week, and number 500 in Washington, D.C. Yeah, and we should do something for it. We should do something. So we've thought about this a little bit. Spaghetti and Wolf put their heads together. It's got to be a blend of things that have been a part of the culture and the making of the Ruthless Variety Program. Because we're part of your families and you're part of ours.

So we've got to keep people along the way. One of the things that we did very early on, our first live show, was at Pearl Street Warehouse in D.C. That was just one of the best shows we've ever done. Yeah, and it sold out in like one second. We had the time of our lives. We had like sequins, jackets, and you were in a tuxedo if I'm not wrong. Yeah, I just want to wear something comfortable. Yeah, just something comfortable.

So we thought we'd run it back and have a bunch of guests who have played a meaningful role for us in the first 500 episodes. And give people an opportunity to sort of see what they've been a part of over the years. And we're going to do it live. We're going to do it on the 19th at Pearl Street. You can get your tickets. And listen, where do we get the tickets? We'll find.

Do we know where we're getting the tickets? Can you put it on? Ruthlesspodcast.com slash event. If you go to ruthlesspodcast.com slash event...

You can go there and you get your tickets. I can promise you if you're listening to this early in the morning, get on this. Yeah. It is going to be gone extremely quickly. The first one was gone in seven minutes. I'd be surprised if this made it more than two, to be honest. I think that's right. So get on that. Buy your tickets on the 19th, the night of the 19th. We're going to have a lot of special guests. It's going to be a lot of fun. So.

Get on that. And when we come back, we're going to be talking about Trump firing on all cylinders, a little bit more about this historic rise in the polls. We're going to get to it right after this.

Ensuring greater access to more affordable energy that powers daily lives, reliable energy that fuels innovation and economic growth, and the abundant energy that keeps our nation safer and more secure. It's all within our grasp. We'll do this together, building a brighter future for us, powered by America's oil and natural gas resources. You can learn more about all of this at API.org. All right, so let's get back to this poll for a minute.

Because I do. I mean, you can only imagine the consternation over at CBS HQ. Yeah. Poor Margaret Brennan. Having to deal with some of this stuff. I mean, 70 percent of Americans believe that President Trump is following through on his campaign promises. I've never seen a number like that. Yeah. Like the New York Post breaks this out. Of course, this is not what CBS is going to do. No, no, no. But this is the crux of why it is that he is where he is.

You know, I mean, they've tried to create chaos around all the decision USAID, Doge, securing the border, you know, kicking illegal immigrant criminals out of our country. Like they've tried to create a lot like it's like it is. They're trying to make it controversial. But it turns out the American people are like, no, we got it. And that's the thing is like leading up to President Trump.

Taking office they tried printing all these stories of like it's going to be terrifying getting these illegal immigrants out of here It's gonna scare the shit out of you, and then you actually see what's happening It's like this guy like this morning. I saw in the paper They catch this illegal immigrant who has been accused of murdering a guy who owned a sandwich shop beat him to death Right DHS catches this guy

Because the local police, it was a sanctuary city. The local police have to let this guy go. DHS catches him. He's on his way out. That's what it looks like. Yeah. It doesn't look like, oh, my gosh, everyone's going to be crying in the streets. No. All of a sudden, that street's a lot safer. Yeah, we don't need to do a lot of hand-wringing about this. We just thought this was like what you did at the Department of Homeland Security.

But like they didn't. And now they are. And people are like, great. And 70 percent are like, yeah, it looks like promises made promises. That's great. So 70 percent where you're doing what you told us you would do. And I feel pretty good about 70. Yeah, that's a remarkable. You said last week, it's like Trump kept a list of everything that pissed people off over the last four years. And day by day, he's just sort of ticking through it and saying, yeah.

I'm going to undo that. I'm going to undo that. I can't remember the specific thing that you were talking about in that circumstance. Well, that's the thing is because it's a list. It's unreal how much is going on. And you think about his day, like when he was flying back from the Super Bowl and he had that sign, the Gulf of America sign with his signature on the proclamation right next to it. It's just like every single day there's something new and different.

Yeah, it makes you feel good. That's the thing. I mean, how about the Super Bowl Sunday out of that cat, huh? Wake up in the morning, stretchy old limbs, you know, check the email, see what Doge is up to, you know, stretch your back, maybe a little breakfast, you know,

18 with Tiger Woods. It doesn't get better. Then you get on a plane and you fly to the Super Bowl. And then you're like yucking it up with everybody at the Super Bowl. You know, he got huge cheers when they showed his face on the screen. He gets back on the plane, heads to Washington, and some reporters are like getting in his face. And he starts dunking on him. And then he rolls out the Golf of America thing. Oh, this is the S.V. Date. S.V. Date.

Yeah, right. The pool reporter. We're not sure exactly how this works, but the White House Correspondents Association, you know, the people that I'm surprised you're not a member. You should join. You should probably join this outfit now that you're a White House correspondent. We'll see. They may not allow me in. Well, one of the members of this association evidently is this guy, S.V. Date, who used to send like five paragraph emails about, you know, to all of us.

Like the most left-wing stuff you've ever heard in your entire life. Like clearly not an objective correspondent. He works for an outfit, the Huffington Post. And he is the correspondent that does the pool report for the Super Bowl trip. And if you read through the pool reports that he submitted, they were like three sentences each. And every single report was just retelling what you already knew was going to happen based on the schedule. President is leaving. There was no color. Right.

It was like he saw Trump shaking hands with people and everybody loving him, and he's like, nope, can't put that in there. And that's the thing is, so SV Date is an idiot for sure. He shows up in my replies crying. He's like, you're enabling fascism. So we all know he's an idiot. But if you look at the reason why he's doing that is because of numbers like this. When you see that 7% of Americans believe, if he gives color and he's like,

on the plane seems to be having a good time. All the policies that Trump are putting in place are incredibly popular. Everyone seems to be like loving the Trump presidency. He can't talk about that. And for folks who may not know, a lot of you do know, but the purpose of a pool reporter is so that because there can only be so many reporters around the president at any one time and

So they get everybody into the Super Bowl. Yeah. So they designate one person that's based on a rotation and that person writes up what's happening so that everybody else has a little bit of color on what the president was up to. And I'm telling you, these were the least colorful submissions I've ever read. Well, here's the thing. Like, first of all, I think I think the whole press office has just been fantastic. Obviously, I think Carolyn Leavitt is a superstar. Just knocking out a superstar.

But there's a whole bunch of things that you inherit that it takes time to change. The idea that SV Date is in a Super Bowl mix to, like, do pool reports for, like, what? Like, they got to do it. Tell me Ashbrook couldn't do that job. Yeah, he could definitely do that job.

job. Well, first of all, you'd learn a little something about the hands you were shaking. You'd learn a little something about the weather outside. Trump is entertaining. Every single second of his life, he's entertaining. Capture some of that. Let people see. That's the whole point of the job. And here's another example of how X is the media now, where if I want to call it on this, I saw

videos people have put up on X of like, oh, President Trump's talking to so-and-so. The crowd's going wild. He got put on the screen. Everyone's booing Taylor Swift. She got put on the screen. Meanwhile, SVData is like president leaving. President coming. It's because when we have these numbers in front of us, it says when asked to describe Trump,

69% said tough. Nice. 63% selected energetic. 60% called him focused. Like the media does not want people to know this. They hate that so much. Also, 59% approve of the deportation efforts. 59%, right? They tried to make this like, oh, it's the most inhumane thing of all time. Do you know how hard it is to get 59% of the American people to agree on something? Yeah.

Like, people are fed up. They're like, nope, he said he was going to do it. That's what he's doing. I'm all on board. I mean, that is, you know, we're talking about a good 8%, 9% more people than voted for him that are like, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it has to happen. I mean, everybody saw the trends over the last four years, and everybody sees... Like, when Tom Homan talked... I don't know about you guys. I am, like, one of the biggest Tom Homans. I love that, dude. Because he is unequivocal when he makes a statement. He doesn't care if he gets...

flack from the reporters. He's just telling you what he's doing because he has a job and it's very important. Yeah, well, look, all of this brings us to our question of the day. And remember, you've got to like and subscribe. We are dangerously close to 100,000, by the way. If you haven't done that, you need to get on board. Also, send it to your friends and have them like and subscribe because as soon as we get to 100,000, we'll throw another party for ourselves. And I feel like you're going to parade the plaque. So you've got to do it. I think we're less than 3K away.

Yeah. So we got we got to do this. So you got to like and subscribe and all of that. But when you do that, you can also comment away on our question of the day. And this one is so good because I think like the basics of our first segment that we just did are the reason the guy's popular. It's because he's doing precisely what it is that he said he was going to do that enabled this whole new coalition of voters to be like, yes, we want to do that.

And he's done it. So the question is, like, if this thing went the other way and Kamala had won the election, what would she be doing? I love this question so much because, you know, she would be doing something like demanding only trans men in women's sports. Yeah. I mean, like it is it really it'll be like the Twilight Zone. I want to see the answers to this so badly, because the thing is, is

She would make such awful decisions. I mean, her campaign shows she's terrible at making decisions, right? We got that clear from the campaign. But if she was the one who was following through on campaign promises...

This would be a whole different world. Do you think she'd be a champion of small businesses? Oh, yeah. She was like, I have a lot of experience with small businesses. Never worked in the private sector. She's like, as such a champion of small businesses, I am saying they should be taxed somewhere around 65%. Does that make sense? It would be a nightmare. But I really want to see the replies because, I mean, we can only imagine the horrors America would be experiencing right now. She'd go through the Middle East and say, who do you have left in your prisons that you could resettle in our country? Yeah, yeah.

Would hostages be coming home? Would we have ever heard of the Panama Canal situation? Greenland would certainly be arming against us. You think there'd be any cuts in government spending? No. I mean, God. There's a million things that should be screwing up. It's just – so anyway, curious to get your thoughts. And be comical about it. Like, we need some levity here. We're not all serious all the time. But this is a perfect opportunity for our people who are very funny. Mm-hmm.

to stretch their comedic legs a little bit. It's a great opportunity. What would Kamala be doing if she was president? Because we know what Trump is doing, and we love it. When we come back, we're going to have your comments from last episode. And that question was, by the way, who is worse than Schumer?

Because he distinguished himself last week as like, you know, the worst. Trying to get people to chant while he looks like the Crypt Keeper. Oh, just so is there anybody worse than him? We've got your comments to all of that right after this. As President Trump begins his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to undermine the Trump agenda is Chicago's Senator Dick Durbin. And now Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card.

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Okay, so your question of the day that you responded to last Thursday was, is there anybody worse than Chuck Schumer to be the face of the Democrats? And I think the answer is no, but your comments are noteworthy. And to do that, we always start with a voice. I just love this one. It comes from David Peel. David writes, I think Jerry Nadler is being underutilized.

The guy is charismatic. Natural born leader. So for those of you who aren't like political junkies or you're not from New York, Jerry Nadler is as wide as he is tall. Yeah. His suspenders are the hardest working person. Yeah. Yeah. And he's probably the most uncharismatic human being that's ever walked the face of the planet. Takes himself very seriously, though.

And he was kind of like, remember, he was the initial face of the impeachment hearings the first time around. And they're like, that's not the face you want. And even Democrats who are like still putting Chuck Schumer out front, you know, thinking like that's going to do this. Even Democrats were like, we can't have it. It's so good. Do yourself a favor and like just Google Jerry Nadler if you don't. And just get yourself a laugh on it. Guy never missed a cold cut. Oh, yeah.

cold cut. Like he would, he'd weigh a fraction of what he weighs if he just ate cold cuts. Guy's like devouring apple pie. Mourning. All right, Smug, what do we got for number two? This is from Jim Doc USA and Jim writes, Schumer is a tough act to follow and the dynamic duo of him at the podium with Maxine Waters makes his appearance all the more special. By

But I think Rashida Tlaib brings every bit of Schumer's left wing crazy with a large splash of anti-Semitism and is automatically detestable the minute she starts speaking. That is a... Oh, oh, it continues. You got more? And when she is asked about the horrors of what happened in Israel on October 7th and she says nothing, it is almost worse. Her talefulness is perfect whether she speaks or remains silent. That is a unique feat. I would guess that Schumer finds her disgusting as well.

She is like nails on a chalkboard. That is something else. Did you see the thing over the weekend? I think maybe it happened Friday when Maxine Waters led a delegation of fucking dingbats over to the Doge HQ and were demanding entry into this joint. There's just a security guard. He's just doing his job. He's like, no, you can't come in. And they're like,

raising all hell. Did you see this situation? Yeah, she was like, show me your ID, show me your ID. And he's like, I just showed you my ID. She's like, somebody else asked him, so he has to show you his ID. That's the thing, it's like...

Right now, their whole thing is – because she had someone on her social media team pull their phone out and start recording. The Democrats are just focused on trying to make this a media event. They're not about results. This guy is out there protecting the building, and it's just like – I saw this great montage on X of people who are just – of guys who are just like –

like tired of dealing with their shit. You know, like at hearings you had, what's her name? Jill O'Brien from New York, just like screaming. Like that is the American people who for years have had to put up with people's shit and we're done with it. You're done with it. And it would, it was a media event.

And it would be a bigger deal if X was not a thing. Yeah. You know, if the Washington Post controlled everything that you read— Oh, they would report it as like a very moving and stirring rally out in front of Doge HQ as members of Congress—

re-authoritated their oversight of the spending decisions in America. And the Trump administration would have banged their fists and said, this is terrible. We're against what the Democrats are doing. And the Washington Post would say, you know what? We'll help you. We'll write a story. And it would say Republicans pounce on meaningful event. You know what I mean? Like, but now everybody can just see the video of what a lunatic she is. Yeah. And you

everybody can see it for what it is. You know, like this, this is what everyone suspected was going on in Washington, all of it, all along. And they just never had a chance. Well, it makes our job easier. Makes it a lot more fun. Yeah. It makes it a lot more fun. All right. She's the third comment from Anthony Byrne. And the question of the day, uh, who will be, uh,

on the Dem bench is worse mouthpiece than Chuck Schumer? The answer is Jasmine Crockett, the honorable representative from Dallas, Texas. Her recent white supremacy comments, as well as her statements on white tears, quote unquote, are a perfect example of how tone deaf Dems continue to be.

Frankly, I hope they prop her up as the next leader of the Liberal Party. Everything is on video these days. To your point. Yep. To the point that you just made. Everything is on video these days. And her hubris, along with many other progressives, will fill Ruthless content well for years on end. Yeah, he's 100% right, Anthony. I mean, that's right. She's been crazy. And this is also part of the vibe shift is I think –

The Trump election, Trump taking office is the bookend on the Obama era neoliberal bullshit of where Americans were getting canceled. You couldn't say obvious truth. You couldn't say, hey, this is a dude trying to play women's sports. Like they for so long held this grip on the culture, on the media, on the government, where they scared Americans from telling the truth of like what's right in front of their eyes. And we're done with this. So when this crazy lady, because she is nuts.

When she gets out there and says this shit, everyone's done with it and no one pays attention. Yeah, I mean the point that she was making was the DEI offended mediocre white men. I think what she said.

And inferring somehow that these people couldn't get a job. And so they blamed it on DEI efforts. When like anybody with two eyes and some ears, you don't have to have great hearing, can tell what it is that they were trying to do with this program over the years. Well, it was basically just like a one sided deal. The Wall Street Journal had that statistic, I think, about two months ago where they said few amongst S&P 500 companies.

Right. 90 percent of the jobs were going to non white men. White men were getting fewer than 10 percent of jobs. Yeah. Despite being what, like 35 percent of the population or something like that. Like it's it's look, it's obvious. And everybody knows it. Everybody. And to be honest with you, if you're like at all comfortable in your own sort of identity and place in the world and your ability to work hard and make a living in this country, you've come to grips with the fact that like.

If given an even playing field, you can work things through. And like America still has the American dream and the American promise.

But as soon as you start weighing things down to like who you can hire and quotas and, you know, who gets to go to college because who's accepted and who's not like that's problematic. And you can quickly see how it can be problematic for you. Yeah. It's not just one race and class and gender. It's going to be problematic any time everyone in your sort of characteristic becomes successful in this country because you're the next star.

next target. I you know, and if you're a Democrat listening out there, I would encourage you to not give up this fight that you have waged to deliver a neoliberal utopia is something you put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into. And you can't just let it go away like that. If you don't make Jasmine Crockett the response to President Trump's address to Congress in March,

You're weak. Racist, too. They're giving up. Racist. Oh, that's so good. Absolutely racist. They should have her do the response. She has to do the response. It's racist and sexist if she is not the responder. And it's a disappointment. You know what they're going to do, though? I guarantee you. They're going to find, like, the whitest white. You think they're going to give it a shot? No, it's like the Tim Walls decision, right? They're going to be like, well, our problem. Because they can't get out of the identity box.

They're like, well, we're having a huge problem with white men. Granted, all of our policies and what we outwardly state say that they're like second-class citizens in this country from birth all the way through. But if we have a white man representing that message, it will surely, surely...

Because, of course, everyone looks at their prospects for their future success based on what the guy who's delivering the message looks like. Like dramatically underestimating the intelligence of your average voter. But that's the way they live. Therefore. And then at the same time, it's like if you're like a Josh Stein or something, do you want to be the guy who has to step out there and be like, I'm arguing against what 70 percent of the American public. No way. Right.

No way. He wouldn't, but you know who would? Adam Kinzinger. That's a great point. They might think of that. He might do it. Can you imagine if a King of the Hill contestant is doing the response? That's like a Lincoln Project if they ran the world would do. Exactly. It would be like Kinzinger or Cheney or somebody like that.

Anyway, great comments. Liz Cheney, the response. That might happen. I could, right? That could happen. This is a good bet. Future question of the day. We'll talk about this. Future question of the day. I think those things are real. Anyway, as the Trump agenda goes forward and has had so much success, and we've talked a lot about how well-crafted these executive orders are and how they're just sort of cutting through a lot of the bullshit that got everybody bogged down in 17. It hasn't stopped ever.

And Democrats are suing, you know, everybody's suing over everything. They're trying to get things. You've got some activist judges out there that are trying to bog this thing down. We're going to talk a little bit about that and a whole bunch more right after this. So we just got some big news from Americans for Prosperity, the most effective grassroots organization in the country. They've just launched a massive $20 million campaign to protect your hard-earned money. Here's the deal.

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So there was a piece in the Washington Times that caught my attention because, as we've covered here on the Variety program, the Trump administration has been much more efficient at getting these executive orders rolling, knowing that there is a cottage industry that's basically funded by, you know, billionaire leftists, coastal and sometimes off the coast. Even overseas, yeah. Hans-Erik Wies and Soros, as we know. Yeah, but there's like a cottage industry of people who just sue –

hoping to get the right judge in the right venue to stop all these various things. And they've not had the same kind of success that they did in 2017 in large part because Trump and his team, Stephen Miller and others, they've thought about this stuff and they've crafted this, but it doesn't stop their efforts. So

So this piece in The Washington Times actually caught my attention. Trump is willing to go toe-to-toe with activist judges what to do about the judges. President Trump emerged victorious in a courtroom in the District of Columbia when a judge shot down the American civil liberties billboard.

attempt to restart a Biden-era parole program for unauthorized migrants. First of all, just think about this. Exactly. The ACLU, didn't they used to be about free speech? We know they've given up on that and now want to silence them.

Free speech. But now why are they like fighting court battles to let dangerous illegal immigrants have parole programs? Like what are we doing here? They're probably getting paid by USAID too. Yeah, right? So – but like this was a win obviously. They've had some setbacks and some challenges because they've – look, Democrats are court shopping. They're smart at this stuff. They figured out despite all the successes of the 2017 through 2021,

reshaping of a federal judiciary, there's still some spots where you can go in and you can get some decisions that are just anti-American. You know, judges that are just basically long time, like either Obama appointees or even all the way back to like Bill Clinton appointees. They give them what they want.

And so Trump, as this story says, Trump hasn't won in court even once since taking office, said democracy docket, a left leaning legal tip sheet. Well, I mean, it was like demonstrably untrue. That quote's untrue by the lead of the story.

But this is what these people do. You've got to tell your donors that to keep the money rolling. This is how they raise money. And just so you guys know, like what they do is they sue a whole bunch of times. They'll get one victory out of 100, and then they'll talk about their huge success at stopping the Trump agenda. And if you send – it's like –

Sarah McLoughlin saw, you know, arms of an angel. We'll show some dying puppies and like, you know, come on, billionaires, send some more money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's just for just $5 a day, we can make all of your illegal progressive dreams come true. And continue to fund democracy. That's right.

Democracy Docket. What a perfectly left wing name for us. So a couple of these things are a preliminary injunction that halting the president's attempt to limit birthright citizenship. We remember we talked about this several weeks ago. We thought that this was going to be the one that they targeted and, you know, would get a judge at some point to do it.

But they've got a block of releasing the names of FBI agents involved in pursuing cases against the JN6 stuff. Again, that's – like I'm not sure I completely understand it. The way that the left frames that I think is different than what's happening in reality. But this is the way they frame that up.

a freeze on plans to put on leave the entire workforce of the U.S. agency. This is the USAID thing. Like they've got people to weigh in on that. But again, like Trump is picking these fights with the ability of the Democrats to like try to block it in court. Meanwhile, the American people are like, no, like do it. Do it. So like all of these things are smarter than just a court battle.

Like it illuminates and elevates a conversation the American people have been wanting to have for a very long time where Trump is safely on like a 70 percent footing. That's the thing. I mean, these are all extremely common sense measures across the board. And the fact that what Trump is doing here is showing that the opposition, that you've got these liberal judges who have been put into place, right?

Trying to fight him. They're actually fighting the will of the American people. So he has that going for him this time around. Well, it illuminates this stuff, right? You wouldn't know that these people are as crazy as they're being unless they try. Like, listen to this one. On Sunday, a federal judge in New Mexico blocked the administration from sending three Venezuelans, a Venezuelan gang member.

to Guantanamo Bay. Remember he said he was going to do that with some ladies? And he did. Yeah. Judge Ken Gonzalez and Obama appointee. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. Granted the temporary order after a brief hearing, calling it a short-term ruling. So then why make the ruling? That's the thing. That's the thing is they know they're eventually, when a higher court's like, yeah, I guess the murderer should probably, illegal murder should probably be sent out of the country.

They just want to get those points because they're liberal activists. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, Musk and everybody else jumps down this person's neck because honestly, what we were talking about is three very violent Venezuelan gang members. And what Trump was talking about, who he sends to Guantanamo, like these are like

unredeemable criminals. Yeah. This isn't someone who just snuck across the border, broke the law there. They're like, while they're here, they're a member of a gang committing violent crimes and they gotta go. And Ken Gonzalez is like, well, hold on. Yeah. Let me think about that for a second. Okay, Ken. Like, you do what you gotta do with your leftist agenda. But, I mean...

this stuff is now getting highlighted and Musk and everybody else are talking about it Monday of yesterday. And like, people are going to see it and people are going to be understand that this is the government. Like it's why it's so hard to change stuff because believe it or not, there is a constituency for violent Venezuelan gang members. And again, like for years, actually on this show, we've been warning our listeners about how much these left-wing dark money groups have,

Been buying up prosecutors, been buying up judges, getting them in place to do garbage like this. Where Americans for years and in this past election have made it clear we're done with crime. We're done with illegal aliens in our country. And these judges are like, uh-uh-uh, my paymaster said I need to stand in the way. I know a higher court is going to be like, it's pretty cut and dry clear that this is legal. But I need to make them know that, hey, when you got me this gig, I'm going to do what you paid me for.

Yeah. And we wouldn't know any of this if Trump wasn't shaking things up. Like the perfect example was yesterday on the USAID issue. Trump is shaking things up. And all of a sudden we learned that a guy like Bill Hagerty from Tennessee sent letters to Anthony Blinken under the Biden administration asking him to assure the Senate that USAID was not funding terrorists through subsidiary groups and subsidiary groups.

And they wouldn't confirm that. And nobody – and like we worked on the Hill. We know how these – the office puts a letter together. The senator is like, you've got to be kidding me. This is even a thing to consider? It seems like a threshold question that you could probably answer pretty quickly. Yeah, fires it off to the State Department. He's like, surely, yeah, they're going to say no. We don't allow anybody who funds terrorist groups. They're like, what?

And coming from Hagerty, which is like, this is not someone just like pie in the sky. Like when he was ambassador to Japan, him and Trump have both spoken on how they partnered to get Japan to start buying oil from America, cutting off Iran. And when Iran didn't have money, they don't have money to fund Hamas. Like this is the guy who knows what he's talking about. So when he sends over this letter and he's like, can you just assure me that taxpayer money is not going to terrorism? And then Biden's administration is like, no, we can't do that.

Think about how nuts that is. Think about that. The opposite of the Bush doctrine. This highlights the importance of the first four years and I think the major accomplishment of the first Trump administration, which is the judges issue. Now, you're never going to get to 100% of federal judges at any one time, but you can make a substantial impact, of which they did. The ones that are blocking all of these things are Obama and Biden appointed judges.

Now, we've made a lot of progress, but we've got to continue to do that. And they've got to – once they get through cabinet nominees and everything else, they've got to reprioritize. Let's get the judge machine going burr again. Yeah, we've got to get that thing going. We've got to get that thing going because all this stuff is – the only good news is the judge that's handling the USAID thing is going to be a Trump appointee. Okay. So somebody who follows the law. But like –

What the case that they're making on the Democratic side in court and all these ridiculous press conferences is somehow that they're following the law. They're following the Constitution. And Trump is some sort of extraordinarily just pontificating on things and making things happen that don't exist in law, in statute, in the Constitution. OK, well, first of all, it's complete bullshit.

Second of all, let's just remind you of graphic, too. Can we throw this up, please? This is President Biden on his way out, affirming what I have long believed is

So what he's talking about is a very, very controversial ERA amendment that was proposed, what, 40 years ago? Yeah. It doesn't actually exist, but he just said like –

I am now saying that this is in the Constitution. That's because they respect the rule of law. These are the folks that are like, well, if we just follow the law. And then you've got a president of the United States on his way out who pardons his whole family, everybody involved in his corrupt administration. And then it's like, oh, by the way, there's a 28th Amendment.

And like, just go with that. And that's the thing is it's I think it's starting to fall apart. The whole Democrat grift, the whole Democrat argument of how for years they tried to be like Trump is a constitutional crisis personified, you know, like Trump is a clear and present danger.

That's all falling apart because they tried running a campaign where they're like, Trump is the most dangerous threat to this country. Now we're what? Only like three weeks in and it turns out all Trump is doing is just following the letter of the law. He is the constitution personified. We're actually following law in this country again. It's crazy. And they're like, holy shit, we don't have all the institutions to bully people into believing what we believe anymore. That's the thing. The grift is falling apart. It's falling apart. So you might say like, okay, well,

I mean, the guy wants to cut spending. It seems like a relatively straightforward type of thing. You know, they administer the spending and so they want to take a look at where stuff is going. Like what Democrat would find a constitutional crisis in that? Well, for that, we play you clip one.

Yeah, I mean, what we are witnessing is a constitutional crisis. We are seeing an executive branch that has decided that they are no longer going to abide by the Constitution in honoring Congress's role in the creation of the agencies, in their role in deciding where money is allocated.

Plus, she's reliably told that there are Jewish people in Trump's family. And so she's going to hate that. But I mean, this is the craziest of the left. And they're like, oh, it's a constitutional crisis. Are you talking about Ilhan Omar or Margaret Brennan? There's two in that clip. I mean, imagine even platforming somebody like that to talk about in a serious way.

about what's happening in Washington, D.C. Like, oh, I know. Let's hear from Ilhan Omar. Yeah, she's got her hands wrapped around the Constitution. Not the Somalian Constitution, the American Constitution. I mean, I've seen this clip pop up on X a few times recently where she was at a campaign rally...

in Minnesota, your home state. Yeah, thanks. And it was some Somali organization, and they translated exactly what was being said by the speaker with Ilhan on stage, and he said, it's important everyone here knows that

Ilhan is not a representative for the United States. Ilhan is a representative for Somalia. And if you want to make sure that we fund Somalia, you have to vote and donate. He said straight up, you have to donate right now to Ilhan Omar. Yeah. And so this is lecturing us on the Constitution. Yeah, this is the person that's giving us a constitutional lesson. And you're like, all right, so that one doesn't make a lot of sense. So Doge in general.

That's just ruffled feathers. Thank God. So who, like, could you think of to be a voice that would go against Doge? Oh, okay. Let's take a look at clip two, please, if you don't mind, Spaghetts. In the past week, Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have accessed the personal private information of tens of millions of Americans and sensitive data about public and private entities, social security numbers.

Addresses, tax returns, and more.

All of which is complete nonsense. This woman dedicated her entirety straight from the campaign. Yeah, she ran on. She was like, I will prosecute Trump. Okay. So that sounds like you're just politicizing the justice system in this country right off the bat. Which she did. And like for all the world to see to the point where her prosecution in no small part was responsible for the comeback of Donald Trump because people looked at it and were like, my God.

Like, how out of touch? Well, she hasn't stopped at all. Here she is, like, weighing in on... Now she's saying that your Social Security numbers and your bank accounts and all of those things are...

are being compromised by DOE, which is just a laughable proposition on its face. She is the face of this multi-state, multi-blue state initiative from Dems who are working as attorney generals to try to stop the government from cutting spending. That's all it is. I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that we now know for a fact that the Chinese government has hacked the Office of Personal Management

Multiple times. And they have the data on everyone who's ever worked in the government. Beyond that, we've been told that the Chinese government has hacked every single phone company in the United States and has the personal data of every single American in the United States. They have now a profile on every single 300 million plus United States citizens.

And then in the last days of the Biden administration, we get photos that were like, oh, turns out it is true. Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are here shaking hands with Xi in China. Right? So, like, where's the crisis there? Where's the crisis there? It's just so bizarre. But, like, to run out Letitia James, you know, where's Fannie or whatever her name was in Georgia? Fannie, well, is she busy? Yeah.

She probably is giving her boyfriend some more money. I mean, like, could you find worse surrogates? And, like, it partially answers the question of the day from last week. Like, who's worse than Schumer? I don't know. These two look like they might be worse. Yeah. Incredible. All right. So Wolf and Spaghet's cooked a little something up here for the fellas. Better be good. It better be good.

It better be really good. It better be really good. Because, I mean, this is, we don't have to do mystery a lot. You know, we sing, we dance, we entertain, but we don't do mystery a lot here on the program. He says, like, you're going to want to talk about this. So, you know, without further ado, here is clip number three, please.

Thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with Musk and Big Balls. Big Balls. Big Balls. Big Balls, who work for Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. In the one case of the Big Balls kid, a literal teenager. Big Balls online. Big Balls here that Katie's talking about. A 19-year-old that goes by the username Big Balls. So that would be one way that we could refer to him. Young computer wizards.

Yeah, she's not a fan of Big Balls, who'd have guessed that?

But also, what a victory for that guy, right? Because I was on cloud nine when Caroline Leavitt was like one of the hosts of Ruthless, Comfortably Smug. I was like, victory lap on that. But for Big Balls to get everyone to call him Big Balls? Big Balls.

I would never come down from that high. I mean, if you didn't have him, you'd have to make him up just to see if they would actually cover it. It would be the best troll in the world if big balls didn't actually exist. It would be like Kaiser Soze. Yeah, yeah. Like the 19-year-old big balls. I could see Musk making that up, by the way. And then having everybody sort of like scrambling to find out who big balls actually is. The fact that they have to do this on primetime television and Democratic HQ is hilarious to me. Yeah. If...

My one suggestion to Elon Musk, if you have not yet, please make sure there is like a placard or like on his office door that says big balls for him while he's like hard at work. He's like cutting waste and that like you have to check in at the front desk and be like, I'd like to see big balls. Okay.

36-4. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, so Elon has brought in a bunch of nongovernmental types. These are like extremely gifted, talented data mining individuals who have the ability to go through reams of information and find pertinent items that Doge is interested in in terms of cost cutting and everything else. Yeah, like if they can parallel park a rocket, I think they're probably the –

Folks that you want going through the data figuring out problems. Yeah, right. But these are not the guys that you put through a confirmation hearing. These are guys like Big Balls. And Big Balls evidently has his name Big Balls because somewhere on a LinkedIn profile or whatever he identifies himself as Big Balls.

And this is how they've tracked this cat down. Like, I don't know all the doxing involved to how we got to big balls, but the fact that it ended at big balls, I think is only representative of how just how a genius this guy actually is. He has now forced the entire Democratic glitterati across the country to have commentary throughout the prime time of their broadcasts on an individual named Big Balls.

What a move. What a power move. And Democrats have gone at this guy full force. I mean, it wasn't just primetime. The Washington Post is writing about him. They were trying everything they could to get him fired. They were briefly successful at that. Wait, was it Big Balls? I don't know if it was Big Balls who got fired and then reinstated. Was it? No, I think it was. Was it? Well, so I think we have a clip actually that would sort of clarify some of this.

Didn't know we were going to have to use this to talk about big balls in a different context. But big balls. Clip four, please. Cutting effort. One of the engineers was fired for some inappropriate posts. The vice president says bring him back.

What do you say? Well, I don't know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, did you say that? I'm with the vice president. Thank you, Peter. Go ahead, please. That is so cool. When I saw that, I mean, like, I was so happy. Like, I can't describe the feeling because, like, number one,

That's a team right there. Yeah. That's a team. When he's like, you got his back, I got your back. Let's go. I'm with him on that. He's like, how do I feel about big balls? I don't know. You've spoken on big balls. He's like, I have spoken on big balls. I'm with him on big balls. So cool. That is so good. Meanwhile, like Letitia Jameses of the world are just like putting themselves through a meat grinder. They're just like seething. And for him to just be like, it's like he hits up his boys. You say that? All right, I'm with him. Let's go. Yeah.

Let's go. Let's go. So Big Balls continues to do his thing. Last reported, I think yesterday, Big Balls was like somewhere buried in the State Department or something else. Oh, that's right. Like reporters are mad that he's been given an email address. Yeah. Which like, how do they, I don't know how they know all this stuff, but they're like infatuated with Big Balls. That's why it would be so great if he didn't actually exist.

please be like big balls at state.gov. Oh, I'm going to shoot an email there and just be like, big balls. Come on the show. Big duck balls. I'm going to shoot. I'm going to shoot an email. And I hope I don't get a bounce back. Oh God. You gotta love it. Uh,

All right. So listen, that's our big ball segment. Great. What a great mystery clip, by the way. That one worked. That one worked. That was good. That was maybe we'll do that sometime in the future because that certainly did work. We want to get to our guest who I think is really, really interesting guy. And, you know, you hear from lawmakers, policymakers, the regulators, you hear from the president, the vice president, all that stuff here on the Ruthless Variety program. You don't always hear from people at the

like the leading edge of industry advocacy and how they got there and why it's so important. This guy, listen. If I could just add one little bit about this, this is a very important discussion to be happening in our country right now. The aim of this group is to

is to create jobs for Americans, to increase the salary of Americans. And like Chris Power, one of the folks working with this group, I've talked about his company, Hadrian, before, where their line, his elevator speech is, we find the guys who work at Home Depot, and in like six weeks, we train them up to start making aerospace parts and like quadruple their salary. And that's what these people are doing. That's what Austin, he's gonna tell us right now. Yeah, let's get to Austin Bishop.

One of the things you love about the program is that we give candy and then we give vegetables. And then, you know, occasionally you get candy and vegetables.

All at the same time. So you like, it tastes like candy, but there's a little bit of vegetables involved and you learn something. Things that taste sweet, but are good for you, Josh. Exactly. And that's what we've got here today. That's what we've got. Austin Bishop, he's the CEO of the New American Industrial Alliance. You're like, what is that? Well, that's part of the reason he's here is to tell you about it. I'm telling you, this is one of the most exciting new groups that I've heard about in a long time and

with an opportunity based on everything that we know to sort of remake American industrial strength across the globe. Awesome. Welcome, pal. Thanks for having me. I don't know if I'm more of the candy or the vegetables. No, we're candy and vegetables, so you kind of got to be a little bit funny. That's part of the prepare-made. 100%. So tell us about what you're doing. Yeah, look, I mean...

four or five months ago, I think if you told me I was running a trade organization, I'd probably first ask you what's a trade organization. But, you know, yeah, we're building really a coalition of leaders across companies, capital, and government who care about one thing, which is reindustrializing the U.S. The kind of overarching theme is we need to have sovereignty over our supply chains. And this is something that's bipartisan. Everyone can get behind high-tech, low-tech companies.

old industry, new industry. We've sort of run this experiment of decades of deindustrialization. It hasn't worked out very well for many different reasons. And we think there's this massive opportunity and also just realignment that's going on in D.C. and across the country where everyone's realizing we have to be able to make stuff again. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so important, Austin. I know you're an Ohio guy. I'm an Ohio guy. Oh, here we go. This is part of the deal. We should have said next year. That's where they put us apart. So we're very familiar with manufacturing. And I grew up in a manufacturing family in Hamilton, Ohio. My father is in manufacturing, low tech. My grandfather was in manufacturing. My uncle is in manufacturing. My whole family is in manufacturing. And what you're working on, I think, I mean, just personally saying is like,

the most important project that we have in this country today, where people can actually make things and they can get them to market, start to finish in America with American labor, with American parts. And I mean, you've seen Ohio change over the last decade or several decades in a way that

you know, it's hard to recognize. I mean, when we were kids, it was the backbone of everything. And now all of a sudden it's like, how do we get that back? So I'm wondering, what are some of the things that you guys are doing now to sort of reignite that manufacturing base in our country? Yeah.

A hundred percent. I mean, like you said, where I'm from, Cleveland used to be one of the richest cities in the whole world. This is way before I was born. This is in like 1900. But you don't look too far from there. Detroit, St. Louis, Binghamton, where IBM was headquartered. A lot of people don't know that. The idea that our sort of technological and innovation capital needs to just be on the coast is just, you know, it's more of a...

mistake of history that that's that's just where it is now but it's not something that's a given and i don't think that it's a recipe for a healthy uh country like we need to be able to have good good jobs for people that that allow you to be upwardly economically mobile that don't require phd in ai and working in silicon valley yeah but technology is a huge part of this too don't get me wrong um so one of the things that you know we're really focused on i mean we're

we're education, advocacy, and lobbying. And there's, we're really encouraged by the incoming admin. I mean, really narrowly things from like the de minimis loophole and this, the sovereign wealth fund stuff is, is one of the things that we've been advocating for for a while now. Big win this week. You know, you can't, you can't take too much credit, but you know, my, our co-founder Julius crying has been talking about this stuff through American affairs for years and years and years. But our main things are, look, it's, it's pretty common sense. It's,

It's smart trade and industrial policy. It's deregulation across the board where, you know, nowadays we have lawyers making hundreds of millions of dollars just servicing, you know, when you want to pour concrete due to regulation like NEPA. And don't get me wrong, I'm from a city that's most famous recently for its rivers catching on fire.

on fire. I'm not saying I'm anti-everything. There's something in between your rivers catching on fire and being unable to pour any concrete because of NEPA and other regulations. Workforce development is a huge thing for us. And then really just leveling the playing field for American companies. American companies don't need handouts. They need a level playing field. They have this huge regulatory burden. And even on the procurement side, we're

We want to see a world where USG or DoD incentivize automation and innovation a lot more than they currently are. Well, this is one of the things that I love most about this because typically you get –

Listen, in decades past, you'll get an organization that labels itself as like, you know, we're going to re-industrialize. We're going to build back the manufacturing base. And what they're talking about is like figuring out how to reopen and subsidize the buggy whip factory. 100%. You know, and what you're talking about with your members, I mean, Palantir, like all the members that you're talking about is truly innovation here.

in bringing America back to leading the world in manufacturing that may look entirely different than it has up to this point. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, technology is a huge part of this, but we're not behind China right now because they have some space-age tech that we don't have. They've really won because we have offshore due to really a labor arb that Wall Street's really incentivized these businesses to move them overseas.

And, you know, so while tech is a really important part and, you know, you mentioned Palantir and Joby and so many of these great companies. And even I think this building is represented by JLL. They're a big backer of ours as well because you have to actually, you know, the industrial real estate is a huge part of this. But so are the old industry builders that are

still going to be the guys who are going to be producing the most of this stuff. So, you know, while it's great to have the really high tech stuff, we need Procter & Gamble and Heiko and Danaher and all of these guys in the same rooms as the guys who are tech companies. And all of these businesses are cutting edge. They're just not thought of necessarily, and they're not in the same conversations together. So when do you think that this inflection point started? Because like my thought is...

COVID kind of changed everybody's viewpoint when it comes to global supply chains and, you know, industrial might of America. Like it really opened a lot of people's eyes of how much we rely on China for stuff that we could be making here in America. And I'm curious, like,

You feel like you got your wind on, you know, your back on all this, obviously with Donald Trump, you know, in the white house and, you know, he cares a lot about this stuff, but also the environment has fundamentally changed. Totally. Well, so president Trump's been on this since at least the eighties, there's this famous New York times article ad that he bought in 87. And, and he's been basically saying the same stuff for years and calling this out, which is why we're so heartened by having him as the president right now. And so many of our friends who are in the admin that are really aligned on a

But, you know, Robert Lighthizer has been writing about this for years, for example. But to your point, you know, you can try to win in the marketplace of ideas, but the marketplace of ideas has nothing on the actual marketplace. And during COVID, I mean, moms in the Midwest couldn't get baby formula because the Suez Canal was blocked. And that...

That is going to convince way more people than a million white papers from a bunch of think tanks. We've seen it with diapers. We've seen it with everything all the way up to your oil and gas supply. So people, I think, usually when they think of manufacturing or industrials writ large, because we're not just the manufacturing or even just the onshoring guys. It's reindustrialized energy, supply chain, logistics, aerospace, defense.

All these things are impacted by the same regulation. And a lot of people, when they think about this, they might think of like auto manufacturing. But to your point, diapers and paper towels, stuff's all downstream of policy decisions that were made that led to economic realities that led to incentives for these businesses to offshore. Yeah, I think that's an important point to think about because I've –

A lot of reason why there's been a ton of angst on the conservative side over corporate decision making. A lot of reasons. And the whole woke thing over the last three or four years. But what we keep telling people is like, look, these guys don't actually care about anything other than shareholder accountability, making sure they've got a product to sell in a marketplace to sell it.

And what you're saying is we can change all of that domestically to give ourselves the best advantage not only for the companies involved but the consumer. Yes. Yeah, 100%. I mean, look –

You know, central planning is, I'm not a big fan of central planning at all. So this is not what we're advocating. I'm glad to hear that, Austin. That's a breath of fresh air. But on the other hand, you know, we do need durable institutions, especially in D.C., that are aligned with longer term visions for the country, especially with the sort of two and four year cadence that we have, which I think is brilliant. We need. But when you kind of think about who's around in town that is really aligned with what we're talking about here,

There's a lot of great organizations that piecemeal care about this stuff. But what you said about, especially during COVID, I mean, it's just been...

I remember fundraising for my first company. We're trying to use AI to automate a big chunk of manufacturing. Before COVID, nobody wanted to talk to us. They thought we were the crazy guys talking about onshoring. And after the supply chain crisis hit, to your point- What's your number again? Yeah, it was like night and day. And I think that that sort of is waking a lot of folks up.

And it's, you know, we're building on the shoulders of giants who've been thinking about this way longer than, you know, I've been alive, to be sure. But, you know, as we kind of go forward, like, we have a real opportunity to build a really strong coalition of, as I said, companies and investors. Because one of the things that people don't think about is the U.S. has...

we're the envy of the world when it comes to our capital markets. The ability for our private sector to invest in things, they just need to know that there's a risk-adjusted return on the other end. They're not running charities. And so the more that we can incentivize investment in these types of companies, whether that's removing the regulatory burden, there's a number of other ways that can really make

our own capital markets want to invest in this stuff, I think if you unleash the capital markets across these industries, you're going to see an absolute revolution. This guy gets it. I love what you're saying about regulations because the Democrats who are the most powerful Democrats who are in charge... He's running a trade association. He's got C6, guy. Are you going to walk him into that question? They do not. They

They absolutely do not understand where things come from. Today's Democrats think things just come from the store. It's very different from our grandfather's Democrats who understood labor and who fought for the little guy. Today's Democrats just do not do that. I also think, though, I also think to your point, and I agree with it 100%, but I think to your point, there are also historically institutions within D.C., places like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that if they did their job,

Austin's outfit wouldn't be necessary. They would be looking around the corner and saying, like, this is the future of American industry. And I think too many of them have gotten offshore. They've taken the viewpoint that many corporations have over the years and been seduced by the idea of cheaper labor and cheaper goods and insource, you know, all this stuff that ultimately inhibits growth.

But now we're at a point where they've so marginalized themselves, and it's included in a big Democratic Party that is a little less than half the country, that have forced folks like you to get into an advocacy business when I'm sure you'd prefer to just be in the making stuff business. A hundred percent. And we don't want to hit on the Chamber of Commerce. They recently reached out and want to actually talk to us. Oh, I'm sure. We're ready.

You're like, how do we get on board with the back? But 100%. And we're not finger pointing here. I mean, look, this stuff started...

In some ways, long before anyone who's alive is around to even talk about it. And we just want to fix things, and that's it. And I come from the builder world and the investor world. We're seeing what's happening when you apply sort of an action-oriented framework. I mean, look at what Doge is doing. Totally. What, like four or five really motivated young guys and gals can do. We're applying the same thing on this industrial side.

I mean, also just exciting stuff. I mean, you remember companies are involved in some of the most exciting, innovative things that, you know, we don't, the average American, we don't think about. Yeah. Like even because it doesn't exist.

Well, I mean, yeah, it's a lot more exciting to get out of bed when you're not selling an enterprise SaaS tool or advocating on behalf of insurance businesses. Like these are very charismatic businesses, things that go fast, things that explode, you know, robots, you know, nuclear companies, supply chain and logistics stuff. I mean, maybe I'm a bit of a nerd with this stuff, but...

the people building in the physical world is just, it's so, it's so cool. It's so American. Um, and there's a broader movement going on. I mean, you know, I talked to you guys earlier, we had this re-industrialized summit that really kicked off the founding of NIA and that summit was, we held in Detroit and it was really just supposed to be 50 or 60 of our friends who we've all been having these same conversations around, like, you know, the need for policy change and sort of cultural change. Um,

And so we thought, let's get a bunch of our friends from the coast, make them come to Detroit, put them in really the breadbasket, the, the, the, in some ways, the city that saved that, that allowed us to win World War II that ended up going viral on Twitter. And we had 500 people attend, very senior folks across admin, government companies, um,

And we had 2,000 people on a wait list. They want to be a part of it. They want to be a part of it. And it really felt like a revival. And so we're going to run that summit every year. We're really excited. We're going to announce in another couple of weeks the next location. We'd love to be a part of it. We'd love to tell you about it. But you're right. There's this revival behind this. And again, Julius aside, he loves the wonky really policy stuff. And look, we have to get policy done. But we're not aiming to compete with other think tanks just for the same sort of donor dollars.

You're going to get stuff done. And that's really what I think is different. And you kind of wish – I mean, look, 15 minutes of conversation, I get the sense that you wish you didn't have to run a –

you know, it's like, it's better to be able to do our thing. And, and, but unfortunately in today's world, it's necessary. Yeah. It's look, it's, I think it's like a patriotic duty. I it's, it's a lot of fun to do. I wouldn't do it if it, if, if I didn't wake up feeling really energized to do it, but it definitely wasn't on sort of my, my career path. Um, I didn't even know what a C3 or C6 was until, you know, we talked to our lawyers, uh,

You know, we were getting this formed like five or six months ago. But I think this is the time to do this and really grateful to have guys like you bring us on, help spread the word, and really grateful that there's so many brilliant people who want to build and invest in this space. Well, listen, Austin, you're doing a hell of a job. You let us know how we can help because we are extremely on board with all of this stuff going forward. Good luck to you. Thank you. And keep us updated, will you? I will. I will. Austin Bishop, everybody.

Well, this guy has a lot on the ball, not the least of which he's from Ohio. Oh, here we go. I didn't know that, and now I know. But, I mean, he has a topic that is near and dear to a lot of our hearts, and I just hope that we can continue the conversation with him because what they're doing is very meaningful in Rust Belt states. I'm telling you.

things have changed over the last 20 years and everybody knows that or they've read it but if you don't live there and you haven't seen complete towns like basically wiped out you don't really know the devastation and what he's talking about re-industrializing our country is music to the ears of people who live in the middle of the world

And like right after Trump took office, you had an event in Ohio. Palmer Lucky Trey Stevens from Anduril have opened up a factory there that's going to create tons and tons of jobs like this is what it's about. This is how you make America great. Yeah. When Democrats talk about reindustrialization, they're talking about buggy whips. They're talking about stuff. They want to make stuff here in the United States that we have long aged out of.

And that they don't have a material value to workers and to families that live in the communities that are dedicated to produce it. What he's talking about is stuff of real value, next generation stuff that

that increase wages, that increase living, you know? And like, I just, I love that we're having that conversation again. Austin's doing a great job. Can't wait to keep in touch with him. So listen, you got to remember our question of the day because it's a good one and it's an opportunity for you to put on your best Shane Gillis impersonation and be very, very funny. If Kamala had won in contrast to what Trump is doing right now, what would she be doing right now?

What would Connell be doing? I can't wait for these answers. I can't wait for them. This is your opportunity. Weigh in. Got to like and subscribe. Like and subscribe on the YouTube. Put that down. We're going to read all of them. Put the best ones up on Thursday.

With that, fellas, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Austin Bishop, and thank you so much to the listeners. Remember, we're just a hair away from 100,000, so hit that subscribe button yet if you have not. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you on Thursday. Stay ruthless.

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