← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Buck Brief - Trump Will and Should Win on the Big Beautiful Bill
00:22:35
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- [00:00]
Inez Felcher
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:06]
Buck Sexton
You're listening to the Buck Sexton show podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Is the big beautiful bill big beautiful and will it become a bill? These are things that we should dive into now with our friend Inez Felcher, stepman of the Independent Women's Forum. Also a new mom, seven months. Not quite as new as I am a dad, but she's given me all the insights and all the special tips to be good at the parent thing. So we'll talk a little bit.
- [00:39]
Inez Felcher
I was just telling him he had a lot to look forward to, that's all. They get cuter and cuter.
- [00:43]
Buck Sexton
Well, that's. That's a tip. Especially when I'm spending a lot of time now bottle feeding and changing diapers. And a lot of time is probably a lie. I do it a little bit. Carrie does 95% of it. So once in a while I get in there just to show everybody that I can. But I'm trying to help. He's very cute little guy, but we'll talk cute baby stuff in a second. First, America, the big beautiful bill. Where. Where are you on this one? Because you're a. You're a realist and somebody who looks at the numbers. So how does that come out for you? Which side of this do you think should. Should end up winning, so to speak?
- [01:18]
Inez Felcher
Yeah, well, look, I've been against a lot of these big omnibus bills. I've complained about them, but I actually think this one's pretty good. Now, that's not to say that it's perfect. I think there are a lot of. There is a lot of merit to Elon's criticism on the deficit. This is not really a deficit reduction bill. That being said, I mean, how many times have Republicans not, you know, have promised to make substantial cuts and they haven't done it. And that's partially because really bending the cost curve on American governance means doing some things that are really unpopular with the American people, like, you know, reforming entitlements. And yes, eventually we're going to slam into some kind of fiscal wall. All of that being said, I think the policy in this bill is really good and I think it's worth passing for the policy. Some of those policies, obviously the top line, the tax cuts, no tax on tips and tax on overtime, that is something that fuel that the economy needs, especially with some of the uncertainty around tariffs. If we want to try to restructure and bring More things home. Like we need to shore up the basics of the economy. So I think that's. But then a lot of the little things are, I don't think they're little things, but like things that are not getting the headlines in the same way. There's a lot of green New Deal subsidies that are cut in this bill. Most importantly for me, there's an endowment tax. There's a proposal to tax endowments of universities at 21%, which I think is a long, long overdue higher ed reform. The other pieces of higher ed reforms in this bill are also quite impressive. I was initially kind of negative on it, but they've improved it since then. And this is the first time, for example, that we're starting to structurally touch student loans and try to start, you know, stop pushing the cost of university tuition via these government backed loans that are going into default at record rates, trying to start bending that cost curve. I think those things are all really substantively important. And then part, probably the most important, the most central promise of the Trump administration from 2016 campaign to 2020 campaign, 2024, right, is immigration enforcement. Now, the president is doing what he can from the administrative side, from the executive side, but this gives money to build the wall. It gives money to border patrol and immigration enforcement more broadly that is desperately needed. Everybody is understaffed for the magnitude of the problem. And it deals with some of the recalibrating our military and starting to actually produce more munitions at home. Like, that's something that all of these things to me are like really critical issues that we should be happy that, you know, a Republican government is finally addressing. And I say this as someone who's been a critic of like almost every quote, unquote, big, beautiful bill since then. This one seems pretty good to me, even granting some of the critiques about the deficit.
- [04:13]
Buck Sexton
Now explain to me, if you would. Now, it's funny because I feel like I should be able to explain this to anybody who asks because I've, I've talked to Senator Rand Paul about this on radio. I've talked to Senator Ron Johnson about this on radio. And I understand their philosophical objection, which is we're raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion, the most I think it's ever been raised. And it's, this is not going to address even the deficit, right? It's not going to address it. I understand this. What I don't understand, and maybe you can help me with this. And they might have told me, but I've forgotten because it was last week what do they want to be done here? That's different. Like there's, there's, I, there's the philosophical objection. I get it. They're like, this isn't doing the following. Ok, but how could the following meaning addressing that be done? If reconciliation can only be spending that is non mandatory, it cannot touch mandatory spending. If you need to do mandatory spending or try to mandatory spending cuts now you're back at the 60 vote threshold of filibuster. So what is the process that like Senator Rand Paul and others with problems with this, like Elon, which we're going to talk about in a second, what do they want to happen?
- [05:23]
Inez Felcher
Look, politics is the art of the possible. And in Elon's crash out on X where he's just been tweeting, he's probably tweeting as we speak right now, more about this. But one thing that he tweeted struck me as incredibly naive, which he said, you know, keep the good take, get rid of the bad in the bill. As though these bills are not a very delicate balance of things that are. You're trying to keep like an entire coalition happy and everybody is unhappy with some piece of this bill. It just struck me as a politically naive tweet in particular. But no, I'm not sure what they think. I mean clearly they think that they can get a better deal and if all of this public fighting results in a bill that does make more cuts. I know one of the cuts, for example, that that House member Chip Roy was interested in is actually putting even more stringent reforms on Medicaid expansion right under Obamacare. That would be quite a big fiscal difference. And for him it was something that was really important that now this bill does place some restrictions around able bodied adults who are getting Medicaid have to be seeking work. I think those work requirements are a good idea. But there was a disagreement about when they were going to kick in and how stringent they should be. And it probably would make quite a big difference on the, on the scoring of the bill. That was one of the disagreements on the House side. So I think that it's a number of things like that, but fundamentally I don't think we're going to get a better deal than this given the margins in the House and then the reconciliation process limitations that you. And look, I'm not like an expert on, you know, all the horse trading that has happened behind the scenes, but looking at this bill policy wise versus previous, the previous omnibus bill, some of the proposals in the past dealing with various of these These programs where Republicans actually, frankly, had larger majorities to work with. And this bill seems a lot better to me on policy. Like just border enforcement alone to me right now at this point in time is probably more important than touching the debt and deficit right now, even though I recognize that's a big problem. Like, I don't think we're ever going to deal with the debt if we don't preserve the country. Right. And preserve law and order in the American way of life. So I think it's a matter of priorities.
- [07:38]
Buck Sexton
We didn't coordinate this. But this is funny because, you know, I know you were busy earlier today. I was. This is, this is what I said on radio. You just said now, which. If we lose on this, if we lose on the border stuff and immigration, we lose on everything. It doesn't matter. Like, the country that we think we're trying to preserve is gone. And the notion of being a country that cares about a lot of other countries have true financial crises that hit them that they can never get out of because they spend themselves into oblivion and, and they do all this socialist crap and the place is ruined. Right. If we don't control immigration, we don't control the border. The whole thing is over anyway. So that's one of my problems here is I like the, I like the immigration component of the bill so much that I'm, you know, it's like when you're dating on the hot crazy scale. Like, I'm willing to overlook a lot, you know, I'm willing to overlook a lot of the arrest of this bill because, because of that, we'll come back.
- [08:30]
Inez Felcher
I feel that way about, by the way, about an endowment tax and about reforms to higher ed. If we're talking about these kinds of problems that have really dogged the United States and have made me, until this election, like, incredibly pessimistic about our trajectory. It's the state of higher ed, right. State of our Ivy Leagues that train all of our elites, that go all into all of the institutions, companies, government, everything being just basically woke madrasas that no longer actually fulfill their purpose or their promise to the American people. Like, that's an incredibly important issue to me. It's a, you know, kind of civilizational level issue. And I feel like if America writes itself as a civilization, then we will be able to deal with the debt slowly over time. And so I just, I just think this is, on balance, this is a deal worth taking.
- [09:16]
Buck Sexton
Yeah, I mean, I do, I do, too. And I really, I heard out, I specifically sought out Senator Paul, you know, Johnson, I talked to them. I wanted to hear their cases and I, I get it. But I still think it's the right thing to do. So I'm, I'm kind of with you on this and I didn't know where you were going to come down. I, I feel like there's so much. Good. Let's, let's, let's get back into this though. In a second we'll talk about the Elon Trump situation here. But our sponsor is the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And the reality in Israel is still a stark one. Parents have to take their children and put them in places where they'll be safe from missiles. There are sirens that are blaring. This is still going on because there are enemies of Israel that continue to attack Satan civilians and the threat of terrorism looms large. That's why we have partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to help provide life saving aid and security essentials on the front line in Israel where they matter most. Your urgently needed gift today will help provide security essentials like bomb shelters, flak jackets and bulletproof vests for first responders, armored security vehicles, ambulances, ambulances and more. Join me in standing with Israel. Call to make your gift at 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888-488-4325 or online@supportifcj.org that support ifc j.org Now, Elon Trump, was this end to the bromance completely inevitable in your mind? There's, Elon is because here, here's the problem as I see it. I wanted to lay this out for a little bit. He knows Trump can fight with people and that's fine. Elon has now it's not, he's not just fighting over the bill. Elon is saying Trump would have lost the election without me. Basically like, you're ungrateful. No, actually he said that straight up. He didn't even say basic. He's, you're ungrateful from. And I feel like there are things you could say to Trump and things that you can't. And I think that taking credit for the election is something that's going to get like, you see what I'm saying here? I'm a little, a little concerned about this one.
- [11:20]
Inez Felcher
Yeah. I mean, look, I do think Trump lets people back into the fold for saying really, really mean stuff about him if they appropriately kiss the ring. So I don't know that this is permanent necessarily. But Elon's also out there like tweeting that he needs to start a new political party. Can only hope it doesn't start with the name X. But, like, look, I think Elon purchasing Twitter was arguably that act, actually, I would say did contribute substantially to Trump's being able to be elected. I'm less sure about Elon's, like, contributions in terms of money, although I'm sure they were helpful. And his sort of public backing of Trump, in the end, maybe they did sway some people, but I think actually those contributions were probably less important structurally than just people being able to speak their minds, finally on a major social media platform in a way that censorship and collusion prevented in 2020. So that I really think was like a trajectory changing thing for the United States. This. This random billionaire buys Twitter and lets people say what they want on it without censorship. I mean, that. That did transform things. So I don't want to take that away from Elon, but I mean, frankly, there are huge differences and always will be huge differences between, I think, Trump's outlook and not only Elon Musk's, but a lot of people in Silicon Valley. Right. And you saw it over tariffs, the battle over tariffs, where a lot of people are un. We see it when early on, if we've forgotten already, the H1B flap, right between Elon kind of got off because Vivek got sent to the provinces on that one. He got sent out.
- [13:01]
Buck Sexton
He got sent to the archives, as we used to say in the CIA. Sent to the archives. See you later.
- [13:07]
Inez Felcher
Yeah, but I think just fundamentally, I grew up in Silicon Valley and I grew up around this particular outlook. And one of the things that the people on the right and the left there seem to have in common are a few underlying outlook issues that I don't think are compatible with maga, with. With the right more broadly, which is this endless faith in capital P progress without limitation. They mostly think the nation state is obsolete. Right. We don't get into whether they think humanity is obsolete. That's another level of question. But they mostly think that the unit of the nation state is sort of jingoistic, outdated, clunky. And so I think any issue that goes to the heart of sovereignty or that goes like some of these immigration issues, like, oh, you should have loyalty, actually not to pure efficiency, but you should have loyalty to your fellow citizens rather than, you know, how the numbers come out, even on a GDP spreadsheet. And I just fundamentally think it's not to say that they won't work together. I mean, all political parties in America, because of the nature of our system and having two parties are coalitions of people who have different ideas. So I don't think that means that it can never work together together. But I do think that there were always going to be cracks between those two worldviews.
- [14:23]
Buck Sexton
I also just think at a very fundamental level in as that two ultra alpha dogs, I mean, two guys who, for a long time now, both have been willing to just say this is how it's going to be. And their expectation is that's how it's going to be, at least to those sort of around them and in their orbit. It's tough for those, it's tough for two guys like that to have a collaboration that doesn't run into some speed bumps.
- [14:51]
Inez Felcher
Well, that's certainly true on a personality level. I, I also just, I remember speculation a few months ago, like, oh, you know, some partially fueled, of course, by the leftist media and everything, just, you know, who's on top. Actually, Elon is the, you know, the Alpha under Trump's skin or to your point.
- [15:07]
Buck Sexton
Yeah, they were trying to get this.
- [15:09]
Inez Felcher
Ignited, but, but to me, it's really obvious who's on top now. Right. Like, I don't think Elon is going to get his way on this. I don't think he's going to get his way on a lot of things that he would like to see. And that's why he's, you know, crashing out publicly and, and getting mad publicly. I think the, the top partner in the relationship is, is definitely Trump. And maybe Elon didn't realize that quite as much, and maybe he should have, although he seemed to kind of accept it in the beginning. I don't, I don't know, like, I don't want to talk about, like, anything personal with these two. I do think you're right that two guys who are usually on top of the pyramid, you know, may have some jostling issues at the top. But to me, it's pretty clear that the political side and politics and, and Trump are more powerful even than the richest man in the world, which in some ways is rather encouraging because Trump is, in fact elected. He is our representative. Right. In a way that Elon, while he's brilliant and, and very rich. Right. Is not our representative. He's not, he's not been elected by the American people. He shouldn't have equal power to the President of the United States.
- [16:12]
Buck Sexton
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- [17:47]
Inez Felcher
Yeah, well, I actually, I'm, again, I'm very optimistic about this. And, and I keep having to repeat whenever I say this that I'm not a traditionally optimistic person. I was very down on our ultimate trajectory before this election. But I just think the last few months of policy coming out of the Trump administration is, has changed the landscape in higher ed. So on the higher ed side, I'll take them separately because they're separate titles and separate, like, policy landscapes with universities versus private companies. Okay. Universities are so dependent on federal money, and they are just coming to the end of their kicking and screaming denial phase about how much control the Trump administration is going to have over what they do because of that. There was this great piece in the New York Times. Don't often say that, but if I trust anything in the New York Times, it's that they have good sources inside Harvard University. Right. And so it was one of these, like, insider pieces about how losers were.
- [18:44]
Buck Sexton
Harvard was freaked out about the financial damage that they were going to suffer, right?
- [18:48]
Inez Felcher
Absolutely. They're freaked out. And if Harvard is freaked out, everyone without a $53 billion endowment is even more freaked out. So I think they are coming to the realization that the way that they've operated for decades and decades is dependent on taxpayer money and that Trump holds the strengths of the taxpayer money and that he has really good legal grounds for doing this because they have been to the point of the Supreme Court case flagrantly violating the law and the Constitution publicly announcing that they're doing it, announcing that they're discriminating on the basis of race. Right. And sex. And so they really don't have much of a leg to stand on their, all their legal cases right now deal on administrative matters. Like they didn't fully get a perfect investigation or due process. Even if they win on some of those, those minor ticky tack issues, the Trump administration can go back and do update their process and do it again and still take their money because fundamentally they, there's not really much investigation necessary. They're announcing that they are doing things that are very clearly illegal and that the fact that they're illegal is affirmed now in this Supreme Court decision. Aims 9 to 0. This is written by Ketanji Brown. Jackson. Right, Jackson, Brown, whichever one. And so this is, this is, you know, this is a unanimous opinion of the court of something very, very simple. There is no different standard whether the plaintiff isn't a member of a majority or a minority protected class. Right. So race, sex. It's interesting this, this opinion is actually about sexual orientation. It's about a straight woman who was discriminated against on the basis of being straight. Now that hinges on Bostock, which is interesting because there is no protected category for sexual orientation. Even after Bostock. It's, it's looped into sex, like the long discussion to be had there. But basically the basic principle of this decision is that you can't have different standards for essentially favored and disfavored classes within these, these protected categories.
- [20:46]
Buck Sexton
It's so vague also as to be like, how do you even, you know, it's like, well, which, which level of protection under the protected class are you? Right, we're going to start grading this. You know, you're a level seven, you're a level nine. Absurd.
- [20:58]
Inez Felcher
Yeah. Also, like, how are you defining the boundaries between these classes? Right? It's just. It's a totally unworkable standard in addition to being blatantly unfair and discriminatory. But on employer side, with this title, this is a Title 7 case. On the employer side, unlike with admissions, where the Supreme Court kind of okayed it for 20 years until the decision a couple of years ago, students for Fair Admissions, it was never okay to take race into account. For example, on hiring and firing decisions. That's something the eeoc, even the leftist members of the agency that's tasked with enforcing, will admit if they're pushed to the wall. Okay? Like you are not supposed to take into account. It's illegal to take race into account even the slightest bit. You cannot put your thumb on the scale for race. Okay? And you had companies coming out in 2020 and saying point blank quotas, which even the universities weren't allowed to do in admissions. Right? They were supposed to cover for the fact that they were functionally using quotas by something else. And you have Google coming out and saying, well, we're going to hire 30% more black engineers in the next three years or whatever.
- [22:00]
Buck Sexton
By the way, these people, they should all be sued. They should all be sued into oblivion by the administration, by people who are wronged by them. So this is just the beginning. We got to leave it there. Inez, Always brilliant, always insightful.
- [22:13]
Inez Felcher
They are. I will say one sentence. Those cases are already in the pipeline and they're at the EOC and they're coming out.
- [22:18]
Buck Sexton
That's fantastic. Well, we'll talk more about this down the line. Give your, your also brilliant husband a big high five for me and go tend to that adorable seven month old baby. I'm gonna go change now, my, you know, go change the milk for my baby in the bottle or something. Anyway, great to see you.
- [22:34]
Inez Felcher
Bye. Bye. It's great to see you. This is an I heart pod.