← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:00]
Clay Travis
This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human
- [00:05]
Buck Sexton
welcome in Tuesday Edition. Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show I am filled with optimism as we begin the show. We're going to have some fun. We got a great show coming your way. But let's start with some news off the top. Eric Swalwell looked like he was going to be potentially elected the next governor of California. Then revelations began about him and his inappropriate behavior, allegations of criminal behavior, and now not only has he dropped out of the governor's race, but he is dropping his congressional seat as well. Also, another Republican is dropping his congressional seat as well down on the border in Texas over similar allegations of impropriety relating to women. We will discuss that, I'm sure. As the program proceeds, the Iran blockade seems to have been quite effective. The crude oil price continues to decline and stock market, as you all know, I love watching the stock markets. The S&P 500 is approaching an all time high and the Dow is also approaching an all time high. Both of these markets moving near record highs. So if you just didn't panic, as we always say to you, don't panic and you just held onto your stocks during all of the Iran situation, during all of the big tariff implosions, if you just held onto your stocks and said I trust that Trump is going to get the economy roaring, you are in a good spot. Congratulations, your stocks, your 401k, your retirement is near an all time record high if you are holding on to those, those stocks. Also, we have Buck Sexton with an all time take on pants, which we can have some fun with because I've got to take and I actually think there's tons of people out there who will have interesting takes on this. Let me just put it out there as an idea and we'll come back to it a bit later. What still exists and should not exist because it has been technologically replaced, I. E. There is something better than it. Buck says drawstring pants infinitely better than zipper and button pants. Really? I read it this morning and actually Jesse Kelly, our friend, was responding, but it also got me fired up. I've been making this argument for a long time. Chopsticks shouldn't exist. Every time I go to an Asian restaurant, they bring me out chopsticks and I just say, can I have a fork? The fork is a far better implement than chopsticks. This is not some cultural attack on Asia. But the fork is better than the chopsticks. And so what are good? Do you sign off? I understand people show off and they're like, oh, I could do my chopsticks and. But the fork is better. It, like, is better. It's better to use. It's reusable. Um, it's just a far better way to eat than the chopsticks.
- [03:20]
Clay Travis
How did we go from my very important drawstring pants announcement to chopsticks, though?
- [03:26]
Buck Sexton
This is just things that are better. When I saw your drawstring pants argument that they're superior, I wanted. I was thinking, I bet this audience has things that they believe are superior. For instance, I'll give you another one Buck here as we have some fun starting off the show. Very optimistic mood. I don't think we failed when it comes to the dash on heating and air in cars. Right. Blue to make it cooler, red to make it warmer was perfection. I get in cars now, and many times it's incredibly difficult to figure out how do I turn on the heat or the air. We had it solved and we've continued to technologically change it, but it's not as good as it was when you just twisted to the blue or to the red. And everybody knew how to work that.
- [04:17]
Clay Travis
We've talked about this before, and I think it's an eight bargazzi bit, but hotel room lights.
- [04:23]
Buck Sexton
Yeah.
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Clay Travis
How about a switch? How about a switch by the door? Light on, dimmer light off? Maybe. Maybe if we want to be spicy, we put a light by the bedside for reading and bedtime. That is it. I stayed in a hotel recently, and
- [04:41]
Buck Sexton
I basically counted up my head on the show.
- [04:44]
Clay Travis
Different light switches in this place. And, like, some of them are, like, partial. And some I'm like, who?
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Buck Sexton
I don't want to have to read
- [04:51]
Clay Travis
a manual to turn the lights off at night.
- [04:54]
Buck Sexton
Yeah, I agree. And so, anyway, out there, you can give us talkbacks what has been better and could be fixed going forward. But, Buck, as we start, it appears that the situation in Iran is. There are reports that there could be talks again on Thursday. Okay. I feel bad for Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and JD Vance if they have to get back on a plane and fly all the way back to Pakistan for more talks after they were there for 21 hours of talks and then turned around and came back. There are reports out there that the United States is saying, we want 20 years of you guys ceasing to pursue nuclear weapons and that Iran has offered five years. Now, the challenge with this, Buck, as you can well imagine, and I'm sure all of you out there are going to recognize as well, is Iran has been lying for decades. About everything. So whatever they agree to is unlikely, in my opinion, to be upheld. And so whether they say they're going to do it for five years or 10 years or 15 or 20 years, I am quite confident they are lying. Which is why my solution here is we have to in some way grab what Trump called the nuclear dust, the uranium deposits that they have in order to push them back further. I imagine, Buck, even based on your time when you were with the CIA 20 some odd years ago, Iran has been lying to us for the entirety of the time that they have had the Ayatollahs in charge. And so nothing that they say to us now do I remotely believe is honest. So them saying anything is not good enough. We either have to get the uranium, if that's our goal, and on the Strait of Hormuz, we have to just see everybody coming through and the oil and gas tankers being able to traverse. We have to actually verify, in my opinion, that they're saying anything honest. Is that a fair assessment in your mind?
- [07:02]
Clay Travis
Yeah. Look, this reminds me of the whole Iraq situation insofar as the, the policy or the strategy of Saddam Hussein was essentially, I don't know, maybe it got nukes, maybe I don't, maybe I got chemical weapons, maybe I don't. Because he found value in that strategic ambiguity. And then when it came time for us to make decisions about what he had and didn't have, it was really, obviously we got it wrong. But it was really hard to sift through what was a bluff and what was reality, because he thought that was particularly after, after the Iran Iraq war, which is probably the most devastating war of the 20th century that nobody ever talks about.
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Buck Sexton
Right? Yes.
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Clay Travis
I mean, obviously there are much bigger, more devastating wars.
- [07:50]
Buck Sexton
But I mean, for a war that
- [07:51]
Clay Travis
is completely wiped from the, from the memory banks of certainly people in the west, it went on for eight years, nine years, actually, and it was hundreds and hundreds of thousands of casualties. And this changed the dynamic in the Middle east dramatically and the security calculations specifically for Iraq and Iran, as well as other regional players. So, yes, the notion of an. Here's the problem with an Iranian deal. There's no deal that you can have that you can trust that does not in some way have us with our boot heel on the, on the side of their face, really. I mean, we have to be in a position to say, all right, we don't, we don't believe you. So now we're going to go check this stuff. This is the intrusive inspections component of this, which we went through with Iraq too, by the way. And sovereign nations, good guys, bad guys, doesn't really matter, generally don't really want people to be able to just show up and look at all of their stuff. Right. If there's something that they think is degrading about this. And certainly the Iranians would find it degrading, degrading to have America. And so really they view it as Israel's proxy, able to just show up and look at all their nuke stuff whenever we want. So, Clay, this is where we come down to there's not really a deal to be had here, folks. There's not really a deal because even if we do get to, and remember, you can pull that clip later, if we do get to a deal, even if we have some deal with the current regime, that they will break it. Yes, and this is, this is the problem with the whole Obama approach to all of this too.
- [09:27]
Buck Sexton
This is why I want the tangible, to the extent that we can seize it, the tangible uranium deposits in our hands right in, in the control of the United States. And some people out there aren't happy about that take. But to me, I don't see any form of resolution that you can rely on other than that as a way to conclude this if the goal is to try to ensure that Iran doesn't continue to pursue nuclear weapons. Now, again, the area that we struck in June, we have optics, we have eyes on, we have recognition if Iran tries to go reclaim those materials. So I suppose the argument can be, we know what we've got there and it's secure. But if we want to have a full throated victory, one that everyone recognizes, even the New York Times editorial page and even MSNBC and CNN commentators, if Trump brings the uranium out of Iran and says we have seized it, they cannot use this anymore, I think it will be very hard to argue that this was anything other than a supreme success. Right. If we leave it, then the people who don't like Trump are going to argue, oh, we didn't accomplish anything. I do think, and I've been saying this for some time, you know, the stock market is doing well when it's not shown on MSNBC or cnn, we're near record highs. Uh, the markets are judging the Trump economic situation as a very positive one. And I do think that is significant overall as to the likelihood of where we are headed. But what do you think? Do you care if we actually have the uranium in possession or in your mind? If we say, hey, we've got eyes on it, we're going to watch it and we just pull back and this thing ends and the traffic returns to some form of normalcy in the Strait of Hormuz. Is that satisfactory in your mind, or do you also want to see the tangible asset of Iranian nuclear, you know, pursuit in the control of the United States?
- [11:35]
Clay Travis
This thing is not over until we have Iranians winning an election with people who are willing to sit down with the leadership of the United States and Israel with smiles on their faces and talk about how to make Iran a regional ally and a peaceful and prosperous place without all this lunacy. That's the real truth. This thing doesn't really end until that day. And I don't know where that day
- [12:02]
Buck Sexton
is, but it may not be in the life of anybody living today.
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Clay Travis
Yeah.
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Buck Sexton
To be fair.
- [12:06]
Clay Travis
Yeah. In the meantime, you have a situation where we're just. Trump has done a lot more than anybody before him. But to truly end this threat, when Trump says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon and that's his goal, think about what that really means. It does not mean we sign a piece of paper with Iran. They still have some enriched uranium or even the technical know how to enrich uranium in the future. And the people, what happens in two years, everybody, what happens? I know we can't even think this stuff right now. What happens if a Democrat wins the next election? Yeah, the Iranians will run circles around the next Democrat administration because all they're going to want to do is, is play the big peacemaker and say big, bad, mean, Trump did all these bad things to you. So we'll bend over backwards. We'll give you taxpayer cash, we'll show up with pallets full of dollar, dollar bills, everybody. Anything to make it seem like the Democrats are the peacemakers with Iran. So these are all the layers of complexity that come to bear. I'm really just thinking about this in a six month, well, I guess more like eight in front of the math nine month timeline here of how does this play out between now until the midterms? Because if you try to think about what this really means long term, you'll drive yourself crazy because nobody can really know and there's too many variables for anyone to, to be able to properly assess it. But really this is. Can Trump win this round against Iran and substantially delay their nuclear program and nuclear progress through it all? Regime change is not on the table. It's not happening. So that's where we are.
- [13:44]
Buck Sexton
We will take back, we will take your calls. We will take your interactions. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky will join us at the bottom of the at the bottom of the second hour. And Sarah Isger, who's got a book about the Supreme Court, is going to be in studio and we'll see what she thinks about increasing speculation that Justice Alito might decide to step down and that Trump could have another Supreme Court vacancy. To that story out there and starting to get more attention as we come up on the end of the June recess. I was reading over the weekend that Alito has not hired his clerks fully. Sometimes that's a little bit of a sign. Again, the Supreme Court comes back in session in October. So from June to October, we could have a window there where President Trump could have a Supreme Court seat to fill. And given the Senate is unclear exactly what might happen, they're worth paying attention to. So we will discuss that and more with her about her new book surrounding the Supreme Court. In the meantime, work being done throughout Israel by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is remarkable. This is an incredibly caring nonprofit organization. They've worked for decades in many towns on so many kibbutzes paying attention to the people out there to try to help social services. They don't get caught up in the bureaucracy. No red tape. When they see someone in need or something amiss, they're on. It could be as simple and sympathetic as caring for a single elderly person could be. Rebuilding a hospital underground so that the attacks from missiles don't rain down on people inside of hospitals. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they've built a bridge between charitable Christians and others in this country and the Jewish population in Israel. Selfless work, excellent results. Your donations can make a life changing result. And you can join us right now. Give $45 to Rush Life Saving Essentials to the Vulnerable under fire, 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888488 IFCJ. You can also go online at, @ifcj.org that's ifcj.org laugh, learn and hang with the guys. Clay and Buck preset on the iHeart app.
- [16:12]
Senator Rand Paul
All right.
- [16:12]
Clay Travis
Welcome back in here to Clay and Buck. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul joins us now. Senator, appreciate you making the time for us, sir.
- [16:20]
Senator Rand Paul
Glad to be with you. Thanks for having me.
- [16:23]
Clay Travis
All right. You would not have, I think this is fair to say, if not by all means correct me, you would not have called for the bombing campaign in Iran and did not, did not agree with it from the start. It has been going on. It is now at a ceasefire moment. If you can take us just Fast forward us in this process to how you think this is going now. How do you assess the status of this ceasefire, the current negotiations? Basically, how do we end this thing and get out of this thing as you see it?
- [16:56]
Senator Rand Paul
I think the one thing we can all agree with is that we'd love to see freedom for the Iranian people. We'd like to see the regime fall. There are other questions, though, about the advisability of the war, how you go to war. The Constitution and our founding Fathers were pretty clear that when you go to war, Congress needs to vote. They said that to declare war or to initiate war, it would be the Congress that declares this. Now, some have said, well, there are exceptions to that. And one of the exceptions is that if we're imminently to be attacked, you know, someone shooting at one of our ships, or we're imminently under attack, the President can make some immediate decisions. Even under that circumstance, though, the Founding Fathers wanted the President then to ask for permission from Congress, even if he responded or she responded immediately. In this case, though, the adversary nation, the country that we've been at odds with, is 47 years in the making. It's a little hard to make the imminence argument. The other argument is, well, we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon. Well, I think all of us want that. But our intelligence reports really showed no evidence that they were changing or getting closer to a nuclear weapon. We have 18 different parts of our intelligence agency all telling us about the same thing, that there really hadn't been a reconstitution of a nuclear program. There was essentially where they were when we BMW them up six months ago. And the President said at that time the nuclear program was obliterated. So there are many arguments for why we should do it constitutionally. Then there's also another argument about practically whether or not we'll be better off. Right now, economically, the price of oil has gone up tremendously. People are noticing at the gas pump. I think it's going to be bad electorally for the party. The party already faces a very difficult election. And really, frankly, I think the soldiers that put their lives on the line deserve to have a full a fulsome debate and, and a vote on the floor of the Senate and the House before we go to war.
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Buck Sexton
No doubt. We're talking to Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky. There's a big decision that's going to be made soon in terms of who's replacing Mitch McConnell in your state. Big primary decision. There's also a big battle. Thomas Massie is, is also got to to see what's going to happen in the primary there. What are you seeing and hearing from Kentucky voters? You just mentioned the midterm. What are you seeing as the primary driver for the primary? It's going to happen in about a month there.
- [19:23]
Senator Rand Paul
I think people understand in Kentucky that you can be supportive of Donald Trump as I am, and also supportive of Thomas Massie. I think Thomas Massie is the most conservative, most constitutionally oriented person in the House. He's fearless. He's the head of the Liberty Caucus. He's also the head of the Second Amendment Caucus. And so I am all in for Thomas Massie. I've campaigned for him several times, will continue to do so. And I think it's important to have independent voices. You know, people want a rubber stamp and they say, will you support the president 100% of the time? And then the other candidate says, no, I'll support him 150% of the time. No, I'll support him 200% of the time. You leave yourself wondering, are they conservative? Do they support a balanced budget? Do they support the Constitution? Do they support the Second Amendment? So to me, it's not so much about fidelity or faithfulness to one person. It's about fidelity and faithfulness to the Constitution, to conservative values, to limited government, to balanced budgets. And I think Thomas Massie is unparalleled in being the best defender of the Constitution currently in the Congress.
- [20:29]
Clay Travis
Speaking of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senator, I appreciated the. If I could circle back on this for a second, your feelings about the overall Iran conflict. But right now there's a negotiation happening. Are you hopeful for this negotiation actually ending the conflict? What would you advise, Trump, Vance, the others who are making decisions on this to do, to stop this? Because I know you want this war over. I think that's very. I would have known that before you said it. You don't want us to be continuing to bomb them. You don't want the straight or four moves to be under threat.
- [21:00]
Buck Sexton
Do you see a way forward, or
- [21:02]
Clay Travis
are we just looking at months of instability here?
- [21:06]
Senator Rand Paul
I don't know that anybody knows the answer yet. I think the sticking point really is the straits of Hormuz. Will the Iranians give in? Will the Iranians say that we won't develop a nuclear weapon? I think actually they will negotiate on that. They've been willing to negotiate on it before. It's whether or not they're believable in the negotiations. As far as the straits go, our decision to blockade it Will, will now be something that militarily will be decided whether or not we can do that. I think we probably can. We've removed mines from it. We have the capability to do that. The missiles they shoot are very, very close to us. So the way we intercept missiles is I think we're better. The farther away they shoot at, shoot the missiles from, the closer they are, the more difficult it is to intercept missiles. So militarily we'll see what happens. I hope for the best. I, I hope that they will negotiate over the straits and that we will move forward. I don't like the idea of us continuing forever to control the Straits of Hormuz and charging a fee, as some have indicated, or controlling it jointly with Iran and charging a fee. I think it's unknown what will happen, but I think the big sticking point really now is what will happen with the straits while the Iranians are completely defeated, their military is completely defeated. I don't know that the people are necessarily defeated. And in some ways the new regime, there's a question whether or not they're going to be more compliant or less, whether it be more radical or less radical. Some say that the radicals that were killed off may be well replaced with even people more radical.
- [22:35]
Buck Sexton
We're talking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. I know you've got a big Hearing on the Second Amendment that's coming up. You're in Washington D.C. i know we got listeners all over the country that have weapons, have guns and when they drive from one state to another, they're worried about what the rules are, what the laws are. And I do think this fact point should get more attention than it has. Thankfully, we set an all time record low for murders in 2025. I think you probably could speak to this because I'm pretty sure it's factually connected, but there hasn't been much discussion about it. We also have record numbers of firearms in the hands of American citizens. That is. Never before have there been more guns in the hands of American citizens. Yet in 2025 we set what may well be the lowest murder rate in the history of the country. What can you tell us about the Second Amendment? What does that say about lawful guns in the hands of gun owners? And how frustrating is it to you that you're in Kentucky, I'm in Tennessee, we drive to Florida quite a lot. The rules are different depending on what states we go through to get to Florida. From where I live in Nashville, that seems crazy to me.
- [23:48]
Senator Rand Paul
Well, the statistics are pretty clear that lawful gun owners and people who carry weapons actually commit crimes at a much lower rate than the general public. Most of the people who are lawfully owning guns are actually some of the most law abiding people you'll meet. Most people carry weapons for self defense and are actually some of the best citizens we have. The second amendment of the right to own guns to me is a natural right. It's God given, it's the right to self defense. It's codified in the Bill of Rights. And really you should have a constitutional right to carry in Kentucky. You do. We no longer have a concealed carry law. We have a constitutional carry, which means the Constitution protects it. So I'm for a national constitutional carry such that if you go from Tennessee and you drive up to dc, you may well want self defense in dc but right now it's difficult because DC basically bans people from having guns. It's difficult to own a gun or to bring a gun into D.C. but I see guns as self defense. Everywhere I go. The people with me are armed, I'm often armed. And I think that it's a, it's, it's something that is the idea of self defense to me is a God given right that shouldn't be infringed.
- [24:58]
Clay Travis
Senator Paul, obviously everyone knows as well that you were on that baseball diamond when a bad guy had a gun who was trying to shoot you and other members of Congress did shoot Steve Scalise who had to fight for his life. So your thoughts on the Second Amendment? I mean there were fortunately, I believe it was actually a woman, a female member of Capitol Police. Right. But there were the proverbial good guys with guns there to handle the situation. But to your point about D.C. versus Virginia, you really can't go into the District with a gun. And so people who are law abiding are disarmed and people who want to harm others, like that maniacal shooter on that day, they enter into situations knowing that they're effectively dealing with what is either a gun free or a very limited gun zone.
- [25:46]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah. And I think when you look at crime, John Lott's written several books on this, but when you look at crime, most of the crime that is cut, that is committed with weapons is committed with weapons that are not legally bought. These are guns with the identification mark scratched off and they're sold it and traded hands in the black market. So of legally owned guns, very, very little crime is committed with that. Almost all of the crime in the US is with illegally traded guns. So making more gun laws and making More guns illegal doesn't necessarily affect the crime rate. What it does is it just affects those of us who are law abiding, who buy guns for self defense.
- [26:24]
Buck Sexton
We get asked about this all the time, the Save act, what's going to happen? What should happen? Is anything going to progress in any way there in terms of a resolution? We're talking with Senator Rand Paul of
- [26:38]
Senator Rand Paul
Kentucky, I'm a co sponsor of it. I think it should be a minimum to vote in our country that you have to present an id. Another problem we have besides the idea is also this idea of voting by mail in our state. We went ahead and got rid of voting by mail for the most part. 97% of Kentuckians vote in person. We still have about five Republican or battleground states that haven't done it. So while I'm for a national ID to be shown for voting in national elections, I think we should also have a push because we may not get enough votes to pass it in the Senate. We should also be pushing at the state level. So Utah, Arizona, Alaska, Iowa, West Virginia, all Republican leaning states maybe except for Arizona, still don't have sufficient voter ID laws. And they also mail ballots to everyone and keep mailing them and mailing them and mailing them and soliciting voters who normally don't have the energy to get off their couch. And so I think we need to keep addressing it national level. If we're not successful there, I think the next step is to go to the five remaining Republican or battleground states and let's change the laws in those states to have better voter ID laws.
- [27:49]
Buck Sexton
Tomorrow is tax day, a day that many of us hate. Uh, I've got some data here that I thought was interesting. IRS top 1% of income tax filers contribute about 40% of the overall revenue. Top 10% pay 72% of all the revenue. Top quarter 87.2%. Bottom half pays no federal income tax. Yet Democrats are going to be all up in arms and continue to be that tax rates need to be raised. You your thoughts?
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Senator Rand Paul
I was on the View one time and I don't recommend it, but I was on the View and I told the ladies that people under $50,000 don't pay any income tax. And they all started squawking and yelling at me back and forth and they wouldn't listen to it. But it is a fact, under 50,000 you don't pay income tax, particularly husband and wife and two kids. The standard deduction is 50,000. So you don't pay under 50,000. The income tax. When people say on the left, when Bernie and other people on the left say, oh, the rich are not paying their fair share, it's the opposite. The rich are not only paying their fair share, they're paying most of the income tax. You're exactly right. Top 1%, paying 40%, almost half of the income tax. Top 10%, 70%. So yes, the wealthy, we have a more progressive tax code in our country than they do in Sweden. So we have plenty of taxes. We have too much. But we also have a spending problem. So even with all the taxes we pay, we have this massive deficit. But what we do don't need is more revenue. I don't want more taxes. But we do need to cut spending and cut it dramatically.
- [29:29]
Buck Sexton
Senator Paul, Rand Paul.
- [29:30]
Clay Travis
Senator Rand Paul, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate you, sir.
- [29:34]
Senator Rand Paul
Thank you.
- [29:35]
Buck Sexton
Look, I want to tell you, business owners talking about taxes, business owners know the line item on the profit and loss statement in addition to taxes. That gets really frustrating. Oftentimes insurance, you've got to have it. It's the only thing you buy that you know you have to have that you hope you never use and you're thankful, but when you don't have to use it. But you also question, am I getting the best deal? Paying so much insurance across so many different properties, it's really frustrating. You got multiple insurance policies, multiple brokers, multiple applications and sometimes you don't know how it all is fitting together. Super sure changes that one broker for all your business insurance, backed by a team that works with you year round, not just at renewal. If you've ever stared at a policy wondering what it covers, super sure has a fine print fax tool that translates the legal jargon into plain English so you know what's covered and what's not. Go online to super sure.com get a full report on your current policies with no obligations. Find out if you're overinsured, underinsured or somewhere in between. Super sure.com one powerful platform. All of your policies in one place. What do you have to lose? Go check it out. Super Sure.com that's Super Sure.com paid for by Super Sure Insurance Agency, LLC, a licensed insurance agency. Miss the show While you're on the go, wind down your day with the Daily Review podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back in hour number three. Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show We I've got a bunch of different news stories that we are tracking for all of you Reports that there may be yet another round of discussions in Pakistan between Iran and the United States as we are talking with all of you. S&P 500 up substantially, only about 1/2 of a percent away about 38 points in the S&P 500 from an all time record high for stocks. The price of gas continuing to decline. As I am looking at it right now, crude oil futures down to $88 a barrel in real time, down about 5% today. The expectation of the blockade having a negative impact seems to have largely vanished. There are possible, like I just said, additional talks coming and that is the latest as it pertains to Iran. Buck, anything that you would add on the Iran news Again, stock market near record high price of oil and gas down substantially today. Now, to be fair, it's up about $20 ish from before the, before the war started in Iran. I think oil and gas prices 66, $67 a barrel ish. And they are at 88 right now, but down pretty substantially from the early days of the war. Reason why I mentioned markets in this respect is there seems to be a sense that things are calming down fairly substantially in the Gulf region. And, and if you're out there and you're thinking, okay, what does that mean for oil and gas prices? To me, Clay, they got up to about 120 bucks and now they're back down to 88. So they have fallen pretty precipitously from their peak during the course of, of this, of this war.
- [33:28]
Clay Travis
Yes. I think that we are seeing the Trump administration tallying what, Vic, the Iranians have in terms of leverage and weaknesses and what we have or what Trump has on his side bring to bear the full force and weight of the United States military and saying if you guys want to turn this into a version of medieval siege warfare, we can do that. And that just turns into who has more, who has better preparations, who has more stuff, who can outlast the other. Right. So that's where we are. I think it's, it's a bit of a waiting game with the pressures that are there. The things that could shake it up dramatically would be if we went in to take the uranium, that would be a big, that would be a big gamble. But that's something that may happen. Or if the Iranians decided, you know what, we're just going to blow up a tanker and see what happens. I don't see them doing that because it would cause such problems for them to. But when someone is cornered, you never know what they're willing to do. And if we really have our foot on the jugular of the malacracy, they may react in a way that is hard to. Hard to foresee and could be very drastic. So that's how I see it. I mean, J.D. vance is saying, do you see this here?
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Buck Sexton
This is cut 13.
- [34:51]
Clay Travis
He's talking about economic terrorism that Iran has engaged in. And he's like, we can play this game. Play 13.
- [34:57]
J.D. Vance
Here's the very interesting thing about all this, is that the only thing the Iranians have been able to do, they haven't, of course, beaten us militarily. They've had their military been decimated. They haven't been able to prosecute the case when it comes to weapons of war. What they have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. They basically threatened any ship that's moving through the Straits of Hormuz. Well, as the President of the United States showed, two can play at that game. And if the Iranians are going to try to engage in economic terrorism, we're going to abide by a simple principle that no Iranian ships are getting out either.
- [35:32]
Clay Travis
This is what I mean by who can wait this out more? Who can handle the pressure better? Now, I think that the thing that the Iranians have going for them or the regime has going forward is they view this as existential and they're used to a lot of suffering and inflicting a lot of suffering as well as taking it themselves. We have a democracy, we have a republic. I know, but we have democratic elections. And therefore we have to think about the political pressures. But economically and militarily, Clay, it's checkmate on Iran.
- [36:03]
Buck Sexton
It is. And for those of you out there, and I get it because I filled up my car over the weekend and price of oil and gas is up to around on average. I always like to have fun with this. On average, about $4 a gallon. And the overall price, price increases have effectively stopped. And again, I think you're going to start to see a dial back pretty significantly between now and Memorial Day when prices are likely to go up again. It's just me analyzing the larger marketplace because a lot more people go on the road, they switch out the, the type of oil and gas that is primarily sold. So if you're out there and you are using the price of oil and gas as a proxy for how the economy is going, then I think you're going to start to see those prices come back down based on what we are, what we are seeing in the larger marketplace. Okay, so Again, stock market near record highs, about 1/2 of a percent off all time highs. If you had just not paid attention at all the stock prices and not paid attention at all to what's going on with Iran and just done nothing at all different, you would be in a good shape. And in the. We will see what exactly ends up happening going forward. But definitely the trend lines are positive. I did want to play this, Buck. Do we know Producer Ali? Let me know. Is the audio good enough now to play of the accuser at the press conference? We played this earlier and some of you had a little bit of difficulty of hearing it. I don't know what happened. It was somewhat garbled. Let's see if that's true or not. This is cut 33. This is the accuser, Lana Drews, of Eric Swalwell. Pause for a sec before we play that. If you are just getting in your car. There is a new accuser of Eric Swalwell and she has gone public. She just had a press conference in Beverly Hills. She alleges that he drugged and raped her. This is a new allegation. Helps to explain why Eric Swalwell not only has dropped out of the governor's race, as we discussed yesterday with Steve Hilton, but also why he has decided to give up his congressional seat. Listen to that.
- [38:33]
Clay Travis
My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubtless fear of his political power, his background as an attorney and his family law enforcement ties.
- [38:49]
Buck Sexton
All right, so that was part of it. Here is a little bit longer version. This is her saying I was drugged and raped in his hotel room. Cut 32.
- [39:00]
Clay Travis
I had contact with Eric Swalwell on three separate occasions. After meeting him socially, he offered me connections to further my software company. And I also had an interest in local politics. He invited me to two public events. I knew he was married at the time and that his wife was pregnant. He was my friend. On the third occasion, I believe he drugged my drink. I only had one glass of wine. He we were supposed to go to a political event and he said he needed to get paperwork from his hotel room. When I arrived at his hotel room, I was already incapacitated and I couldn't move my arms or my body. He raped me and he choked me. And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness and I thought I died. I did not control consent to any sexual activity.
- [40:00]
Buck Sexton
Okay, Buck, now the fallout. Swalwell is done. He may well face criminal charges again. That is a new accuser, different than what the San Francisco Chronicle reported and different than what CNN had previously reported. There is a video that is circulating of Eric Swalwell, what appears to be making out with hooker. With a hooker. And in it looks like a hotel room of some sort. And Senator Ruben Gallego from Arizona, who is best buds with Eric Swalwell and just endorsed him as recently as a couple of weeks ago to be the next governor of California, now says that he had heard rumors, but he's been misled. There are people alleging that Swalwell is actually accompanied by Go in some of these videos, including the one that has now gone viral. Well, Go was asked about this and Greg, producer Greg pulled this. He says he was not in the same room. It's not, not, not, not an accusation you want to be responding to. Buck says he was not in the same room as Swalwell making out with hookers. This is cut 36.
- [41:15]
Senator Rand Paul
Was that you sitting next to him?
- [41:17]
Clay Travis
This example of the lies? No, I was not sitting next to him. I was not in the room. I was nowhere. I don't know where it happened.
- [41:24]
J.D. Vance
This is exactly.
- [41:24]
Clay Travis
I'm talking about Chris, Savita and a bunch of other right wing political operatives are pushing this narrative that somehow was in that room with Eric Swell. And that is an absolute lie.
- [41:36]
Buck Sexton
Okay, so, Buck, I think one of these conversations that is going to spread rapidly is a lot of people are now what we talked about before, that journalists are okay doing propaganda until it starts to humiliate them, until it starts to look bad for them to be the propagandist. In the same way that everybody turned on Joe Biden almost immediately and said, oh, well, you know, it turns out he was. No. After the debate. I do wonder whether there's a little bit of running for cover now starting to happen on Capitol Hill because as we've discussed, Swalwell's behavior was not a very well kept secret. And a lot of people were endorsing and encouraging others to support him. And now you're starting to see the heat get shifted from Swalwell to sort of the, you know, the, the downrange aspects of how did you allow this guy to stay in power and how did you protect him?
- [42:32]
Clay Travis
All the Democrats care about his power. The Democrat Party cares about one thing and one thing only, that is to be in power. There is no ethical constraint. There is no, nothing that they view as more important than that. And you see this from the fact that people were even comfortable effectively coming forward to say, oh, I've known that Swalwell has been doing bad things, not, not as bad as the recent stuff, necessarily, but that he was a. What's kind of lascivious.
- [43:03]
Buck Sexton
You're breaking out a lot of good vocabulary here today.
- [43:05]
Clay Travis
Thank you. You know that he was, what's, what's the word that people will use for, like an old man? A lecherous. There we go. That's another good one. That he was like a lecherous, gross member of Congress. They, they were fine to come out and say, yeah, we all knew this, but, you know, we needed him and he was really good on being. I'll notice something else about this. Notice how some of the people who are the most vocally anti Trump, Avenatti Swalwell, you see these people who are held up as heroes and there are other names that I'm sure you're shouting out right now, held up as heroes for their anti Trumpness. And then it comes out that they're degenerate scumbags and in no position to be calling out anybody for the, the behavior that they are so offended by. Democrats are perfectly fine with this. They're fine with elevating. Oh, Anthony Weiner, by the way, huge attack dog for the Democrats against any Republican. That was his job to go on MSNBC and be kind of smug and snarky and, and attack, attack, attack. Could you imagine this guy? You're sending photos of your, of your genitalia to strangers on the Internet and you think you should be lecturing Republicans
- [44:14]
Buck Sexton
on how bad they are on tv.
- [44:16]
Clay Travis
But sure enough, you see this over and over again with these Democrats.
- [44:19]
Buck Sexton
They get. Absolutely.
- [44:20]
Clay Travis
But by the way, Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, the whole thing. These people are attacking Republicans all the time. You're Hunter Biden. You think you're in a position to attack anyone for anything, or Joe Biden, for that matter.
- [44:32]
Buck Sexton
I agree. Swalwell was one of the foremost accusers on the Epstein files.
- [44:38]
Sarah Isger
Like,
- [44:40]
Buck Sexton
yeah, but I mean, if you were engaged in behavior like, of like this as, as he has been alleged to be involved in, are you going to be the guy running around saying, can you believe Jeffrey Epstein was trading on relationships and being involved with lots of women? And I just. It is to your point, Buck, either he is a, he's got a mental illness of a incredibly high level, or in his mind, he was, he had convinced himself that all of these acts were consensual and he was just a paragon of virtue, at least in his relationships with women, even though obviously he's married and he's got multiple kids. And I just, this story is is really kind of staggering. I don't know that we've ever seen a political collapse happen this quickly. And again, we've talked about it. Democrats, to me, at some point basically ordered the code red on this guy and he ran for president. Nobody came after him.
- [45:47]
Clay Travis
Right.
- [45:47]
Buck Sexton
I mean, usually when you run for president, if there's dirty laundry. Now, maybe he was just such a far down the list of presidential candidates that nobody took him seriously. And maybe it's just that he was now the favorite in California. And that explains the code red suddenly happening. Guy's been in Congress for a long time to suddenly have all of this happen.
- [46:07]
Clay Travis
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- [47:19]
Buck Sexton
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- [47:22]
Clay Travis
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Buck Sexton
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- [47:37]
Clay Travis
Welcome back in here to Clay and Buck. We're joined by Sarah Isger, host of the advisory opinions podcast, editor of SCOTUS blog. Clay's excited, author of the new book Last Branch Standing, A potentially surprising, occasionally witty journey inside today's Supreme Court. She is in our New York studio. Sarah, great to have you on the program.
- [48:01]
Sarah Isger
Thanks for having me here, guys.
- [48:04]
Clay Travis
Um, let's just get to if I could this court, what is so interesting about it to you right now? Why'd you write the book? Tell us some things about the Supreme Court. You write for SCOTUS blog. That's where everyone goes to get their crib notes about what's happening.
- [48:19]
Sarah Isger
That's exactly right. We do live blogs for the oral arguments, for the opinion handdowns. And I wrote the book because basically every narrative we have about the Supreme Court is wrong. They this idea that it's a 6, 3 partisan court, the idea that the court is, you know, the one that's left to decide all of our most important issues. I mean, let's just start with that one for a second. We are at the end of a hundred year failed experiment from the progressive era where like, let's not have Congress do anything because those, you know, dumb, dumb representatives and the voters who put them there can't be trusted. We should instead have experts decide everything. Fast forward. Congress doesn't legislate anymore. The president is doing everything by executive power, regardless of which party they belong to. And so the Supreme Court is forced to play this role, you know, deciding what Congress meant by some old statute that the president cites. And instead of the headline saying, you know, Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariffs or Supreme Court strikes down Biden's Student Loan debt forgiveness, the correct headline should say, supreme Court says only Congress can do worldwide tariffs. Supreme Court says Only Congress can do Student Loan Debt forgiveness. But we're letting Congress off the hook and we're blaming the court.
- [49:38]
Buck Sexton
Sarah, I got a bunch. I love this. The Supreme Court, behind the scenes, everything else. Let me start with this one because I actually read the New York Times is now covering it, but the poly market says right now that Justice Alito is favored to step down this year, which would mean that we would have a Supreme Court vacancy sometimes sometime after this term ends in June. Do you buy it? Do you think it is likely, do you think that President Trump will get an appointment? How would you read the tea leaves behind the scenes right now?
- [50:15]
Sarah Isger
So, I mean, it's, it's basically 50, 50 at this point. The big thing that we have to go on is one, Supreme Court justices tend to retire July 2, right before a midterm election if they're sort of of that age. On the other hand, Samuel Alito is actually relatively young for a Supreme Court justice who's considering retiring. He's got a book coming out in October. You know, books sell better if you're an active Supreme Court justice. So I don't know. I can argue it either way. What's fun is to look at who Trump would potentially appoint and whether they might be trying behind the scenes to make sure Justice Alito knows that if he retires, they will appoint, for instance, one of his former clerks, like 5th Circuit Judge Andy Oldham to take his spot. So, you know, don't worry, your honor, if you leave, your legacy will continue because we're going to pick someone from your clerk family. And, and in fact, three of the current justices are replaced their bosses. The chief replaced the old chief, Justice Kavanaugh replaced Justice Kennedy, and Justice Jackson replaced justice Breyer. So that would be kind of in line with what we've seen recently.
- [51:22]
Buck Sexton
Okay, drama. You were talking about the Supreme Court relationships. Does it buy, do you buy into the fact that Katanji Brown Jackson is the least liked justice by her colleagues on the Supreme Court right now? And the reason why I would ask is you've seen Kagan really kind of take aim at her and Amy Coney Barrett, that's on the left. Amy Coney Barrett is, seems very, very nice. She seems like a mom in a pickup line very much of the time. And she has, I don't know, 15 kids or whatever the heck she has. So she's used to putting up with frustrations, I would imagine as a mom. She just took a two by four to Katanji Brown Jackson recently in her opinions. What's going on there? What do you think about the interpersonal dynamics?
- [52:10]
Sarah Isger
Yeah, I have little mini biographies of each of the justices in the book, what they like to binge watch, what shows they're into right now, Justice Kagan's poker game. And, you know, a way to think about the justices, there's no question is ideology. Right. Some justices are conservative, some are liberal. They're doing sort of different projects along that, you know, spectrum. But it doesn't really help you understand why, for instance, Justice Kavanaugh was more likely to agree with every other justice on the court except Jackson other than Justice Gorsuch. Right. They're the same amount of conservatives. So why are they only together 50% of the time last term? And the answer, and don't worry, I'm getting to the Justice Jackson part is there's this other, you know, spectrum to think about the justices on. I like to think of it as institutionalism. And you know, Justice Gorsuch is like, it's just me. All I do is tell you what I think of the case. That's my only job here. He writes a lot of concurrences because of that, like, ah, here's my take. Justice Kavanaugh thinks of this as more of a middle school group project. We're all in this together. We speak with a single voice when possible. It's not about me. Justice Jackson and Justice Gorsuch are very similar in terms of being low institutionalists who see that, like, this is about what they think about the case. They don't have to think that much about what previous courts thought about precedent, for instance. So when Justice Jackson joins the court, she does a lot of things that are unusual. Like, I forget exactly how many years it took for the Chief justice, for instance, to write a solo dissent. About a decade. She wrote three her first year on the court. She's just not like a dues paying type of girl. And, yeah, I think that can rub your colleagues the wrong way. But there's only nine of them. They take collegiality very seriously. As Justice Barrett has said, it's kind of like an arranged marriage for life. And so I, you know, she talks. Justice Jackson talks the most adorable argument. She's writing these solo dissents. She's, you know, in these 8:1 cases, like in the conversion therapy case, you know, Kagan and Sotomayor are with the conservatives. Nope. Jackson's off on her own. Yeah, I think that can tweak people.
- [54:28]
Clay Travis
Speaking to Sarah. Sarah Isger. And she has a book out, which you should all check out. Last Branch Standing, a potentially surprising, occasionally witty journey into just last branch standing. Go find that on Amazon. Go buy it. You can get the rest of the title when you buy the book. So I'm glad you and Clay are having fun with all the legal nerd stuff. Nerding it out on the legal stuff. Clay wants to talk to you about previous Supreme Courts. You guys can do a whole podcast on that. I have to ask you something, which is, I heard you were on the View today. What was that like? And what is the similarity between explaining the Supreme Court and being on the View to explaining the Supreme Court to a kindergarten class?
- [55:07]
Sarah Isger
So I will just tell you guys, I was so nervous about it. I've never been on the View before. Um, obviously, you know, I worked in the first Trump administration. I worked in, you know, on a gazillion Republican campaigns during my career. And I was just like, oh, this could go really, really poorly. But I have to say, I actually had a great time because I like introducing people to the Supreme Court. And the audience was, like, nodding along and they were like, oh, yeah, Congress isn't doing its job. It's like the one thing that unites Americans is that nobody like approves of Congress. They have like a 9% approval rating and I am dying to meet one of those 9%. If you know any, send them my way. So it's fun to explain to people that like, hey, you're being told this lie about the Supreme Court. Let me explain to you why that's not true and like who you should blame. And we all have control over that because Congress is the most representative branch. We get to vote on these guys every two years. So if they're not doing their job, blame them, vote them out. The Supreme Court is supposed to be counter majoritarian. They're supposed to be a lagging indicator of our politics. They're actually doing their job.
- [56:17]
Buck Sexton
Okay, so we mentioned what the possibility might be going forward in terms of. Is Alito going to step down? Katanji, Brown, Jackson. We have a massive number, I would say, of significant cases still to be resolved between now and the end of the year. Birthright citizenship, the Voting Rights act in particular, gerrymandering, whether it is allowed on a racial basis. What do you think in terms of super significant decisions that we will see? Will anything upset the proverbial apple cart in terms of between now and when the final opinions are released near the
- [56:54]
Sarah Isger
end of June, there's no question that that Voting Rights act case that you're talking about just has loomed over this whole term. You know, you know, we've had tariffs and we've had birthright citizenship. But for the justices themselves, the Voting Rights act has kind of plagued them for years at this point. They keep having these cases come back. In this case, it's sort of. Funny isn't the right word. It's not like haha funny. But Louisiana draws their district and they get sued because they only have one majority minority district. So they're like, fine. So they draw a second majority minority district. Then they get sued by white voters who are like you racially gerrymandered that second district. And Louisiana's like, so what are we supposed to do? Have have one or have two? Because we get sued and we get found liable either way. So that's what the Supreme Court is having to decide. I personally am into sort of the, some of the other statutory cases, if you will. So can Mississippi receive ballots five days after election day or did Congress say no to that because they said there's an election day as they send the oral argument? Do you have to consummate the election on election day? That was. People giggled in the courtroom, if you're
- [58:06]
Buck Sexton
curious, that is very much of a nerdy law joke that I would imagine would be very appealing to your average lawyer.
- [58:14]
Sarah Isger
Consummate. There's this other case about the remain in Mexico policy and the question of whether Congress allows the administration to prevent someone from getting to the southern border to ask for asylum. But to put this in bigger context, all the court is being asked to do in those cases is to say what Congress said in their statute. So what's supposed to happen in our system, if it were functioning correctly, based on the Constitution, after the Supreme Court says one way or the other, it shouldn't actually matter because Congress the next day could amend their laws to fix it to whichever way they wanted it to say or what the people wanted it to be. But none of us believe that Congress will actually do that. So the Supreme Court becomes the last word. Then we blame the Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court becomes really important. It becomes the focus of our politics, but it's not responsive to us. It's supposed to be against these majorities and as I said, like, a lagging indicator of our politics. And so we've really got to put that pressure back on Congress and stop saying like, well, the Supreme Court said so toss our hands up. Nothing we can do. Like, no, no, no, we. Whether Mississippi can accept ballots is not a constitutional question. It's just up to Congress. That's it.
- [59:28]
Clay Travis
All right, go get the book. Last branch standing. Sarah, great to have you on the program. Thanks for being here with us.
- [59:36]
Sarah Isger
Thank you guys for having me. Really appreciate it.
- [59:39]
Clay Travis
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- [60:54]
Buck Sexton
playing Buck on the Iheart Apple.