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First lady Melania Trump was named “Patriot of the Year” at FOX Nation’s annual Patriot Awards ceremony on Thursday night, but the “Ruthless” podcast co-hosts had thoughts on who would win a bizarro version.
“Ruthless,” hosted by Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook, aims to bring fun into conservative politics. Fox News Digital caught up with the fellas backstage at the Patriot Awards after they walked the Red Carpet with a simple question: If the first lady is “Patriot of the Year,” then who is the least patriotic American in 2025?
“It’s a tossup between, basically every Democrat who is in Washington right now. Very, very close to call. Ilhan Omar is my vote,” Ashbrook responded.
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Smug chimed in, “I’ll say Chuck Schumer, who has had no reins on the hands of this party and allowed it to become the laughingstock of the world.”
Duncan said he planned to say Schumer, but Smug stole his thunder.
“I guess I’ll go Hakeem Jeffries — as we know him, Temu Barack Obama,” Duncan said, referring to the nickname that essentially calls Jeffries a knockoff version of the former president.
Holmes enjoyed that choice but took a broader approach.
“There’s an awful lot of ‘moderate’ Democrats that aren’t acting very moderate. I think it’s a group effort this year,” Holmes said.
“There’s a whole bunch of people that try to fashion themselves in the middle that are the least patriotic that I’ve ever seen,” he continued. They won’t even open up a government when they know people are suffering.”
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While the “Ruthless” co-hosts only named politicians as their candidates for least patriotic person, the fellas regularly criticize the mainstream media. They even have an annual NCAA-style Liberal Hack Tournament (or #HackMadness) where listeners fill out brackets of 64 liberal media figures and vote on who they think is the biggest hack.
Last year’s winner was CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan.
Holmes predicted MSNBC personalities will emerge as favorites once the network rebrands to MS NOW later this month as part of its corporate split with NBC.
“Look, MS NOW, it’s a brand-new thing. They have something to prove, I think they’re going to field a very strong team,” Holmes said.
“I think, top to bottom, throughout the primetime lineup, you’re talking about [number] 1-2-3-4 seeds,” he continued. “They’re going to, actually, I think, take it this year.”
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Fox News landed a licensing deal with the conservative “variety progrum” earlier this year as part of the company’s expansion of new media.
Politico has dubbed “Ruthless” stars the “bad boys of conservative talk,” with many outlets declaring the podcast is the right’s answer to “Pod Save America,” the influential left-wing podcast hosted by former Obama aides and speechwriters.
The influence of “Ruthless” reached all the way to the White House as Ashbrook was among the first to sit in the “new media” seat established by the Trump administration for the White House press briefing.
New episodes of “Ruthless” are released every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday on all podcast platforms and YouTube.
Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Jeffries, Schumer and Omar for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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