Why do liberals ruin everything? -  Olympic Athletes Trash America, the Bad Bunny Super Bowl Train Wreck

Journos are always looking for that sort of person who trashes America and they put them on a pedestal. Yep. Yeah. All the guardrails for normalcy and patriotism and believing in this country are gone. And now, essentially, you're just congratulated for how far deviant and anti-American you can become. That's pretty much how the Democrats choose their candidates these days. 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. Stronger. Congress, let's make year-round E15 permanent. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Keep the faith, hold the line, and own the lids. It's time for our main event. Good Tuesday to you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Friday program. I'm Josh Holmes, along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, left to right across your radio dial. as always uh listen football season dead and gone super bowl we have it i'm wearing all kinds of baggage with the sam darnold the former viking now winning the super bowl uh off season's gonna be good for me i just gotta repackage a lot of emotions but one of the things that has captivated my sports interests is the olympics i love the olympics how do you fellas like the olympics i don't this year oh i oppose the olympics i oppose the u.s olympic team oh come on that's oh i'm rooting for them to do extremely bad that's outrageous we'll get into why who are you rooting for the italians honestly anybody but the u.s it seems like every country except for the united states sends people who love their country smug we know smug likes pro italy That's something. I didn't see that coming. I mean, we're going to get into it, but I'm sure for so many of our listeners and viewers, you could understand my frustration with the U.S. Olympic team. Oh, no doubt. And it's basically every day. For them, the Olympics is not an athletic competition where you are representing the country, which you love and are grateful for the opportunity and the honor of representing your country. The real Olympics is just like, how many things can I say trashing America? and and and i'm sick of it well i don't care for it either but i do i love the olympics i do too and the journos are always looking for that sort of person who trashes america and they put them on a pedestal yeah i i just choose not to watch that because i'm more interested in the athletes that are trying to win and not talking about anything other than how glad they are that they're able to compete and so that's the thing is i think for the longest time we've tried that approach of like oh don't let a few rotten apples i now believe in group punishment all of them i don't support anyone on team usa until they internally pressure themselves hey you have the honor of representing the united states cut that shit out until they do the work of pressuring each other i'm not going to support any of them and here's the thing speaking about your friends the journos yeah why is it that they're only out there asking team usa so uh tell us about why america sucks because they're nerds and they don't care about sports but why they like to project their liberal pathologies onto athletes. Notice, you never see anyone from Team China being asked, so about Tiananmen Square, and you guys hand kids over with tanks. How about those Uyghurs? How are they doing? Yeah, heftier price to pay for that kind of journalistic ingenuity. And that's the thing. Also, I haven't seen a whole lot of interest in Team China in the Winter Olympics. Well, they have a large team out there, but there's a huge... They haven't seen them on the podium. There's kind of a... I don't care whether they win or not. What I'm saying is that your journal buddies and the Team USA athletes are very motivated to attack America at every opportunity, and they never have any attempt to ask any other country, hey, what about your geopolitical situation? What about you guys unleashing COVID on the world? Or what about you guys, as Duncan mentioned, running these Uyghur concentration camps? They never get any questions about that. But we have these idiots on Team USA who are very willing to come out and trash the country on the world stage. They should be held accountable. All of Team USA should be held accountable. That's why I'm boycotting you. It's got nothing to do with him. It is a fair point, and I feel like the left-wing view is overrepresented in sports journalism. I saw a headline about Colin Kaepernick. Oh, my gosh. This guy killed Gore at the Washington Post. Apparently the one guy they didn't fire at the Washington Post. There's a few that are still left. There's a bundle that left. He decided to show up at Super Bowl week. And he says right in the top of his story, the most important figure of this year's Super Bowl is not in attendance. It's Colin Kaepernick. The most? Oh, yeah. That was his lead. A quarterback from 10 years ago? 100%. Get out of here. Dude, you can't. And then he proceeds to bother all the athletes and whatnot at the Super Bowl. This is what I'm talking about, the projecting of their liberal pathologies onto the rest of the ecosystem. There's even a quote or two in there that kind of gives up the game a little bit where he'll ask somebody about Colin Kaepernick, and they're like, what? Whoa. Yeah, wow. That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. The funny thing is, like, for a lot of players currently in the NFL, they're not old enough to remember Colin Kaepernick. No, I know. That's a decade old. Like, who are you talking about? Like, bro, I was in middle school. What are you talking about? But the journalism component, the journalism component to what it is that we're talking about with the Olympics should not be ignored. Because I think you're right. I mean, there is nobody else would do this or attempt to get people representing your country to undermine their own country while they're abroad competing. But the American media does it for all of the things that smug is frustrated about. I want to give you a couple of examples. Clip five. Yeah, it's been a hard time for the community overall and this administration. It isn't the first time that we've had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights. And now, especially, it's not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities. And I think that we are able to support each other in a way that we didn't have to before. And because of that, it's made us a lot stronger. I hope I can use my platform and my voice throughout these games to try and encourage people to stay strong in these hard times. We should let men back into women's sports. Duncan has a good argument for this. I mean, because like this is the thing. You try to help liberal women and all they do is resent you for it. Yeah. It's unbelievable. So I did a little research on this, this Amber Glenn. You know, she's pansexual. What is that? I saw that one of the prelims to qualify for the Olympics that she won, she draped herself in that trans flag. Right. Right. You thought bisexual was greedy. What is pansexual? Pansexual is literally everyone. Really? Yeah. Wait a minute. All comers. Pansexual. What does that include that bi does not? Well, see, this is the thing. I assume it's something you get like yes-handed into at a pride rally. You like show up and you're like, I'm bisexual. And then people are like, well, what about the transgender community? Are you attracted to them? And they're like, oh, well, yeah, that too. Non-binary. And then you become pan. I'm pansexual. I might wake up on Tuesday and like girls. Or I might wake up on Wednesday like boys. Or maybe I'm into transgender people on Thursday. Yeah, dude. Wild. She's also the one that I saw where she said her hobby was Magic the Gathering. Oh, you're kidding. Yeah. So she's a nerd on top of it. Yeah, so there's a bunch of stuff. What is exactly the discrimination that the LGBTQ community is experiencing under the Trump? I'll tell you, buddy. I will tell you. Scott Besson is the Treasury Secretary. He's gay. No, I will tell you very clearly, Gavin Newsom has had a hard time rising up as a candidate among Democrats. And I think very, very clearly that is who she's sticking up for. She's very she's worried about him. OK, she's worried that he's not going to get the nomination. Are you making allegations? Well, I mean, many people are saying, you know, the whole mayor of San Francisco thing. Some people have mentioned that Treasury secretary has mentioned that right here in the brokering. Interesting. Well, that's an interesting. I think that's who she's sticking up for. You've got Scott Besson. Is he in a who takes all comers? I've not seen that. Yeah. I don't know. That's a new allegation. Well, Smash surfaced it, so we might as well discuss it. I've heard nothing of that. I haven't either, but he's... Well, listen, this is the world stage, and Democrats often do things in secret, as we know. We do know that. Okay. There's a loophole. And they're worried about his ability to get the nomination, so they're sticking up for him. Okay. Okay. Well, there's more. Clip six. It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. Really? It's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of. It's like George Harrison. George Harrison is not. If it aligns with my world, I feel like I'm representing it. Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean to represent everything that's going on in the U.S. So, yeah, I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people that support me getting here. You kind of want to do it? Did you hear – like hearing that is what did it for me. When he said, I'm doing this for my friends and my family. No, I got Superman at that too. And so if he's going to exhibit that level of selfishness, it's time to punish the entire Olympic team. I'm boycotting anything to do with – Oh, Don. We got hockey coming up. No, no, no. Normally when there's like an Olympics, it's like, oh, you know, you want to support Team USA and remember things like the miracle on ice. And like Apollo puts out these like sweaters with the American flag. Well, Ruzioni jumped ugly. the miracle and speaking of miracle on ice yeah aruzioni jumped up like yeah you know like uh you'll get there's all this like team usa march i'm buying none of that i was gonna get this nice you know like a nice little olympic sweater that has a usa flag because you're proud of the united states i want nothing to do with that team gonna punish your country commies and and these trash bag people who again unless you punish all of them there's gonna be no change whatsoever you You can't be like, oh, I don't like that one communist and that other communist, but I'm going to stand and I'm going to cheer for – no. Until collectively they start pressuring each other to have some respect for the country whose flag they are competing under. Have some respect. That's like the basics. Like why do you have to be asked to have respect for the country that has sent you and who has provided the opportunity for your entire career and everything? If you go up there and you're like, no, this is from my friends and family who got me here, kick him off the team, deport his ass, send him to China. Compete for China, friend. Well, some of them do that. So there's an American-born guy, an athlete by the name of Gus Kenworthy, who decided he is competing for Great Britain. Graphic three, if you don't mind tossing this up. This is a depiction that he put out on his social media account of him peeing. Fuck, guys. That's got to be like a Photoshop. Nobody's got that sort of stream control. Yeah, right. I mean, there is a pattern outside of the deep. But this is what this guy has done. So, like, look. I'm really rooting for that guy to get hurt. I'm rooting for injuries. Come on. Rooting for injuries is what I am doing for those folks. fly off the side of the mountain but this is what like that one in particular and i'm with you in that it really irritates me because i'm i'm all in on the olympics i still all in like if you can put an american flag on your back i don't care what the event is i'm gonna root for it no matter what and it is it's disheartening it takes a little peace out of you every time you see somebody go do that so i thought a lot about this over the weekend because these clips surfaced and you know there's just not a lot of athletes that are out there talking about the importance of america it's america's 250th birthday for crying out loud like that's what you should be talking about in in the context of press conferences what it means to represent your country look the kachuk brothers love america well and there's many athletes that do but i guess they're not acting as enforcers in that little olympic village so they deserve to have collective punishment collective punishment has worked a lot throughout you know what i think You know what I think it might – what I've come to? I think it's coaching. There's a huge component of many disciplines in U.S. Olympics where the coaching in and of itself is not from the United States at all, right? I mean we saw skiers on the mountain where they're dealing with like Swedish coaches or Norwegian coaches. Everything is about the individual athlete and how they can individually participate. It's not about the country, which reminded me of like, you know, John Wooden used to make his team every year practice the national anthem. Bud Grant used to line people up on day one of the football season to practice how they stood during the national. There was an element of leadership that came along with being a coach of American athletes when they go abroad to make them understand how unique this opportunity is and how unique the country is that has provided it. I think that that is missing entirely. When you have – there's a number of athletes here that probably vehemently disagree with the statements that we've just played. the fact that nobody feels compelled to say shut the fuck up and we're here representing our kind i don't care what your political beliefs are tells me that there's a top-down problem that doesn't it's not just the ski coach it's not the snowboarding coach it's a top-down problem with team usa and that nobody has communicated articulately to a whole group of young and impressionable, obvious go-getters or they wouldn't be there in the first place, just how unique their opportunity is and how incredible their country is at providing it. And that saddens me deeply because I think that's what it is. I don't think that there's just a bunch of left-wing psychopaths who've decided to be athletes. I think that there is some kind of an influence at some level about a neglect for pointing that flag first. Understand who it is that you're playing for before you start talking about your individual accolades. It's like the front of the jersey is always more important than the back. It's that kind of mentality that we've carried with us in our generation where we grew up that I think is totally missing right now. Are you satisfied, Smoke? No. I mean, dude, I think you have a great sentiment, and I wish it were something like that. But we need to start going after people like this. There was this interesting discussion which has happened for maybe a year now online of where it like bring back bullying And I not talking about like the big kid on the playground beating up the little kid on the playground I'm talking about how like it – quote, bullying used to act as kind of like an enforcement of societal norms. You know what I mean? Like if you had someone on the playground be like, guess what, gentlemen? I am now pansexual. And I believe that America should have a communist uprising and we should burn the flag. There used to be a kid who would give you like a little thump on the head and be like, that's this very stupid idea. And all that's gone. All the guardrails for normalcy and patriotism and believing in this country are gone. And now essentially you're just congratulated for how far deviant and anti-American you can become. That's pretty much how the Democrats choose their candidates these days. Well, you sound like you hate America, but do you really? Like, let's really hear it. Let it loose. I want to see you pee. Fuck ice. That's how we're going to get you up on a stage. That's how you're a hero. That's how you get attention these days. Nope. Nope. We got to punish it. It's not enough to be like, we need to ensure there's good coaching to make sure that you have proper, that you have respect for the flag. These people want to burn the flag. They want to kill us. I don't think telling them that that's a bad idea is going to be enough. I think you lock them up. Animals go in cages. Jesus. I mean, my God, I think there's a broader societal look at this whole thing that that it concerns me. It starts with like not saying pledge of allegiance. Yep. In classrooms. Yep. Right. And like I've never lived a day under a Democratic president or a Republican president where I haven't been proud of my country. yep right it's never once made me you know i like i thought obama everybody talks about how biden is the worst president american obama is way worse yeah in my view i thought he was the he was opening the gates to hating america i thought he was the worst president in the history but never would have occurred to me to like not wear the stars and stripes because i'm an american Like that – the politics doesn't – of today doesn't dictate my pride of what America is. And the fact – and I think I can only attribute it to like upbringing, people I associate with, my parents, coaches, people around me, like instilling the values of what it means to be an American. And I just don't believe you could come to the conclusion that these athletes have come to and think that your personal politics about something who's been in the news for the last 10 days somehow supersedes your allegiance to this country. Well, I think the answer to that is smug is wrong in one way. And that is it's not that bullying went away. It's that there's only one side doing it. It went the other side. And then you've got these athletes with people in their ear. you have a platform now you need to speak out and use your platform why aren't you speaking out and using your platform you're not wrong do you stand with ice murdering people murdering people don't you care why don't you speak up and use your voice that's the thing that's happening but you're not wrong also use my platform is a hilarious yeah but that's what that's what they say you have an obligation you have an obligation you have a platform it's just like in the in the in the chinese cultural revolution how they would have these like struggle such that's where the term comes from yeah of where they like force you it's not enough to be like you're not going to stand in our way you must recite the party slogan in public or you'll be humiliated and bashed until you you do you're forced to and that's what's happened the left is 100 become you've got to spit out the party slogans any opportunity you have it's not enough to be like i got nothing to say you must say what we want you to say yeah well it's disappointing but it's not even close to the strangest thing that we saw from the libs this week we need to pay attention because it's sports but wait to hear what the rest of them are up to i gotta go back to minnesota to do all that but i brought in some reinforcements at the end of the uh program pete stauber man what a great congressman from minnesota he's gonna help buck us up a little bit and a hockey legend hockey legend in his own right right after this I've worked at Coca-Cola for 21 years. We're delivering Dr. Pepper from our brand new facility in Dallas, Texas. We're really proud to still make Pepsi products in America. You don't need a college degree to work here, but I put four kids through college by working here. This is a great place to work with great people and great American brands. Grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, they all depend on us. We deliver great paying jobs. We deliver beverages people love. We deliver for our community. Okay, so apparently there are still protests going on in Minnesota. I mean, Homan drops in. He gets every county in Minnesota to participate in this prisoner situation. If you're detained, they give them over. Like everything seems to be working out. It doesn't stop the paid agitators, though. They're still out there. But they've developed somewhat of a new – well, have a look. Clip one. They're throwing dildos at this truck. Wait. But this is the guy who's on their side. They're sticking dildos on his hood and his windshield. I'm on your side. And they're confused. So pro ice groups allege that they've been reporting anti-ice vehicles. So this guy was in an anti-ice vehicle. And you recall that part of this whole thing of them tracking down ice agents is that they have this database that they're sharing amongst activists. where if you see the license plate of any vehicle associated with ice you immediately report then you start blowing your whistles and throwing dildos evidently we'll get to the dildo thing in a second as one does uh but this cat uh apparently somebody who is a pro ice individual or anti he's an anti-ice well right you know but but somebody who was pro ice shared the vehicle data a little bit of dirty tricks okay so dirty tricks and that's you know he's inundated with giant schlongs that's incredible uh which is the video that you just saw um can we talk just a second about how the the dildos became a part of this uh situation i mean i don't remember reading that in salt linsky again i mean i go back to just like the absolute degeneracy of the left or it's just like it's not enough to hate america you just have to be an absolute degenerate in all possible forms whatsoever that's the unifying feature at this point yeah did you see i i don't think we have this available if you if you can stitch it in you should did you see the guy who is out protesting and who stuck the suction dildo in his own head i did not see that you see this i saw that i mean also this is a very minnesota kind of a thing no it's like people from there have a weird thing have lots of weird things about them we don't think this is the thing and i that's also why i think we should start considering no more migration out of minnesota The problem seems to stem from that. You've got to keep the Minnesota people there. You need to lock them up. Unexplored sexuality is a corner of the realm in Minnesota. We don't talk about it. We don't do it in public. This is just footage from Minnesota. We all saw with our eyes what happens there. Bury it like all good little pigeons. I mean wild though, right? I mean, geez, dildos. I don't know how that connects with ice and all of that. well it's entertaining nevertheless um the bad bunny thing uh so the halftime show you know a lot of other alternatives tp usa did their thing puppy bowl which by the way the puppy that was like disabled you see that that thing no are you so it was a dog that died at the puppy bowl well right after oh yeah they were running it around and it was like kind of a feel-good story because it was on all kinds of things and it was all mangled and looked terrible anyway too much for the old pup i don't know it but kind of a good story he went out doing what he loves which is filming propaganda dog propaganda dog propaganda well i'm sure that was a glorious day for him yeah probably the best if you look at him he hadn't had a lot of good days anyway he's out uh but that's insane yeah totally they killed the dog wait they killed it or it died they said it died but like i don't know it was it may have been one of these situations you know when the animal's too far gone and where the true merciful move you talk about old to god you old yeller that's my guess honestly like i don't know anything about the situation but my best guess you know is sometimes the real merciful play is sending him back to god he made the kid owner shoot him i mean if the pup's having a hard time sometimes you know well it's the only humane thing to do anyway bad bunny during uh was trying to compete for market share and was pretty universally reviled uh in terms of like i always again dude like call me old-fashioned the super bowl is the most american thing of all time how do you how do you not tune in to tpo say and kid rock when your choices are bad bunny and dead puppy i think it's bad bunny dead puppy kid rock i think my choice is pretty clear well i feel i feel like that's right but but um they had to slip this bad boy in here graphic two what's what's going on here okay so i noticed this is this like wolf's personal i know strafing a bit much well a bit much wolf screen capped that and saved it for later uh no but they had so it was they were doing crowd scenes or whatever and then all of a sudden they get two dudes who are just grinding on each other is this part of the act or are these people watching the super bowl no this is a watching the halftime show yeah and they're that's that's what i don't feel like this graphic does it full justice because it was like a maybe a one and a half second clip it was described as a simulated sex act but uh i'd like to take this opportunity to play a surprise card well you got i have a surprise for for everyone here especially for John Ashbrook. Oh, God. Could we get that surprise graphic? This is from the Washington Post, and they say, Analysis. In general, Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show had the kind of wholesome, traditional family values that would have fit right in with some of the more sentimental commercials that appeared during the game. So that is being described by Ashbrook's friends at the Washington Post as just clean family fun. And they wonder why things have fallen apart. Yeah. Well, you were defending them like hell last week. so i just want to make sure you're held accountable for that thank you for holding me accountable thank you sir i'll have another we appreciate it we are so lucky so like you know for the people who watched it you were sort of in it was like you're waiting for the train wreck like you just had to see it for if you watched it yeah i had to because i was i was basically no you were forced to no i was waiting i i needed to see what everybody was going to talk about the next oh Well, that's a good way of putting it. What everyone was talking about was Kid Rock performance, which was amazing. Yeah. The whole show was terrific. Yeah. No, I get it. I mean, they were having millions and millions and millions of people tuning in. Well, if I wasn't in this line of work, I would have done just for my own pure entertainment. I would have done what you're suggesting, but because I like to provide value to millions of listeners. I took over my buddy's cerebral part, and I was like, throw it on. We're not watching this. We're going to watch the TPU. Everyone was thrilled. Everyone enjoyed it. But it turns out a lot of fans had a similar reaction to me. Look at clip four here. So this is the fan. You've got like two people dancing. The rest of the crowd is this whole thing that's going on. There's another third person dance. You have 50,000 people in the shot. That is amazing. I didn't see that video. Where everybody's like. Dude. It's funny how when no one knows what is being said, they're completely still and puzzled like who would it get it's like no one here knows what's being said somebody said too that in the stadium you couldn't actually see him like he was walking in the all these grass fields and it was all for television and in the stadium they were like wait what's going on that's that's the thing about super bowl halftime shows if you're actually there in the stadium you very quickly realize that none of this is for you like the camera angles and everything make it look large like a huge production yeah but it's really not yeah you And so you're kind of like half watching it because the artists and all of the entertainers are more focused on where the drone camera is and all of that sort of stuff. So it doesn't even feel like they're really performing. Well, I mean, in fairness, they're playing to 100 million people on their television set instead of the 50,000 that are in front of them. But – Hey, they paid a lot of money. They sure did. They sure did. But it's also been a long time other than the Snoop, Dr. Dre halftime, which I thought was fantastic. That's all our generation got, and then they skipped right over. Yeah, I just feel like it's been a long time since I've had one of those things that it felt like it's for me. Do you know why that is? It's because Jay-Z and Roc Nation got that contract for like eight years. That's what I heard. Is that true? It's 100% true. Friend of the program, Alex Bruce, did a great breakdown of this. But for like eight years now, they've had the contract with the NFL that Jay-Z essentially is handpicking every single one of these acts. And so it's been like, man. Remember when it used to be like, we're going to have the Rolling Stones. Or like, you know, like. Totally. What is the biggest thing in the world? Yeah. Yeah. Show up. It rained. It rained when he played Purple Rain. Yeah. It was fantastic. That was amazing. Great. Colts won that Super Bowl. I mean, imagine having an act that like everyone can understand. Radical idea. So how much longer does that contract last? I think it's still got a few years left. Let me guess. Every single one of the people that he recommends are on contract with his record label? Oh, 100%. Oh, weird. It's fun getting a piece of the actual one. Is that true or are we doing allegedly's here? Well, we might have to do allegedly because it's smug. It's smug. We don't know. If you would have told me that, Duncan, I think I would have believed it. The one conservative on the show, I'm always attacked. We'll look into it and report right back. So it leads to our question of the day. We like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program. We read all of your comments and get back to the very next episode. Our question on this one is that was probably the worst halftime show, at least from our perspective. Who had the best? There's a lot there. And like, you know, I mean, one of the best is not a Super Bowl was the Creed Thanksgiving one. And I thought that the Vikes Lions there was a Christmas one where they did an incredible halftime show. Snoop was the lead of that. I just love Snoop. But you know what I mean. Like, what's your favorite? You remember them all. Tell us. Which one is your favorite halftime show of the last 25, 30 years? I think you've got to go back a little ways. At least I did. Coming up, your comments from last episode. We asked the question is, with Kamala back on the scene, who is going to win the Democratic nomination? Your response is right after this. When you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Righty program, we read all of your comments on our question of the day. And this question was, who's going to win the Democratic nomination? Kamala, Gavin, somebody else. To do that, we always start with a voice. Okay, first one comes from Chelsea Alexander. Chelsea writes, long-time listener, new subscriber here. Thanks for doing that, Chelsea. Felt compelled to join in on your Friday question. Kamala must really have some juicy dirt on the core Democrat establishment to keep them from muddying her. Muddling. Muddling her like an old-fashioned cocktail. That is a muddling. For this reason, she gets the nomination. The real winner is J.D. Vance. When only look at the current list of obvious contenders, there is perhaps a curveball. I really have my eye on a bipartisan ticket with Josh Shapiro and Spencer Cox. Interesting. Governor of Utah? Yeah, Governor of Utah. Governor of Pennsylvania, Governor of Utah. Interesting. Generally speaking, those things don't work out. They like split ticket And the Democrats don strike me as an accommodating party right now for anything that center left They really don but it always makes for fun conversations It does. It is true. Remember how Bloomberg got savaged? Oh, yeah. That was awesome. It was awesome, actually. All right. Comment two, Doug Strunk. This is from Rat Boyd. Rat Boyd writes, I think Kamala gets the nomination and we finally get to see J.D. Vance destroy her in debates, which was denied us because biden dropped out yeah that is that is true i i would love to see jd just run circles around her that would have been fun to watch yeah yeah no question about it all right comment three smug comment three is from judith hamilton and judith writes the question is whether the dems will hold a true primary or just appoint someone to run that's what they do yeah that's what they've been doing lately it is i mean they've been doing it longer you know than people really think i mean the whole hillary thing was wired from the beginning yeah they just robbed bernie out of that whole thing yep totally totally absolutely true great comments when you like and subscribe we read absolutely all of them get back to the very next episode thank you for those submissions uh just a variety thing or two here fellas um there's a new uh combat sports league you know we like to talk about you found this and it rules yeah it was like the you know i mean the hockey fighting thing where there was no hockey being played they just fight and this one struck me as kind of compatible to that although perhaps much more dangerous can we play clip eight oh my god oh oh oh i don't like this you gotta get you gotta get low oh you think so that's the way you gotta get low low man wins so this was uh provided by happy punch who could Can you guess that Ashbrook's take is that Dem Talker, when they go high, we go low? He can't stop. It's a point in the left. It's not a Dem Talker, Smug. If you would like to. He went high. Do you see Big Guy just took him out going, again. Oh, my gosh. No, it's about leverage. It's about leverage. If you'd like to challenge me in this, I'd be happy to show you how going low wins. I don't beat up on senior citizens, for God's sake. Oh, man. So he's getting out of it. He doesn't want to try it. I will challenge you to this, Smug. I'll play. 100%. So this is – it's a new sport, and it's being slammed as the dumbest sport, and doctors saying it should be banned. And this is according to an article. Is this a Daily Mail article? What is this? It's a packed – Yeah, he says Daily Mail. – venue in Sydney. Watched countless brutal big hits on Saturday night. Of course, it's in Australia. Despite ongoing concussion warnings about the events, the Run Nation Championship. For our audio listeners, this is basically two huge dudes running as fast as possible, sprinting at each other to knock each other down. It's just full speed. It's like the most Australian thing that I've ever seen. It is. Because you have Australian football and they're like, we'll get rid of the ball. We'll get rid of the teams and we'll give you what you want. It's just violence. It's the Oklahoma drill without pads. That's right. I don't like this. This is going to kill someone. Well, I mean, it's human cockfighting. Most wonderful endeavors do. lives are always lives were lost getting a man on the moon all the great all the great things humanity accomplished you gotta crack a few eggs lives i mean you gotta crack a few clavicles think about this like it's wonderful it's amazing and the thing is that it's not like anyone's being forced to do this these are two people two monsters two money willingly as fast as they can straight into each other and it's the purest sport it's the purest sport of all you don't have to worry about or you get a dribbling or shooting i'm sure this is i'm sure this is what everybody skill this is what everybody was saying in the coliseum yeah poor they they like fighting the lions the purest sport because there's no skill should bring back the coliseum you know it was a wonderful idea people really love that kind of thing i would like to see them bring the animal kingdom into this right and have a man versus like a gigantic uh ram that i can get on board that'd be cool that'd a great twist on it get on board with can someone take the ram horn to the chest and turn that thing back around i i would watch and like round after round amping it up like you start with the billy goat then they bring in the ram and then you got a moose you know what i mean and a rhino can anyone take the rhino this is a psychotic segment only trump i'd pay top dollar i swear i'd pay top dollar have you ever seen that thing on instagram where the guy does the voiceover for ram that's like knocking down the fat people no oh my god that's a sport ram oh god you gotta see i'm gonna find that for all of our viewers at some point but we have to get to our interview which is fantastic this is congressman pete stauber well i've been uh taking entirely too much shit about minnesota lately so i need i need to bring in reinforcements and when you're talking about minnesota the old stauber family is one of those sort of stalwart tough hockey guys that you just have to bring in so now congressman pete stauber how are you sir i got your back take him out pete let's go we got we got to get these guys listen uh before we get into all the unpleasantness which is surrounding your entire state i do want to talk about um this recently signed congressional gold medal act right with the 1980 miracle on ice team you grew up i grew up this is like you know there are hall of fame things and then there is like the ultimate this is the crew that basically guided much of our childhood absolutely no tell me about well you know the the 1980 olympic team i mean those were heroes to us growing up playing hockey uh in Minnesota. And so this past December 12th, we put forward the Congressional Gold Medal Act for that team. And that's the highest honor a country can give an individual or a team. And our office led it. Senator Kramer from North Dakota led it to the Senate. And that was something. That was on December 12th. That was a Friday. And I came back from votes at 9 a.m. at about 9.30. I'm in my office and there's my heroes, drinking coffee, having donuts, excited for the day. And I mean, To see Jack O'Callaghan and Neil Broughton, Ken Morrow, Janicek, Arruzzione, Jim Craig. I mean, all those folks. It was unbelievable. And then 12 of them were from Minnesota, right? Yeah, totally. And so we had – Herbie Brooks insisted upon it. That's right. That's right. That's right. 12 of them. And then you had one of the equipment managers and, of course, Coach Brooks and his son Dan was there. Yeah. And we had – it was just such a day for me to be in the presence of these hockey heroes that I grew up. You know, I always wanted to be – I knew I had to get to at least 5'9", because that was Neil Broughton, right? If Neil Broughton can play in the NHL college, so can I. Once I hit 5'9", it was good, you know? It's so good. Yeah. I love it. I mean, they did grow up as heroes. But your family – I mean, I remember growing up watching your brother Robbie. goalie for for the gophers yeah um and you had an incredible collegiate career uh it's just that's part of the fabric of minnesota you know playing hockey you're right coming from minnesota playing hockey uh at the highest level i mean it's when you strive for it for me it was you know i just i wanted to play division one hockey and uh was able to earn an athletic scholarship to lake spears state university small school in upstate uh you know You guys made some noise, though. We won the national championship in 88. So my brother Robbie played at Minnesota, first goalie to win the Hobie Baker Award. Then he went on to play with Los Angeles with Gretzky and then Buffalo. And my brother Danny played in Boros, Sweden. So we grew up loving the game of hockey, playing hockey all the time. And it was something that I take what I learned in hockey every single day in Congress now. You know, you get beat up for all these things, but you just focus on doing what's right. Focus on getting that piece of legislation across. Team sport. Hacking and slashing and just get that piece of legislation across the finish line for your constituents in the country. Yeah, we talk about that a lot. So we talked a little bit before we got in here about something you're doing to that effect right now with the CRA and everything that's going to do to impact your district up there in the Iron Range. Can you tell us a little bit about that? So we have a lot of unfinished business. When we talk about energy independence, we also need to talk about critical mineral dominance. And mining is a big reason. I'm in Congress. For your viewers, I'm 8th District of Minnesota, northeast Minnesota. We've been mining iron ore that makes 80% of this nation's steel, right? We know how to do it. And all of a sudden, we have this critical mineral find. It's called the Duluth Complex. Biggest untapped copper and nickel find in the entire world. And so that, you know, we're pushing to make sure we mine responsibly and we're going to do it. We can do it in Minnesota. And, of course, Joe Biden was the most anti-mining president in the history of this country. He took 225,000 acres off the ability to harness that. And so that CRA, it reverses that withdrawal. So it allows companies to compete for, you know, to be able to mine. American resources. How about that? That's exactly right. I mean, we shouldn't follow China anyway, right? Right. And we're doing that right now. So we can mine here. We can manufacture here. We can process here and we can refine here. We have to have the political will to do it. And, you know, that's a high priority of mine in the natural resources space. So we have some unfinished business and we're pushing the mining as hard as we can. John? You come from a great Minnesota family, and you and your wife have built another great Minnesota family. I think you get six kids. Is that right? Yeah. Six kids. And one of them has Down syndrome. And that is near and dear to my heart. I've got a daughter with Down syndrome, and your son Isaac with Down syndrome. I think he's 21 years old. Am I right about that? Yeah, he's a little older, 23. 23, okay. And I just wonder if you could tell everybody just what an absolute blessing it is to have a child with that sort of disability. It doesn't even cross your mind when you first learn the news. No, I mean, both you and I are blessed. We were chosen to raise these special children. And so my wife and I, I mean, Isaac came out unexpected, right? And I remember when Isaac was born, the whole room went silent. And my wife said, what happened? And is he, what happened? What's going on? And so they had a tough time telling us that we just got Down syndrome. We didn't care. He was our son. It doesn't matter. I mean, he's one of the six kids that give us grief all the time, although he's the best kid we got. Yeah, yeah. Am I right? Your daughter, right? That's exactly right. It's the best kid we have. Their life is life-giving. Yeah, they'll fight with their siblings. And it's just a wonderful, absolute wonderful blessing to be chosen by God, to be able to raise a special child. Of course, my other five children are special too, right? But this one is just a unique gift from God that we cherish every single day. And I know you and your wife do. I mean, your daughter is just the most beautiful thing in the world. And so it's not their disability. It's their ability that we're working on. And they bring sunshine to every day, every event and our family. So thanks for bringing that up. I mean, that's very near and dear to us, and I appreciate that. That's great. So a less comfortable topic is what's happening in Minnesota with administration, with ICE, with Governor Walz, which I've said on this program for like the last three weeks. I don't recognize what's going on here. i mean we've had we had when i was growing up we had democrat governors did some republican governors but like basically sanity was a part of the equation this seems to me from the outside looking in and you live it every day and talk to your constituents to be complete madness yeah if i could be frank minnesotans are pissed yeah uh with the fraud that's going on we are hard working people go to work every day uh and then we see this happening under this administration and it's hundreds of billions of dollars that are happening. We saw one stat, $30 billion. And then they just look the other way. Not now. We're going to get down to the bottom of it. They want accountability. They want people that did this fraud on the taxpayers to serve time. They want to make sure that they're held accountable. It's ridiculous. I mean, our great state, our great state of Minnesota, and it's the fraud capital. It's unbelievable. And Walls knew about it. The whistleblowers are coming out. Walls knew about it. And, I mean, that's why he's not running again. I mean, in my opinion, that's why he's out. He knew that the gig was up, the fraud that was happening. He either was complicit in my mind or he's incompetent, one of the two, right? You can't have that amount of fraud, not even holding people accountable or having things in place to protect the taxpayer and let it go like that. And it's been going on for a while. And again, I say to people, I said, don't let Minneapolis dictate the rest of our great state. We are very, very frustrated in greater Minnesota and what's happening in Minneapolis and the fraud. The politics have changed, right? I mean when I grew up in Minnesota, your neck of the woods was as blue as you could possibly be. Iron Range, heavy union worker, old school DFL, Democrat, farmer, laborer. They since abandoned that wholesale. And now they have this just sort of pocket around the urban epicenter that they're holding on to. And the rest of the state is generally pretty red. is this obvious fraud mistrust like complete deception on the american taxpayer the minnesota taxpayer is that going to fundamentally change minnesota you think or at least give us the opportunity to change from one of the most reliably blue states to something that's going to be competitive here if we get rid of the fraud including the voter rolls minnesota is going to flip right so do you let me hear make sure i understand what you're talking about what walls because we've contended this here so i'm not putting words in your mouth but the fraud and the voter rolls and what they've done there is deliberate it is a about maintaining power for a democratic establishment in minnesota do you believe that my minnesota voter integrity Act says, okay, the state of Minnesota, show your voter rolls to the Department of Justice. We want them accurate. We don't want any fraud in our voting elections, right? We're seeing it in feeding our future, the Medicaid, the Social Security, the daycare fraud, you name it. So it's reasonable to conclude that there's fraud in all areas. Because, I mean, our governor won't even or our secretary of state won't even give up the voting rolls. And. Yeah. Like why? And the snap rolls. Yeah. You know, Secretary Rollins wants to see the snap rolls. What are you hiding? Why don't you allow the federal government to take a look at it to assure every Minnesotan everything's good? There is no fraud. But I believe that when they – they're going to find it. They're going to look into the SNAP rules and the voter rules. They're going to see some discrepancies that are going to even make Minnesotans more upset. How does that work exactly? So is it – do you withhold SNAP funds from the federal government in order to compel? How exactly do you get to this information? Because like look we talked a lot about Minnesota but I have to imagine this problem is everywhere in the country Like what else can Congress do to compel these states to investigate things that a lot of these Democratic jurisdictions do not want to investigate That right That right So I think that the money isn going to come to support the elections from the federal government if you don comply with the request and the SNAP benefits. It's going to harm our low-income people in the state of Minnesota who are on SNAP if they don't show us the SNAP rolls. And they're being punished. The people that truly need it are being punished because we have a lack of leadership by Governor Walz. We've tried to send them back to Nebraska. They won't take them. We get a lot of runoff from Nebraska, I feel like. But look, I do – I get this argument because this is a difficult thing. You have to try to compel them to provide the evidence of their own fraud, which they're unwilling to do. But to compel them honestly makes vulnerable people more vulnerable, and they just tag you on that. I mean good God, the Minnesota media has been so asleep at the switch and complicit with all of this. The Red Star? Yeah, Red Star, the old Star Tribune. But, I mean, that's a challenge. Well, look at the whistleblowers. Yeah. Predominantly the Department of Health and Human Services workers. And predominantly they vote Democrat. Not all of them, but okay. This is a group of both Democrat and Republican workers that said, we've had enough. And they're being bullied. They're being walked out of their jobs when they bring it up. and then you look at the people that truly need it, the people that truly need the daycare or the Medicaid or the SNAP benefits, and the taxpayers are being ripped off. And again, I'm talking to people all across our state that are furious that this is going on, and they're even more furious that the governor won't comply and the Secretary of State won't give the voter rolls. So what do you do to sort of serve as a catalyst for action on this? Because honestly, I am dubious that they're ever going to turn over anything. They would rather hurt their citizens. They've proven that over and over again than actually be found to be complicit or maybe culpable for fraud. So political change is necessary. And obviously we've seen there's candidates that are running for stuff. I mean I think I was on the last statewide some 20-some-odd years ago that won in Minnesota. How do we go about as a Republican Party in Minnesota harnessing that angst and ensuring that we have a political change? Because that's been the biggest trick, the hardest thing to figure out over the last 15, 20 years. this this is the voter fraud or and and those concerns are are uh are bipartisan concern right okay i truly believe uh that that we everybody wants free and fair elections and only um only those that are eligible to vote vote but what you have i think an internal network that is so deep right now. It's going to take a change of leadership. And one of the first steps is the Department of Health and Human Services, the whistleblowers. Those whistleblowers, they put their careers on the line to do this and to see the amount of fraud going on. And, of course, the sanctuary states and cities that Wall supports. I mean, he came to Washington, D.C. here and testified in Congress, spent $247,000 of Minnesota taxpayers to prepare for a hearing and support of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states. I mean, think about it. It's wild. And, you know, look at what's happening in Minneapolis. I'm a former cop in Duluth, Minnesota. I didn't realize that. I didn't know that either. Did you have a mustache? No. Actually, my department, we couldn't wear one. We couldn't wear one. Duluth is going real clean cut. No, I didn't have a mustache. But, yeah, 23 years as a cop. And, you know, when you're a police officer, when you work with the state and the federal agencies, the investigations, everything works better when you cooperate and share information. And that's not what's happening as of late. However, since border czar Tom Homan's been up there, there's been what he calls unprecedented cooperation, even going in the jails. I mean, he said, we just need one agent to go into the Sally Port in the jail, take him or her, and move on. If you let them out in the streets, it could take a lot more agents. So that's why he's being willing to draw down. The jails are starting to give that information. Do you think he had the right approach on that? It seems to me – I mean we've talked about this a lot and smash. You've been involved and actually talked to Holman a couple of weeks ago about this. But it seems to me that law enforcement mentality when it comes to this problem has worked itself out. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So we interviewed him on the show and he talked about how dangerous some of these sanctuary states and cities are because the bad guys know that's where they can go to do everything in secret and get away with it. Yeah. And one of the things that he said was about his approach. You know, we talked about how like where in the world where was it the Democrats all of a sudden decided they didn't care about border security? Because we've all been in this line of work long enough to remember when they made speeches saying, no, we're better at protecting the border than Republicans. And it was very interesting to hear his point of view because the guy's a career law enforcement officer. He's been doing this job in one way or another since the early 80s. So it's interesting to hear your point of view as a former cop. And it's like he speaks a language that local cops understand. If you go in, guns blazing, I know how to do everything. You don't know what you're doing. So feds versus local. Right. There's a reticence to it. They're like, wait a minute. What are you doing? But he goes in and seems to understand how to interact with these local officials. And from what I understand from the White House, they're getting cooperation almost in every single county in Minnesota where they didn't before he went in. The gold standard in law enforcement is voluntary compliance. That's the gold standard. That's what you want. Nobody gets hurt. Officer doesn't get hurt. The suspect doesn't get hurt, nor do any bystanders. Voluntary compliance. That's what you want. But when you have a governor and his administration calling the federal agents, the Gestapo, the Nazis, they rile them up. And you see the assaults on law enforcement. It's wrong. I mean, you should not. Law enforcement is there to perform and remove violent illegals. That's what Congress has asked them to do. That's what we've asked them to do. That's a law that's been on the books for quite some time. That's right. I mean, they did it under President Obama. Right. They did the exact same thing under President Obama, and he didn't hear people. You know, by the way, when there's 13, 14, 15 million people coming into this country illegally, wide open southern border. By the way, I was down there more than the borders are Kamala Harris was. Did she make it? I don't even know if she made it down there. She went down there for a photo op during the campaign. It's like a good 15 miles away. Yeah, right. So I would just say I saw in a bipartisan fashion, I don't care if it was a Republican mayor or a Democrat, but they say stop the open border. We can't handle this. It's overloading our hospitals, our social services, our schools. And so they've had enough. And I didn't see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying, yeah, we need to stop it. I mean, we need to stop it. It took President Trump and he promised the American people that he would do it. our border is more secure now than ever in the history of this country and tom holman also understands we have a northern border and he's working on that too yeah because you know important part of my district uh goes into ontario or connects with ontario good fishing up there though it's great fishing great fishing like the walleye showed you yeah we got great fishing in minnesota too you do you get it on some good lakes in minnesota you got the walleye fresh walleye how many places in this country can you leave work get in your boat catch a limit of walleyes have fresh walleye for dinner and go to bed not many places dream yeah you're singing smashes tune right there that's that is the dream so all right so we do three quick questions for everybody that comes on yeah for the first time last meal on earth last meal on earth if you can planet what would it be um it's got to be wallet right you know what it last it'd have to be just a a sammy's pizza you know sammy's oh yeah uh pepperoni green peppers onions tomatoes sammy's pizza i didn't see you going that route but that's a good order that's good a family size so look hockey star cop congressman you had a lot of experiences uh with the benefit of retrospect there's probably one or two things that you're you were super interested in you think you could have done didn't have the time because you're doing all this other stuff if you look back on your entire life what do you think it would be it's interesting that's a great question And I say this in just, I wished that I would have studied harder for my ACT test. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to cut that and send it to my church. As it was, things worked out, right? Because when I was in high school, I just wanted to get through with that test and get to launch, right? Yeah. Little did I realize that was part of the entrance exam into schools and stuff. Yeah. turns out they care about like i don't know this guy's a hell of a hockey player he's gonna get through with a lot of that that's really good all right so last question our view is that almost every successful person at some level is motivated by the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat and it's not okay yeah wide wide world sports the way he presented it was like thrill of victory you win you know agony defeat you lose our view is the motivation is the key component about what takes the next step in your life like what is the motivation that you use to do that extra thing and if you're a successful person you have to be motivated by something like the thrill of victory person is usually like a phil mickelson type or somebody who just thinks they can do it it may not be the smart play but they just think they can do it agony defeat is typified by michael jordan he had to invite and invent slights against him in order to take his game to the next level and work that much harder where do you think you find yourself on this spectrum i um i'll just give you the hockey analogy i wasn't that good um i uh that's nonsense by the way no i listen the only lie he's told but i worked harder than anybody uh because i had to make for the lack of talent i had to make it up with my strength and my speed because the hockey it didn't come to me as easy some of the great players right i mean they can play the game in their head and uh for me it was hard work if we had to do uh 15 sprints i did 17 because the guy behind me i didn't want to take my position i wanted to make the team even as a feels agony even as a captain on a national championship team um i was still every every practice i was i every single practice in my mind somebody wanted to take my spot and you have to do that and that's it it's transferred into into congress i still knock on doors people said what do you do not gonna i want to face to face i'm asking for your vote you trust me with that vote i'm going to ask you personally and um hard work is always equalizer you know yeah uh the only time success comes before sweat is in the dictionary and that's kind of my motto he's an agony guy yeah yeah right our kind of fella he's our kind of fella there's a 50-50 split, but you've got three Agony. Yeah, two Minnesotans. We can take on anybody. Minnesotans over-index on Agony, by the way. I mean, our Vikes. I think it's a Midwestern thing. I think it is. Yeah, but here's the thing. I think you're right. You have the Wild. They're surging right now with Quinn Hughes. Incredible. I mean, I'm a Minnesota sports fan, and you see the Wild. They're winning these close games, and I want to be going down to the – We used to call it the XL, but now it's a Grand Casino Arena. I want to go down there on a playoff game. There's nothing better than that atmosphere. St. Paul, Minnesota, right? Walking across 7th Street. Remember going to the old Civic Center with the clear boards? Yeah. With the state tournament? What a delight. And Hughes is on the Olympic team. Yep. One of the two on the Wild that are on the team. Have you talked to anybody on that Olympic team? Because you know they're starting up here later this week. No, but here's a question for you. Here's a trivia question. You give me the question, right? in 2018 in Pyeongchang, who was the women's Olympic hockey coach, the gold medal coach? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. You don't know? Uh-uh. My younger brother, Rob. No! Are you kidding? Really? Really? Get out of here. Yeah. He was a gold medal. He should have done a couple more victory laps on that deal. That was a hell of a deal. He did. Well, on December 12th, when we brought the 80 Olympic team to the White House, my younger brother, Rob, was my guest. Oh, that's awesome. white house that's awesome yeah so there's a goalie he's he's a he's the biggest most fiercest competitor that i've ever played against yeah i believe you know i believe that watched him a lot growing up uh last prediction on this hockey team usa team usa just getting started here gold they're going to be the gold medal game yes they're going to be in the gold medal game uh and it's gonna be a great game canada what's that team usa and canada yeah i think so yeah i I think I agree. And listen, I mean, any hockey game at that level is the best of the best. It's going to be a great game to watch. That's my hope. I love it. I love it. Pete Stauber, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. It's been my pleasure. You always love having a guy like that in who has such a variety and background with hockey. He was a cop. Yeah. Now in Congress, big family. i mean he is i mean everything that you've always described about northern minnesota yeah this guy is it yeah no he is it and he's a smart guy and he's doing a lot of good work and i'm happy we've got him there because you know this is kind of one of the reasons we wanted to have him on is what i was saying to you a couple of times is like you would get the impression based on the news cycle over the last month that minnesota sort of monolithically lost their fucking minds and like guys like pete are those are the people i grew up with and so we just need well and also like kind of quite the opposite really when you think about it i mean as you said in the interview homes that used to be blue area there used to be union households they used to vote for the democratic party this is a real change sea change during the trump era is places like the iron rage going red yep and like people like pete you know who obviously match the district know these people are critical to that coalition and selling that totally i bet he can hockey fight like a motherfucker still don't you think oh without a doubt boys you didn't want to mess with him yeah back in the day uh listen appreciate pete stauber uh a fantastic show our question today bad bunny might have been the worst halftime show what do you remember is the best or your favorite halftime show like and subscribe we read all of your comments and get back to the very next episode with that fellas i think we did it i think so absolute banger of an episode gentlemen thank you so much congressman stauber and thank you to the listeners remember if you have not yet go to the youtube and hit that 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 thursday stay ruthless you