How China Funds the American Left + Sen. Cornyn Joins The Progrum

This is well-funded, well-organized, essentially like riot on demand that China has built inside of America. But they're now part of a group that's being funded in a large part by foreign influence operations that have decided that it is more important to try to attack the United States from within than you could ever try to attack them externally. It became very clear that there were outside forces that were driving all of this astroturfed activism. For years, the big health insurance companies have been raising the price of insurance, denying care and delaying treatments, while making record profits and receiving trillions of America's tax dollars through federal programs. When they get asked why health insurance prices keep skyrocketing, the big insurance companies dodge, distract, and blame everyone else. But the American public isn't buying it. Recent national polling shows that voters are concerned about affordability and most importantly, want Congress to prioritize lowering the cost of health insurance. That's why Congress recently grilled the CEOs of the big health insurance companies to answer questions. After years of denying responsibility and pointing fingers everywhere but at themselves, the big insurance bosses are finally being asked to answer for skyrocketing premiums while they make record profits. It's an important first step. But Americans are demanding action and accountability, not more excuses and denials from big health insurance companies. Learn more at americansforopengoverment.com. The Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. That means higher risk of fraud, greater chance of stolen personal data and the loss of rewards programs just so corporate megastores can pocket billions of dollars in higher profits. Tell Congress to guard your card. Visit guardyourcard.com to take action and learn more. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Keep the faith, hold the line and own the lids. It's time for our main event. Good Thursday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety program. I am Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook left to right across your radio dial as always. Look, it's one of those weeks where there's stuff all over the place. Some makes you a little depressed and some that you're just like, I can't believe this isn't public consciousness. One of those things is what we've been talking about for the last, I don't know, six weeks on this program about the paid protests and all of the uprising of the left of Donald Trump executing the law that has been on the books for generations about illegal immigration, fraud, things like that, putting federal agents in because states can't do that. and there being a paid protest to try to muddy the water in some ways, take our eye off the ball, try to distract people from the reason that federal agents are there in the first place in some ways. And we have some meat on the bone to put on that, that we're going to do this very episode that you're going to be shocked by. Honestly, I was a little bit shocked by this. I didn't think it was this cut and dry. It feels kind of like a shock but not surprised. Yeah, it's the thing that John Ashbrook has always said here on the Ruthless Variety program. The only way to destroy America is to turn America against itself from outside. It's from, yeah, try to get it from within. We also have an extremely exciting kickoff in this program to what we were doing throughout the midterms, which is interviewing candidates in primaries in general elections that are going to be the people who are asking for your vote next November. We have a strong opinion about whether or not Republicans hold majorities. There's a lot of people who are sort of like confused, frustrated, whatever, by a whole bunch of things. We're going to take you through the whole process all the way. We'll be with you because we have all the same feelings about whether or not you should get engaged in this kind of thing. But we figure the best way to start all of it is to just talk to the candidates that are asking for all of your votes. One of the most contentious – and this is why I love Ruthless – the most contentious primary in all of America, which if you ask a republican about uh who's an elected official they're gonna be like oh yeah no we'll see what happens yeah right oh yeah no it's oh yeah they don't want to talk about it they don't want to talk about it because it's like the biggest elephant in the room it's in the biggest republican state in the union it's the state that if you had to actually fight out a general election, my God, you have no chance of winning a midterm election. It's in the great state of Texas. And so, you know, unlike every other program that you're going to deal with, we're going to talk to all of them. In this episode, you will hear from Senator John Cornyn, somebody I've known for a long time, all of you've known for a long time, been on our program before. I think we last time we talked to him was at the convention. I think that's right. Wesley Hunt, who's been an OG ruthless guy. He's been a few times, at least three. A couple ride-alongs. Yeah, a couple ride-alongs. A good friend of the program. I talked to him personally the other day about coming back on the program. You will get him in short order to give his pitch. Ken Paxton, my understanding, Johnny, is that we've been in contact with his guys. We've reached out to his guys, and we're really open he comes on. I've actually met him before. Oh, yeah, I have too. I had a nice conversation with him. The guy's obviously conservative, been working in the state for a long time, so would love to have him here on the show. Got a serious constituency. To borrow a parlance in the great state of Texas, the eyes of Ruthless are upon you. Exactly. We're asking for all of you. Exactly. Now, I don't want you to all think that we're going to cast a nonjudgmental eye about anybody who chooses not to participate in this discussion. We're not. And we have so many new listeners and viewers on YouTube. Every time there is an election, we always invite, especially Republican primaries, all the candidates in a Republican primary hop on the show. And generally, every single candidate shows up. In the rare occasion they don't, it's not great because our audience wants to hear what you're about, what you believe, what you're going to fight for directly from you. And I think that is I'm so proud to be part of this program because we are the fairest platform of all. We're not going to say what an attack ad says. We're not going to say what a pro ad for a person says. We're going to let them do the same. Yeah. And you either impress our audience or you don't. I mean, ask Bruce Jenner how that worked out. Oh, I forgot about that until just this moment. I mean, that asshole. Don't no show this show. Confirmed and no showed like 10 minutes before. And then it didn't. Well, it didn't work. It wasn't great. It was a national story. Yeah. It was picked up everywhere. So we've extended invites. They all know this because it's in not only press secretaries but chiefs of staffs and consultants' inboxes. And I know in Texas it's in good hands because we know all of these people in all of these campaigns. We're friends with all of these people in all of these campaigns. I know that it's going to be handled well and we're going to get an interview from Wesley and Paxton. And so you'll get the full panel point. which is what we try to provide here on the Ruthless Variety Program. And also I want to express the carrot, not just the stick, but it's like this audience that we have is some of the most engaged, intelligent, conservative grassroots and policymakers and movers and shakers and voters and people across this country. There's no one you would benefit more from to reach out to than our audience. 100 smart people doing smart things so thank you all for tuning in you can look forward to the first installment of that at john cornyn here at the end of this episode but let's get right into the the junk here because i'll be frank with you guys like from a minnesota perspective you heard me say it and i said it to stauber the other day like what's happening in minnesota i don't recognize i didn't grow up with any of that it's very very difficult for me to believe that somehow over the last decade this state that i know the people that i know have just become crazy i have to imagine that some of this is paid for and then you look at the the back end of what they've done with whether it's the anti-semitic campus rants or the george floyd burning down of cities or whether it's the extreme environmentalism or whether it's you know the issue of the day that motivates the extremes on the far left they all kind of show up where the fight is no matter what and it's the same people it's the same organization it's the same like they don't care about anything they just care about opposing republicans or opposing in this case president Trump. And so this is why this part of the conversation is super interesting, because it turns out China. And I don't think they're alone in this. We've covered the Hansborg, these the the far left of the European side of things, infiltrating our nonprofit organization. But if there's an interesting report from the New York Post State Department, the State Department. So this is not – look, we're not talking about like study fines. The State Department who deals with all of these people one-on-one every single day of the year, State Department has identified Code Pink and other far-left groups as vectors of Chinese influence operations. Think about that. Let me just read a couple of paragraphs and we can react to it. The U.S. State Department has submitted a report to Congress labeling far left nonprofit organizations, including Code Pink, the People's Forum, as vehicles for Chinese influence operations. The report claims that these groups help spread pro-China messaging and undermine U.S. interests. partisan hacks spent years peddling phony russia collusion hoax while turning a blind eye to the sprawling web of far-left organizations who spread the agendas of the chinese communist party under secretary of state for public diplomacy sarah rogers said in a statement i can't let me just say um and you all don't know this because it's it's um this part of this is just being a part of government at some point when you get that from an official spokesperson from a state department that's a big deal it's a huge deal and it also makes sense i mean if you if you stop and think about the messages being delivered by these NGOs, the messages aren't focus on the murderers. Their messages aren't get the people out who are trying to cause problems in America. Their messages are stop ice. And it's very, very different from what the average American is interested in for these ice operations. Which is why most people are confused by all of this. I mean, I've talked to a vast majority of my buddies in Minnesota, and it breaks into two categories. One of them is like double down. This is insane. I don't know these people. They are not from here. Nobody that I know could possibly relate to what Governor Walz and everybody else is talking about. The other side of it, the nonpolitical people that I grew up with are like, dude, can we just stop? Like I can't actually take my kid to the softball game because there's all kinds of like roadblocks and all – and so it's reflected in the numbers by the way of the poll numbers of people who are like, I want this all to stop. It's not a judgment on the ideology. It's not the judgment on the value prop of having illegals in your city. It's a value judgment on whether or not they can live their lives normally, which, again, that's basically what politics revolves around. Right. And for those of us who aren't from Minnesota or who aren't friends with guys who grew up in Minnesota, what we learned about the state came from the movie Mighty Ducks. And Coach Gordon Bombay would have never put up with this stuff under any circumstances. He would have never put up with this stuff. A couple of things. First off, one of the groups that was listed, People's Forum, might sound somewhat familiar. it's because uh when the ice operations first started in minnesota in times square you saw this like massive demonstration like the morning after and all those folks you saw were wearing these hats that said people's form and shirts that said people's form and the the the signs that they had were printed out and said people's form on the corner of it this is well-funded well organized essentially like riot on demand that China has built inside of America specifically to divide Americans and to destroy America from within. And you're hearing this individual, Sarah Rogers, who's extremely well-respected when it comes to diplomacy, straight up call them out by names, Code Pink and the People's Forum, and straight up say, this is China, Chinese-funded an attempt to destroy America from within. It's interesting because, and I'm sure you guys feel the same way, is it feels like things switched in the sort of Obama era of this sort of left-wing activism. And when you saw people come into an office on Capitol Hill from like a Code Pink or wherever, you're like, oh, well, I disagree with these people, but I'm sure their heart's in the right place and that sort of thing. Or like that woman who would protest outside of George W. Bush's ranch in Texas. Right? Yeah. And it was like, all right, well, these people, they got a different opinion on the thing, but these people are here because they care about the thing. Free speech. And then at some point during the Obama administration and the rise of these left-wing NGOs and this hall of mirrors of funding, right, that it became very clear that there were outside forces that were driving all of this astroturfed activism. And there was a moment there in 2020 during the riots in Minnesota where a Democrat would slip up and acknowledge that fact and be like, these people aren't from Minnesota. These are outside agitators, people, maybe foreign actors, who are taking part in these riots that are burning down police precincts and things like that. And they got real quiet real fast. And the reason why they did is I think this entire organ of the left wing is orchestrated outside of America. Well, dude, so if I can do just a quick history lesson on this. It's that – so the Obama administration was taken entirely broadsided by Citizens United and the open flow of cash into the issue advocacy place. And what happened was the rise of places like the US Chamber of Commerce, which has since become an absolute like hellhole. I mean it's not – it doesn't do anything for anyone. But at the time, for six long years, it was literally at the center of opposition to Barack Obama and Democratic Party politics. Did that mean they spent a lot of money? Of course it did, and that got the attention of the Obama administration. So they started introducing things like the Disclose Act. You have people like Sheldon Whitehouse is now very interested in keeping all of the donations to him and his wife disclosed. But at the time decided to make the Disclose Act, which would require everyone who contributes to nonprofits to be disclosed to the world. So they could intimidate and harass conservatives. It's the Docs Act. They were like, if we can get the names of conservatives, we can show up outside their homes and we can harass their families and we can threaten them. And it wasn't just a threat that they didn't follow through with. At the same time, they had Lois Lerner and the IRS coming in behind it to literally subpoena and audit all of the conservatives who made considerable contributions to conservative nonprofits. And to put a finer point on it, because I was involved with this, this is at the time of the Tea Party movement, what Lois Lerner and those folks at the IRS were doing is finding organizations, local organizations like the Naples Tea Party. Yeah. You know, like small organizations that just registered with the IRS for nonprofit status. They would search all of those incoming registrations for 990s, search for terms like Tea Party, Patriots, things like that, and then fucking audit those people. Yeah, well, and make them spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. They did not have. People got together for coffee to talk about the Constitution. And the Obama administration targeted those people. But knowing what we know, because we've been involved in this, the lesson from the Democratic Party is, okay, we're going to introduce the Disclose Act. We can't get that done in large part because it was McConnell at the time who was just like, absolutely not. You're not going to do that for the same reasons that we wouldn't disclose the donors to the NAACP in the 1960s. I mean there's an entire Supreme Court case about that. Because you can't have a federal government at war with people who are advocating their personal position. They knew they couldn't win, and so what they decided to do was broaden the aperture. You can go all the way back to Al Gore, a bunch of allegations about dollars coming into his bank account from Europe, from everywhere else, where Democrats were sort of skirting the line on all of this. And their lesson was, well, as long as it is undisclosed, well, then it's not a part of an election, is it? And so they turned around and started soliciting dollars in a major way through places like what's the Arabella Advisors, which they've like renamed. And like that the thing is like they turned what was a free speech issue of trying to allow people to express their opinion into a cottage industry They like why don we just make this a business Yeah exactly And so what they did is turn to all these big money operations. And while doing so, what the State Department is contending, they also have state actors involved. They're like, well, if you're going to take a billion dollars from Hans Borg Wies, how about a couple hundred million from the CCP? Which is exactly what's happened here. And they have sent this up to Congress as a legitimate report. This will not get covered. You are not going to hear about this in your newspaper. You are not going to watch this on the evening news. This is a massive deal. This is not done haphazardly. You don't – if you're a State Department and you're accusing countries, you're doing yourself a disservice in the process. You don't want to do it because you're in charge of diplomacy. Yeah, you don't want to do it. Right. But when you do, you mean it. So the group tout a trip, a trip. This is one of the groups that they've itemized here as taking Chinese money where participants, quote, studied revolutionary history of regime. I don't know what that is exactly, but I bet Michael does and explored villages transformed by poverty alleviation programs on its website. One participant reflected on the trip and made him think he must, quote, defend China from our government's aggression. Yeah. So they got funded on a trip to go to China and be like, wow, isn't America an awful place? We're going to send you on this trip to learn the revolutionary history of China. This is happening as we speak. But this is – guys, when you see a guy put a dildo on his face in the middle of Minneapolis and you're like, man, I can't believe that these people exist. They don't really. Like these are folks who have been indoctrinated into a crazy place and I don't know how they got there. It could be a bad upbringing. It could be a lack of opportunity. It could be a mental health disorder. I don't know what it is, but they're now part of a group that's being funded in a large part by foreign influence operations that have decided that it is more important to try to attack the United States from within than you could ever try to attack them externally. They've made that decision. And these are the people who are willing to go along with – there's always a Benedict Arnold, folks. There's always a Benedict Arnold. There's a price. Just useful idiots is what it is. I don't think so. I think it's more than useful idiots. Bro, you're putting a dildo on your head. You're a useful idiot. Yeah, okay. There's useful idiots, but there's also Benedict Arnold. Yes, yeah, yeah. The useful idiot that's putting a dildo on his head reports to somebody. Yeah. There's a reason why he knew where to show up, why to show up, and to try to make a menace out of things. And the whole goal out of what it is that he's trying to do is to draw attention away from the fact that they stole $8 billion from the American people and that they have a sanctuary city and state policy that has allowed hundreds of thousands of rapists, pedophiles, murderers, scammers, all these people to live in their midst, making their lives demonstrably worse. You can't make that argument politically. So what do you do? Well, you got to find a guy to throw a dildo on his head. And that, I suppose, is the guy who's the useful idiot. But there's somebody who's telling him to be there. Yeah. And that is. It's always a blend of those two things, right? Because China being involved with this issue isn't the first time. I mean, you can go all the way back in the environmental advocacy space. Well, yeah, because they wanted the same thing. If we shut down – that's what is so amazing to me about that entire environmental argument. If we shut down the greatest resourced country in the world from producing our own energy, then we'd be entirely dependent on China. So let's get a political movement internally to decide that it is unhealthy for all of us to try to invest in our own mineral resources and rely exclusively on the people who have no environmental concern whatsoever. And it's not just about energy or solar panels, right? They wanted us to stop domestic energy production so we'd buy Chinese solar panels. But we had Stauber in here to talk about a whole range of things, mainly hockey. The guy's a hockey legend. Hockey's a great sport. But he was talking about this mining issue that's up there in the Iron Range. And they're discovering not only that they can mine for metals, but these rare earths. And boy, oh boy, China would love for us to be dependent on them for all of the rare earth development in the world. Well, they thought his district was dead, by the way. Yeah, exactly. They proclaimed it dead, that everybody's going to have to move out of it. Learn the code. Because iron is gone. And that's the thing is it's almost too obvious the way that these foreign actors are trying to cause this division within the country to benefit themselves. They're like, if I spend like $10 million on a bunch of idiots, it'll be billions of dollars for me. And then they give another example the State Department did here where the People's Revolution organized pro-Maduro protests because they're like, listen, we've got a good thing going with Venezuela where we can get their oil and we can – illegal oil. Yes. Which they're not allowed to be selling. We can get that going. But if we can convince Americans to fight for our right to have this illegal oil, would that be great? Right. And under what circumstances is your average person who cares about so many different things? There are a lot of Democrats, too, in this scenario I'm describing. Under what circumstances is somebody waking up nine hours after Maduro is captured, marching in the streets for Maduro? With a Venezuelan flag. I just happen to have a People's Revolution hat and sign and T-shirt. This is totally organic. Exactly. The Venezuelans who are here are here because they hate Maduro. They're trying to be somewhere else. And the normal people who are here have so many things they're thinking about before, like sticking up for Maduro 12 hours after the guy is captured. And I'm telling you, every single time, I'm talking to the audience here, every single time you turn on your television and you see somebody with a message that it's like no normal person, even the Democrats I talk to, the Libs I talk to, no normal person is going to get out there at 8.30 in the morning with pre-made signs with this message. That's coming from somebody else. That's coming from China. It's well organized and well financed, no question about it. So the question for all of you that you're listening to this, it's like, OK, yeah. And that checks. I'm looking around my community and I'm like, I don't really recognize any of this. Useful idiots or whatever. Like this doesn't make sense because we don't believe in any of this. But it does do a useful thing for Democrats to try to muddy the water. But what are you doing about it? What are you doing about it? Well, I got good news on that front. So according to Fox News, and I watched a little bit of this yesterday, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, friend of the program. Yeah. Remember he came out and told you exactly what it is that he was going to do with the big beauty and then did exactly what it is that he said he was going to do? So I trust this guy. This is not somebody who is making it up as he goes along. He hauled them all in. And it was on a malign foreign influence is the way that he categorized it. Inside – this is according to Fox – inside room 1100 of the Longworth House office building, Smith warned U.S. nonprofit sector had become a vulnerability exploited by foreign adversaries. Outside the hearing room, across the social media, far-left organizations tied to Marxist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham. Ashbrook brought up like a month ago that this guy. When Fox broke the story. Yeah, the girl, the woman who participated in writing the story, Asherun Omani, has been on this from day one. She's very, very sharp. Yeah. So this guy was born in the U.S. He's living in Shanghai, and he pressed forward with rhetoric vilifying the United States for its alleged colonial policies, quote unquote, and imperialism, quote unquote, and amplifying narratives aligned with what he was doing. was amplifying narratives aligned with the communist party and think how often word think how often you're hearing that out of the left today yeah even people like aoc where they call fascist actions like that's imperialism these are colonial what do you think what do you think no one's illegal on stolen land exactly there you go 100 all of a sudden you can start to connect the dots here a little bit is that somebody that someone you grew up with would come up with no Of course not. There's no one who was born in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, teens or today who could ever come up with the idea that where you live for generations of your parents, grandparents, whatever, is stolen. It's stolen. But if but if somebody was paying for it. Yeah. Well, perhaps you could come up with that kind of thing. He said, quote, this is not politics. It's about national security. Smith said I totally agree with that. He opened the hearing titled Foreign Influence in American Nonprofits, the Unmasking Threats from Beijing. He said the committee was investigating, quote unquote, money trails behind tax exempt groups accused of sowing chaos and fueling anti-Semitism. Totally right. And interfering in elections during the hearing. Smith sharpened the warning. Quote, the CCP is taking advantage of our tax-exempt sector, he said. And for any organization allegedly breaking nonprofit tax laws, we are coming for you. Thank God. I'm really glad Jason Smith, Ways and Means, is getting to the bottom of this. You know they're going to stay on it this year, and I cannot wait to follow everything they're doing. It's an important thing. It's not the – like, look, his focus here is on the CCP. I have seen it personally on the Hamas front and the Iran front, and I've seen it personally on the liberal left European psychotic socialist front. And it's a real problem because it does take the combination of people who are your useful idiot with people who are like the profiteering fuckwits that think American politics is a game to profiteer off of rather than your way of life. You listening to this, your way of life. And it gets – it's disheartening. And here's where it makes me most mad, and I'll end with this. I've watched the poll numbers in this ICE situation where people from the election in 2024 were 75 percent approval of deporting anybody who is here illegally to 35 today, 40 percent drop. You know what the only difference is? It's not – I mean look, there are some things that Trump administration could have done differently. And I do think they've made some necessary changes, necessary changes to try to make sure that they're not doing anything to unduly rile communities. But what they're trying to do is just enforce the law at some level. Right, right. And these people's whole goal is to try to differentiate their effort from that of Barack Obama, who did the same thing and deported four times as many people that we've deported from the Trump administration. Why is it? Why is it that we have riots in the streets? Well, it's this. Right. It's what we just talked about. Yeah, I mean, China didn't care about Barack Obama deporting people because Barack Obama was selling out American energy in favor of China. That was the whole goal. Because he was selling out our interests in the Middle East to Iran. Yes. So all of the foreign actors who would otherwise be involved were getting exactly what they wanted. So they didn't care. And don't get misconstrued by saying, look, did they all hire Hunter Biden? Sure they did. They paid him $20 million. That's fine. That's a rounding error in what the government of the CCP is dealing with. It's that fundamental policy change of exterminating American energy production and eliminating all of those jobs and making the entire country, our transportation system, everything else within our country reliant on China that they were in love with. Loved it. They loved every second of it and they done it deliberate. Yeah. Yeah. And, dude, I mean, I think you were kind of getting to this. Republicans and Democrats have always had disagreements in this country. They will always have disagreements in this country. It's just the way it goes. But when you introduce foreign influence into the politics of this country, it has a completely different effect. And some of those connections are very clear, like in the case of this Marxist tycoon, Singham. And, you know, his spouse runs Code Pink. So some of those connections are very clear. Can you imagine, by the way, like your spouse runs Code Pink? I mean, yeah, some of these connections are – I'm sure it's not always greatest conversation. You know, you're not just talking about that cocktail party. What do you think dinner's like? But some of the connections, some of these foreign connections are hidden. And and I'm telling you that the impact of foreign influence on American society is corrosive, no matter what form it takes. Yep. That's exactly right. Ourselves. That's exactly right. So coming up, there's good news for Trump, but not surprisingly, the media is framing it. in a certain way that is all too familiar for all of us. A wild headline after this. Energy is all around us. It's how we move, how we build, and how we make every day a little easier. We're all around America's oil and natural gas, supporting 11 million good-paying American jobs across the country and powering our way of life. But energy demand is growing and fast. That's why we need to overhaul our broken permitting process to unleash America's abundant natural resources, strengthen national security, and create a future where American energy leads the world. What America builds today will help secure a more affordable, more reliable future with enough energy to go around for generations to come. Our country can't wait. We must pass permitting reform now to help secure American energy dominance. Because when America builds, America wins. America's oil and natural gas. Paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Okay, so the Axios had a tough week. And I generally like these guys. I like Van de High. I like Mike Allen. I know that's going to come as a consternation. Jail. Jail Axios. And you'll see why in a second. But I like those guys generally. But, you know, this is an amazing thing. So a headline that they wrote yesterday, they had to delete, which has got to be the most embarrassing thing for an editor. crime plunges in major cities despite trump's crackdown despite rhetoric despite despite despite trump's crackdown crime went down what well what it goes on to explain is like the difference between 24 and 25 is quite insignificant what happened i don't know we had a presidential election it turns out good a president who was pretty serious about cracking down on crime and they just blew through all of that but but put up a headline and it was amazing because they put that chart up that we had on the screen a second ago and they're like wow murders in dc just like plummeted right after all the media was giving him grief about activating the national guard and like despite trump's crackdown turns out enforcing laws causes crime to go down but definitely not trump never mind the fact that they weren't even reporting murders before. We talk about on the show where they're like, if you committed a murder, they'd be like, it's not a felony murder. That's a misdemeanor. Sounds like a disagreement. Some kind of a domestic. And just for everybody listening to this or watching this, that isn't us saying that. Those are whistleblowers within the D.C. Police Department who are like, I showed up on scenes and I was told to downrank what this crime was. This was a culture of corruption to hide the crime in this country. Yeah. So you overcome that and decrease right amazing amazing amazing so uh big hat tip to all that uh jill phillip i think this is the one i surfaced this surfaced uh mike would you like guide us through this one yeah i mean one of the most wonderful things about being a liberal in this country is that you can proclaim things your entire life and then when reality hits you in the face to do and about face like a child like a child who's learned information for the first time and and this one is very interesting because it's about uh uh metro subways right and that and the whole mom donnie back backdrop of everything should be free just make all this public transportation free and that's how you stop all these interactions between you know bus drivers and people who are paranoid schizophrenics who want to stab them right like you just don't you don't have to pay money right and there's a study that has been done can we put that uh graphic up here of her her tweet so she's responding to this graph about uh anti-fair hopping so so you know people would jump the turnstiles oh yeah in the subway in new york and things like that and of course the premise on the left was like, let's just stop making people have to pay for the subway. Then no crime. Then therefore no crime. And it's your sort of classic thing. And this is why I fucking hate the left in America. And, you know, there's this famous line from the George W. Bush administration, the soft bigotry of low expectations. And that is, you know, let's let's treat minorities, you know, let's treat poor people like children, you know, and instead of enforcing the rules of society. We're going to change society for people who break the law because it might be somebody who's black or it might be somebody who's poor. And of course, when you do things like that, all you do is make all of society shit. Yep. Right. And so Jill now has suddenly had an about face and realize, can we put that back up? One of the things I've really changed my mind on is public order enforcement. I think a lot of liberals like me assume people doing things like turnstile jumping were poor. are just kids. But it seems like actually a small number of people just do a lot of antisocial shit. Wow. What a surprise. If only maybe fucking 40 years ago, there was a mayor of New York named Rudy Giuliani, who I don't know who wrote a whole goddamn book about the broken window theory of running a city. That when you let petty crime happen, all you do is encourage crime. That may be the recidivism rate of the criminals in our city, letting them back on the streets encourages more crime, that the idea that there's crime is permissible in your society allows more crime. It so goddamn simple And the left has never understood that because they too busy worrying about oh well maybe if I point this out somebody on Twitter is going to call me racist This is this is the thing about the left They have been doing this over and over and over again And sometimes, Michael, I feel like people like her have been handing us this poison apple for thousands of years. And I just wonder if you think there is. I see where this is going. Yeah, do you think there is a way for people to stop taking a bite? He wants me to go back to the good book. He does. It's right there in the first chapter, Michael. It's a warning. It's a warning. What, do you call them, like, Daughters of Eve? Well, that is a term, Daughters of Eve. And there are certain liberal women who refuse the accountability of that fact. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, maybe that's part of it. No, it's not. a little bit. It's different. This is a lib thing. It's not going to go there. No, it's different. At some point, we'll unveil the platform, but not today. Well, because that's not what this is. This is a lib thing. What this is, is the performance. He didn't have the courage. I thought he was going to have the courage. No, it's not. It's not the same thing. He was on fire. I actually agree with Duncan. Duncan was on fire. I was like, here we go. He's going to do it. He's going to tell the people the truth. You want me to attack women? Is that what you guys want me to do? No, no, but it's not. It's not that. It's the same. They've known what crime is in this country. And in fact, their entire political ideology is just a performance to hide that fact. And that's an entirely different thing, I think. Yeah, true. I think that's exactly right. So, but look, access wasn't done this week. They decided they were going to weigh in on the SAVE Act, which has become – Oh, man, this was good. This was good. And they're like, well, let's tell people what's in the SAVE Act. So what they tweeted out is if the Trump back Save America Act passes, quote, millions of women who married, who whose married names aren't on their birth certificates or passports, unquote, would face extra barriers to voting. Insane a lie. Insane and crazy take where they're like, so don't you folks know that like once a woman is married, her last name doesn't match her birth certificate. Like, you show up to the poll site like, here's my birth certificate. Like, first off, this is all just made up gobbledygook. Like, women who get married, don't you know, they're not allowed to board planes anymore because their name is changed. Like, they're making up this, again, they're trying to couch, essentially, Libs wanting to run amok with the laws in this country under, oh, but this would hurt women. Or they've already tried the minorities thing. And then they got the polling this week where it's like 99% of black people said that you should have ID when you vote. They can't try to run behind that made-up shit anymore. And now they're like, don't you know that married women are at risk? No. That's an absolute lie. It's exactly right. And we learned in 2008 that birth certificates are irrelevant when it comes to eligibility. Oy yoy. That's how we learned that. Oy yoy. Africa has the courage. He did have the courage. He's got the courage today. I didn't see that coming. But I mean it's all nonsense. I mean what we're talking about is all of the requirements that require you to get a real ID that allows you to get on airplanes. in this country right and and it seems to me if it's current law and it has been since april of last year that uh millions of women as axios has categorized it uh don't have the ability to vote that them not having the ability to travel this country would have been a story it seems to me like that would have come up at some point and been a topic of discussion amongst i don't know the media like we've we've passed a law that was delayed 20 long years that we then enforced in april of last year and allowed somehow is not allowed married women to fly it's insanity i know what you're gonna go i know what you want to do i saw it i'm not gonna say it you're gonna say they shouldn't no i just i started seeing this like daydream in my head of like you've seen that meme of it was like society if like something happened and it looks It's like this tech utopia. And I was like, what if we pass Save America Act Part 2? Where it's like, actually, we are just taking the vote away from them. And it's just like, my God. Turns out, although, like, you know, you see the, like, everyone knows that the most dangerous terrorist in modern society, the furthest, most off-the-wagon radical, you know, is not a dude in Afghanistan. It's the lady wearing, like, Lululemon who's going to try to hit you with her car. Like that has changed. And you know what they hook their wagon to? It's people like Todd Belt. He's a professor at George Washington University right here in the District of Columbia who researches campaigns and elections. I'm sure he does a whale of a job. He told Axios that if the Save America Act, Save Act was passed, quote, people without government issued ID will no longer be able to vote. Oh, damn. Oh, my gosh. Good. Oh, my gosh. That's the point. Thank you. Actual good analysis. Hey, Todd. Todd, hats off. He's like, no, no, no. You don't understand. I want people without IDs voting in elections. Don't you understand? You kind of slip a bit too much. Todd, maybe you missed the argument about a whole bunch of illegal people voting. That's what this is about. He's like, the problem here is our elections have become reputable. I'm a professor. Well, you know that they would have that. I mean what would happen is if you made people prove they were Americans, they would actually have to prove they were Americans. It's amazing. It's amazing. We can't have that. And we call that a tautology. Oh, there we go. That's an SAT word for the day. It's a good word. Good word. There you go. I love it. Okay. So these are our question of the day. What's the most obvious revelation a liberal has had in a Trump era? This is good. Because we had both. The crime is like maybe criminals do crime. Maybe it's not just racist. Maybe criminals do the crime. And then you've got Todd here who's like, yeah, you actually have to prove you're an American to vote. And he's like thinks that goes one way or it doesn't go another. Can I quickly say one thing? I don't know if you saw in the news this week. Somalia passed a law this week requiring IDs in their election. Are you kidding? That was the funniest shit of all time. It's like they are openly trolling us. That's the funniest shit I ever saw. So what's the most hilarious revelation that you have seen? Will you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program or read all of your comments? We get a kick out of absolutely everyone. We read them all and we get back to you the very next episode. This one is what is the most significant revelation that a Democrat has had during the Trump era? It could be interesting. It could be interesting. When we come back, we're going to talk to you about last week's comments, which were about Bad Bunny right after this. Okay, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety Program, read all of your comments for the question of the day. This one was Bad Bunny's halftime show was absolutely terrible. Who had the best halftime show? You guys had a trip down memory lane. It was fantastic. And to do that, we always start with the voice. First one comes from Evie Boy. Evie Boy writes, I think Prince's performance in Miami is legendary for its timing and artistry. The moment he performed Purple Rain in a literal tropical downpour. When asked if he was okay with the rain, he famously replied, can you make it rain harder? He also had a set list that included appearances by Foo Fighters and Jimi Hendrix. I mean, think about that, Ellis. I mean, he could play so many instruments, but guitar. The guy was just such a great artist, and that was an unbelievably memorable deal. And Colts won. That's incredible. I'm sure you were going to add. There were some downsides. Coming to Ducks. All right. This one is from Sheila Marie. Sheila writes, hands down, the very best halftime show was U2 in 2002, right after 9-11, where the streets have no name was played and all the victims of 9-11 were displayed on huge white sheets behind the band. Then, when all the names were done, the sheets fell just like the towers fell. It made me so proud to be an American. U2 was honoring America. And I miss those days when politics were not in our sports. God bless America. I think she's right. I think that was the best one. This is my own opinion. Remember when he opened up his coat jacket on the inside? idea of the stars and stripes i do i mean like people in the stadium people at home were all crying when the guy did that yeah that's yeah it's i mean to say nothing of the showmanship yep totally comment three comment three is from bruce wayne bruce writes bruno and the red hot chili peppers were sick sir paul having 70 000 plus sing along was awesome michael jackson killed that ship of princing purple rain in the rain was the best yeah that's so good you know i'm surprised We didn't get a single Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction. They were afraid to say that one. You have to see boobs. There's not a lot where you can see boobs. You remember that with Timberlake? Yeah. Do I remember? I remember it well. They didn't have the courage. Timberlake had the courage. He did. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's a big deal. It's Thursday, which means we have to play a game. It's our signature game here on the Ruthless Variety program. King of the Hill. I believe I'm Judge this time around. Who are our competitors? I am the champion, and I'm bringing in Adam Kinzinger. And I'm the challenger, and I got Bill Kristol. Okay. And you are Bailiff. Yeah, I'm Bailiff this time, so it's going to be a free-for-all. Let's go rank seven. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. It's time for King of the Hill. In the red corner, fighting from Pierre Omadiar's checkbook. Bill, war now, war forever, crystal. And now, in the blue corner, fighting from an empty congressional office. and current champion of the world, Adam K-K-K-Kinzinger. That's who we got. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I'm ready to go. Let's do it. Can I get Exhibit 7, please, from Adam Kinzinger? Exhibit 7, and he says, Kid Rock, who is heading up the definitely super cool and hip halftime show by tp usa it's 55 years old i think uh adam is doing a great job of missing the point here um you look at the ratings numbers it's an insane amount of people who tuned out of the official super bowl broadcast tuned into tp usa's broadcast the numbers are insane it's like the largest viewed event in the history of youtube and honestly i think what he also misses because he's a loser and and he got voted out no one likes this guy he misses that the coolest thing about that event was everyone was united and remembering charlie and the work that he did bringing us together and even after he was murdered even after he's passed he's still bringing us together to this day and there's nothing cooler than your honor can i ask to have this put back up on the screen just very quickly because i'm curious about the graphic uh how old would you have to be to understand the relevance of this particular graphic. Minimum of 45. Minimum of 45. The more you know thing for our listeners. The more you know if you're listening is the graphic which was an NBC thing that they did in the 90s. Okay. Good point. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Challenger. Let's do exhibit number nine please this is from bill crystal is there anything in trump's past that suggests he would willingly relinquish an asset that is valuable to him and his family i don't think so dot dot dot i expect he will attempt to maintain his position as republican capo di tutti copy what until his dying breath i think that's what italians call like the the the like head of the the mafia family right like the capo is one of the terms maybe that's like the capo of the capo yeah well so this is a thing explanation on that so this is some artistry uh put that put that thing back up i want to see that from capo di tutti copy is what i'm most interested is anyone here italian well so uh there's a i think it's a crime i think it's like he's like the head the head of the family anyway uh so so this is a bit of artistry from this is why i played it there's a bit of artistry here from bill crystal and that is uh this is a man who is a world-class midwit nepo baby who's exactly where he is because of who his father was and so there's a desperation and a lot of his commentary that requires him to prove how smart he is yes uh and i find that absolutely fascinating too i that is one of my favorite genres so wait so he's doing the de capo did tutti well he's linking to the this article what happens when trump loses which has become i think sort of a fetish of of the left because they couldn't beat him because they couldn't beat him right yeah and so like they they uh fantasize about what happens after donald trump because he kicked their ass again and again and again this is tough because it runs cross current with an awful lot of my preconceptions I think more than likely than not I would be willing to go with where Smug is headed on this I do feel like it's rote I do feel like the idea of making fun of Kid Rock is basically standard fair low hanging fruit in a lot of ways i like the rhetorical flourish and in this case the italian is there we go yeah here's what gets me going and so for that reason duncan you're the let's go let's go okay um what a ripoff round it's dude it's not a ripoff when did you ever expect he will crystal to write when you're here your family okay to chirp up first off everyone here knows that's ridiculous he had to pull it back up he's like what did he even say Okay. Round two, I go first. Exhibit number 11, please. So I'm calling this the SEO keyword stuffing tweet. That's what I'm calling it. Bill Kristol. The Olympic athletes are better Americans than their MAGA critics. My God. Dems, I mean, apropos of nothing, he just switches topics. Dems should go on real offense over the DHS bill and pursue defunding. John Ossoff, good speech. Oh, my God. Even National Review can't defend Trump's corruption. And I suggest Tim run for Senate. Tim Miller should run for Senate. Oh, that's unimpressive. You don't think that he's just copy paste. So good luck for our listeners. Hold on. He's linked it to a podcast episode that they're doing, and he's just listing their topics. Bailiff. Bailiff. This commentary. There's no bailiff. I believe your play spoke for itself. There's no bailiff here. Okay, Smoke. Exhibit one from Adam Kinzinger. He says, hey, also, to all the quote, this is our speak English crowd. English is from England, not America. We likewise borrow it. Okay. Oh, my goodness. Kinzinger wins. That's all. Oh, my. That is. I don't have to. That annoying lib shit is the dumbest. I don't have to. Josh Holmes supports Tim Miller running for Senate. There is no thing that pisses me off more than that. Yeah. The idea that somehow America can't be America, that we've borrowed whatever we're borrowing, so therefore we need to lend it to some other culture and some other country and some other language. that is a level that I simply can't abide as judge and jury and so that reason is among Wednesday. That is so funny. And I'm going to go for the knockout here. Exhibit 3 from Adam Kinzinger. Adam Kinzinger says he's trying to do a poll on Twitter. How much do you hate the constant, nonstop, annoying, childish, whining, complaining, and perpetual victimness of Trump and his lackey? and his choices are only super hated, extremely hated, very much sick of it, and I love being a victim, which is hilarious because people even voted for I love being a victim, which I love so much. I wonder if that's the kind of poll he had his congressional pollster do when he was running for re-election. Yeah, well, he decided not to do that. Duncan, what have we got? All right. So I'm going to go back to the theme of the first tweet about Bill Kristol being a Napo baby who's obsessed with explaining how smart he is. Exhibit number eight, please. So this is linking to another bulwark piece about Donald Trump and corruption or whatever. And this is Bill Kristol. The public is increasingly alarmed about the dangers of Trump and Trumpism. The elites are slowing, slower, dot, dot, dot. Their behavior brings to mind the alleged remark from Alexandre Le Drouin in 1848. Of course, that's, of course, top of mind for all of us. There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader. I don't have any choice. This judge and jury is given no choice. That level of faux intellectualism simply cannot be ignored by this judge and jury. he wins yes let's go he wins yes it's outrageous the fart sniffing it it has a by the way close parallel to the fat man yeah the fat man does the same thing and you play the fat man a lot yeah which i appreciate this genre specifically because the idea that you can't actually make an argument without making people feel dumber and like they don't know as much as you is a genre it's not an actual argument that persuades anybody it's a genre to try to elevate yourself above all else right and that is a champion that is a champion very funny i love it i love it every second of it all right so this is our first and what will be i think i imagine for many of you controversial discussions with people primary season i love prime a lot of people think primary season is just like we're just so mad we're just good we hate somebody we hate we love it because we live that uh end of the world forever we lived in the primary season of like you know republicans arguing amongst themselves on small differences over larger things you all agree on personality tone whatever but you know it makes a difference because ultimately in the end you get the kind of governing you vote for in this one we're going to end up with john cornyn going first off in texas i want to welcome to the program a guy that we've known for a very long time he is a great senator from the great state of texas john cornyn how are you sir i'm doing great and i came bearing gifts. I know. You also had the wherewithal to know that we have a Kentucky bias when it comes to our... So I didn't get bourbon. This is corn whiskey. Yeah. From Waco. From Waco, which I think basically means you get halfway through the bottle, you can't remember most of anything That up to you Baby Blue from waco i love it um listen you got a big race we known you forever in fact your first election of the senate uh 2002 right was when i first got started in politics with norm coleman i remember having norm coleman wow that's a blast from the past i remember having you i think you had better accommodations than we did in the basement of like Dirksen and Russell. Yeah, you remember if you were a House member or a governor, you got precedence. Right. But since I was only an attorney general and Norm was a mayor. Yeah, it didn't work out correctly. I was 99 and he was 100. You were from Texas, though, so you had some kind of a corner suite. And I remember us basically just with fold-out. It seemed like a double wide deal. That's probably right. But since then, you've done an awful lot of incredible work. You've been a part of a conservative renaissance, not only in Texas, but nationwide. A partner of President Trump throughout. Tell me what this last year, obviously 2025, a big one in terms of the president's agenda and everything else. But, you know, Democrats are pushing back. What's the Senate like these days? Well, it's polarized. I know that's not a shock to you. But you notice what happened on the nominations for ambassadors or subcabinet positions and judges. We couldn't get them to support any of them, even non-controversial ones. So the majority leader in our conference had to use the nuclear option, as it's called, in the Senate to change the rules so we could actually get the president's team confirmed. But, no, it's been a great ride, you know, being on the Judiciary Committee and helping confirm the president's judges. I've seen some stuff. You know, Brett Kavanaugh, his confirmation hearing has burned forever in my memory. 100%. And what a, wow, that was crazy. And, you know, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett and, of course, all the other judges that President Trump has nominated and we've confirmed make, These will be the lasting legacy, really, for his administration. Yeah. I remember when McConnell went on the limb with the Obama appointment for the Scalia replacement, and it was really sort of out on a limb. And I remember thinking and talking at that time about we better check in with Cornyn to see what his view of all this is. Because if you can't figure out – if Cornyn thinks this makes no sense, we are really all alone on this deal because he was always pushing the edge of the envelope. Well, that was a bold move. But you were. And I remember you digging in and helping, trying to figure out a pathway to keep that conference together at that point. And people – it's all retrospect, right? Nobody remembers – How shaky it was. How shaky it was to try to convince a Republican conference to hold the line on that deal. Well, it was very aggressive. but boy what a big impact it made obviously Justice Scalia was a lion in the Supreme Court and U.S. judiciary and it's going to be hard to replace but the Democrats as you can imagine as you know were dead set to oppose anybody who was nominated and then the idea that we'd be able to get somebody like Neil Gorsuch through who extremely talented guy. All three of the Supreme Court nominees have done a magnificent job. But none of it's easy these days because the Democrats just reflexively oppose everything. Yeah, no question. Johnny and I used to joke the Judiciary Committee Democrats had just basically put their most firebrand folks on the judiciary. What does that say about us on the Republican side? We were a step behind on that, except for we had Cornyn who could always explain stuff in a way that made some sense. Because you guys deal with some tricky stuff. It's not just judges and everything else. I mean, there's a lot of things that go through the Judiciary Committee. We always used to laugh. I don't know. Cornyn will figure that out. Well, if you can't explain it, you probably shouldn't do it. That's a fair point. Very fair point. So, listen, you're locked into a reelection battle. We've seen you deal with this a number of times over the years successfully. Tell us what's happened in Texas. Well, you know, I've been doing this a while, as you pointed out, and our politics have changed. Today, President Trump has a dominant influence, not only here in D.C., but in Republican primary politics. And because I've been doing this a while and people kind of wonder, am I really a MAGA warrior or not? I point out that I've supported the president throughout his term of office. And, you know, the one tax cuts and the Jobs Act in 2017, we've talked about the Supreme Court. And I've got a 99.3 percent voting record with the president and his policies. But because I'm not angry about it, people don't think I'm aggressive enough sometimes. But, yeah, I've been through these races before. This happens to be the absolute weirdest one ever. That's fair. Well, I mean, in 2020, I won the primary by 76% of the vote against multiple opponents. I won the general election by 10. And that's one of my arguments to the business case to the White House is, look, if I'm at the top of the ballot, it will help down ballot, particularly with the five new congressional seats. And we won't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to save me. Well, and you had the perch as a former NRSC chair where you know what the battle is and there's a finite amount of resources. and be dedicated to states that you should ordinarily win because you've got these contentious primaries. And as we know, in 2010 and 2012 when you were there, we had a few of these situations pop up. And if you're dedicated into these primaries, expending resources on candidates that ultimately can't win, not only do you have a problem on the top of the ticket, but all the way down. Yeah. Well, and there's a number of opportunities we have in this next election. New Hampshire, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina. And if you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to save a flawed candidate with a lot of baggage, that would be our attorney general, by the way, then he may not win. And if he does win, then that will be money that won't go for these other races. And he also is not going to win by a significant margin, which will help keep the majority in the House, which I know is something near and dear to the president. Yeah, no question. So the interesting thing about this race, and we were talking about this a little bit before the show, is you could end up in a runoff scenario where there's a top two finishers in the race. Right. And then you've got to go and campaign again, you know, a sprint to the finish. You know, how do you look at something like that in appealing to the electorate? Because, you know, to your point you sort of alluded to, there are some voters in the Republican primary who would say, yeah but you know it's just it's time for a change we need somebody new what is your message uh to those grassroots texans you know who vote in a republican primary and also will show up for for that runoff well you know effectiveness matters i know it's not top of mind really for a lot of republican primary voters but for example um texas spent about 11 billion dollars uh to help secure the border during the Biden open border policies. Governor Abbott called me and he said, you know, we'd like to get repaid. And I said, OK, I'm on it. So working together with the Texas delegation, we in the one big beautiful bill or the Working Family Tax Cuts Act, we call it now, we got reimbursed. Eleven point one billion dollars. That's not legislating. That's not nothing. How about that? Yeah, it's legislating. It's it's it's what I thought we were supposed to do. The other part of it is I just think we have too many performance artists in politics these days, people who want to be famous and they want to get the most clicks on social media and then they want to raise money. But then when it comes to rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work, they're nowhere to be found. And so it's not – as Senator Phil Graham, my predecessor, said, Cornyn's not a show horse, he's a workhorse. And I can live with that. Well, on the workhorse side of things, you've dug in on the Somali fraud, which there's a lot of us. I'm from Minnesota. I'm watching all of this that's happening. And it's hard not to be sort of despondent about a lot of it because you've seen these things come and go over the years. It feels like nobody's ever really held accountable. You can just kind of move on to the next. You decided in this one, not the case. We're digging in. Well, it's a real problem, and everybody acknowledges this is the tip of the iceberg. But if you think about it, I know you guys know this, but, you know, when the federal government spends money, it goes to government agencies that then contract or grant with non-governmental organizations, NGOs, and there is very little accountability there, and unfortunately the fraudsters take advantage of it. The Somali daycare disaster was just one example of that, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to be having a hearing soon that on the other instances, like on immigration fraud generally, where taxpayers are being billed billions of dollars and come up with some, we think, some solutions or at least some remedies that will address it. So, you know, thank goodness we got Russ Vaught, you know, who's a very tough guy, as you know, who is looking at the federal spending and I know whether it was USAID or whatever, that they hit the pause button and Marco Rubio and others were looking at, okay, are we spending taxpayer dollars in foreign aid? And if we are, you know, it ought to be for a specific purpose, not just, you know, spreading crumbs on the water. So I just think with $38 trillion in debt, something's got to give, and this seems like such an obvious area to deal with it. And plus, there's people taking advantage of the generosity of the American people. Americans are enormously generous for worthy causes, but this is just a kick in the teeth. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, I know that border security has been a huge priority of yours through your entire career. I know this because I've seen it with my own eyes. I've watched you work on this. We dealt with it personally. And I do remember you, I mean, Texas, of course, border state. I do remember you warning every other senator from other states in the country that your state can be a border state too if we don't get on this right away. And, of course, now you have a president who is taking the border very seriously, so it's only natural that the two of you get along so well because that's an issue that is important to both of you. But now we're sort of experiencing that dynamic where every state is a border state in its own way. We're seeing the left lose their minds in some of these interior states, and they're fighting against ICE, and ICE is out there trying to do their job to deport these criminal illegal aliens. And I know you've got some stuff you're working on to try to protect ICE and try to make sure that they're able to do their job. Yeah, you know, first of all, President Trump got elected because of the Biden open border policies and inflation. I think those are, to my mind, two of the main reasons. And obviously being a border state senator, as you said, we've got 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico. It had a disproportionate impact on my constituents. And, you know, I think Democrats had this crazy idea that Hispanics would love open borders. And that proved not to be true because many of these local communities were overrun by people. You know, when you don't vet anybody and just open it wide, you get all sorts of – maybe you get some economic migrants, but you also get traffickers, drug runners. Well, it's so funny. I mean, you talk to folks from Texas or any place, really, that has multi-generational Hispanic communities. I think that's like the most laughable proposition in the world, that open borders are good for them. Absolutely. Well, if you know the Hispanic community in Texas like I do, I mean, they are culturally conservative, family-oriented, usually religious, and hardworking entrepreneurs, usually in their own small business. And this was enormously disruptive. But now that President Trump has gotten the border secure, now it's a matter of removing the people who never should have gotten here in the first place. To my mind, this is sort of an extension to the Democrats' position of defund the police. I mean, it's completely disrespectful. It does feel the same. It's completely disrespectful of these great Americans who are doing the job we've asked them to do and are entitled to our respect. They're not doing this on their own. So at first it was defund the police. That didn't turn out well for them. And then it's abolish ICE. And now they are attacking ICE for going in and enforcing the law. But none of this, what we saw in Minnesota, happens in Texas, for example, because Texas doesn't have sanctuary jurisdictions. So what happens, yeah, if you don't have a crazy governor like Governor Walz, I mean, just, and the mayor of Minneapolis, just, I mean, calling ICE the Gestapo and all that stuff, it's just horrible stuff. So, but in non-sanctuary jurisdictions, when somebody's arrested, an illegal alien for some crime, they are then, the federal government issues a detainer, which says, hold on to him until we get there, and then they hand him over to ICE. And so you don't have any of this public interference or any reason for this to play out in public. It happens, you know, from jail to ICE to removal. Yeah. I know you're focused on that, this DHS thing. Obviously, Democrats don't want to fund it or at least their base. They want to placate their base at some level. Where do you think that thing pans out? I mean, I think we're going to need another short term continuing resolution or something. You saw the wish list that they provided. Schumer's just entirely being led around by his tie. Absolutely. By the far left. Well, Schumer's scared to death. He's going to be deposed by the Bernie Sanders AOC wing of the Democratic Party. And so he is trying to play as much as he can to the Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party. But, you know, they're not really serious about solving the problem. It's all about show. It's like when they shut down the government for the longest time, I think, in Senate history over health care. Then they don't care about that. No, they don't care about that. Now that's the next shiny object. But instead of trying to work with us to try to come up with solutions, really, they want the issue that they can then run elections on. That's who they are. Is this the most cynical? I mean, look, we've dealt with a fair amount of cynical Democratic leaders. Harry Reid comes to mind. But this seems different in that Schumer literally will do anything, and that includes really putting the American people in a tough position via shutting down the government or trying to defund law enforcement or whatever just to cater to this like 10%, 12% base. Is it as bad as it looks from the outside looking in? Yep. It is, right? I'm not crazy. I mean, to me, what's so sad about today's Democratic Party, it's about seeking and holding power. It's really not about how do we make the American people's lives better? How do we solve hard problems like, you know, the immigration issue, health care? How do we deal with our $38 trillion in debt? I mean, it's not like there aren't serious problems we couldn't work on. But all this thing about short-term continuing resolutions and spending cliffs, all the press wants to write about is the next government shutdown. And just think about the opportunity cost of messing with this when we should be doing other important things, dealing with the housing crisis we have, trying to fix the health care system, I'm trying to bring down prices at the kitchen table, which is going to be a really important issue going into the midterms, of course. Yeah, no question about it. For all of our listeners who want to help you out, where do they go? JohnCornyn.com. Okay. And that's easy. Take care of it right there. Just the name and the dot com. That's right. Yep, you got it. That's great. All right, Senator John Cornyn, thank you so much for joining us. Good to be with you. Appreciate it. I noticed the Mullen Ranch hat. Yeah. Mark Wayne Mullen. I like the fit. They make a nice hat. It is a nice hat. Is it? Take care. I mean, great way to kick off primary season, right? I mean, he had a lot of great info, and there is so much going on in Texas, as you laid out at the very beginning of the program. And I feel like there is so much more good stuff to come. We're going to hear from everybody. And I imagine there's a lot of shit talk. that is going to be he's not like cornyn's not a shit talker like that's just not his mo gentleman yeah so he's not going to give us exactly what we want but i'm going to try to prod along the way as we get into this to make people really explore their differences in some ways because i do think look there are differences and texas is going to be foremost amongst them you got a big choice in texas if you're listening to this folks you got a big choice and this isn't just about like your preference it's uh you mean you're a corning lay it out like if you have to spend money in texas you better make sure you don't have to spend money in texas let me just put it that way like georgia's sitting there like dude please please no you know north carolina whatley's sitting over there like oh god no please don't don't do this rogers we've had him in michigan the first place you cut funding if you have to spend money in texas is him you haven't won since 1999 like that's the first place so you got to consider an awful lot of things when you're considering the texas senate race hope uh you enjoyed the first installment of that we're gonna have all of them in uh and i think it's like a march 11 or it's third third third so it's quick right around the corner it's quick just a reminder for all of you candidates who have been begging to come on the ruthless variety program that now all of a sudden you've got like a short timeline and you're concerned about whether you'll say something we take this thing personally if you don't show up, I can't promise anything. I can't promise I will react to that. So come on in. Enjoy the conversation. We'll give everybody a fair interview. I think we've proven that over the years. There's not anybody that comes in here that we don't have a legit conversation with, and we're going to continue to do that so you get a good idea of what it is that you're voting for. With that, fellas, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much to Senator Cornyn, and thank you. To the Minions, remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit subscribe because it's more fun in video. So until next time, Minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you on Friday. Stay ruthless. Thank you.