'Ruthless' launches candidate interview series to help educate voters ahead of critical midterm elections

27 Feb 2026 By foxnews

The "Ruthless" podcast kicked off its midterm candidate interview series Thursday with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as the program aims to help listeners learn if hopefuls "can hang with the fellas and be a decent human being."

Paxton, who is leading in the Republican Senate primary polls even without President Donald Trump's endorsement, sat down with "Ruthless" co-hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook for the first of a series of interviews designed to educate its audience ahead of "vitally important" midterm elections.

"The midterms are incredibly important, and one of the things that we promised you, as a listener of the 'progrum,' is we're going to provide you interviews to get to know every single candidate that matters in every single one of these pivotal races," Holmes said.

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"Ruthless" also unveiled an interactive map that highlights key Senate races and links to information and interviews on each of the candidates ahead of the GOP primary season. The map, located at Ruthlesspodcast.com/map, will be updated throughout the year.

"What it is designed to do is provide all of you who are listening throughout the country a real-time, totally accessible opportunity to click on your state and look at the candidates who are attempting to represent you," Holmes said.

"Ruthless" hopes the map and interview series will help listeners make more informed decisions.

"We understand that everyone in the mainstream media wants to shade one or shade another," Holmes said. "They'll tell you exactly who it is they think you ought to vote for based on the tenor of the coverage of one candidate or another."

"We approach this a different way here," he continued. "You come down, you sit with the fellas, and we have, basically, one litmus test, and that litmus test is, can you hang with the fellas? Like, can you convince an audience that you can hang with the fellas and be a decent human being?"

Smug added that "unlike the mainstream media," guests on the podcast won't face a "firing squad of liberals who are trying to help Chuck Schumer win a race."

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Duncan noted that an assortment of interviews is already live on the new website, including with Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

"You're going to have all of that at your disposal before you cast a ballot," Duncan said. "Over the next eight, nine months, we're going to have a lot more, so it's going to be a huge resource."

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, another hopeful for the Texas Senate primary, is set to appear next week.

"We'll have all of them," Holmes said.

"You can take some time, not just to get to know them through the wedge questions that the media asks to try to put people on defense, but a little bit about their personality. Who they are. Because, ultimately, what you're doing, particularly in Republican politics in primaries, is, there are shades of differences in globally recognized facts within the Republican Party," he added.

"But you've got to know that the guy, or the woman, that you're sending there is ultimately going to represent your point of view."

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"Ruthless" has a licensing deal with FOX News Media as part of the company's expansion of new media.