← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here and the talent is unreal. Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, TruTV and HBO Max. Your ticket to big savings is that big blue envelope in your mailbox. Valpak. It's brimming with deals from big name brands and your favorite local spots, dining services, stuff you're already buying all for less. And you could score $100 or other instant prizes just for opening it. Or save even faster with mobile coupons you can use right now@valpak.com Valpak there's definitely something in it for you. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Wim Sound smart speaker. Get high resolution audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $2.99. From Quiet Mornings to lively holiday gatherings, Whim Sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search whimsound. That's wiimsound. The world's best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing medals now. You can follow their every move. Join Insider, the official US Ski and Snowboard Fan loyalty program and get premium viewing at World cup ski events, exclusive athlete meetups, discounts from brands you love, and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep this winter. Show your support as they race for the podium. Head to Insider, usski and snowboard.org and join today. Whether you're lighting a candle on the Menorah or placing Baby Jesus in the Nativity, we hope your holiday is full of grace, wonder and love. And maybe even a little snow. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from all of at the Clay and Buck Show. Welcome in final show of the year for either me or Buck. Buck is already on his Christmas vacation. We have got a ton of great hosts coming for you. Guesting starting on Monday. But let's have some fun as we finish off 2025, which has been, I think, an absolutely incredible year. Okay, we got a ton of stories to dive into with all of you. First of all, the Brown shooter is dead. That is the Brown University shooter is dead. And they now say, we talked about this a little bit on the program before others were discussing it. They now say that this guy also killed a professor at mit. So the failure of Brown University to have working cameras in the, in the larger campus community not only led to this guy being unable to be caught for multiple days, it led directly to an MIT professor being shot. Now, we're still learning a lot about this guy and what we actually know about him. He is a 48 year old former student at Brown from Portugal and his last known address was in Miami, Florida. Let me play a couple of these cuts because already everybody is stopping discussion now that the guy has killed himself. The story is just vanishing. And I'm going to play a couple of these cuts here in a moment for you. But first, worth knowing, we are expecting to get Epstein file release a little bit later in today. So what exactly that will entail, we do not know. Although bombshell alert, the New York Times, after aggressively reviewing every bit of evidence surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and interviewing many of his alleged victims, has told you what Buck and I told you was the case for a very long time. There's no evidence of criminal wrongdoing from President Trump at all. In the Epstein files, he is included, as many famous people are, because he and Jeffrey Epstein knew each other quite well in the 80s 90s, early 2000s. But the new York Times paper of record for left wingers everywhere, said, hey, there's absolutely no suggestion of any criminal wrongdoing from the president associated with Jeffrey Epstein. We told you this for some time. We said, do you really think they would try to bankrupt President Trump, try to imprison him for the rest of his life, and aid in many ways in creating the culture that led to people trying to kill him? If there was evidence that he had committed crimes in the Epstein files, do you think that they would have gone after him for bookkeeping, transgressions that aren't even criminal in nature? In New York City, if there had actually been evidence that President Trump had committed crimes, of course they would not have. They would have used it in the four years that Biden was in office. This was so self evident for anybody with a functional brain. Yet again, people continue to fall for the bait and switch. So we're expecting that later today. I think that will once and for all put the whole Epstein story to bed. I don't expect there to be a lot of revelations. I think it's all taken care of at this point in time. But we will see the full release of the Epstein files, so called Epstein files later today. But updating you on what happened late last night, the Brown University shooting suspect killed himself according to reports. Here is from that press conference a description of that from cut one. An individual was identified as Claudio Neves Valenti, date of birth and he was a 48 year old man. He was a Brown student. He was a Portuguese national. His last name, known address was in Miami, Florida. And I will tell you that he took his own life tonight. We have members of the Providence Police Department up in Salem, New Hampshire and we also have the BCI unit, obviously the FBI and their evidence Recovery unit is up there. So the process is being conducted as we speak. All right, one more cut here from that press conference. There were questions asked, okay, why were there not cameras there? Why did we have to rely on it? It turns out a homeless guy actually was the person who was able to help break the case here and catch this guy. So he may be entitled to a $50,000 reward. He went on Reddit, he talked about the fact that this guy was behaving strangely, this homeless guy did, and that he had tried to have a conversation with him. He didn't. He thought it was strange that he was driving a car with license plates from Florida and the way that he was behaving on campus and parking and everything else, this is all true. It appears that this case was basically this decided, solved by a homeless guy on campus who just thought this dude was behaving in a strange fashion. Here are reporters blasting Brown University's president Christina Paxson for the decision that she made and the defense of not having working cameras in this part of the building. Listen, there were no cameras in this building. And law enforcement, some that are standing up behind you have said if Brown had cameras in that part of the building, we would have gotten this guy and it may have stopped this swirling action. Can you answer that question for me? Well, I, I don't think we have said the locations of cameras at, at Brown. We have because why would they take it from a rental car agency? We have 1200 cameras at Brown, but not in that building. We have some in that building. It's a large complex. And I think what you would see is the video evidence in this case from my Perspective. I'm law enforcement agent has been incredibly helpful. The moving of the person around the neighborhood. Those video images, they helped crack this case. So I think video was important. And as the Attorney General explained at a recent press conference, this individual was not spending his time on the Brown campus. He came into a building on the edge of the campus. He left. He was in the neighborhoods. The investigation focused on the neighborhoods. The video was there. And that was really, really instrumental in cracking the case. But you can ask them. And this is my follow up, Madam President. You'd say the podium. Yes. Video played a big role in this case. The neighbors video, the rental car video, but not the video from the building that he walked in freely, both before when he got in the confrontation and when he came back in. Decided to kill people. You didn't have cameras in that building. Just say it so we can get us over. And my next question. Will you follow up? Yeah, the cameras in the building. Yeah, we walk cameras in that building. Yeah. You know, I. I think we need to look back. We'll look at everything that is done. But I do not think a lack of cameras in that building, it had anything to do with what happened there. All right, so he is now dead. I'm surprised that there isn't more discussion about why he chose to. It's. It's as if now that he is dead, everybody is just going to move on and pretend that we still don't know. Why did he attack Brown University? Why did he also then go and evidently kill this MIT professor? What in the world was going on here in his mind that was motivating these two actions? And also, look, that MIT professor is dead because of the incompetence surrounding Brown University's ability to actually capture this guy. So there is a dead person for sure. Innocent, it appears. Dad of I believe three. That was an MIT professor that's dead because they couldn't catch this guy who engaged in this mass shooting at Brown University. But that story is. Is now out there. Be aware of what happens in the wake of many of these shootings. I want to update you to the awful Bandai beat shooting that we started off the week talking about that happened over the weekend. What is the response in Australia to the mass shooting from guys terrorists who were able to obtain weapons still in Australia. They should never have gotten these guns. This is what the background checks are designed to. Do you ever notice how almost always the people who have guns and engage in illegal acts are breaking the law? It's kind of a big deal. Don't you think the idea that criminals are going to comply with laws over and over and over again. These mass shooters should have never had the weapons that they have. The laws were put in place to keep them from having the guns in Australia. They never should have had the guns. So how do you respond to the failure of existing gun control laws? By trying to implement more gun control, which guess what's gonna happen? Criminals are gonna continue to disrespect and flout because they are criminals. So the law abiding gun owners are going to be the victims here of increased attempted regulation. Listen to cut 3. Australian gun control in the wake of the bondi shooting of 15 innocent Jewish people. The only solution here, hey, it's not remedy immigration. Hey, it's not actually apply the laws that are on the books now to keep bad guys from getting guns. No, it's more collection of firearms and more destruction and more laws necessary when it comes to guns. Cut three. We expect hundreds of thousands of firearms will be collected and destroyed through this scheme. Consistent with the approach that was taken in 1996, the government is proposing that states and territories will be responsible for the collection, processing and payment to individuals for surrendered firearms. The Australian Federal Police will then be responsible for the destruction of these firearms. There you go. They don't even hide exactly what they are going to be doing. All right, several other things that I want to get into. Let me kind of give you a roadmap of where we're headed. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma is going to join US just after 2pm we will talk about the AM Fest that is going on right now. The Daily Wires. Ben Shapiro teed off on a lot of people that he says on the right are frankly grifting liars. We will tell you what goes on there. Erica Kirk has endorsed J.D. vance and said that he will gain the support of both her and Turning Point. As we already are starting to look towards 2028 in Atlanta, there has been basically an acknowledgment that in the 2020 election there was unrestrained election fraud. That is 315,000 ballots in the Atlanta area didn't comply with state law in Georgia and should not have been counted. I know that many of you out there saying yeah, of course, Clay, but isn't it interesting how now all of these stories come out and everybody in Georgia just says, yeah, you know, we may have screwed that up. And you say, okay, well Trump's in office now. Yes, we had the disaster of Biden, but remember, they may have stolen two Senate seats in Georgia, Kelly Loeffler and Purdue probably won that election, both of them. If those 315 ballots, which were 95, five in favor of Democrats, had not been counted, that was an election that was decided by a tiny margin. And remember, this gets into the weeds, but they had to do a revote and a lot of you have probably forgotten about this because you just want to wipe it out of your brain. They had to do a double revote in Georgia because at the time you had to get over 50% of the vote. And both of those guys, Purdue and Leffler, just narrowly didn't get there. And then they ran the revote and then Democrats showed up and you say, okay, what was the impact of that Clay? Well, that's what gave Biden control of the Senate. If only one of those Senate races had gone in favor of Republicans, Biden would have never been able to come in and enact the awful agenda that he did in the first two years of his administration. So it wasn't just the presidency that was impacted by the fraud in Georgia. It was also directly the Senate, which was handed over to Democrat control because of this fraud. And I do think we should be following up on stories like these because a lot of people just want to pretend, oh, it never happened, there's nothing going on here. In reality, this was incredibly consequential in terms of the, the impact that it had. I want to tell you for those that follow the markets looking for investment opportunities and as I speak to you right now, the stock market is up again, nearing an all time high. Buck has got a really cool newsletter that he started called Money and Power. Money and Power gives everyday Americans access to the kind of fast moving intelligence used to stay locked behind closed doors. The team he works with writing Money and Power monitors DC for every policy leak, spending bill, executive order. When something big is coming, they will inform you of it. Newsletter is easy to read, has a lot of financial intelligence. Right now you can join Money and power for 82% off the regular price. Here's how you sign up. Join Buck.com that's joinbuck.com get your first alert before the next Policy Shock Hits. Join Buck.com paid for by Paradigm Press. Making 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. Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video January 8th. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here and the talent is unreal. The women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Becker, Snafeeza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season. This is unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher and every athlete shines. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, TruTV and HBO. Max your ticket to big savings is that big blue envelope in your mailbox. Valpak. It's brimming with deals from big name brands and your favorite local spots, dining services, stuff you're already buying. All for less. And you could score $100 or other instant prizes just for opening it. Or save even faster with mobile coupons you can use right now@valpak.com Valpak there's definitely something in it for you. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Whimsound smart speaker. Get high resolution audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $2.99. From quiet mornings to lively holiday gatherings, WinSound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Whim Sound. That's wiimsound. The world's best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing medals. Now you can follow their every move. Join Insider, the official US Ski and Snowboard fan loyalty program and get premium viewing at World cup ski events, exclusive athlete meetups, discounts from brands and you love and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep this winter. Show your support as they race for the podium. Head to insider.usski and snowboard.org and join today. Welcome back in our number two final show of the year for either Buck or myself. And Buck is already on Christmas vacation. I will soon soon be joining my family on Christmas vacation. The boys, the Travis boys are all out of school and super excited as kids are to be out of school. I'll mention this again in the third hour, but I wanted to make sure I didn't forget to do it here. Thank you, guys. From both Buck and myself. We started this show, this ride with you guys in 2021. So we've been with you in 2021-2022-2023-2024, 25. So that is parts of five years. And next year, when we go into 2026, that will be six years. And I know a lot of you out there are thinking to yourself, there's no way that's true, because as you age, the years move by super fast. And so I'm kind of blown away by that, too. But we have enjoyed every single moment. We hope that we have helped to make the country a little bit better than it otherwise would have been. And we are certainly honored every single day to sit down in front of this microphone that Rush Limbaugh made famous and to help to speak sanity into at all too often an insane world. So we thank you for this opportunity, this privilege, and thank you guys for, for letting us move into a sixth calendar year with all of you starting next year. And it's been another really good year for growth. I've mentioned this before, but I think it's worth noting when we came in in 2021, we had 350 stations nationwide. As we are finishing 2025, we now have over 550 stations nationwide. So we have grown by 200 stations over the course of the past four or five years. And that's a credit to you guys because you're listening all over the country in all 50 states, and certainly we love all of you that are listening right now on the podcast. But you can imagine a lot of people, when you step into shoes that are this massive, say, there's no way on earth these two knuckleheads are gonna last any time at all. And it's credit to you guys that not only have we lasted, we have thrived. And I think it's quite clear that we love hanging out with you every single day for three hours. So thank you. All right. Opposite of thriving. I teased this last hour. And as I was reading and getting ready for the show today, I couldn't help but go through my usual review of the stock market to see how things are moving there. You guys know I love to to update you as. As needed, sometimes more often than some of you care, on what's going on in the stock market, what's going on in the media landscape. And this morning, Nike stock is Tanking. And I know some of you probably have Nike stocks, so I'm not trying to add to your misery here in the holiday season, but Nike stock has now dropped below $60 a share. I wrote seven years ago in September of 2018 that it was a bad idea to buy stock in Nike because Nike had moved from a company that embraced the meritocracy. This was really a large part the thesis of my book. Republicans Buy Sneakers Too. From a company that's goal was to speak to sports fans everywhere and sell them sneakers and sell them gear. Michael Jordan was right. He's now admitted that this was a quote. He was asked in the 1990s, why aren't you political, Michael? Why do you not speak out on so many different issues that confront the country? And his answer was Republicans buy sneakers too. I love that answer because sports is a unifying force and it should be the case. And I really believe this, and I founded much of my career on it, that when you're in a stadium or an arena and your team wins, you shouldn't be thinking about anything other than high fiving the person around you. And Jordan got that. And it's why to this day, sorry for all the people in Salt Lake, the most watched game in the history of basketball was game six, 1998 NBA Finals. When Michael Jordan, yes, he pushed off Brian Russell a little bit, stepped back and hit a jumper to win the sixth title for the Chicago Bulls in eight years. Over 30 million people watch that game. It is the most watched game still in the history of basketball in America. Never have more people watched a game. Lots of other sports have set new record highs. Super bowl, for instance, that we just watched. Many of us in February of this year was the most watched football game that's ever aired in the history of the United States. So the NFL has continued to set records. The NBA hasn't. Why? It's because Nike decided to go woke. I'm going to play an ad for you from back in 2018 in a moment. But think about when you grew up. Nike epitomized athletic excellence, the meritocracy. If you remember, if you grew up around my age, you will. BO Knows. Do you remember the BO Knows commercials that were so great? If you remember all of the Michael Jordan ads for Nike. If you are around my age and you remember how every time a new Air Jordan sneaker came out, we all couldn't wait to see them. We hoped that we might be able to afford them. Heck, some of y' all are out there right now. And your sneaker heads to this day because you grew up on Air Jordans. Great stat for you. Even to this day, Michael Jordan's Air Jordan brand outsells every current NBA player, sneaker combined. Think about how wild that is. That's how beloved Michael Jordan was when they released that documentary, the Last Dance during COVID when there were no sports going on, more people watched a documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls than watched the actual NBA Finals with LeBron James in them that year. People would rather watch a documentary about Michael Jordan than an actual game featuring LeBron James. Why? Why did all this happen? Because deep down, American DNA craves excellence. We want to be the biggest, the best, the baddest ass that has ever existed. That was Jordan. Now, can it come with Pratt Falls? Yeah. Most people who are driven to be the best at something, they also have a few flaws. Elon Musk, right now, I think, is the greatest American capitalist of all time. If you look at what he's done with Tesla, if you look at what he's doing with SpaceX, if you look at what he's doing with X and Xai, the Boring Company, all of them are extraordinary successes, the likes of which, and I'm. I don't think I'm exaggerating here, it's the greatest capitalist ever. Susie Wiles talked about this in the Vanity Fair, but he's also a bit of an odd duck. He's got a lot of kids by a lot of different women, 14 kids, I think, by a lot of different women right now. It's probably not always really easy to get along with Steve Jobs back at Apple. Really difficult to get along with. You know when you say, like Steve Jobs did, my job is not to give people what they want, it's to give people what they aren't even aware they want yet. I've got to create that. It's kind of cocky. And so if you're looking at that and you're saying, yeah, can, there's a downside to it. But if excellence is the standard, Nike made its focus the meritocracy. The best man or the best woman. They wanted their sneakers on you. They wanted to convince you that you would run faster, jump higher, that you would in some way emulate the successes of the people that they put on the Nike brand. It was all about excellence, the meritocracy. Nike wanted the best man or the best woman, not the best man pretending to be a woman to win. And then a record scratch moment happened in 2018. I'm going to play this ad for you. Suddenly Nike decided instead of Kobe Bryant, instead of Michael Jordan, instead of the greatest athletes of their era representing the brand, they were going to pivot, they were going to go woke. They gave millions of dollars to Colin Kaepernick and they said, this is the new Nike. And this aired seven years ago. Listen, if people say your dreams are crazy, if they laugh at what you think you can do, good, stay that way. Because what non believers fail to understand is that calling a dream crazy is not an insult, it's a compliment. Don't try to be the fastest runner in your school or the fastest in the world. Be the fastest ever. Don't picture yourself wearing OBJ's jersey. Picture OBJ wearing yours. Don't settle for homecoming queen or linebacker, do both. Lose 120 pounds and become an ironman after beating a brain tumor. Don't believe you have to be like anybody to be somebody. If you're born a refugee, don't let it stop you from playing soccer for the national team at age 16 team. Don't become the best basketball player on the planet. Be bigger than basketball. Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. All right, stop it right there. When they believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything, they tried to cloak their message in the guise of Colin Kaepernick there. But people said, wait a minute. Colin Kaepernick is making way more money as an advocate than he ever had as a quarterback. He got multiple Netflix documentary deals. He got paid millions of dollars by Nike. If Colin Kaepernick had been the best quarterback in the NFL and he had decided to take a knee to protest anything, do you know what would have happened? He would have stayed employed. But when they started to sell the face of the brand, now is Colin Kaepernick believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. Colin Kaepernick wasn't the best quarterback in the NFL. I'm not sure. He was the 25th best quarterback at the NFL at the time that he took a knee. Michael Jordan, whatever you thought about him, heck LeBron James, heck Kobe Bryant, whatever you thought about those guys, they were the best of their era. The minute that Nike decided, hey, we're going to focus on an athlete for an advertising campaign that has nothing to do with excellence on the field and everything to do with a political perspective, they turn their back on Michael Jordan. Republicans buy sneakers too. And they basically extended a middle finger to half of America and said, screw y'. All. And that's being kind for what they said, left wing politics or nothing. When that ad ran Nike stock, I wrote about it at USA Today. I've linked it on my Twitter account. Nike stock was $85 a share. Seven years later, stock market is up about 150%. That is if you had a dollar in it. Now you've got nearly 250, right? All the rest of the market has gone up substantially. Nike stock, as I speak to you right now is 59 a share. You would have lost if you had just seen that cultural pivot like I did and said, sell your Nike stock, which I did. And everybody in the whole sports media came after me and said, Clay Travis has no idea what he's talking about. Seven years later, $85 share price, now it's 59. It's not just that the price has declined substantially, it's that the rest of the market has gone up substantially. You've lost a ton of money if you bought Nike stock and held it because they went woke and burned down the entire framework of the company. All of the culture that was created with Michael Jordan was gone with Colin Kaepernick. And I think it's emblematic. Some of you can say, well, why should I care about Nike? This is what happens. Culture wins. Culture wins in everything. The culture that you create in your family, in your company, in your city, in your state, in your country, ultimately dictates the result that you're going to get. And if you allow this woke culture virus into your family, into your company, into your city, into your state, into your country, the results are going to be awful. Because the only way we advance is by embracing the meritocracy. The best among us should have the highest possible results. When we start saying the athletes we should aspire to embody are people who are speaking out about politics, whatever they are, not about the excellence of their actual performance, the culture is lost. This is what I think about all the time, now that I'm getting to be an old guy. Culture, culture, culture. The culture that you create in life dictates every element of success individually and also in a larger context. It's no surprise to me that the culture Nike created, which turned away from excellence in the meritocracy of Michael Jordan to the left wing activism of Colin Kaepernick, led ultimately to the cratering of the company. If you go woke up, everything else will be in disastrous rubble. Doesn't matter what it is, hope. That's a lesson that we're starting to learn. But it's one that a lot of us knew a long time ago. All right, I want to tell you, Rapid Radios, we're going to be on the road for the holiday season. Lots of you are going to be on the road too. We're going to be using rapid radios to communicate while we're on the road because sometimes we may not have reliable wi fi. How many times you look down at your phone, suddenly the bars are gone and you think to yourself, oh no, I'm in a no call zone. Rapid Radios will find a way for you to be able to still communicate. They're great for young people, they're great for old people. They're great for times of potential catastrophe. Five day charge. All you have to do is go to rapidradios.com and get hooked up right now. Great Michigan company. Good holiday gift season suggestion. Great choice. Go to rapidradios.com make sure your family and friends are never out of reach. That's Rapid Radios.com no promo code needed. Rapidradios.com Stories of freedom, stories of America. Inspirational stories that unite us all each day. Spend time with Clay and box. Find them on the free I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast. While we're spending time with family this holiday season and Buck is stuck in a sound booth recording his new book, you can listen to us on the podcast Clay. Don't rub it in. But that's right, just fire up the iHeartRadio app and kick back with the Sunday hang guaranteed laughs. Or check out any of our other great hosts in the Clay and Buck podcast network. There's so much content you won't even miss us. But we'll miss you and look forward to speaking with you again in the new year. Until then, shield time, we are continuing to follow. They now say the Brown shooter, the Brown University shooter is dead. He has shot himself. And they are now saying that he also likely as we started off the show discussing killed the MIT professor as well. And we were talking about culture as it pertains to Nike and how the culture of whatever you create, your family, your own self. If you don't have a big family, your company, your state, your city, your country, culture ultimately dictates everything. If you make good choices, then you're going over time to end up in a better place than if you make bad choices. And if you question that I make a lot of bad choices in my golf game. Golf as a metaphor for life is not a bad symbol for those of you out there that golf at all. How often do you find yourself out of the fairway? Very often? For me. How often do you find yourself with a bad lie? Very often. And how often do you try to do a hero shot to put yourself back where you should have been if you had just stayed in the fairway in the first place? A ton of times. If you ever find yourself in golf thinking, I'm gonna cover my face right after this shot, which I have found myself doing a lot of times, you are attempting a hero shot. If you are playing with a friend and he's in the golf cart and he leans over in preparation for your shot to ensure that you don't beat him in the back of the head and kill him, you are attempting a hero shot. If you have ever started to take a golf swing and thought, this shot might well ricochet and take out my teeth or break my nose, it's probably something you shouldn't do. Speaking of which, you know, I've done a bunch of these charity pro ams now. Ja Rule the rapper. Did you guys see the video of his tee shot where he hit at such an improbable angle that the person who was filming it, who was basically perpendicular to him, it should be very difficult to hit a golf shot that way. You should be safe in that tee box. Nah, he hit him. If you haven't seen that video, that is an example of a bad golf shot that is leading the culture amok. But I do think it's important and instructive as we finish 25, to think about that quite a lot. And I think about it in the context of a quote that I heard back in the past that some of you may have heard before. A college football coach told me, we recruit our own problems. And I just thought to myself, that is such a perfect way of describing much of what goes on in life. We recruit our own problems. Most of the time, we worry about external. Oh, what's that person going to do to me? Oh, what's that company going to do to me? Most destruction is internal, not external. And do we recruit our own problems? The coach was talking about the culture you create. The culture you create dictates success. If you create a culture that blames everybody else, this woke mind virus. If you create a culture that says, oh, actually, this company, well, it's. It's taking advantage of people. It's pillaging them. If you create a culture of futility and blame, you're going to have a culture that collapses. And I was thinking about that right now, because on the right wing in this Country. Well, let me first give you a little bit of advice. My advice is we finish off 20, 25. Clip it, share it with your kids. Graduate high school, get married, get a job. If you do those three things, your poverty rate in America is basically zero. Graduate high school, everybody can do it. No matter how rich your mom or dad are, no matter where you're going to school, everybody can graduate high school, everybody can eventually get married, and everybody can eventually have kids. After those two things you do that, you have a poverty rate basically of zero. But I wanted to play a cut. Ben Shapiro yesterday was speaking out at Amfest. Erica Kirk, big news, I would say the wife of Charlie Kirk endorsed J.D. vance. But Ben Shapiro was speaking about truth and trying to be honest with audience and what the impact of that can be in a significant way. And I thought he did a really good job of calling out things that are untrue and people who are spreading untruths, sometimes people who are spreading untruths and being actually rewarded for them. And I am scrolling through right now. Let's start with Erica Kirk, because I thought Erica was good in what she said. This is cut 13. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The mission didn't end with Charlie's life. It's being lived out through each and every one of you in your own way. Again, it doesn't matter. Your age doesn't matter. Your race doesn't matter. Your background. Amfest is not about echo chambers. It's very important to know that because it's about sharpening one another. It's. It's about digging deeper into ideas instead of retreating into slogans. And it's about remembering that freedom requires responsibility and truth requires courage. Okay, that's well said. And certainly on this show, we like to say the First Amendment is alive and well. I've always believed that the marketplace of ideas, sometimes you're going to get a bloody nose, sometimes you're going to get a black eye. People are going to come after things that you say, and they may not agree, and that's okay. And the marketplace of ideas requires that the best ideas win. But also it requires that there be a marketplace, a variety of opinions, so that you're not just constantly the preacher speaking to the choir. You have to convert people to your way of thinking. You have to evangelize for the truth and for the First Amendment. So I thought Ben Shapiro here, going after one of his former employees, Candace Owens, over lies that she has spread about who killed Charlie Kirk, was Pretty strong elbows, punches. Sometimes scraps get nasty. This is cut 14 because we have a duty to truth. We also have a duty to provide you with evidence of the claims that we make. Emotive accusations, conspiracy theories, and just gassing questions. That's lazy and stupid and misleading. None of them are a substitute for truth. None of them are a substitute for. For evidence. So when Candace Owens says, I don't know, no, but I know that is retarded, and we are all more retarded for having heard it. Going after her aggressively. And then I thought, ben again. I watched his address yesterday at Amfest. I thought he did a good job. Here's a little bit more of that. Look, you have to speak not in the name of just what people respond to, but also in the name of principle. And if you have to balance between the two, it's better to stand on principle than audience. I thought this was really well said. Cut 15. The conservative movement is in serious danger. It is in danger not just from a left that all too frequently excuses everything up to and including murder. The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle, but actually traffic in conspiracies and dishonesty, who offer nothing but bile and despair, who seek to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism by championing enervation and grievance. These people are frauds, they are grifters, and they do not deserve your time. And they are something worse than that. A danger to the only movement capable of stopping the left from wrecking the country wholesale. I thought all of that was really well said. And again, it goes to threats. It's very easy to focus on external threats. It makes us feel better if we prepare for things that are out there, people who can do things to us. We want to protect our family, we want to protect our communities. But most of the time, most, almost always of the time, failure is not external, it's internal. And that's tougher to realize because we spend a lot of time trying to protect those that we love from others. But often the failure that we create is internal because we don't do a good enough job taking care of the culture that we're creating. I don't hear a lot of people talking about that. To me, the foundation of conservatism is, first, individual responsibility. If you can't in some way control yourself and put yourself in a position to make things better for your family, your state, for your country, then how in the world can you seek to police others? The first thing you have to get right is internal. And that's hard, right, because that requires self analysis. It requires frankly, hard work. And most people aren't willing to do that because it's easier to focus on external threats and than it is to build a strong culture internally. Now, Ben Shapiro is right. People on the left have awful ideas. They will kill us for the ideas that we even are willing to express. The left is attacking Western civilization. But what I think we are learning as a country is it's actually internal. We don't look, I'm concerned about what China does. I'm concerned about what Russia does. I'm concerned about what people in other countries might do to us. We have a military to protect our nation from foreign invaders. But I'm more concerned about what we're doing inside the country to freedom, to the marketplace of ideas. Look at what's going on in Europe right now. They just sentenced somebody to 18 months in prison for saying that. Im basically making criticisms on social media about immigration. I was just scrolling through this morning getting ready for the show and I saw that they had pulled a card off of the marketplace in England. It was a holiday card with the Grinch on it. This is according to the Daily Mail, the headline, the card said, this Christmas I'm identifying as a Grinch, had a picture of the Grinch. It was pulled off shelves because, quote, it invalidated the lived experiences of trans people. What are we doing? Internal destruction of Western civilization is clearly the goal and it's not being foisted upon us externally. It's a cultural battle that is occurring inside of this country every day. And I think Nike is emblematic of that. I think it's important for you guys to see it. I think certainly what Ben Shapiro is pointing to is evidence of that as well. We have to internally battle with strength in order to create an external culture that is worthy of preservation. Think about it a little bit as we roll into the holiday season. I don't want to be entirely serious on the final show of the year. So we're also going to play some of your funny takes on the Christmas holiday season movies which I asked for. You guys have loaded us up also, 800-282-2882. We'll take some of your calls in the third hour and we're going to be joined at the top of the next hour by Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen. All of that coming your way. Last night I watched a great game, kicked up my feet, watched the Seahawks play the Rams on Thursday Night Football I bet a huge percentage of you watched and our prize picks pick it one. I'm going to give you the last prize picks of the year in the third hour. That is right after we talk with Senator Mark Wayne Mullen who is, I believe at the big Oklahoma Alabama game taking place in Norman, Oklahoma today, the first game of the College Football Playoff. You can play along and hopefully we will win as we won last night with the final Prize picks pick on this radio program of the 2025 calendar year. No pressure. You can sign up and play along with us, prizepix.com or the prize Picks app. Use my name Clay C L A Y and when you put in $5 you get $50 in credits deposited into your account. We just won last night. Let's see if we can make it two wins in a week. Prizepix.com Code Clay that is prizepix.com Code clay. You can play in California, Texas, Georgia, 40/states, 13 million people playing prizepix.com Code Clayton 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 podcast. 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for 200. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer games on Prime Video January 8th. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here and the talent is unreal. Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy Tips off January 5th on TNT, TruTV and HBO. Max your ticket to big savings is that big blue envelope in your mailbox. Valpak. It's brimming with deals from big name brands and your favorite local spots, dining services, stuff you're already buying. All for less. And you could score 100 or other instant prizes just for opening it. Or save even faster with mobile coupons you can use right now@valpak.com Valpak there's definitely something in it for you. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Whim Sound smart speaker. Get high resolution Audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $2.99 from quiet mornings to lively holiday gatherings. Win Sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Whim Sound. That's wiim S O U N D the world's best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing medals. Now you can follow their every move. Join Insider, the official US Ski and snowboard fan loyalty program, and get premium viewing at World cup ski event. Exclusive, exclusive athlete meetups, discounts from brands you love and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep this winter. Show your support as they race for the podium. Head to insider.usski and snowboard.org and join today. Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. Okay, final half hour of the year. Let's have some fun again. I want to reiterate. Thank you guys so, so much. 2021, 2022, 23, 24. Now we're complete completing 2025, five different parts of the calendar year that both Buck and I have had the honor and the privilege to be able to talk with you guys every single day for three hours. I think we have made a difference. I think we have impacted the culture in a positive way and that's a tremendous credit to you guys. When we came in, we had 350 affiliate radio stations. Now we have 550 over 550. A lot of you are new listeners. Some of you have been with us from the moment we first sat down in front of these microphones on June 21st. And from our family to yours, we can't say thank you enough for the time that you give to us every single day and that you have given to us over the past five years. We will be back together on January 5th. We've got a lot of great guests who are going to be guest hosts who are going to be in there. I'm going to get to your calls. I'm going to get some talkbacks. Let me tell you a positive story quickly from my own family. So you guys know that that I went to Vanderbilt Law School, met my wife Laura there. And I love Vanderbilt University, my hometown of Nashville. A lot of times people get frustrated. Hey, how do we win culture battles, Clay? Hey, look at what's going on at my company. Look at what I'm having to deal with. That doesn't make any sense. I want to tell you a quick story of the impact of culture and how it can lead to tremendous outcomes. Some of you will remember in Fact, almost all of you will remember the protest that took place on college campuses all over the country in 2023, 2024, in the wake of the terror attacks that happen by Hamas on innocent Israelis. 1200 deaths, the worst day of death for people who were of the Jewish faith since the Holocaust. And all over the country, places like Colombia on the east coast, places like UCLA on the west coast, and many different points in between, all these college kids, including my alma mater undergrad of George Washington University, all these college kids and their supporters, provokers, one might say, took over campus, set up tents, took over campus buildings, and argued that in actuality the Hamas terrorists were the ones who were being unfairly treated. Uh, they said, globalize the intifada, unfortunately, we've seen far too often, but we just saw it on Bondi beach what globalize the intifada actually means. It means innocent Jewish people are killed for being Jewish. It is the very definition of good versus evil. You know what happened as those protests were taking place all over the country? Some schools actually stood up against those protests and even had counter protests. And among them were many very prominent Southern schools, the SEC and the ACC schools among them. My oldest son is in the process of applying to colleges right now. It's crazy to me that I'm going to have a 18 year old in January and I'm going to have a college kid on a campus this fall. What we are seeing happen in this season of application is all of those schools in the SEC and the acc, all these Southern schools, and there were some Arizonas of the world out west as well. The places where the students stood for good are seeing applications skyrocket. And I'm excited to have a kid who's going to be enrolled at an SEC school this fall. A big reason why he is is because of the way that Vanderbilt University in particular responded when they had pro Palestine protesters take over the main campus building in the center of the campus, Kirkland Hall. I don't think this story has gotten told enough, but the Chancellor of Vanderbilt's, a guy named Daniel Diermeier, he walked in one morning as the protests were going on. All these kids had stormed Kirkland Hall. He walked in, turned around, walked back out, got on the phone with Nashville police and said, come in and get them all. We're not letting this happen. It's one thing to have a principle of free speech, it's another thing to say, as Vanderbilt does and all these SEC schools do, we're not going to allow you to take over campus Buildings, things. Almost immediately, the local Nashville police came in, and they arrested all the kids that were in there protesting. Then something interesting happened. Chancellor, Vanderbilt, he said, if these are students, I want them kicked out of the school immediately. They don't get to finish the semester. Their credits don't transfer. If they are students and they were trying to occupy this building, they're gone, period. Vanderbilt immediately kicked all of those nincompoop kids out. You know what happened? Applications have skyrocketed. Because earlier I was talking about culture, and it turns out culture and bravery, it's contagious. When you stand up for something significant in your life, other people want to be with you. They actually want to join you. They want to provide even more steel in your spine. When I was a kid, nobody wanted to come down to Tennessee to go to school. They would say things like, do y' all even have running water down there? Now you have got moms and dads in la, Chicago, New York City, some of the richest people in the entire country, people who could send their kids anywhere. And they're saying no to Columbia, and they're saying no to ucla, and they are sending their kids to SEC and ACC schools. Overwhelming numbers, because they're fed up with what they have seen. And right now, I'm excited to have my kid at Vanderbilt starting in the fall. I don't know that he would have gone to Vanderbilt if he hadn't seen the way that the chancellor responded there. And I know a lot of you have kids and grandkids applying to schools all over the country. Ole Miss got a big game coming up this weekend against Tulane. I'm gonna be honest, and I don't want to hear from too many Ole Miss people. Ole Miss would sometimes admit dead people. Back in the day, if you paid the application fee, Ole Miss was like, you're in back in the day. 20. I'm not trying to take Hottie Toddy. I'm betting on you guys to beat Too lame. But everybody who knows everybody out there knows what I'm talking about. If you had a kid in the south and they got in a lot of trouble, but you still wanted them to go to a college, Ole Miss would welcome them with open arms. Hey, they're Rebels. It's hard to get into every SEC school now, and that's because culture wins, wins. And also culture loses. And I've made this decision in my own life. I went to George Washington University. You guys may remember me talking about it some on the program. They changed the name of the mascot from Colonials to revolutionaries. And that might not sound like a lot. You might say, clay, you're. Why do you care? Well, because of why they did it. They said they were changing colonials because it had too much of a connection to colonialism. Excuse me. We were the colonists. We were actually the people fighting back against the larger country. The colonial army fought against Great Britain. You can say, well, it's not that big of a deal. They just changed the name to revolutionaries. No. Instead of having steel in their spine, they listened to morons. Worse than that, they negotiated with them. Even worse than that, they let them win. Culture matters. The culture of the Southeastern Conference is one where we know the difference between good and evil. The culture of Southern schools in red states, where I'm fortunate to live, is one where we are proud to stand on the side of good and speak up against evil. As we roll into this holiday season, I want for all of you to think about that. Are you standing up for a culture of good against evil? Are you supporting free speech? And are you shouting down morons? Because if you are not, then I would submit you are enabling a culture to take over wherever you are. That is going to lead us into more perilous times. I thought about this. I just sent in a clip. Strength matters. Steel in the spine matters. Listen to what former Hamas hostage Omar Shimtov said. The only person that Hamas feared was President Trump. He was in the Hamas tunnels under the ground, stolen away from his friends and family, one of 250 innocent people who was kidnapped by the evil of Hamas. Evil people. Fear. Strength, bravery, courage. He is imperfect as all of us are. But he says things changed when President Trump won. Hamas didn't fear Biden. They feared trump. Listen to cut 28. I can tell you something else about the terrorists who held me captive. There was one man they feared the most, President Donald Trump. When he was elected, the way they treated me changed completely. They were terrified of him. And I want to say this clearly so the whole world hears it now, on behalf of the hostages, our families, and our nation, thank you, President Donald Trump, for our freedom. He fought for us. He brought us home. I love that sometimes you got to have a guy that the bad guys are afraid of. Weak men are not making bad guys afraid. Biden was weak. Trump is strong, and it made all the difference for those hostages who are back this holiday season, this Hanukkah, to be able to celebrate their freedom with their families. All right, we'll finish with some fun stuff, but I was just thinking, I wanted to give you a little bit of a charge headed into the holiday season about good versus evil and winning and triumphing in the marketplace of ideas and how it has real significance and real consequences. But you know, football's fun. We don't always have to be super serious. I can pivot on a dime here. I've got a winner for you. We won last night. If you're going to be watching the NFL this weekend, and I am, if you're going to be kicking it back your feet, kicking up your feet with your friends and family, here is a winner. I hope we can win two in a row. Marcus Mariota, Bryce Young, Jackson Dart, Cam Ward, Shador Sanders. That is five starting quarterbacks in the NFL. Super easy. All of them to throw more than one half touchdown pass. We'll have it up @clay and buck.com I will tweet this out, but just five quarterbacks. Marcus Mariota, Bryce Young, Jackson Dart, Cam Ward, Shador Sanders. All of them to throw more than one half touchdown. And if I'm right, back to back winners coming your way from Santa Clay. Sign up@pricepix.com code clay. That's pricepix.com code clay. You get $50 when you play, $5 in your accounts. That's pricepix.Com code clay. You can play in California, you can play in Texas, play in Georgia. Santa Clay's coming to town. Five of those touchdown passes, we win. That's prizepix.com Code Clay. Keep up with the biggest political comeback in world history on the Team 47 podcast. Clay and Buck highlight Trump replays from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video January 8th. Watch the trailer on Trainer Games. Season two of unrivaled basketball is here and the talent is unreal. Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, TruTV and HBO. Max. It's the most wonderful time of the year and Valpak is here to make it even better this month as you sip through holiday mail. Don't miss the blue Valpak envelope. From dining to holiday shop shopping, there's a slate full of savings in your mailbox, plus a chance to instantly win $100. That's right, you can find $100 Christmas cash inside. Want to save even more money on what you love? Go to valpak.com for local coupons and offers. It pays to open Valpak. No purchase necessary for instant Win voip prohibited prices are randomly inserted. See specially marked Valpak envelopes for details. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Whimsound Smart speaker. Get high resolution Audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $299. From Quiet Mornings to lively holiday gatherings, Whim Sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Whim Sound. That's W I I M S O U N D the world's best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing medals. Now you can follow their every move Insider, the official US Ski and Snowboard fan loyalty program, and get premium viewing at World cup ski events, exclusive athlete meetups, discounts from brands you love, and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep. This winter, show your support as they race for the podium. Head to insider.usski and snowboard.org and join today. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.