← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:00]
Clay Travis
This is an iHeart podcast. Welcome in Thursday edition. Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. Buck is out traveling with his family on a summer vacation. He will be back on Monday with me. I've got you today and tomorrow solo. We have an absolutely locked and loaded program. Senator Marsha Blackburn has announced that she is going to be running for GO governor of Tennessee. She will be on with us at the bottom of this hour. In the second hour, big battle in North Carolina coming to replace Thom Tillis. Michael Watley, who ran the RNC, did a great job in 2024, North Carolina native. He is going to be the Republican nominee to run against former Governor Roy Cooper of the state of North Carolina. This is going to be an epic battle. Next year. We will talk about with Michael Whatley, who hopefully will be the next senator from North Carolina. And then at 10:32:30, we will speak with Tim Scott, who is the current senator from South Carolina, about all of the ongoing shenanigans in Washington, D.C. and beyond. So there is the roadmap of where we are going. Bottom of the hour, we've got a bunch of guests, two senators and one who hopes to be a senator as well as one who hopes to be a governor. All of that coming your direction. Now, within that construct, we have got a lot of stuff going on right now that I want to dive into. I think in an incredibly consequential manner, Trump has demanded that we have a new census. I'm going to explain why that could be so incredibly consequential, not only right now because there were a lot of errors in the 2020 census and he believes they need to be rectified and but also because in 2030 there are going to be seismic differences in the overall census tallies. And I think this is a battle that you should be paying a lot of attention to because it could be incredibly important not only for the midterms, but also in the 2028 presidential race and beyond that, in the 2030 interplay as it pertains to the census. But I wanted to start with what I would say is a genuine acknowledgment that our cities have become too violent and it's time to actually put bad guys behind jail, behind bars, in jail. And we are getting these questions and these viral stories from all over the country. But I wanted to start with one that we talked with Bernie Marino about a violent attack on an innocent woman, Holly, who Bernie Marino came on with us last week and talked all about it. She has now had a public appearance. Many of you saw her awfully brutal, bruised and battered face. And she now has spoken out about what happened to her. She appeared with our friend, Senator Bernie Marino of Ohio. Cut 11. This is what it sounded like.
- [03:16]
Holly
We need more police officers. But like he said, you know, the judges who are just letting people out with us. The man who attacked me and might have permanently damaged me forever should never have been on the streets, ever. And the fact that he had just gotten out of jail previously for something, he should have been in there for years. It's really sad to me because I can't even fathom how many other people who have been attacked by the same type of man over and over and over. In Toledo, in Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton. Our streets are being taken over and nobody is doing anything. I am so sad. And I need to be the voice to help all of the victims that never got their justice.
- [04:06]
Clay Travis
Well said. Well said by her. Again, if you heard Bernie Marino tell her story. She is a mom of a young special needs child. She went out on a date in Cincinnati and she got knocked out. She got in an Uber after she got knocked out. Think about that for a minute. An innocent mom could have been any mom in America out for a night out in a big city, Cincinnati. She got slug knocked out on video. Police came, they didn't do anything, and she got in an Uber and drove home. I. How does this happen? And I know that a lot of you out there are cops and you're listening to me all over the country and you are just nodding your head because you're saying, we arrest these bad guys. This guy got out for a $400 bail, arrested all the time. It's the same dudes. Almost always dudes, same bad guys. Time after time after time. What in the world is going on here? And I think they're finally, we're at a tipping point. And we finally got a president and we got enough senators and governors who are standing up and saying, no, we're not going to let this happen. Yesterday I was talking with you about, look, I love Washington, D.C. i went to college there. I'm a history nerd. It is a beautiful city. There's way too much crime there. And what you hear people say is, oh, crime's coming down. Yeah. From all time highs. How about we actually address the fact that any significant rate of violent crime is unacceptable in this country? How about we have a real conversation about that? And I give credit to Jeanine Pirro. I'm going to play some of These audio clips New D.C. attorney formerly at Fox News. And I give credit to President Trump for raising this as an issue. Here is Judge Jeanine Pirro. Cut to saying, hey, I'm in charge now and this is not going to be acceptable.
- [06:21]
Judge Jeanine Pirro
Violence against anyone in this district will not be tolerated, especially violence which has hate at its core and is the genesis of violence. The president put me here to do a job, to clean up the district, to make sure that crime doesn't overshadow this phenomenal city, our nation's capital. And I have, throughout my career, fought antisemitism for 32 years. As a prosecutor and a judge, I do. So I fight hate crimes with a vengeance. So don't even think about targeting people in this district because of who they are or because of where they're from. I promise you justice will be swift and it will be certain.
- [07:07]
Clay Travis
I love her. Let's get Ali. Let's get a request in for Judge Pirro. I think we've had her on the program in the past, and certainly we overlap quite a lot at Fox News. So I know her from the green room at Fox News, and I think it's important. Okay. You might be sitting around out there and you might be saying, hey, okay, what's the counterargument to this? Trump said, in fact, cut three. Hey, maybe we just need to take over the D.C. police force and actually make something happen here. Here's cut 3.
- [07:39]
Holly
Federalizing D.C. are you considering taking over the D.C. police?
- [07:43]
Donald Trump
Is that an option on the.
- [07:45]
We're considering it, yeah. Because the crime is. Is ridiculous. I could show you a chart comparing D.C. to other locations, and you're not going to want to see what it looks like. It was just up on television, actually, they were showing it. Now we want to have a great, safe capital, and we're going to have it. And that includes cleanliness and includes other things. We have a capital that's very unsafe.
- [08:08]
Holly
You want Congress to look at overturning the D.C. home Rule Act?
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Donald Trump
We're going to look at that. In fact, they are. The lawyers are already studying it. We have to run DC this has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country.
- [08:24]
Clay Travis
I mean, he's right on all of this. And I give him credit for coming in and trying to solve this problem instead of just kind of hiding behind the security detail, as many presidents have done in the past. They don't actually solve issues when it comes to violence. And what the president's referring to is, I ran through this yesterday, I think maybe it was the day before yesterday. We have one of the highest violent crime rates of any capital city in the world. Most people, and I ran through countries, I mean, Ethiopia, Adisi Baba, which I'm probably mispronouncing, has a lower rate of violent crime in its capital city than the United States does. Why does that happen? Most people, most countries, consider their capital to be a jewel that should represent the best of their country and not be a place that is filled with violent crime. And so the rest of the country may not be as safe, and that's unfortunate. But they say, hey, this, the capital city is going to be safe. We're going to put the resources in to ensure that this isn't happening. And I give a lot of credit to Trump and Judge Jeanine Pirro for shining a light on this. And what's the counter argument? This is really funny to me because Trump is basically saying, hey, rates of violent crime are way too high. And I want to do whatever it takes to get those rates of violent crime down. D.C. is far higher than a city like New York City, for instance, when it comes to rates of violent crime, New York City is far safer than Washington, D.C. what's the response? Okay, it seems like a good thing, something that you could be in favor of no matter what your politics are. Well, Jessica Tarlov, who's also at Fox News, in fact used to sit next to Judge Jeanine Pirro on the Five, a show that many of you would watch on a regular basis. She says, actually, crimes down. What are we worried about in D.C. here's cut four.
- [10:24]
Donald Trump
What are Democrats thinking when it comes to the nationalization of D.C. they're thinking hard. No.
- [10:30]
Clay Travis
Why not?
- [10:31]
Donald Trump
Because there's no reason to have Donald Trump be in charge of Trump. Or is it about crime? Well, it actually is about crime. And the good news is is that crime is down dramatically.
- [10:41]
Clay Travis
So.
- [10:41]
Donald Trump
So year over year. 2024 had a violent climb drop to a 30 year low, 35% down. And carjackings cut in half. Robberies down 24%. Homicides down 17%. Assaults with a dangerous weapon down 14%. Just because big Balls did a terrible job at Doge does not mean that he deserved this. Any incident is terrible, but we have.
- [11:03]
Clay Travis
To follow to Jack. Okay, so how do you argue against this? How do you argue against a very basic fact that should be supported by everyone? We need violent crime rates way down. Moms all over this country need to be able to go out to dinner in a city without worrying that they're going to get knocked flat out on the street by a mob of violent thugs that accost them. I have said for a long time that one of the ways to know whether your neighborhood is safe or not is are you okay with your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter, going for a jog around 6 o', clock, p.m. in the afternoon, evening in your neighborhood? Far too many American cities and neighborhoods, the answer is no. And I know there's a ton of you listening to me right now, that if you see your wife get in your tennis shoes, you're like, hey, I hope you're going to the gym because it's a little bit late, might start to get dark. I don't feel comfortable with you out on the streets. You got a daughter, you got a granddaughter trying to stay in shape. How many different parts of America do we not feel comfortable with women going for jogs or walks or workouts in the neighborhood? Because we've just come to accept that violent crime is a real threat. And we don't even want the women in our lives to be out. Now, some men probably like me, you don't worry about it that much, but every woman thinks about it all the time. And that mom Holly in Cincinnati getting knocked out. I'm sorry, it's unacceptable. And what's further unacceptable is when we point out this violence. Young intern gets killed randomly in the streets of Washington, D.C. and people say, okay, well, but you know, in real life, the rate of violent crime is actually declining. Okay, let's decline it faster. That's what Trump's saying. And I think Trump deserves credit, by the way, for the rates of violent crime beginning to decline in 2025 fairly significantly. Because I think a lot of you out there nodding right now, police officers, you can finally do your jobs again. You can put some bad guys behind bars. But here in my home state, Memphis, I talked about this the other day. I was out in March. I'll tell you this story a little bit more when we come back, but because we're going to talk with Senator Blackburn who wants to run for governor. I took my son. He had a sporting event in Memphis. I know a lot of y' all are listening in Memphis right now. I forgot my charger. And it was March was the night Tennessee and Kentucky played a basketball game. Needed to charge my phone. And I went downstairs, maybe they had a charger there. And I said, well, I'll just go to the grocery store. And the lady at the counter said, hey, be careful. It's 8:30 at night. It's not like it was 2:30 in the morning. She said to me, be careful. If you're going out to buy a charger after dark, what are we talking about? That going to a grocery store or a convenience store or a gas station after dark in a city like Memphis at 8 o'. Clock. We're not talking about 3am that the front desk ladies are like, hey, be careful. Buck talked about this. He went to St. Louis. He was like, hey, is there anywhere to walk to go get something to eat? They're like, well you, you can't walk anywhere. What are we talking about? This is just considered to be a normal part of discourse. This is something that is significant. Let's let cops do the job. Let's put bad guys behind bars. Let's make everyone, women in particular, safe in every big city in America. That seems like a very reasonable goal. Uh, and I think it's an important conversation that we need to be having. Uh, speaking of being safe, right now the IFCJ is doing a lot of work to try to make people in Israel safe because there are missiles that might come flying in at any moment. I saw it for myself on my trip to Israel with a couple of the crew on this show. You never know when you're going to get an alert on your phone. You're going to have to run to a bomb shelter. And when that happens, you want to make sure that you're close to one and that you're safe. And that's what the IFCJ does. You can go online, check out the work they do. It's phenomenal@ifcj.org that's ifcj.org you can also give them a call. Find out how you can help everyone be safe from missile attack in Israel. 888488 IFCJ. That's 888488 IFCJ. Check them out online at IFCJ.org Making.
- [15:49]
Buck Sexton
America Great Again isn't just one man, it's many. The Team 47 podcast Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:03]
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- [17:03]
Clay Travis
Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. We just got through talking with Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Michael Whatley will be with us at the bottom of the hour. He is going to be running for Senate in North Carolina to try to replace Thom Tillis. Senator Tim Scott will be with us in the third hour. It's just me, you and all of us having a good time here on the rest of today and tomorrow as we are rolling through so many different stories that are out there. And we went to break first hour. We talked about the out of control violence and how President Trump is trying to get Washington D.C. back to some form of safety. And I mentioned looking at capital cities as a proxy for the excellence of a nation at large. If you're a history nerd like I am, Washington D.C. was a planned capital city. And one of the things that's really amazing when you walk around Washington D.C. is they designed so many of these massive roads. And when they designed it, there was almost nothing there. And if you read the history of say Washington D.C. from the 18th, from the 19th century and the even the early parts of the the 1900s, people would talk about how the city was designed for a country to be the greatest in the history of the world. But it wasn't there yet. And so as a result, it was just these massive, massive roads, planned city with almost nothing on either side. And I always love if you study history, the metaphor of the Capitol dome. During the Civil War, Lincoln insisted that the construction of the Capitol dome continued. And if you look at old photos in the 1860s of Washington D.C. you can see them working on that majestic Capitol dome. And it was very expensive and it required a great deal of steel. And some people criticized Lincoln, but his explanation was the nation is still being built and preserved. I'm not going to stop work on the nation's capital because this is an important symbol of what this nation represents and eventually of the nation coming together and Healing anew. And it's such a profound idea. And I give credit. I don't know how many of you saw this. Senator, sorry, Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseth. They just announced that they're going to bring back a reconciliation monument at Arlington Cemetery that was created by a Confederate veteran. And the idea is to bring the nation together again and sort of bind the wounds of the nation. And I think one of the greatest speeches ever given in the history of the United States was Lincoln's second inaugural address and the nation as a whole being brought together, even with his killing in Ford's Theater. If you visit D.C. today, you'll come across the bridge that connects Virginia and Washington, D.C. and a lot of people don't talk about it now, but at the time that bridge was created, it was seen as a symbolic union of north and south, in particular Robert E. Lee's Arlington, which is on the bluff overlooking the Potomac river in Washington, D.C. you can stand on the porch at Arlington or on the steps on the backside of the Lincoln Memorial and see those two places. So you have the leader of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee, looking directly at Lincoln's memorial and the Lincoln Memorial reflecting in some way Arlington as well. And that union of the bridge bringing the two sides of the country back together again was seen at the time that it was made as a profoundly symbolic statement. And I think President Trump gets symbol, and he understands that things are more important than maybe what they appear to be. And that is what symbol is. Right? And so people get mad when he says, well, I want Alcatraz to exist as a prison. He sees that as a symbol for a message that he wants to have out there. Alligator, Alcatraz, he grips the public imagination. And I think what President Trump sees with Washington, D.C. is, we can't say that we are a fabulous, undisputed champion of the global economy and world. If kids are getting mowed down in the Streets of Washington, D.C. every day, our capital city needs to be a jewel. It needs to be the best of what America can represent, particularly Washington, D.C. which I said historically has existed for that reason throughout time. They took that location as opposed to Philadelphia, which had been a capital, as opposed to New York City, to create something new as a symbol for a country that was going to be a global beacon of freedom and opportunity. And how can you allow violent crime to take it over and not see that as a direct attack upon American exceptionalism itself? And think about this. I mentioned this earlier and before, but capital homicide rates, this is most Recent homicide rates 41 per 100,000. Washington, D.C. that's a huge number. 41 per 100,000. Listen to some of these other capital cities. These other countries don't stand for that, I think, because their leaders understand the symbolic importance of having a safe and secure and vibrant and objectively beautiful capital city. Lima, Peru. I don't think most of you out there say, you know, what country. Let me just give you a bunch of these different countries. Lima, Peru. Havana, Cuba. Nairobi, Kenya. I think. Am I right about that? By the way? This is going to expose my own lack of geographical knowledge. Brasilia, Brazil. I believe Brasilia, Brazil is also a planned capital. Lagos, Nigeria. Bogota, Colombia. I think I'm going to pass the test here. Mexico City, Mexico. Addis Ababi Ababa, Ethiopia. Okay, those are other big capital cities. D.C. 41 murders per 100,000. Lima, Peru. 7 per 100,000. Havana, Cuba. 4 per 100,000. Nairobi, Kenya. 5 per 100,000. Brasilia. People talk about how violent, dangerous Brazil is all the time. Brasilia, 13 per 100,000. Lagos, Nigeria. 15 per 100,000. Bogota, Colombia. 11 per 100,000. Mexico City, 8 per 100,000. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 6 per 100,000. It should be a dark stain on America that our capital city of Washington D.C. has five times the murder rate of Mexico's capital city. What are we doing? That's a national embarrassment. Ethiopia, Colombia, Nigeria, Brazil, Kenya, Cuba, Peru, all of them infinitely safer in their capital cities then you and me and everybody is going around in Washington D.C. that is a national embarrassment. Now we just finished the hour. We had an emailer who said, hey, maybe we have to go after parents for some of this violent crime. And I said, I'm a little bit. I accept it on some level, but I don't accept it on another level because I think what you would see is that many of the kids that are engaging in violent behavior are actually not living at home. Grandma and grandpa might be raising them. Aunts, uncles, foster parents. I think really when you look at violent crime, what you see almost overwhelmingly is the absence of father figures in the household. This is really the root cause. If you have a dad and a mom in your house, the odds of you engaging in violent behavior plummet by a massive amount. Most kids still have moms, dads are failing. So my concern here is you got a 16 year old who takes a gun out and shoots somebody and then you decide to prosecute mom who is the only one that was trying to raise that kid, and dad who hasn't shown up for 16 years, may not even be on the birth certificate. He doesn't have any consequences at all. Well, it's him that made it happen. So my concern when Bo writes in, and I think it's an interesting comment, is that what would end up happening is the moms and the grandmas and the aunts and all the women who are very often doing their darndest to try to raise that kid who's got an absent dad and may have an absent grandpa, too. Because a lot of what you find out is when Dad's not there, it's often the case that grandpa wasn't there. And unfortunately, that great grandpa wasn't there either, because it's hard to break that cycle. And some of you out there listening know what I'm talking about, because you're trying to break the cycle. You're the dad that's present. You know what it was like to not have a dad better than anybody. So my concern is when you say, well, let's prosecute the parents. You got poor mom who's working three jobs and doing her darndest to take care of a kid that dad had no interest in. And dad doesn't have any culpability at all, even though he's actually the cause. So I think if you go back up the chain of causation, oftentimes gun violence and violent teenagers actually started when dad didn't show up at the birth, at the hospital. And dad hasn't been around for 16 years or 17 years to that point. In many ways, these are young men who have not been raised to be men, and they are angry at the world, and they take out their anger on the world, and all that anger starts because Dad's not home. So when I think through holding mom accountable, Mom's doing her best to raise that kid by herself, and she's got three jobs. And the kid, as a result, doesn't have somebody at home whipping him into shape like a dad hopefully would. And he falls in with the wrong guys in the neighborhood, and next thing you know, he's dealing drugs or he's trying to carjack, and Mom's out there trying to do her best. And then you come home and you charge her with a crime, and then she may have two younger kids that she's also trying to raise. And how does that benefit society? So that's when I work through it. I like to go to what caused the problem, not to just what's connected to the problem. And to me, what caused the problem is Dad's not There. And I think the number. This is my big, you know, get on a preacher box argument. I think the number one issue that unites much of what is going on in the country today of a negative level is dad's not there. I think it connects on everything. Families not having enough money to feed the kids, dad's not there. Families that are dealing with incredible violence, dad's not there. If you go to the link, this is my personal opinion. If I could change one thing, every kid that's born has a dad at home. I think our national rates of violence would drop by 90%. I think poverty would drop by 90%. I think if dad is home, the overall collapse of much of what we see going wrong in American society, it doesn't exist. So my concern responding to Beau is you're actually going to hold accountable the mom, the grandma, the aunt, the foster family that's trying to take it, to take this responsibility of dad that he didn't fulfill. And then they get blamed because everything doesn't go perfect. That's my concern. And that's why I get a little bit nervous about holding parents responsible criminally because so many people are doing everything they can to, to help to try to fill the void that is there because dad's not home. That's it, right? You go look at rates of crime, it collapses in every household where dad is there raising a son. And by the way, it's almost all boys. And the data actually reflects, meaning committing the crimes. The data actually reflects that young girls have far less negative consequences from an absent male figure in a household than young boys do. Moms do their best. They can't be dad and mom. I think young girls see mom and that's an aspirational figure for them. And it's still better for young girls if dad is home. But what the data shows is boys outcomes collapse when dad's not home. That's the reality. That's a tough conversation. That's a real conversation that we should be having. But too many people are afraid to talk about it. Look, years ago, new legislation created opportunity for 401ks and IRAs. These retirement accounts shift the responsibility from employers saving money to you meant to empower you to control your own financial future. And look, gold has been a part of everybody's portfolio basically throughout all of time. Gold has been a method to buy and sell so many different objects throughout time. Gold is at record highs because it's seen as a hedge against inflation. Have you thought about including gold in your own Portfolios in your 401ks in your savings. Maybe you're nervous about the devaluation of the overall American currency because inflation's been so high because the Fed's printing so much money. 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- [33:46]
Buck Sexton
Stories of freedom. Stories of America. Inspirational stories that unite us all. Each day, spend time with Clay and Buck. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [34:00]
Clay Travis
Right before the show started, to thank you for taking us over a hundred thousand subscribers on the Clay and Buck YouTube channel, I did a book review segment that is only going to be up on YouTube and I'll give you a little bit of a preview of that. So many of you are interested in good American history, good books to read. So I gave two book reviews and I'm just going to mention them here. You guys know I love reading about a history, American history. In particular. I am reading the Fate of the Day, which is volume two of the American Revolution trilogy. I'm holding it up just so you can see the COVID It's incredible. I'm about halfway through it. Uh, if you want to hear me talk about it more, you can go to the YouTube channel. That video will be up. Gonna try to do fun things there that are not airing on the radio program. I also told you, hey, if you're a mystery thriller kind of person, which I am, I usually have a nonfiction book going at the same time as a fiction book and I read whichever I'm in the mood for. I've mentioned this on the show before, but I just finished Mick Herron, who is a London based thriller spy espionage writer. Eight of them. The Slow Horses television version. Maybe some of you have seen this on Apple tv. I am told it is really good. I have never watched it, but I can tell you these books are great. There are eight of them. I love mysteries, thrillers. I grew up reading initially the Hardy Boys, and then it led into Sue Grafton and Robert Parker and James Lee Burke. And so anyway, if you are a, a thriller reader, Patricia Cornwell, you, you name. You guys know all of these Alex Cross series, all of these. You know, I gave you good reviews for those. And we're gonna do some fun things on YouTube so you will be able, uh, to dive in there. Uh, okay. We got people who want to react. And for those of you who want to get your popcorn out, I. We led into a discussion about how almost all issues in America today, in my opinion, if you had to go to one root cause, absent fathers, white, black, Asian, Hispanic. Absent fathers, I think, lead to violent crime. And this actually wasn't planned, but it came out of a email that Bo, one of our VIP readers, wrote in saying, hey, if we really want to go after violent crime rates, let's prosecute parents more often. And I said, my concern there is that actually dads are absent and you would end up going after mom or grandma or maybe even grandpa who were trying to fill in for the absent dad. And the person who's the most responsible for everything that is going on will not be held accountable. And so that was my concern. And let me hit you with this because I mentioned that I was going to discuss it earlier. Right before I take your calls. President Trump has demanded that there be a new census done. Uh, and I've talked about this a lot on the program. Maybe we'll dive into this a bit more tomorrow. Uh, but basically red states would be on tap to add 10 house seats if the census had been done correctly. Um, and Republicans would add 10, Democrats would lose 10, Florida would add four seats. Texas would add four seats. California would lose three. New York would lose two overall. And that's going to play in big in the Electoral College by the time we get to 2032. But they screwed up 2020, so they really should redo the census. And that is what President Trump has called for. And we will dive into some of that tomorrow. But again, go subscribe to the YouTube. You can check out all original content that is going up there. VIP email from Eric Black dad out there. Let me start with this. I was fortunate to have my dad in the home as a kid, and my kids have the same good fortune. You are spot on about lbg, LBJ and the Great Society. The government dictates on the programs essentially force dads out in order to access the so called benefits. Never have a people paid such a high price for a block of cheese. Larry Elder, Deroy Murdoch and Jason Riley have written and spoken extensively on this subject. They challenge the black people out there who've been brainwashed by the liberal culture to wake up, grow up and man up. It's a good email from Eric and I appreciate it. I'm glad he's being a good dad. Look, it's easy to try to racialize this and I try to avoid doing that. I got an email and I'll read the email. I'm not gonna tell you who wrote it, cause I'm not gonna put him on. Not gonna put him on blast. But he said, he said, why are you not talking about the fact that this is a huge problem for, for black men and nobody will talk about it for black men and black families? And you're being a coward because you're not focusing enough on race as it pertains to this issue. And I'm looking at that email from him right now. I don't think that's helpful. Honestly, it wouldn't make me feel better as a white dad if the white crime rate was 0 and the black crime rate was 100. I wouldn't take glee in that. I wouldn't take enjoyment in that. If the Hispanic crime rate was 0 and the white crime rate was 100, I wouldn't be like, man, that's great. Go Hispanic people. White people, man, you're the problem. I don't think you racialize a problem. I think you actually then divide people. What I would argue is kids without dads is a huge American issue. White, black, Asian, Hispanic. Now I do think that there is a socioeconomic component to this in this larger context. I think the government tried to replace poor dads with the government. And there's a line. And I think there's some truth to it. You can racialize the line, but the way I would put it is when rich people get a cold, poor poor people get pneumonia. If you're black, you probably heard before, when white people get a cold, black people get pneumonia. It is true. When rich people have small problems, poor people get big problems. And so I think you have to be careful when you put government policies in place. This is to me the essence of Democrat politics. They sit around from their gated mansions and they think, oh my goodness, you know, the real problem with Crime in America is the police. We should take them away. This is Zoran Mandami, right? All the people with money, they've got protection. Mom. Donnie goes down to Uganda. He's got a security detail following him everywhere. He's not worried about crime happening to him because he's rich enough to have his own security. You ever notice that none of those politicians who called to defund the police ever gave up their own personal security details? Well, wait a minute. If you think all of us should give up police, how come you need them? That's a really good question, isn't it? So many people in America, they talk left and they live right. All those media that write at the New York Times, they're married, raising their kids. Their kids oftentimes go to private schools. They live in gated communities. Everybody lecturing you on msnbc. Nuclear families, they want a mom at home, they want a dad at home. They want to have security for their kids, they want private school choice for their kids. Why do they lecture you from a left perspective and then live like the most conservative person on the planet in their own life? Because the best way to raise a family is a nuclear family. Mom, dad, both at home with kids. This is what the data says. They all know it. They want it for their own families. But if you try to say, hey, we should do this more, hey, maybe we should put policies in place that actually make dads more likely to be at home. And as soon as you raise that issue, oh, suddenly they don't want to have that conversation. So a lot of you want to weigh in. Let me hit some of these calls. Appreciate that. VIP email. And let's see here. Who should we go to first? Guys, it's Ralph in Cincinnati. Ralph, what you got for us?
- [43:14]
Caller
Hey, brother.
- [43:15]
How are you, man?
- [43:16]
Clay Travis
I'm fantastic.
- [43:18]
Caller
So I think we're looking beyond the obvious. And it's not a black or white thing, Hispanic, Asian, or even a money thing, because there's a lot of very wealthy people who divorce and the mother automatically gets the kids. And then we hear the stories about their kids driving very expensive cars and killing their friends. So let's just avoid the monetary thing. I'm going to ask you a question. You're a lawyer and you have a lot of colleagues that went into family law. I think the perpetuation of divorce lines their pockets. The thing is, I'm dealing with it myself. I want 50, 50 time with my kid. I don't want more than 50, 50. That would be unfair. Automatically, the mothers always get Custody, regardless. So if we're going to talk about fatherless, fatherless homes, we need to dig deeper. Some of us fathers want to be involved. Some of us fathers want to take care of our boys. Were not allowed to. So in Ohio, twice the Senators of the Republic of the Congress, whoever pitched this concept, and both times it was the Ohio Bar association that shot it down. Why? Because that's their income. How many of your colleagues went directly to family practice? Some of them were criminal, but then they went through their divorce and saw how much they paid an attorney and said, well, I got to get my money back. So I just want to give a shout out to dads out there that want to be in their kids lives. Don't give up. Keep fighting. There's a huge movement happening right now. It's kind of underground, even in Britain. This is a global thing. There's a movement called Parents Against People Against Parental Alienation. There's a young man in the United States who started a website called tuf, the Unmarried Father. Those guys suffer the worst. Are there guys out there that don't want to be in the family? Sure. Were they baby trapped? Maybe. Did they hook up one night and get a girl pregnant? Maybe. We don't know. But there's a lot more of us out there that want to be in our kids lives, but we're already labeled deadbeats just because we're not in the house.
- [45:32]
Clay Travis
Thank you for the call. No, it's a great call. Look, I don't. This is why, in general, I think any dad that is fighting to be involved in his kid's life should be involved in his kid's life. Right. His or her kid's life. And I think that there are tons of things in the divorce universe that we have created that incentivizes divorce and often alienates parents in both directions. Right. I think there is a religious component to this. I mentioned that the Great Society happens. I think also a decline in religion has led to less men as heads of households and less men who are expecting to take on the responsibility. But I think in a divorce context, in an ideal situation, kids would get 50% of time with their dad and 50% of times with their mom.
- [46:32]
Caller
General rule.
- [46:33]
Clay Travis
Okay? Now, I don't want to dive into everybody's individual divorce story, but I do think that one of the cons. Let me just say this as a lawyer, one of the consequences of no fault divorce, right? Which is this idea of, hey, there's nobody at fault, we just don't want to be married anymore is that sometimes fault matters, right? We typically don't have no fault car accidents, right? Just think about it. Most people don't want to get into a car accident. But if you had a cheap car and you could just run into a Jaguar and you got rewarded because you intentionally caused some sort of an issue, the courts would look at you askance. They would say, well, you're more responsible for this. And that's the whole point of like traffic law, right? Hey, who did the? Who did the. When you say nobody's at fault, a part of me is of the opinion that fault does matter. It's very rare that 50% male, 50% female is the reason for the divorce. And I'm talking about the financial side, not so much the child and the parenting side. But I do think there should be substantial family court processes that would actually go to making things better. I'll take some more of your calls when I come back. But I do have empathy and sympathy for dads out there that are trying to be involved in their kids lives that feel like the entire apparatus of the court system is slanted in favor of the moms and they can't actually do anything to help raise their kids. That is very frustrating and I have a great deal of empathy for anybody involved in that process. So many of us have been victim of identity theft or know someone who has. It's important, important to understand how cybercrime and identity theft are affecting our lives. LifeLocks online identity theft protection is your best defense. LifeLock will detect and alert you to potential identity threats you may not spot on your own, like loans taken out in your name or charges racked up on credit cards. There's no police force for this kind of thing. That's why having LifeLock can be a game changer. Become a Lifelock member if you aren't already. You can save 40% off your first year with promo code Clay and get hooked up right now. That's lifelock.com promo code clay. You can also call 1-800-LIFELOCK. Go online to lifelock.com use my name clay as the promo code for 40 off. That's lifelock.Com code clay for 40% off.
- [49:09]
Buck Sexton
News and politics, but also a little comic relief, Clay, Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
- [49:20]
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- [50:20]
Clay Travis
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show Joined my joined now by Senator Tim Scott. He's got a new book, One Nation Always Under God Profiles in Christian Courage. And Senator, I appreciate you coming on with me. I believe that part of the motivation for this book, according to my team, was you seeing Harrison Butler, who was a is a field goal kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, speaking out about faith and his family relationships. Why did that strike you to such a degree and then did that help to motivate you to write this book?
- [50:58]
Caller
You know, certainly I see the attack on Christianity in our country all over the place and certainly his story got so much press. I just kept thinking to myself, why is it okay to attack the very foundation of the greatest nation on earth and what we were founded upon? And I just, I find it to be just utterly ridiculous. Clay on the attacks that Christianity has to endure. And I wanted to do something that highlighted and celebrated strong profiles and Christian courage. Why our country is the greatest country on the planet is because of men and women who responded to a call and in their heart to make something and someone better outside of themselves. And I am so thankful that we have professional athletes, rare these days, who take a strong stand for faith, not just at the microphone after a game, but literally giving a speech that they wanted to literally take tiny pieces out of that speech and find a way to make fun of him and condemn his faith. Utterly ridiculous to me.
- [52:03]
Clay Travis
I don't know if you've heard any of the program. Probably not. You're kind of a busy guy. But we've ended up talking quite a lot today about the decline of fathers and I think it in the family household and I think it ties in with the book that you are writing because one reason that might be happening is an absence of religion. And a lot of young men are honestly going back to church Now. I don't think you're a dad yet, but I've got three boys. I think all the time about how to raise them to be strong, good parents. Why do you think we're struggling to such an extent with young men? And how do we get black, white, Asian, Hispanic dads back in the family raising strong young men?
- [52:40]
Caller
Well, Clay, I think one of the reasons why President Trump has endorsed the book One Nation Always under God is because I focus really on that subject matter by telling my own story of growing up in a single parent household. And what you just said, Clay, is so important. It was so casual when you said it, but it was powerful in my ears. One of the scriptures I'm really excited about is Proverbs 27:17 that says that iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the other. The best way to do that, Clay, is to have a father in the household. You just said very casually that you are there for your three sons. 72 to 74%, the numbers escape me of African American boys do not have their father in the household. 40% of white working class families don't have a father in the household. That does not tell about the future we want in this nation. And so you covering fatherhood and the importance of a male role model in the house is undeniably the most important thing we can do to get this nation back on track. Except for faith. Faith is the foundation. Family is the most powerful single unit in the nation. Upon those two, you build an objective standard, you apply it fairly to everyone. You get a flourishing country called America without that very important building block called the family. We as a nation, we don't work and we don't work without a faith filled foundation upon which all things stand. So I, I can spend as much time as you want to on the importance that a father plays in the, in the household. I just became a onistat, Clay, just a year ago of three kids, of that I' inherited by getting married. And I gotta tell you, it changes your focus to the future. It reminds you of the importance of a value system and it underscores why one nation always under God. And these profiles in Christian courage is something that has as much to do about the future as it illuminates the past.
- [54:47]
Clay Travis
One of the things that we talked about is pre you think about things only getting better in the country, right? That's the goal. We want everybody's generation to be better than it was before. But you and I, if we went back to 1950, you just ran through some of those statistics. White, black, Asian, Hispanic. I know there would have been fewer Asian and Hispanic households, but certainly a lot of white and black households. Dad would have been home, right? 1950s America, dad was home raising his kids. In general, I know there were exceptions. There's people out there listening. You yourself just said you didn't have a father in the household. This has been an issue that's gone on for a long time. How do you think we change it, right? It. It's one thing if we were getting a little bit better every year, but this is one of those things where you look back and you say, boy, you know what? 70 years ago, kids growing up in America were more likely to have a dad in the household. What could we do? What should we do? I don't even see this as remotely political because I think every kid is way better off with a dad in the household. What should we be doing to encourage that?
- [55:49]
Caller
Well, number one, we need to remind men of their responsibility, not in fathering a child, but by raising that child. Such an important part of it. You know, if you think about what a father provides. For me, the lack of a father made me very disillusioned about who I would be growing up, what I could become. Someone to teach me how to drive, how to shave. That person was absent, and it makes everything more difficult. I am thankful that I became a Christian at a very young age and I found the father figure needed in understanding my heavenly Father. And as a result, I could go to Ephesians 2 and read about certain attributes or characteristics I would have. I could go to Galatians 3:28 and see that I was adopted into this whole family called the Lord's family. But to make it practical in everyday American households, number one, the man needs to understand his responsibility. Number two, he needs to be present. The way that we encourage both, I think, is by reminding men of that importance. I spoke at a men's group about two Saturdays ago with a couple hundred men in the room. And I talked about, you can be a male without being a man. A male just tells you who you are. From a DNA perspective. Being a man. There are attributes and characteristics that come with being a man. Being responsible, being accountable, being self sacrificing, serving, not just leading. These are characteristics of being a man. Being a male may be reproductive. It may be having a good time on Saturday nights, but not showing up on Sunday mornings. Being a Man says you show up Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365. That's how a man becomes a father. A male does not necessarily do so.
- [57:42]
Clay Travis
The book is One Nation Always Under God, Profiles in Christian Courage. We're talking to Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. All right, these are big issues. These are important issues. But I'm about to put you on the real hot seat. Who's going to be better this year, South Carolina or Clemson?
- [57:59]
Caller
Listen, I know that the polls.
- [58:02]
Clay Travis
I can already tell that's a good politician answer to start with. Listen, for those of you who don't know. Both. Both. Let me tell people. South Carolina Gamecocks expect to be very good. Clemson Tigers also expect to be very good. The biggest rivalry in the state of South Carolina. Okay, that's the back backlog. Now you can dive in.
- [58:20]
Caller
Thank you, brother. I know the polls suggest that Clemson is going to be better. One poll has them at number six. They have South Carolina, 19. As a lifelong Gamecock fan. Yes, I'm a crazy politician. I'm just going to tell you the truth of where I stand. The Gamecocks are going to have a better season. I know it. Because Shane Beamer, he's the man, the myth, and he will be the legend. And as a result of that, he will coach his team to a 93 record. And the Clemson Tigers, they're going to stumble a couple times, and they will end up around 8, 8 and 4. 8 and 3. The difference, of course, is we play in the SEC and they play in the ACC. We're not talking basketball, we're talking football.
- [59:04]
Clay Travis
That's actually. I thought you would dodge it. I didn't think you would pick a side. So I've been pressed. But I love Shane Beamer. Really good dude. The head coach at South Carolina. I also like dabo, but. But I know Shane Beamer. Lenore Sellers, for those of you out there who do not know, fabulous quarterback for South Carolina. What should people know about him getting ready for about three weeks from now when Toby's leather.
- [59:30]
Caller
You know, interesting enough, he turned down more nil money.
- [59:34]
Clay Travis
Yeah.
- [59:36]
Caller
In Carolina than he. Then he could have gotten, like three to four million dollars more someplace else. That tells me, number one, he's a South Carolina boy, born and bred. Number two, he's committed, which is an unusual characteristic we'd like to see in fathers as well, by the way. And number three, he has a strong run game, but he's been. He's been improving his pass game. And that to me is a quintessential quarterback. Can scramble, but thread the needle. I don't want him to run too much because that's how you get injured. I want him to stay in the pocket, scramble a little bit and hit that. The receiver who's running a 10 and out or a goal post. And when that happens, I think we'll be having a good season. I know I was critical of my Clemson Tigers and I'm going to have some emails coming in about that. But I gotta just tell you, I love dabble and Jim Clements is the best president and university president in all of America. Clemson's president. But at the end of the day, a man's gotta be where a man has been his whole life. That's the Carolina Gamecocks.
- [60:35]
Clay Travis
You know, I actually think, and I know there's a lot of politicians, and I'm sure you've seen it in your career for sure. Who try to thread the needle and avoid picking a side. I actually think sports fans appreciate someone who picks the side more because the traditional politician tries to avoid it. Hey, I hope the book does really well. I appreciate you coming on with us. You got an open invite anytime you want to come on and keep up the fighting.
- [60:58]
Caller
Thank you, Clay. One Nation Always Under God available right now at Amazon.
- [61:04]
Clay Travis
Amen. Go check it out. That is Senator Tim Scott. I'll take some of your calls. We'll react. Really good feedback so far during the course of the program. And I want to tell you, I mentioned that dog days of summer are here. Do you want to have Joe Biden energy? That means, you know, they never let Biden walk on the roof of the White House. You know why? Because they were afraid that he might just tumble off. Maybe the Secret Service wouldn't have let him walk on the roof of the White House like Trump was. You guys know at any moment he could have tripped all over himself. Next thing you know, he's dead. All falling off the roof of the White House. Guy can't even walk. Do you want Biden energy? Do you want people watching you thinking, oh, my goodness, is this guy going to make it from one side of the room to another? Or do you want Trump energy? Get hooked up right now with chalk. You can have great energy. All natural. Testosterone is the engine that fuels the male body. Natural stack. You're gonna love it. They also have a female vitality stack. Again, all this is natural. What's the cost to you? You might as well try it as you move into the summer. New school year starting, you're chasing the kids or the grandkids around. You need a lot of energy. Get hooked up right now with chalk choq.com is that website. Use My name Clay Lifetime subscription discount that is My name Clay Chalk.com get hooked up today Chalk.com My name Clay Go sign up right now.
- [62:29]
Buck Sexton
Want to be in the know when you're on the go the Team 47 podcast Shop Hydraulic Highlights from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [62:44]
Clay Travis
This is an I Heart podcast.