Why Democrats Hate Voter ID (SAVE ACT)

And why would it be that a Democratic Party would so vehemently object to showing a driver's license when you vote? I mean, what a bizarre outlier in all of American politics. This is the one issue where a party that claims to represent its voters has the opposite opinion of their own voters. pass the save act. Why would it be that Democrats are so insistent that we have no registration requirements and that there is no possible reason to present any sort of identification at the polls? Why would that be, fellas? Be because they want to cheat. Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet. Now they're messing with your credit card. Your credit card and the security it offers are under attack. The Durbin Marshall credit card bill would change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. 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'm Josh Holmes along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook. Left to right across your radio dial. As always, we're going to get into it here, folks. You've heard an awful lot about the SAVE Act. Viral, I would say, online. It's become sort of a calling card for those on the right. But what they would like to see done in this Congress in one form or fashion, what it goes back to is just integrity of elections. And of course, everything post-2020 and that disturbance, shall we say, has been castigated in partisan lines about who wants to do what and its partisan advantage and whatever. But what's lost in all of it is discussion about what is basically just true and right to do with elections. And why would it be that a Democratic Party would so vehemently object to showing a driver's license when you vote for federal office? Not to mention state office and everything else, but that's really what we're talking about here. And that's the origins of the SAVE Act. Now, it does some other things. There are some registration requirements. Democrats will say they're arduous because they've stood up a cottage industry to try to ensure that they register everyone fraudulently or not, allegedly. And they deliver a whole bunch of registrations and they've done this for decades. This is nothing new. And when you say cottage industry, you're 100% meaning there's a cottage industry. There are attorneys who have made – Millions – Fortunes. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in this country. Including President Obama's bag man, Eric Holder. That's right. He's exactly right. Where the whole idea is that you register as many people as you want. When I first got started in politics, what Democrats wanted to do was auto registration for the moment that you got a driver's license. Yeah. Which, of course, as we know, in many states in this country does not require citizenship. Oh, weird how that works. Yeah. They wanted to auto-enroll you in a registration to vote. And really quickly, the funny little trick that Democrats try to play with this is they say, why wouldn't you want every American instantly automatically registered? Because, friends, anyone can show up to your local voting committee, whether it's the election, board of elections, whatever, and request a list and then cross-reference. Who hasn't voted in the past 10 years? Oh, just asking. I'd just like to know if you don't require an ID. I'd like a name and address for people who are not likely to show up. Just out of curiosity. Just out of curiosity. So look, where this has gone over the years is the Democrats have basically tried to pass a series of state laws because states have control of their elections that make it easier to cheat. And we saw this all come to fruition during the COVID area, and of course in 2020, where the full pantheon of a Democratic wish list was all coming to fruition. You'd had no clean voter rolls, meaning if you were registered to vote at one address, it didn't matter if you moved 15 times. You were going to get a ballot at that address, meaning somebody who's now living at that address has two ballots. And that was the minimum. I mean there are people – we lived in D.C. at one point 15 years ago where they had this same process and nobody pays attention in D.C. because it's a 90-10 Democrat deal and nobody cares. But I remember in my apartment building getting seven ballots in the mail, in my mailbox under this same thing, right? And so a part of the SAVE Act is to ensure that you clean voter rolls and make sure that new information, be it a change of address, a move out of the state, a change in tax filing, whatever, is imported into the voter list and you clean the voter rolls to make sure that the intended recipient is the fact – is the person who gets the ballot. They're not talking about whether or not you can still have mail-in ballots. They remain silent on that. And that – look, I think that's important because there's a lot of states that vote by mail and have for generations, and it is what it is. We used to win the hell out of it. It's become super controversial over the years in large part because of what Democrats have done, which is try to expand eligibility, same-day registration with no proof of citizenship, and then allow the mail-in and all of that. Well, because those two things are related, right? Like if you refuse to clean up the voter rolls but you demand a mail-out to people, not requested, a mail-in ballot, then you end up with that situation where you get seven ballots. I mean, in Republicans' framework of mail-in votes, it was always like opt-in for a permanent early voter list where you get a ballot mailed to you. We know you live there because you said, I live here and I'm opting into this program. It's not a mail out to everybody on the voter rolls because 10 people have lived there in the last 20 years. Yeah, right. And today's Democrats will tell you there is no voter ID on stolen land. But Democrats haven't always said that. Jimmy Carter, we were talking about earlier. We were talking about at the very beginning of – and maybe we're going to get to this a little bit later, so I'm just teasing it. Jimmy Carter was for voter ID. Yeah, I mean, look, I've worked on this for 23 years, longer than I'd like to admit on one of the most popular podcasts in America, frankly. It just betrays a little bit of age. that frankly i'm not interested in doing but the jimmy carter thing is an important deal because when i first started in politics this was a problem i understand there's an awful lot of people who have come to age and gotten interested in politics post 2020 this is now like a donald trump prism that we see these things through but this is something i was working on 23 years ago and and more importantly if you pop up graphic five just real quick all right so this is an op-ed by Jimmy Carter and Jim Baker. In their era, the two most credible people on both sides of the aisle to come to a consensus about anything. James Baker the goat. About anything, right? It didn't matter if they were talking about Iran or if they were talking about taxes or if they were talking about – but in this case, they put a commission together And they were talking about how best to ensure the integrity of American elections. And I think it was 2005. They had their findings and they put it out. And they led a bipartisan commission on the federal election reform because there was a lot of talk back then about election reform. Remember McCain-Feingold, which fundamentally ruined the American electoral system. We're still unwinding from that stupid fucking mess. Just attack on free speech is what it was. It's all it is. But in 2005, they were like, OK, so all that being said, here's a couple of ways that you can ensure integrity. Their number one thing, voter ID. Voter ID. And for like a lot of the Republican listeners who are like, it seems like such a no brainer because it is. Don't let anyone gaslight you into these like excuses that Democrats have tried to create of being like, don't you know, that's racist. Black people can't get IDs. It's difficult for them. And then you pull black people and it's like 85 percent think there should be voter ID. You're like, man, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Like if you can't get an ID, you probably shouldn't vote. Anyway, so there's been a lot of developments on this front, and everyone, again, on a national punditry level wants to see us through a 2020 prism. It's not that. If Americans don't have confidence in the integrity of an election, what is it worth? It makes a lot of people less likely to vote. It makes a lot of people less likely to believe the results. and a democracy only works if you've got the confidence of the American people in the results of it, whether you like it or not. I mean, that just is what it is. You'd think that would be a bipartisan proposition. It's not. So SAVE Act makes its way into the House of Representatives. Graphic four, if we can pop this up, the House of Representatives takes action on this. Again, I'm telling you and I'm not spinning you exactly what is in this. What is in this is voter ID. It's the assurance that you present your identification as American citizen in order to register. It is a clean voter roll component that mandates that states continue to clean their voter rolls based on new information. It's that simple. It is not much more complicated than that. Now, there are arguments about the constitutionality of the federal government discussing with states the specifics of which they manage elections, and those arguments are what they are. This one to me seems to stand up to constitutional scrutiny in a lot of different ways because it's sort of nameless in how you go about voting. If you vote by mail, what your windows are, all that doesn't speak to that. It's basically if you're going to register to vote in our state, you need to come with proof of citizenship. And when you have that, we register you. Can we put that graphic back up? I just want to point out one thing on the Democrats who voted against this. Each of them inserted their ID into the voting machine in the House and then clicked no. So they were all tabulated based on ID. And if they're willing to do it for that, why can't everybody else do it for the big election? Well, well, well. Well said. And it turns out the popular sentiment is with you. Here is Brett Baier in clip nine. Voter ID. The Senate saying they may press forward and try to push this act forward that's passed the House. Take a listen to the polling on voter ID. Normally, you might expect, hey, there'd be a big divide by party with Republicans really for it and Democrats really against it. But not really here. I mean, just take a look here. Favorite photo ID to vote. You got 95 percent of Republicans, pretty much all of them. But even 71 percent of Democrats favor photo ID to vote. It's not really all that controversial. The American people are with Nicki Minaj, whether they are Republican or even if they are Democrats. Okay. So but this has been the case since I got out of college when I first started working in politics. Those numbers haven't changed. This is not something that has ebbed and flowed over the years based upon arguments of our day. There has always been roughly 80 plus percent of the American people who have thought that it only makes sense that if I have to go buy alcohol or cigarettes or if I want to get into the military or if I – I mean to get into Fox to do the interview that you're going to see a clip of later, I had to show an ID to go do that. We built a society around it. I mean what a bizarre outlier in all of American politics. This is the one issue where a party that claims to represent its voters has the opposite opinion of their own voters and not just a small majority. Seventy one percent of Democrats want voter ID and Democrats are like, no, it's racist. You might ask yourself why. Why would it be that Democrats are so insistent that we have no registration requirements and that there is no possible reason to present any sort of identification at the polls? Why would that be, fellas? Can you imagine? I would think that they would want integrity in elections, wouldn't you? Well, it could be because they want to cheat. Democrats have cheated in elections for a very long time, and they want to keep getting away with it. They do it in secret. All right, so it goes to the Senate. You don't need to do the whole how a bill becomes a law routine here. But when the House passes something, it goes over to the Senate. Here's Senator Thune. Well, I'm for that. I've co-sponsored the SAVE Act in the past. I think my understanding is that they are still modifying the bill. It includes right now a requirement that you be a citizen to register a book to vote, but it doesn't include a requirement that to vote you be a resident. So in other words, if you're going to have what we call voter ID or photo ID when somebody goes into the ballot box to vote, that's not currently covered in the bill. So that's been fixed and addressed, and I think the new bill that comes out will deal with that. But, I mean, at some point we'll have that vote. I'm for it. I think most of our colleagues in the Senate are, and it hasn't had consideration in the relevant committee yet, but I know there's a high level of interest among our members in getting a vote on the Senate. All right, so that's a commitment out of the Senate majority leader to bring this thing for a vote. And that's where things sit currently. Now, a ton of unrest online and a ton of, shall we say, misinformation out there about what's in this bill, how it goes about doing its business, and how it gets processed. Quick aside, can I just say I hate the term misinformation? They're out and out lies. Just say lies because whenever I hear the term misinformation, I think about how Liz were clubbing us over the head for a year for telling the truth. I feel like I definitely agree with that. It really – like every time I hear it, I'm like, oh, back to like on Twitter when Liz ran the show. Nina Jacobs, yeah. Yep, and they're like, this is misinformation. COVID didn't come from China. So we're getting into the nitty-gritty of the SAVE Act and where it all stands with voter ID. Why do Democrats not like it? And the whole history behind it right after this. I've worked at Coca-Cola for 21 years. We're delivering Dr. Pepper from our branded 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 while 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. In America, parents call the shots for their families, not bureaucrats. But the so-called App Store Accountability Act puts your child at risk. This bill requires app stores to collect children's sensitive personal data while taking away power from parents over how their child's data is handled by tech companies. Parents should get to decide if their child's age is shared with apps, not politicians. Parents should attest to their kids' ages, not turn over birth certificates to tech companies. Congress, don't put kids at greater risk online and box parents out of making decisions for their families. Tell your lawmaker to put parents first. There are better ways to keep kids safe. NetChoice is dedicated to making the Internet safe for free expression and free enterprise. Learn more at netchoice.org backslash keep app stores safe. Okay, so listen, we're going to get back into the SAVE Act. It's worth mentioning that Byron Donalds, probably the next governor of Florida, is with us today. Great interview. Really enjoyed it. And he's strong on these issues, as they say. Outstanding guy. And the detail that he takes an interest in is perfect for a state like Florida that has a ton of problems that needs a detail-oriented guy in charge. and byron donalds would be the perfect guy it seems like 100 all right so back to the save act so the voter id thing has been a issue i literally have worked on for 23 years it has been a thing that has been needlessly partisan in large part because democrats have always had an argument it went back to like the civil rights discussion where they were like well some people can't get ids nonsense nonsense they of course everybody can get ids and then they said like well under privileged people they don't want to show up in person they're intimidated by the process you're voting for the elected leadership of the united states of america if you are intimidated by the process of providing uh some documentation that you are an american citizen you shouldn't be fucking doing it and also pulling his show and that's an out and out lie there's like three percent of the population who said that they can be intimidated by it and it's Like, for God's sake, it's it's complete. It's completely ridiculous. And so anyway, I went on with Brett to answer his his piece in clip seven voter. I've been working on this thing longer than I can. Why do you think I asked you? It is a no brainer. It's always been a no brainer. It doesn't matter how you break down the constituencies. The American people have always been in favor of it. You have to use an ID to get a beer. You have to get on a plane. You have to. We built a society around it, as it turns out. And so it would only make sense if you had to vote with one, too. I think they ought to make these people vote on this as many times as they can, because there is no defense for not wanting voter ID at the polls. But it continues to be an issue over and over again. They ought to make this a dividing line. I don't know if it's in the context of this DHS bill. They got enough stuff to try to figure out with ICE and everything else in a short time period. But it really needs to be a central focus. All right, so let me clean up the back end of this so you know what we're talking about. This has been an issue all year long. This became an issue in the context of shutting down the government or not because Democrats saw what was happening with ICE in Minnesota and they said we're going to shut down the government over all of this. The president, President Trump, did a deal with Chuck Schumer to ensure – which, by the way, all House Democrats opposed. Completely hilarious about where the juice is with Chuck Schumer. He's negotiating the Democrat side and he can't bring a single fucking Democrat on board in the House. Like maybe he's not your negotiating partner for anything in the future. Anyway, what happens is that they have a two-week stay of execution essentially on the DHS component. They're going to litigate that over the next two weeks. That's going to come to a head. We're going to end up covering that because I don't see that going particularly well as it sits right now. But the rest of the government is funded. That was the deal that President Trump cut. The House Republicans saw, well, you want to reopen the negotiation about a must-pass bill. Toss in the old SAFE Act. Smart play. Exactly what you should do. Only a few trains are leaving the station, and this is one of them. So you might as well toss this thing in. It's 70% plus approval rating. What's the big objection? Of course, Democrats can't have it. Won't have it. Won't do it. And the big question is why And from my standpoint what I was getting at there is let let them explain it Let let have a national discussion about why it is that Democrats do not believe you need to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote or proof of your identification to cast that ballot Let's have that discussion. Let's do it every day. I don't care what else is going on. I know they've got a lot of, oh, we got a markets bill. We got a this, that, that, all kinds of, every fucking constituency in America has got some piece of shit thing that's not going to improve your life one way or another. Who gives a shit? If you don't have confidence in the integrity of the ballot that you will cast next November, who cares? And if you can't get that done, then you ought to know why. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, it's not just like one element of the thing is the source of the fraud in the elections. It's all these component parts that the Democrats want. They want voter rolls that you never clean. They want no proof of citizenship when people vote. They want mail out ballots to people without them requesting it. They want people to be able to go door to door to those apartment buildings and harvest those ballots and turn them in on those people's behalf. And then now all those component parts make up for a system that's rife with opportunity for fraud. It's just as simple as that. It's as simple as that. The one piece we shouldn't forget is as soon as Democrats got power in the state of Virginia. Yeah. In November, what's one of the first things they proposed? Outlawing the hand counting of ballots. Oh, why would it be? anybody's guess why would you outlaw the hand counting of ballots while you oppose those ballots being cast having any identification of who those people are and the registration of the people who cast those ballots being assured that they're american citizens why would you do something and the same day having the governor abigail spanberger the democrat announced they're going to no longer cooperate with ice and also we want to allow voter fraud unrelated Dude, but here's the thing. Like it just becomes so obvious to all of us and they've made all these civil rights arguments and these impoverished – they no longer represent working class America. So that was a part of like the early 2000s debate that I had with all these people was like, well, people don't have time to go do all of it. For so long, they got by on that grift of just being like, no, you don't understand voter IDs mean to black people and low income people. And it was all a lie. But for so long, they'd be like, you're a racist if you don't disagree with me. That was their weapon. And we're over it. Yeah. But just like how there's an entire cottage industry around reforming elections with these nonprofits and nice sounding places, you know, that just care about democracy that are funded to the hill with, you know, huge donations from billionaires, foreign and domestic, just like the cottage industry that propped up around things like USAID and Doge. Whenever you try to look at a system and make it secure, there's an entire cottage industry of left-wing groups that make all of their money on stopping you. Yeah, 100%. But just as almost every debate that I've ever been a part of in Washington, Republicans will figure out a way to fuck it up. Conservatives will figure out a way to fuck it up. I mean, not all conservatives. There's just a sort of I think there's a subset of the conservative electorate that likes to demoralize people by trying to snap defeat from the jaws of victory. Yeah. Almost. Right. You know, because what gets engagement online is persistently telling people how much they're being disappointed by their elected leaders. Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's right. You heard what the House did. You heard what Thune had to say. There's a lot of talk about the talking filibuster, walking filibuster, the fiddle your bean and jerk off into a cup filibuster. Cory Booker is like, I'm on board. All of it is the dumbest, dorkiest, stupid bullshit you will ever hear. I spent 15 years around the Senate. This is all dumb fuckery at its highest level. There's a threshold question about whether or not you want to eliminate the filibuster. And if you're comfortable doing that in an environment where you know damn well they're going to admit D.C. is a state, Puerto Rico is a state, they're going to pack the Supreme Court and everything else based on the decision you made. Now, I think there's a really good argument about whether they'll do that anyway. Smug, you've made this point a lot. and i don't disagree i think there is a good chance that i think that's that anyway so the whole crux of the argument is should republicans do everything all options on the table because you know that if the democrats ever take power again they will and i think recent memory on this kind of subject stings because you saw um duncan's indiana republicans refuse i did it to redistrict I did it. And then Virginia hops in and instantly does it, right? The Indiana Republicans thought that if we don't do this, if we do this, the Democrats have no excuse. So we can't do this. They didn't do it. And then Virginia jumped and said, yeah, we're doing it anyways. There's never been a single mitigating factor where Democrats were scared of breaking the glass and pushing the button. They've never once shown a willingness to do that. It's always been on the Republican side this restraint of, oh, God, just be careful. Let's get to the contours of the invite. I think that nobody here would disagree with what it is that you just said. I think that has – proof is in history on all of that. The question is what does it bring you? And I've made arguments about the difference between conservative ideology and how you legislate and liberals and how do you legislate. And conservatives have a much more conservative legislative ambition than liberals do. And if you eliminate the filibuster altogether, all the things that we want to do are basically accomplished through reconciliation anyway and taxes. Like you've seen a lot of it last year. Liberals would literally fundamentally remake the American economy. They would abortion on demand. They would have new states to the union, which have Democrat whatever. So do you make that easier? And that is one set of arguments. I am sympathetic to the argument they're going to do that anyway. But let's talk about this specific case as it relates to the SAVE Act. Because when people bring up talking filibuster, I can tell you, look, the only reason you have a 6-3 Supreme Court is because Harry Reid came to the floor and said, for appellate court judges, only for appellate court judges. I'm very frustrated about appellate court judges. And just for that and that alone, we're going to change the filibuster rules from 60 to 50. The nuclear option, as I recall. The nuclear option. And everybody was like, well, no, it's just – basically this is walking, talking, jerk off in a cup, filibuster change. And there was a guy who, when that happened, a Republican, who was like, I think you're going to regret this sooner than you think. Yeah, right. Because there's obviously for every action a reaction in partisan politics when your partisan fortunes change. And what happened in 15 months was that those filibuster changes that they made for that particular appellate court judge now applied to the Supreme Court because there's nothing else that you can do. I mean, of course, you've already said you've – I mean, look, you already said you were a whore. We're just haggling over price. that's what we're doing now and so my price is i want a supreme court justice and the only reason that merrick garland wasn't a supreme court justice and gorsuch is is because of that so there is a downstream impact on that now as it relates to the save act if that's the whole scale of your legislative ambition and i understand an argument that this is the most important thing i do I really do. I think to have a functioning democracy, you need to have the whole of the American people believe that you have integrity in those elections. But this is all you've got. I don't see a legislative lineup around the corner of shit that Republicans want to do to make this country a better place other than the shit that they did last year. There's not like a new tax bill around the corner. It's not like they've got coalescence around a health care bill to combat Obamacare. It's not like we've got this value-based thing that's happening with all kinds of different – there isn't. It doesn't exist. There is no legislative agenda beyond what we've already accomplished. So if it is just the SAVE Act, let's talk about how that happens. Let's say we do the talking, walking, jerk off in a cup, filibuster change. Then you pass the SAVE Act. It's done. Great. That's it. There's no filibuster. There's nothing. You're done. you are entirely vulnerable to what will be a very tough midterm election in a 2028 that is cascading upon you much quicker than you think and you've done it for one reason and one reason only because you wanted to do the SAVE. What the fuck do you think is going to happen to the SAVE Act? What do you think is going to happen? Do you think they're going to undo that? Of course they are. Now you've federalized it. And now you've made it majority only. But more importantly, there's also a constitutional question, which inevitably will come up. I think it passes constitutional measure. No question about it. I think that ultimately that SAVE Act will be codified no matter if it has to go to the Supreme Court or not. But what happens is the challenge is inevitable. There will be a victim. There will be somebody whose job it is to go register 1,000 Democrats somewhere in an apartment building. They can no longer do so because the parameters, they will file an injunction. George Soros will fund it. You'll have nine months of court battles about that. So in 2026, what do you get? Yeah. I mean because that's the thing, right, is like if we can pass the SAVE Act, let's go ahead and pass the SAVE Act. But it really feels like on the right in sort of conservative media ecosystem on X, the Save Act has become a stalking horse for just eliminating the filibuster. Right. And so then you eliminate the filibuster. And then there is one of those legal challenges. I can tell you the circuit is going to come out of the ninth. Right. And they're going to try to do some injunction to stop the Save Act for being implemented before this election anyway. I would assume. I don't know. But then you've eliminated the filibuster for a law that won't take an effect for the election you're about to have. Right. In a tough midterm in which you may lose seats. As you may hand over majorities, lawmaking majorities. And that is why we think about things a little bit differently here on the Ruthless Variety program is that it's not just about what we want. I have worked for 23 fucking years on this very thing. Like one of the things that attracted me about the job that I took in the Senate was that the guy was the little petitioner in FEC versus McConnell to try to take down the left's entire perversion of a campaign finance system. That they no longer really wanted Americans to have the ability to vote. they wanted to make sure they stacked the decks in one way or another i've been involved in this for 20 years doing this it's not new this didn't happen in 2020 for me like it's been a multiple decade experience but the other thing that kind of bothers me about the discourse around the save act again if you can pass it in the senate pass it 100 but the the problem with the discourse around it i think is it becomes a preemptive excuse for like if republicans don't win the midterm you'll be like well you didn't do you didn't do it you didn't pass you didn't pass the save act that's the reason why we we lost the election while you get a lot of don't vote because it won't count anyway well i mean here's the thing does anybody forget we we won in 2024 we won the house we won the senate we won the presidency without it right so i don't think it's the determining factor it obviously would be better if we had more voter integrity in our election no question but very clearly we've won previous elections without it right and so like The logic of that whole thing doesn't follow, but tweets don't have to follow logic. They just have to get retweets. And that's where I think the worm turns on this thing is it's gotten a little bit weird on the right. Anything that becomes – remember cut, cap, save? Cut, cut, balance. Or cut, cut, balance or whatever. It was a totally unworkable, completely ridiculous thing, but it was a nice bumper sticker. And so everybody was like, well, if you can't pass that, then what do we have Republican majority? Never mind that you had President Obama who was ultimately going to veto all that stuff. Also, online, especially like on X and on social media, you can't have – part of the reason this podcast is so successful is you can't have a 10, 15-minute discussion going into details like we just did. Most people only see 90 characters from someone saying that like, well, if we don't pass the SAVE Act today by any means necessary, they're going to put us against the wall. We're all shot. That gets your attention more than a 10-minute conversation of going over where it is. And one other thing because I am sympathetic to your argument, Smug, of like they're going to do it anyway. They're going to get rid of the filibuster. I 100 percent agree. I agree. I agree. The last time they had the Senate, right? Like they ran Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin out of the conference because they wouldn't vote to eliminate the filibuster. So obviously they want to do it. But like let's just talk about it for a practical matter here for a second. It's like, OK, they do get control of the Senate. They're not going to eliminate the filibuster in the next two years because Donald Trump is president. Right. Well, I mean, they can. They can. But like they're not going to get much out of that. Well, he'll veto. Right. He'll veto. So really, what would be the point? Why would they risk the political capital of going first in this game of chicken with Donald Trump still there? So I think ultimately if you don't eliminate the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act or whatever, like ultimately this is going to be litigated again in a 2028 situation where like then the American people kind of get to decide and ask politicians whether they support doing that, which I am more in favor of than like fundamentally changing the rules of the Senate because we're frustrated we can't get what we want. and and and and like look everybody gets a little frustrated about this but this is where you have to be a little wary i don't know if you all have noticed there's a fair number of influencers on the right that have gotten a little a lot of that going around a little hazy lately i mean we got uh people all over the place i mean you know we covered the whole candace and whatever thing but like there's more out there you got to be very careful about where you get your information when you're talking about specific things like this that's why i hope you tell all your friends like and subscribe to ruth's friday program because we're going to give it to you honestly and really but i wanted to provide this as like a case study one because it's been a long time since i've been the wizard of oz and like i just had a it's been i used to be accused of this all the time and like this was a nice some fun times for me to get re-inserted into the middle of it so there's this guy uh let's put up his i want to pull him out because i feel like he deserves special mention graphic six all right sit tony saruga saruga saruga um and what What does it say? He's a – hold on. No, go back. Go back. It says he's an investor, a board member, a big data pioneer, Intel Ops, CIA and NSA. Contractor, yeah. Contractor, a whistleblower, AI implementer, AI. M&A. M&A. Healthcare M&A. Space warfare tech M&A. He's doing a lot of M&A. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff there. And he's got over 300,000 followers of which he's dutifully worked to try to cultivate over the years with clear and concise information that you all know because he has the capabilities as a CIA contractor of getting to the bottom of all of this and ensuring that he knows the real truth. Okay. So he put up a tweet this week where he said that it was McConnell that's ultimately the reason the SAVE Act has not passed the Senate. Now, I don't know what his position is. I've never asked. I haven't talked to him in a while. But I've never asked what his position is on this or whether they have committee action or what it is. But in this, I would say, 4,000-word diatribe to get to the bottom of why the SAVE Act has not gotten done, he states a couple of obvious facts. One is that he remains the Senate Republican leader, which was news to John Thune because he did run for it and, in fact, was elected to it 13 months ago. But Tony apparently wasn't totally up on all of that because he's now saying that he remains the Republican leader and he has a small, tight inner circle. The real command structure today, as he says, looks roughly like this with these Trump-hating picks. First one, me. Yes. Me. Yeah. I'm the guy. You're stopping to say that. I spent 23 years doing this, and I will say – again, because I don't know what the guy's position is on this, I can tell you that when I was a chief of staff 12 years ago to Senate Leader McConnell, his position was that real ID needed to be implemented immediately into elections. like that they they had we would have voted on it and codified it and that was our position it was always our position so i don't know what if it's changed or whatever but that was the position when i was there but let me take this a step further because this is where it gets funny mcconnell's longtime consigliere and one-time chief of staff remains his public stat strategist and fixer on the outside someone should probably tell him that pulves is consulting firm capital reacts as a informal command node let's go a bridge between donor networks media and senate staff decisions so i'm i'm pulling the trigger because he's leader of the senate i'm pulling the trigger on what is and is not ultimately considered and you're also a consigliere so you're a secret italian I think that's the most heinous accusation of all of them. So this thing goes on, as I said, for 1,400 words. I don't have it in front of me. But then he's got like four or five other names that are key components of people who are involved in the conspiracy, all of whom have never worked for McConnell. If those names are actual people, I've never met them. I have no like it was I wish I had it in front of you because some of it was the most hilarious shit I've ever seen in my life CIA contractor 318,000 people I'm telling you the ultimate truth about why it is that the save act is not getting done so let me tell you about his chief of staff Yorkie Bannister and his dick fuck it was like dude this is not real But none of this shit is real. And it went on for like 17 paragraphs. And I had thousands of replies in my mentions about this being like, dude, can you address this? And people who are listening to this program who are like, hey, man, I know this is probably crazy, but I listen to you every day. Can you just sort of sort this out for us? And listen, you're not supposed to be an expert. That's why you're listening to us. So I get it. I understand where you're coming at us with this stuff. It does get a little frustrating. Don't get me wrong because a Google search on India that would disprove it. But you've got to be real careful about whether it's SAVE Act or whether it's Iran or whether it's Venezuela or whether it's Israel or whether it's whatever of people who have gotten into the space of conservative influencing, proclaiming to know what it is that the fuck that they're talking about. Can I say a big portion of this is whenever there's a problem, folks always wish that there were like a button you can push to solve it. You know what I mean I want the easy button Yeah Like and that can be like oh well we would have everything we wanted if not for this one thing This one thing Yeah Not all politics is turns out like house of cards Like there isn't some secret malignant force that's causing you all their problems. Sometimes it's just the machinations of Congress. Like they don't do things a lot. And back in the old west, there would be these guys who'd have like a covered wagon. They'd show up to town and they'd be like, oh, you've got arthritis. Oh, you're blind. have a sip of this yeah the snake oil salesman and this is what has now become prevalent online is the person who's like i bet i could get a thousand retweets if i say here's why we haven't gotten what we wanted and cook up some crazy shit and be like here you go this is why these are the people to blame and they'll get those retweets but here's the problem is diminishing returns Because if you want to have a reputation that lasts longer than the 30 minutes you're getting those retweets, if you want to have a reputation of where people listen to you for years – I mean we've had this show for five years now. And it's because our audience continues growing because we won't sell you the snake oil. And it's because our reputation is based on being there, explaining things and being right and giving the info. and give you the arguments regardless of whether or not you agree with them. The arguments are just present. We just presented the arguments. We obviously have our opinions. But honestly, I've spent 23 years being on the record on this. Google it. You know what I mean? All right, Kurt Sigmati. I don't know, fellas. This guy says he worked for the CIA. and that organization usually has the best interests of American conservatives on a day-to-day basis. I mean, it's in their mission statement, I think. Every person who works there just wants conservatives to get ahead. It brings us to our question of the day, and I could talk about this forever. I feel like we could do a special episode on careful of what you read on the Internet, and there's like boomer editions. Well, we tried to help with the AI for Ashbrook. We did. Thank you for that, by the way. It's always instructive. A lot of comments that were saying. I'm not the only one who wonders. I think bottom line is our thing passes the SAVE Act. Everyone here wants to pass the SAVE Act and is doing everything possible to help make that happen. Contrary to what you may hear by a – what is this? M&A, healthcare, healthcare M&A, space warfare tech M&A. CIA. I've never heard of this gentleman, and I know people who have actually closed deals and all of that. Here's another online tip from digital guru Michael Duncan. You always got to be skeptical of people who feel like they have to credential themselves over and over and over again on their Twitter account. If you don't know, you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's just – it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. But either you pass the SAVE Act or you make them own the truth, and the truth is they want people here illegally to vote. They want to sabotage elections. Why would you want to do that? When you have policies like the Democrats, it starts to make sense. It doesn't benefit anybody. Niche constituents, not even the left. The left doesn't even like what it is that they're up to. Nobody likes what it is the Democratic Party is up to. Their natural constituency in elections is like 20% or less. So they got to take what they can get. So you get some illegals. You get some voter registration. You try to muck around with ballots and multiple ballots and mail-out ballots and all kinds of different things. This all starts to make a lot more sense. So make them own it. Let's have a national discussion about it. I can't imagine there's anything. Like other things, like keep the government open. Obviously, we need troops paid and stuff like that. ICE needs to continue to do the work. They need to mandate, do the mandate that Trump was here to do. But if we can't have a national discussion about whether or not there is a major party in America that doesn't want integrity in ballots, I don't know what we're doing here. Like, of course we need to have that discussion. That's right. So keep voting on it. That's the critique I would say to Senate leadership. Once a week, file closure, fill the tree. I'm not explaining what that is. File a culture, fill a tree, make them vote, and then move on to whatever else. Next week, same thing. Just keep doing it over and over again until these people explain to you why it is that they want illegal people to vote. The beatings will continue until morale is true. Exactly. It brings us to our question of the day, which is what is it going to take to get elected Democrats on board with voter ID? Great question. I don't know. I mean, you're going to be funny about it. So when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Friday program, we'll read all of your answers. We're going to get back to you on Funtime Friday, and when you're funny about it, you get on the program because we read absolutely every one of them. So use a little bit of humor, and we'll talk to you on Friday about all of that. When we come back, we're going to get to your responses from last episode, and then we're going to play a game. We've got a little theater kid leftover stuff that we dealt with on Tuesday. All right, after this. Okay, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program or read all of your comments, get back to the very next episode. To do that, we always start with a voice. Today's first comment comes from Whose House? Whose House writes, I think we're, parenthetically, America. I think we're missing an opportunity to monetize these protests. We've already got four to five teams, Portland, Chicago, Minnesota, L.A. We should turn this protesting into a game or a sport. develop rules and pit protest groups against one another. There's even a fledgling college feeder group. Oh, like a triple A system. It's the kind of creative thinking that makes America wonderful. This is good. We could wager on all of it, like who's going to set fire to the police station. Yeah. But that is smart stuff. Whose house? We could start doing an NIL program for those college protesters. You could do that. Maybe a video game. This guy shows a lot of promise. Yeah. I love it. All right. comment to dunks ronks this is from tosh feratu tosh feratu writes many of these protesters are the same people who hold up their phones throughout an entire concert so they can let everyone know that they were at the concert so good it's an addiction to petty online i think they're right dude that's it that's it nailed it that's great tosh feratu i want you to know you're my spirit animal this has been a thing that is just can i sound like a boomer for a minute here i used to go to so many concerts so i love live music and what i can almost remember the year when it became that now you've got idiots with their phones out and it's like dude i am trying to enjoy a live show everyone here probably paid way too much to see this band play and now you've got your phones up and whatever so uh i think i've mentioned it before i was very lucky i got to go uh with my family to see fleetwood mac uh play in new york city madison square and i guess the median age of that audience was 60 and there wasn't a single damn phone in the air everyone was in their chair i ordered bourbon it came to me in a real glass not one of the plastic ones and i got to hear them play rumors and i was like you know what this is the best i love these people this is what the world used to be like is people used to show up to a concert and have a good time with their friends and family imagine that imagine that dude i sat behind i went to a baseball game last spring with my kids and i sat behind a couple of people who are literally just phoning seriously phone videoing the game and i was like fucking go home go home watch it on tv the coverage is going to be a lot better than that iphone i can assure you of that like what's the purpose of this and i think it's just like what tosh faratu described is the quality of the video is shit you're ruining it for everyone but you want to put it on your instagram story be like i was there i want everyone to tell me how special i am no one cares dude enjoy the show you're there to enjoy it nobody cares we all fucking hate you anyway yeah yeah and i hate you double now that you've videoed and took up my time ten times nonsense fuck you this is a great episode i come at three smuggles what do we got this is from 12 labors. I'm guessing that's a Hercules reference. Good for them. The worst part is they don't actually believe this shit. They just think it's an exciting way to feel good about their lives and hang with their in-group. Quote, weak people create hard times. Thing can be more true. Bingo. That's true. Nailed it. That's right. Really, really well. Dude, our people. Smart. That's why we asked them. That's why we asked them. Absolute bad. Smart. Smart. I'm smart. Smart. Not dumb like they say. Not dumb like they say. I mean I will say that that is fantastic Alright so we got to play a game fellas It's Thursday And so it's our feature presentation It's been a long time since I've not been The feature presentation We had someone who cared about the law I got rode out By an activist court It's a conservative court We follow the law around here Well that'll be for others to decide I'm the judge today Very fair. And I'm going to be the bailiff, and I'm going to run a tough one. Well, that's good. And who are you bringing, Smug? Adam Kinzinger. Adam Kinzinger. I've got the champ, Jerry Jacobus. And I've got to say, before we begin, the champ over here was very concerned about whether my court would be a court of integrity. Oh, is that right? No, no. He questioned my integrity? That's actually true. He always just mouths out for no reason. Because I was robbed in a previous game. but I would never let some sort of personal thing get in the way. Never. Fairest judge in the game. Like Lady Justice himself. Prepare yourself for a two-round knockout, folks. Adam Kinzinger is about to win. Okay. Let's go ringside. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It's time for King of the Hill. In the blue corner, fighting from a former congressional district, Adam K-K-Kinzinger. So hilarious. And now, in the red corner, fighting from her own Twitter account, and current champion of the world, Gami Jerry Jacobus. Nice. This is fantastic. All right. So the champ goes first. I'll instruct the champion to deliver this exhibit. Work with. Okay. Thank you, Bailiff. Thank you very much. If we could start with exhibit number five, please, Jerry Jacobus. Putin has won. Oh, Jesus. The Mueller report mentions the phrase in a message sent to Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, immediately after Trump's 2016 election victory. The message sent by an individual whose identity is redacted in the report is presented as part of the report's documentation of the jubilation among Kremlin insiders over the election results. Cherry Jacobus, our champion, still playing the same old tune. Delivering a prospectus. He himself has that same old tune. He's like, yep, the same old shit. So I've got something much better. What have we got, Challenger? Exhibit 9, please. Exhibit 9, Adam Kinzinger saying, ICE isn't in Minneapolis because of an immigration crisis. They're there because of a Fox News talking point. Watch my latest interview with ZHunterDC available on my sub-stack page here. It's amazing how like – A Fox News talking point? Yeah. Yeah, Nick Shirley and everyone with their own eyes seeing how you can have a leering center stealing money from taxpayers is a Fox News talking point. But to get the truth, see my ZHunter ZC interview on SoftTech. Okay, I got to ask one point of clarification here. Was that tweet in all caps or is that just how it was translated when it was loaded up in the graphic? Bro dropped it in all caps. This is a comment. He's like really going hard on the all caps. A potential misuse for the court. Well, you know how that's warm and close to the judge's hot. Yeah, he is. He hates misuse. And what I also love about the Kinzinger take is that he still has the Slava-Ukrainee. Yeah, he's still up there. He's still in a fight. He's going to get a point simply for his handle. Yeah, he's still fighting that fight. But so is Sherry Jacobus, sort of like that last Japanese soldier on the island. She's still in on the 2016 Russian collusion. And also with the prospectus. She was basically given a financial report. Well, it's just interesting that in this age, if you wanted to talk about redacted files, you could go in on the Epstein files. I think we're going to do that Friday, by the way. We've got to do it, dude. There's so much good stuff in there. Everything we warned of. Yeah. But she's still in on the Russia 2016 thing. And so credit to her in that. And also some artistry she had in there where she italicized and bolded the top of the tweet. I didn't know she had that in her. Yeah. You know, because usually. Italicized. You know, usually it's pretty raw what she puts up there. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot of Internet. Oh, this is a tough one. I think I got to give the edge to Kinzinger. Beautiful. Okay. Got to give the edge. That's a fair judge. All right. That's a fair judge. I'm going to go for the finisher because I want Ashbrook mad forever about this two-round non-cap. Exhibit 11, please. And it's topical to today's episode. Wait, this is another one in all caps? Correct. Oh, my gosh. Like I said, he's lost it. He's all caps. And again, very germane to our earlier discussion. Trump just said Republicans should, quote, take over the voting and nationalize it. That's authoritarianism, full stop. The silence from elected Republicans is cowardice, and it's dangerous heading into November. Okay. Okay. Okay. Exhibit four, please. Jerry Jacobus quote tweets an image of some ICE rental facilities. She writes, someone asked on Facebook if Trump's concentration camps are near railroads for easier transportation. Port of massive numbers of human beings in boxcars. No, no, no, no, no. Hagertown, Maryland is a hub city for trains. Trump concentration camp is a done deal there. Okay. That's Jerry Jacobus. Okay. Okay. First of all, like... To the trains! Every major city in America is a hub for trains in some way. You know, either freight or passengers. So, I mean, that aside. Hagertown's a nice pull, though. It's a good pull. concentration camp and boxcars the reference to two obviously being the holocaust kind of takes this thing to a whole nother level and for that reason sherry wins round two oh she's you know she's always good for a few yeah that one really was wow all right champion what do we got to finish this thing okay exhibit three and she's doing a modified quote from president trump here remember this is a former republican it's the same topic again it's like a one-trick pony she writes and a whole paragraph will you silence him please yeah yeah no please hold commentary until afterwards she writes trump quote i need the kind of generals that hitler had close quote according to reports in the atlantic and books by journalists and books by journalists yeah trump expressed frustration with the lack of loyalty from his own military leaders telling kelly he He wanted, quote, German generals, close quote, like those who served Hitler who were, quote, totally loyal and followed orders. That's Jerry Jacobus. I'm going to go straight for the W here. Exhibit 10, please. This is caps italicized and bold. He says here. Don Lemon wasn't arrested for disrupting a church service. He was arrested because the Trump administration wants journalists afraid. This is intimidation, plain and simple. Those people attacking a church and seeing that image of that child crying as his father tries to comfort him while these people are going around in a church telling churchgoers that their parents are Nazis. Can I ask for either Smug or Wolf to elaborate? Is the text that is printed there, is that on the top of the graphic entitled Press with two hands in handcuffs? Here's the thing. is he he includes this okay he includes this image judge i just wanted to clarify for your honor i appreciate hands cuffed together trying to make this a thing no one's buying it but it's hilarious of him trying to make the guy who attacked this church the victim and i'm completely sick of seeing that it's like nothing radicalized me like that image of that young boy being comforted by his father that's what i was like i mean even on our show i was like we need people in handcuffs now thank god don lemon is in handcuffs well it's so preposterous because donald trump is president united states takes more questions from the press than any president every single day he's taking questions from adversarial reporters okay can i get the sherry tweet back up there real quick i'm glad you're taking a second deliberation on this only i think that's right of course yeah it's the same thing it's a tough It's Hitler heavy. It's Hitler heavy. No question about it. I guess the one question I had about this, was this just apropos of nothing? Is there some context in which she resurfaced this fake report from the Atlantic? Or she just tweets this? That's a great question. She's just a one-trick pony. No, if you're able to zoom in on the avatar there where she's smiling and looking off to her left, you'll see a glass of wine. And I'm not sure if it's Chianti or what that is. However, that's our only context clue as to the state of mind that was required to tweet something of this nature. Context clue. It's a good salesmanship. It's a done deal. I stand with the folks in that church who were attacked, and I won't let anyone say that Don Lemon is the victim. Thank God he got locked up for it, and I hope he sits in jail. This is a tough call for the judge and jury. Yeah, I mean, I didn't give you round one, Ashbrook, because I did feel like it's kind of warmed over. Maybe I'm just building up a resistance to Sherry Jacobus a little. Well, no, I mean, like I gave him the one on the boxcars and the Holocaust stuff. Yeah, well, the boxcars were new. We haven't dealt with the boxcars. Resurfacing the Russiagate stuff feels a little warmed over. Yeah. And I think that's sort of my take here on the third one, too. She's still arguing ancient history stuff and not present-day. She has to hop over a higher bar, I think. Yep. I think she should maybe just tweet about stuff that is happening today and not in the mind palace of her brain. The general's thing does seem, and I appreciate the question as the bailiff, because that's what I would like to get to, too. Is there something that happened in American history that gave rise to this sort of thought process? And I think the answer that maybe a glass of Chianti is all that it took is probably enough. I wanted to give her a fair shake in this court. in the highest court in the land yes uh unfortunately we have a new champion it's a very fair we are so lucky we are so lucky no question about it great uh game king of the hill a new champion like and subscribe be a part of our process because you're going to love every minute of it we have to get to a great interview he's going to be the next governor of the great state of florida i kind of don't care what anybody says about that i know they got a primary and all kinds of things happening this guy's smart he knows what he's doing he's got president trump on his side byron donalds what a welcome to the program uh very good guy i can't believe it's been as long as it has without talking to this gentleman because he's a mover and shaker in dc but i think he's about to become the next governor of the great state of florida place that we absolutely love congressman byron donalds how are you sir i'm good how you doing i'm good man i mean so listen you guys have a lot going on uh you've seen congress you've done that you've got a lot done maybe moving on to governing the great state of florida what do you think uh well one i'm excited about the opportunity you know florida is a great state best in the country very well run. We've had a 30 year run of Republican governance, conservative governance. Paying off. Yeah, no. And so, you know, now Governor DeSantis is terming out. He's done a great job. And now it's about, OK, how do we keep this thing going? Yeah. And I find when you're dealing with great institutions, great organizations, the number one thing you have to do, maintain the foundation that's been laid in place. That's critical. But then you have to examine in every aspect of what you're doing. You have to make sure you're being efficient with people's time, efficient with governmental resources. In our state property taxes is a big conversation Governor wants to repeal it I support him in that Let do that Let get that done You guys get property taxes out I mean we talking Yeah. But that insurance costs, we've got to continue to find ways to lower those in our state. So we're going to have to look under the hood and how we rate insurance companies, how we manage their capital requirements, what's going to happen with our catastrophe fund. Housing. People continue to choose Florida. We have to find ways to be far more efficient in how we build housing so that the costs aren't just rolling up on people. About a third of the cost of a new home is government. That's just crazy. And so we have a responsibility to get efficiency into the governmental side of building housing because spending two years dealing with governments before you put a shovel in the ground is not free. It costs money. And I tell people as I travel a state, time is money. And money costs. And so government has a responsibility to be far more efficient. But the biggest thing overall, we're the best state in the country. I want 30 years into the future when I'm long gone, I'm sitting by my fire pit back in Naples with a glass of tequila and a cigar. I want Florida to still be the best state in the country. And the biggest thing we're focused on, we want to make sure we also get done making sure that our young people who are in elementary schools right now, middle schools right now, that when they walk across that stage, graduating high school, they're economically viable. They have either the credentials or the skill set, the background knowledge, mastery of core subject matter, so they can go directly into the workforce, make real money, start families, build families, and build their American dream in Florida. Well, people have gotten to know you a little bit. You've been up here making a name for yourself, been doing serious things. President Trump obviously is taking great notice in that. He's endorsed you for governor. You're leading in all the polls. So I imagine when you get back – I mean look, my experience with states like Florida, once they become red states, which every state will be if they have Republican governance at some point over a period of time, is nominations are worth having. So everybody comes out of the woodwork to try to get these things and taking shots this way and the other. But it seems to me, at least at the onset of this campaign that you're involved in, everybody has sort of come to the conclusion you'd be the best person to take this to the next level. Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, having President Trump's endorsement is great. He's been fully supportive of what I've been trying to accomplish. Our former governor, Rick Scott, has fully endorsed me. He's behind me. Most of the congressional delegation, most of the state legislative delegation, the majority of our sheriffs, our Republican sheriffs back home or back in my campus. campaign and we've just been going county to county i've been in about 52 of the 67 counties so far we've been doing town hall meetings the last six seven months going to voters directly they get to come in people forget how big florida is oh yeah there's a lot of travel a lot of travel and so uh but it's been awesome it's been great um but i think it's really more about people in florida um my legislative career when i was in a state house is one thing and then when i came here Washington, what they know about me is that I'm a conservative. I'm unapologetic about it. I've battled the left on their turf in the lion's den. And so when you see me come and you know he's going to be committed to the constitution, he's going to be committed to conservatism, he's going to be committed to common sense. And that's what has created the Florida that we know. So if you're going to say who's going to run the place next, you kind of want somebody who's been out there so you know, well, what happens if he's on MSNBC? What's he going to say? Or what's going to happen when it's time to actually make the sausage? Where is he going to land? And I think that's where voters in Florida and a lot of my colleagues who served with me really over the last decade, whether in the state house or not here in Washington, obviously President Trump, they've come to rely on my consistency, my common sense, my conservatism, and they've decided to back me to be Florida's next governor. See, what I love about that is Florida really became the blueprint, you know, during like the era of COVID and then everything DeSantis was doing. And I think that's inspired a lot of other governors and red states around the country to sort of adopt this Florida model of governance. So I love to hear that. You know, you talked about, you know, issues with home building and the insurance and all that sort of stuff. I'm curious in traveling the state, you know, what other sort of things either on the national level or the state level are you sort of hearing from the grassroots right now? The number one thing is I would say people want Florida to remain Florida. So you talk about how the COVID and the leadership of Governor DeSantis. A lot of inward migration from New York and places. But in some respects, it's supercharged what was going to already naturally occur in Florida. That's supercharged it. I remember, you know, the governor put out his order banning mask mandates in the state of Florida. When I was running for Congress at the time, I was still a member of the state house. We had a couple of jurisdictions in my time to run for office, by the way. I'm gonna tell two stories. The first story was I had these local officials and they were trying to put out mask mandates. Yeah. And I would have to go into the city council meetings, county commission meetings in my, you know, in my position as a state representative and tell them they had no legal authority to issue mask mandates. And I will go meeting the meeting. I had a couple of guys call me. They go, Byron, you know, we hear these mask men. These these mask mandates are kind of popular with people who are older. They're concerned about their health. So you're running for Congress. You should be mindful about what you say. And I'm like, mindful of what? It's wrong. We're not doing it. The governor already said we're not doing it. These local officials, they need to understand that we're not doing it. And so I felt a responsibility, regardless of the campaign, to go to these meetings and tell them directly from a member of the legislature, You have no legal authority. The governor's already issued his order. You need to stand down. But here's the funny thing about campaigning during covid. I remember it was Memorial Day weekend because, you know, even though Florida was was opening back up, everybody was still like nervous. So I was sitting in my office and I said, man, this campaign is going to be over before we know it. And at the time, you know, I was raising some money, but, you know, there were guys who were self-funding. They put up $5 million, $4 million, and you got to figure out how to compete. And I said to my team, I go, I'm going to just go knock doors. I'm going to knock doors by myself. I didn't have my volunteers. I didn't have anybody go with me. So I go down to Marco Island, and I say, if knocking doors is possible, Marco Island is going to tell me if it's real or not. And I would go to a door, knock on the door. People would open up. Oh, my gosh. Thanks for coming to my door. People have been locked up. People have been isolated. that they wanted to see somebody. And I knocked doors that whole weekend. People were so excited that somebody came to their door about anything. I did have one lady. She kind of looked through the peephole, and she was just like, I don't want it. And I said, okay. And I kind of walked. I was walking down the street to the next door, and I saw she kind of cracked in a jar and had like one of those Lysol wipes. I kind of like re-wiped around the side to wipe the door handle and make sure that nothing was – I mean, it was a wild time, man. You need to get some even in Marco. But by and large, people wanted to see you. They wanted to engage. And so I've always been a grassroots campaigner, knocking doors, making calls. And so doing it in that COVID environment told me people were ready. And so we just hit the ground running. I'm surprised that whole process wasn't sidetracked by somebody pulling you off into their dock and snook fishing for a couple hours because that was some lonely times. Like a fishing buddy at that point. They'll try. But you got to stay focused. Some people really wanted to talk because they hadn't seen anybody. Yeah. And, you know, I was like, listen, I love you. Here's my palm card. I got to get to the next door. Time is time is money. You got to get there. So but it was a great experience. Yeah, that's exactly right. And, you know, that's the kind of work it takes to be able to win statewide in a big, diverse state like Florida. You seem to really know that. I have a question for you on a less serious matter. Okay. I'm probably not the only guy in this town who, when cold weather hits, I open up my weather app and see what's the temperature in Florida. Because I'm like, okay, sure. We're also on Zillow and Redfin and everything else. Checking out Isla Mirada. Yeah. Yeah. But it's been pretty cold down there. Yeah. And, I mean, I don't need to tell you that, but, like, you open up the app and you're like, maybe it's going to be 72 and I can just dream about what it would be like someday. You make it and you go to Florida. There have been a lot of iguanas falling out of trees because of the cold weather. This is the ultimate Florida man situation. Well, Lee, I think, Lee, you got some video on this, right? It is currently so cold here in South Florida that iguanas like this one are falling out of the trees. So today we're making iguana tacos. Whenever we have these cold fronts and they start falling down, a lot of people will go out and collect them to help control the number and the population. But they do have the nickname chicken of the trees because they're absolutely delicious. So rather than let this one go to waste, we're going to make tacos. It's a good thing I managed to remove this one when I did because inside I found over 20 eggs. So by removing this one iguana, we've actually saved the environment from over 20 iguanas come spring. And you guys know that I like to waste as little as possible. So in addition to making the tacos, I'm also going to try to preserve the skin. And any leftovers are used as crab trap bait. So zero waste. After 30 minutes, I removed the iguana meat, set it to the side so that it could cool down. And then add the iguana eggs to the hot water to soft boil. Once it was done, I topped it with black pepper and lime and we have our sauce. And there we have it, iguana tacos. Now that right there is a Florida man taco. If you can't beat them, eat them. So, I mean, are we thinking iguana tacos is something worth trying? I mean, it sure seems like a renewable resource to me. I'm not trying it. I mean, you know, might end up in one of the Chinese food restaurants. They lost me at the egg sauce thing. Yeah. I felt like it's not weird enough to just have a chicken of the tree situation. Man. But you all do some crazy stuff with the animals. I mean you got pythons. Well, the pythons in the glades is the big problem. So they don't – like iguanas, they don't respond well to cold weather like this. So we're thinking that might have helped our python problem in the glades. You have to go fish them out or is it like they actually die from cold weather? Apparently they just die from the cold. So they'll be frozen out. So what will happen is some other animal will – when they warm up a bit, some other animal will probably get them. Maybe a gator. Sustenance. Yeah. How did you get into this line of work? Oh, man. I mean you're like a social – you're a fun guy. Everybody I know who knows you, likes you. They know that you like to have a good time. Yeah. I mean politics is a tough business. Like what drew you all to? Yeah, politics can really suck sometimes. Yeah, right. It was the financial collapse 2008. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I was working for a vertical settlement firm in Newt, Florida, and our client was a Taiwanese pension plan. The Taiwanese were freaking out about the American economy. Everybody was freaking out, like what's going on? Yeah. Because I had worked in banking, commercial banking before that. I had a banking background. The company owners came to me. They said, we need you to research what's happening in America's economy because our client is freaking out. and we got to keep the investment. So, okay, I do it. So I'm doing all my research like I did when I was in banking and I turned on C-SPAN. Now, at this point in my life, I was apolitical. I was like most Americans, didn't care about politics. I cared about my wife, my kids, my church, sports. That was me. That's all I cared about. Typical stuff. I turned on house financial services. And in life's irony, I now sit on house financial services. But I turned on that hearing when they were talking about the financial collapse, and I just got pissed off because I'm watching these members who had no clue what the hell they were talking about. And you were seeing them read their scripts, and their scripts, none of it made sense. And it really made me mad. I finished my report to my company owners, and then I was just like, what's going on in this politics stuff? So I started watching cable news. Got into it. Cable news started pissing me off because everything was surface level. They never got into details. And so this is around the time when the Tea Party movement started up in 09 and they were advertising it in Naples, Florida in the paper. On the news, they were saying it was racist against Obama. You're like, really? So I was my mom always taught me, don't believe what anybody says. Go find out for yourself. So I went out to the rally and I met. I just started meeting people who cared about the Constitution, cared about the national debt, didn't want bank bailouts, you know, things of that nature. A lot of people who wanted to end the Fed or audit the Fed, a lot of that stuff, right? And I really just got into the Tea Party movement. And so I became a Tea Party activist from 2009 on, gave my first speech ever in the back of a flatbed pickup truck in 2010. And the head of the Naples Tea Party is Barry Willoughby. He's now passed away, God rest his soul. Good man. I sent him a speech that I did. What most people don't know is I'm a Toastmaster or I was in Toastmasters. Oh, okay. So they always tell you in Toastmasters, speak about what you're passionate about. And my passion started leaving business and started going into politics. And so I started talking about politics and I did this speech. It was about 20 minutes and they gave me the recording and I watched it and I was like, well, that's pretty good. So the guy that was running the Naples Tea Party, this looks good. So the guy that was doing the Naples Tea Party, Barry Willoughby, he was the head. I sent him an email with the speech. He called me back a couple hours later and goes, my entire schedule is full, but I'm going to give you five minutes. And I was just passionate. I didn't really know who would be listening or who would be whatever. I wasn't thinking about running for office. I was still in my career. But I just had this passion for American politics that really got spurred because I watched that congressional hearing. I mean, what an incredible story. That is an incredible story. It's one of those sort of only in America stories that like a concerned citizen turns on their TV, sees the House Financial Services hearing. And it does something about it. Gets pissed off enough to get involved in politics and now serves on that committee. Well, that's incredible. So everybody that comes in here for the first time, we ask three quick questions. These are easy, but I imagine you've thought about them. First one is if you could plan your last meal on earth, what would it be? It's not Iguana tacos. I know that. I'm sure not. You know, we're going to go with a 12 ounce bone and filet. Okay. I like your head with some Brussels sprouts. I'm liking sprouts these days. My mom will be so proud of me. Throw some bacon on those things. A little bit of bacon. Yeah, a little bit of bacon. You got to get those ones. Because it's the last meal. I get to get into it, have some mac and cheese. Exactly. You can go in sideways. I can get it. It doesn't matter. You can check it out. So you might as well enjoy yourself. and probably a glass of 14-year Balvenie Caribbean gas. What a great order. No ice. I feel like you might have hammered this in a way that we haven't heard in a while. All right, second question. With the benefit of retrospect, you've accomplished a great deal. You're going to go on to accomplish a lot more. But you look back at your life, there are always things that you're good at or you're interested in that you just didn't get a chance to do because you're doing what you're doing. You look back, like, is there something different, something a totally different avenue like ted cruz wanted to become a nba power forward that was never going to happen never in his life right right but is there something is there is there something in there that you would have pursued in a different life a parallel life oh i would i probably would have coached basketball yeah i'm a junkie yeah i i'm a junkie i was down at the practice of prolific prep they're in uh fort lauderdale yeah and i was watching their practice from like the elevated position and the guy who runs it great guy we were talking a little bit of business but mostly talking basketball and i'm watching the practice and i would see players do certain thing i'm like no he took an extra dribble you can't do that no he missed a he missed a cross court skip pass oh he opened up too quickly on defense the coach comes on yana what are you doing you did it wrong three times it was great it was awesome but i'm sitting there up there watching it like i'm a junkie i love it and we gotta get him together with bruce pearl yeah i know bruce is amazing love him yeah and so like my sons i trained each one of my sons like how to play the game yeah my youngest son i don't get to train him as much because you know political life is crazy um but i'm just i love sports i love coaching young kids yeah and it's not even so much being like a college coach or not even thinking about an nba coach to me it's like coaching young kids, teaching kids, travel ball, rec league ball, helping them develop, begin that journey towards learning how to work hard and learning how to be successful. You learn so many lessons in kids sports that you don't, everybody thinks, oh, well, why am I spending so much time? I'm not going to make it to the NBA. You learn so much about life, playing sports growing up that you just can't get anywhere else. But I will tell you, if I could travel back in time to 14 year old me, 13 year old me. Oh man, we're, we're in the gym every day. We're getting them up. We're getting them up. We're getting up 500 shots a day, ball handling drills, slides, doing tape. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can always tell people I like it. You just wasted on the young. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, totally. I can always tell people I like in this line of work based on their experience with team sports. Yeah. Like they just sort of get it in a way that nobody else does. All right. Third question. Our view is that almost everybody, every successful person on the planet is motivated in some way by one of two things. It's either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. And it's not that anybody doesn't enjoy winning or anybody likes losing. It's what motivates you to push harder, right, to take that extra step. The ultimate agony of defeat guy is Michael Jordan. Yeah. Ultimate, right? He would invent slights in order to take it to the next level. He would. Right? We think of like Phil Mickelson. He endorsed you, I think. He did. We think of Phil Mickelson as the ultimate thrill of victory guy and that he'll be up two strokes and he's 240 over water. and you pull a three iron. You're like, dude, just lay up and hit the wedge and hit the putt and you win. And he's like, yeah, but I hit this shot before and I know I can do it. And that's the thrill of victory guy, right? So if you think about it through that prism, where do you think you find yourself on that? Oh, man, I love the challenge. So you might be a thrill guy. Definitely the thrill of victory. I want – every step I've had in politics, probably except this one, I've always been underestimated I love nothing more Than going into enemy territory And taking the entire room over Like I revel in it There's an element of agony I revel in that There's an element of agony For me when I would mentor young kids I used to be a youth leader also for a decade Before politics in my church We would always tell the kids You either win, you lose, or you fail forward And the only way you really lose Is when you quit Yeah. So for me, it's been the challenge. Like, what's the next challenge that I can climb? What's the next thing that I can sink my teeth into? That's a thrill guy. Yeah, that's me. That's a thrill guy on yourself. You know, you when you come to a crossroads in life, take the hard road. Yeah. The hard road will tell you more about yourself than anything else. Yeah. That's incredible. So if anybody wants to help out with the campaign, where they go? Byron Donalds dot com. Everything's Byron Donalds. Yeah. Byron Donalds on X, Instagram, Facebook, Byron Donalds dot com. I'm glad I got all those domains. I got them all like a decade ago, man. I'm glad I got them all. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Good luck. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Appreciate you guys. Smug, I know you loved his story about what got him into this business. The right reason. Like you hear that. Oh, my God. Yeah. He's talking about you, dude. He's talking about you. I heard that and I was like, oh, yes, yes, yes. A million times, yes. Like how many times I had to hear Maxine Waters. I was like, he knows what I went through. Yeah, exactly. He feels me. He knows. Of course, you're referring to the stupidity of this financial committee in the house and not knowing what they're doing in regards to the financial crisis in 2008. and it just got so many guys like Byron Donalds, like you and others involved, because they're like, hey, I can do better than these idiots in Washington. Yeah, and you got a little sense of who he is, and he answered the three questions I thought very forthrightly. He had hard takes and all of that, which is terrific. Listen, our question of the day, when you like and subscribe to the Ruthless Variety program, we read all of your answers. Our question is, what's it going to take to get Democrats on board with voter ID? I want to hear some funny stuff because it's a fun time Friday. So, you know, we like to have a fun time. And if you want to get read, make us laugh. Make us laugh. That's it. For simple people. That's it. Like and subscribe. Check out some merch while they're there. We're going to have some new offerings up there shortly. Can't thank you enough for joining us. We're going to see you on Friday with that, fellas. I think we did it. I think so. It's a banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much, Congressman Donald. And thank you to our listeners. Remember, if you have not yet, go to the YouTube and hit subscribe because it's more fun and video. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the lives. We'll see you on Friday. Steer Ruthless. Thank you.