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Of any purchase of $100 or more. That's promo code Brian. JD Vance came out there, and that's the deal he's really being judged on. He's doing a great job on fraud, didn't do a great job of the MOU, said, I guess, really deceptive things about it before it came out. Josh Holmes joins us now, former Chief of Stats to Mitch McDonnell, for Mitch McConnell, as well as president and founding partner of Cavalry LLC and co-host of the Ruthless Place Ruthless podcast.
Josh, like the hat. Hey, thanks, bud. It's great to be with you. How's your former boss, Mitch McConnell, doing?
Well, I don't know a whole lot more than you do, Brian. I know the reports. I actually talked to a staffer of his who was with him yesterday and described him as in good spirits, but he's still hospitalized and he's still trying to work his way back.
So, you know, other than that and what has been publicly reported, that's sort of the extent of my understanding.
So, do you know if he had a heart attack or not, or do you think he did? Do they found him on the bottom? I wish I knew. I have absolutely no idea. What I do know is when you're 84 years old, there's an awful lot that can go wrong on a day-to-day basis.
I got parents in that same age demographic, and it's tough. It's tough for kids and loved ones, and people that are close to folks who are getting older in that stage of life.
So, yeah, I've given them a pretty wide berth. I understand that they'll tell me at some point, and when they do, I'll wish them and pray for the best. We'll find out too, and just from a pure political point, less the personal point, it doesn't matter as much. But the Republicans can't afford to lose them, especially now, right? They're trying to get a supplemental in there to try to pay for what's left of this war and beyond and get the Golden Dome going.
And they're not going to do it without his vote. Yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot of fall business to go on. I mean, the month of September in particular is going to be really treacherous territory on Capitol Hill. Bunch of funding things that need to get done. The military needs to get funded.
Yeah, he's a critical piece to an awful lot of that.
So wish him well and hope he gets back soon.
So Grant Plattner, who knew he was going so smooth, he had that primary nomination, ready to take on Susan Collins, trailing by four. Then another former girlfriend comes out and blows him up, essentially says he raped her. He does not admit guilt, cut 30. I just want you to think about what you would do as a regular person in a position where. A much larger world, large forces were working against you personally to accuse you of the worst thing.
that a person could do and it was not remotely true. I learned about this. through press inquiries with no time. to truly respond. No time.
For investigations before a corporate media system. And the political establishment got to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things. Not the end. I think it's really important to understand.
Why is this happening in the timeline? Why this is happening right now? Maybe you could help me, Josh. Why is it happening right now?
Well, he is entirely right about that last point, which is, I mean, first of all, a guy walks in with a Nazi tattoo. I think we can all sort of surmise that that's probably not a dude with top-notch character who you want representing you in the United States Senate.
So that should have been a threshold issue. It wasn't for Democrats, obviously. But why the timing of all of this is coming out and why nobody really talked about all of these allegations that have been going on now for three, four months right up until now is because Democrats had one last play. They made the crucial mistake that they haven't made in years, and that's allowing their voters to choose their nominees. This is a practice that they are totally unaccustomed to doing.
You look back at 2016 with Hillary Clinton and superdelegates. You look at 2020 when they consolidated the field behind Joe Biden. You look at 24 when they didn't vote at all and they just appointed Kamala Harris. And they do this in Senate races across the country. And what happened was Democrats voted for Plattner.
And when they did, the establishment Democratic Party doesn't like that, and they want to make sure that they have somebody that they deem more electable.
So they're the ones that are pushing all of this out. I mean, the reason that stuff shows up in the New York Times is not because you've got some enterprising reporter who just happened upon information. It's because they're pitched at by the DSCC, by the DNC, by Chuck Schumer, by all the establishment Democrats that wanted to make a move here before it was too late. In a way, I think the New York Times gave a soft landing because the guys had a terrible background. I mean, he's one of the he's a terrible, he seems to be a terrible person, let alone a candidate.
So, if I think there wasn't a lot in his background, I think that he would have floated right through and they would have given it a shot. I mean, Chuck Schumer's losing his power, clearly. I mean, Haley Stevens is going to be his next challenge in Michigan against Abdul El-Al Said, El Seed.
So, he's going for a Haley Stevens who's losing.
So, I'm not sure how much power he has.
So, Graham Plattner's out despite getting 72% of the vote.
Now, they're going to have a lawyer Jurga. They're going to have 500 people coming together and pick the next nominee.
So, do you think Susan Collins' chances are better or worse? Better fighting platinum or worse with this new person? What do you think?
Well, it's hard to have been better than they were an hour before he dropped out, right? Because you were pretty clear. Yeah, you had the entire Democratic Party abandon him midstream. But I will say: look, everyone underestimates Susan Collins. She has driveways paved with the skulls of her political enemies for the last 30 years.
This woman is a very good campaigner, in large part because she is centristly located on the ideological spectrum that has been a perfect match for the state of Maine for a very long time. And she works really hard. I don't think that there is anybody that they can put up. That doesn't look an awful lot like every other opponent that she has vanquished up to this point. The only different wild card in this race at all was Graham Plattner.
She'd never faced somebody like that. And so there were a lot of open questions. And I continue to think she has the upper hand. They're going to throw everything that they've got at her. But they did in 2022 as well.
I mean, they changed the whole voting system to a ranked choice voting system to defeat Susan Collins, and they couldn't get it done.
So interesting. I did not know that. Let's switch over to Iran. The President of the United States is pretty fed up. Cut one.
They have very little left, and they want to make a deal so badly they called. A little while ago. They want to make a deal so badly. I just don't know if they're worthy of making a deal. I don't know that they're going to honor the deal.
And the deal they're talking about was really hatched by... The Vice President. And there were so many holes in that deal. And I think it was just an awful 14-point plan. And yet it was great for Iran and they didn't seem to realize it.
Josh, you've seen a lot of conflicts, Middle Eastern conflicts, you know, how difficult they can be. Yesterday, we hit them 90 times. 150 in the last two days. Where do you think this is going? Yeah, well, they shouldn't let up.
And look, the vice president is in an unenviable spot of having to negotiate the impossible because there is no negotiation with Iran. One of two things happen: you either have to pay them money not to be terrorists, and then they just become terrorists again. You have to pay them more money, or you have to negotiate this weird Rubik's Cube of everybody else's defense posture in the region. Remember, the reason why they started firing back on ships was because of Lebanon and Israel. What does that have to do with Iran other than the fact that they fund terrorist proxies in Lebanon that attack Israel?
It starts to unmask the whole thing. These are not good faith actors. You're never going to come to a common sense solution. We're going to have to do what it takes to make sure that the strait is open. And if that is by 150 different locations every night until that happens, so be it.
I agree with you 100%. You cannot just go, okay, I'm going to teach you a lesson, hit you hard, and then let you up again. The main thing is the ISW rode right today. They're still going to try to control the straight. That is as important to them, I think, as their nuclear program.
And they're trying to convince the neighbors to go along with it. And they're not, thankfully, as of now, but they're concerned that we're not all in to watch their back. Or gonna leave.
So, this is, you know, I know when you work for Mitch McConnell, we're in the middle of Iraq. And that seemed like it was endless, and yet they turn around and they end up putting together But Iran was always a thing too, Brian. I mean, it was always a thing. It it everywhere in the region, Iran has always been the worst actor because of its proxy funding. And Hezbollah, Hamas, its intent to do away with the Western civilization, as they say, death to America, as they say.
That has been a consistent threat for over 45 years. There is no state in this world who has killed more Americans than the State of Iran. than the Republic of Iran over the last forty five years. There can be no mistake about that. And so them just coming to their senses and treating their neighbors well and having a diplomatic solution with the United States seems extremely unlikely to me.
And now they're making a clear death to America. They have the President's face on it with the target on it and everybody else and all our officials. And we don't know if that was related to the fact the President did not take the new Air Force One home. You took the old one back. I'm not really sure what went into that.
President said the people in England just wanted to see it.
So I don't I don't know. Yeah, I mean, there are some reports that there are some of the more sophisticated defense. And refueling systems that haven't been installed yet in the new plane. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm happy that they're taking every single possible issue into context when they are transporting the President of the United States overseas, and that's where I leave it.
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So when we look at right now at the midterm elections, Between the gerrymandering and the rise of the socialism, the Republicans are back in the game. Is that how you view it? Yeah, I do. I think that they start in a much better place than they did at the beginning of the cycle just because of the redistricting. It's more of like a plus nine, plus ten, which they needed.
I think either way, you're going to have a majority in the House of Representatives that is a couple of seats one way or the other. But I do like where Republicans are right now. And I think, look, to the extent that Republicans can focus on what Democrats have handed them. Which is the face of communism in every one of these primaries. I mean, literally, you've never met anyone who acts like the candidates they're producing in election after election.
This is not two different parties who have two different ways of getting at the problems we all acknowledge. There is one party here that, by and large, likes America and another one that really doesn't. And you just have to ask them. That's not a branding exercise. Ask them.
They don't like America. They say it. And I think if Republicans can stay on message on that and realize that Democrat candidates are either the Momdani, Bernie Sanders, Graham Plattner brand, or the Abigail Spanberger brand, which is to lie to you and then do the same thing as the Momdani, Bernie Sanders crowd does when they get into office, you can have a pretty good campaign message going into the fall.
So just real quick on Cuba, we took another push to put pressure on them, and that is going after their doctors that go overseas, charge the Cuban government gets the money. They'll go overseas and help out other countries. They're very well trained physicians. And now we're starting to go after the countries that are using Cuban doctors while stopping all energy from going in and out. There's something's going to break here.
I'm wondering, Josh Holmes, when do you think this is going to happen? And now and how do you see we land this plane? I think it probably already would have happened if Iran would have wrapped up. I mean, look, I don't think I'm breaking any news here when you say the Secretary of State has unique interest in Cuba. I mean, this is someone who's talked about this.
Obviously, his family fled the communist regime. It was part of his reason for getting into office in the first place. And it's also 90 miles off the southern tip of Florida. I mean, this is a place amongst any that you do not want hostile actors. I think we've ignored it for too long, but you also have to make sure that you've taken care of your knitting and all these other places.
And there's a lot going on. I mean, you saw the NATO summit. Ukraine is still a big discussion that President Trump is having. If they can come to an accommodation with Putin and Zelensky and that, I mean, there's a lot going on here. And I do think it would behoove the administration to focus at least their external messaging, even if they're walking and chewing gum on the domestic politics.
Politics here a touch more because it seems like the foreign policy, at least for this summer, has kind of taken over the discussion. Yeah, absolutely. And they couldn't really get out of their own way in the House, so they couldn't even generate anything there. Are you for signing the housing bill? Yeah, I think so because it was in the president's State of the Union.
I don't know how you can go do a State of the Union speech where you lay out an agenda that you want Congress to do, then they get to work on it, they produce it, and then not sign it. I mean, look, I'm not like in love with a housing bill or think that changes politics or anything else. I mean, it doesn't matter to me one way or another if it's signed. But in terms of the relationships that the administration has with its allies in Congress, if you ask somebody to do something and they go through the blood, sweat, and tears to produce it, you kind of have to sign it. Or the next time you go to them, you might not get the answer yes.
Co-host of the Ruthless Podcast, not afraid to wear a hat on the air. He is Josh Holmes. Appreciate it, Josh. Thank you very much.
