Daily Review With Clay and Buck - Feb 21 2025

Summary

Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show – Daily Review with Clay and Buck (Feb 21, 2025)

On the February 21, 2025, episode of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton delve into pressing geopolitical issues, federal budget concerns, local political controversies, and the repercussions of corporate missteps. This comprehensive analysis captures their discussions, insights, and the diverse perspectives shared throughout the episode.

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1. US-Ukraine Relations and Ceasefire Efforts

The episode opens with an in-depth discussion on the strained relationship between the United States and Ukraine, particularly amidst the ongoing conflict with Russia. Clay Travis sets the stage by highlighting President Trump's intensified pressure on Ukrainian President Zelensky to pursue a ceasefire, contrasting it with the Biden administration's approach.

Key Points:

• Increased Pressure on Zelensky: Trump has adopted a firmer stance, emphasizing that the US cannot provide unlimited financial support indefinitely and pushing for honesty in negotiations.

• Elon Musk's Involvement: Elon Musk comments on the situation, stating, “People say I'm a bought asset of Putin. He couldn't afford me.” (00:00:26), showcasing the intersection of tech, politics, and international relations.

• Marco Rubio's Analysis: In a segment played by Clay, Marco Rubio elaborates on US frustrations with Zelensky's contradictory public and private statements. Rubio asserts, “Do you want the war to end? If you don't want the war to end, why?” (02:48:00) questioning the viability of continued support without clear objectives.

• Negotiating Peace: Both hosts agree that the prolonged conflict is untenable. Buck Sexton supports Trump's push for ending the war, stating, “There's no way that Putin is going to lose that war. You have to face that reality.” (17:00:53).

Notable Quotes:

• Marco Rubio: “If we give the Ukrainians another $200 billion of US taxpayer funding, they could defeat the Russian Federation and kick them out of Ukraine entirely.” (02:44:00)

• Clay Travis: “Ukraine cannot win this war. There has to be a negotiated peace in some way.” (11:22:00)

• Buck Sexton: “Every day that goes by, the deal gets worse because more Ukrainians, more Russian conscripts die, more Ukraine gets destroyed.” (19:32:00)

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2. Federal Budget and Spending Concerns

Transitioning to domestic issues, Buck Sexton addresses the alarming increase in federal spending. He critiques the surge from $4.4 trillion in 2019 to an anticipated $7.3 trillion in 2025, attributing it to pandemic-related expenditures.

Key Points:

• Spending Spike: The federal budget has surged by 63% since 2019, outpacing population growth significantly.

• Proposed Solutions: Sexton outlines four budget reduction options, advocating for adopting President Trump's 2025 budget projections to curb excessive spending.

• House vs. Senate Budget Proposals: He criticizes the House's inability to effectively cut the proposed $7.3 trillion, contrasting it with the Senate's more pragmatic approach.

• Elon Musk and Doge's Role: Sexton supports initiatives led by Elon Musk and Doge to uncover government waste, fraud, and abuse, emphasizing the need for legislative action to address these issues.

Notable Quotes:

• Buck Sexton: “From $4.4 to $7.3 trillion. That's a 63% increase. We need to return like a family would to some kind of pre-pandemic spending level.” (20:09:00)

• Marco Rubio: “Do you want the war to end? If you don't want the war to end, why?” (02:48:00)

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3. Local Politics: LA Wildfires and Mayor Karen Bass

Clay Travis shifts focus to recent events in Los Angeles, where Mayor Karen Bass faces backlash for her handling of wildfires. The mayor’s decision to fire Fire Department Chief Kristen Crowley has ignited controversy.

Key Points:

• Firing of Fire Chief: Mayor Bass dismissed Chief Crowley amid criticism over budget cuts that hampered the fire department's effectiveness.

• Public and Political Reaction: Rick Caruso, Bass's mayoral rival, criticizes the decision, highlighting the lack of accountability and leadership from the mayor's office.

• Elon Musk's Commentary: Musk suggests that leadership under Caruso might have mitigated the wildfire damage, juxtaposing private sector efficiency with public administration shortcomings.

Notable Quotes:

• Rick Caruso: “That courage to speak the truth was brave and I admire her honesty in a high city official should not be a firing offense.” (30:10:00)

• Clay Travis: “This is ultimately going to come down to an argument over who's to blame. Was it the fire chief or was it the mayor...” (30:10:00)

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4. Sports Policy in Maine: Trump vs. Governor Janet Mills

A caller from Maine engages in a heated discussion about the state's sports policies, specifically the inclusion of transgender women in women's sports. This segment highlights the broader national debate on gender identity in athletics.

Key Points:

• Governor's Stance: Maine's Democratic Governor Janet Mills supports transgender women competing in women's sports, leading to political tensions with conservatives.

• Trump's Opposition: Trump counters Governor Mills, asserting the exclusion of transgender women from women's sports and threatening legal challenges.

• Public Support for Trump: The hosts emphasize that a significant majority of Americans, including many Democrats, support Trump's stance on this issue.

Notable Quotes:

• Caller: “There's boys and girls. There's only two in the world...” (34:34:00)

• Clay Travis: “It's insane to me that it has become Democrat Party orthodoxy to support men identifying as women being able to win women's championships.” (35:12:00)

• Marco Rubio: “I'm confined with the state and federal laws.” (39:15:00)

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5. Corporate America and Brand Missteps: The Bud Light Debacle

In a critical business analysis segment, former Anheuser Busch president Anson Freirex discusses the decline of Bud Light following controversial marketing decisions. This segment underscores the pitfalls of misaligned brand strategies.

Key Points:

• Marketing Failures: Bud Light's partnership with influencer Dylan Mulvaney around the March Madness tournament led to a significant sales dip, with a 40% decline over two years.

• Lack of Accountability: Freirex criticizes Anheuser Busch for not apologizing or reverting to its authentic brand identity, exacerbating consumer alienation.

• Impact of Ownership: The shift of Anheuser Busch's headquarters to New York and the influence of European ownership are cited as factors contributing to the misalignment with the US consumer base.

• Recovery Strategies: Freirex suggests returning ownership to American hands and refocusing on authentic, customer-centric branding as potential solutions.

Notable Quotes:

• Anson Freirex: “Bud Light was uniquely susceptible to this massive boycott really for two reasons... Bud Light used to be that fun sports music, backyard barbecue, and kind of like Americana brand.” (45:00:00)

• Ron Johnson: “The company lost 30% of its sales two years ago. It lost another 10% last year with Bud Light. It's still declining this year.” (45:35:00)

• Anson Freirex: “Telling their customers that we were sorry we screwed up... We're not going to get involved in any political silliness.” (56:18:00)

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6. Concluding Discussions and Final Thoughts

In the closing segments, the hosts reflect on the broader implications of their discussions. They emphasize the necessity for authentic leadership, whether in politics or corporate settings, and the importance of aligning actions with the interests and values of the majority.

Key Points:

• Trust and Authenticity: Both political leaders and corporations must rebuild trust by being genuine and responsive to their respective constituencies.

• Consumer Influence: The power of consumers to influence corporate behavior through boycotts and brand loyalty is highlighted as a critical mechanism for change.

Final Quotes:

• Buck Sexton: “Consumers, again, just vote with your wallets. That's the more effective way to get back to serving all customers.” (54:10:00)

• Ron Johnson: “Authenticity, getting back to trust with brands, building that back in corporate America.” (56:18:00)

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Conclusion

The February 21, 2025, episode of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show offers a multifaceted exploration of current events, blending geopolitical strategy, fiscal responsibility, political controversies, and corporate accountability. Through incisive discussions and expert interviews, the hosts provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the challenges and dynamics shaping the contemporary socio-political landscape.

Transcript

[Clay Travis]

Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show podcast. Buck, let's talk a little bit about this Ukraine United States rupture, to the extent we call it a rupture, in a pursuit of a ceasefire. And there's a bunch of interesting dynamics on this and what has been happening and where we are exactly as it pertains to this decision making. And that's a lot of words to say this. Trump has ratcheted up the pressure on Zelensky on a level that never existed during the Biden administration, saying, we're not going to give you an unlimited check. We need now to find a way to peace. And Elon Musk was asked about this. I'm going to play a really good description, I believe, of Marco Rubio, who we had on last week, Secretary of State, laying out exactly why the United States is upset with what Zelensky has been doing in public and where this all comes from. But in particular, Elon yesterday was speaking and said, people say I'm a bought asset of Putin. He couldn't afford me. Which is quite the flex. Listen to cut six.

[Buck Sexton]

People, like, sometimes like to end this.

[Marco Rubio]

Say, like, yeah, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a bought asset of Putin. Yeah, I'm like, he can't afford me. Yeah, I think, I think you're worth more than Russia.

[Ron Johnson]

Think about it.

[Marco Rubio]

True, by the way, that's why it's funny, because it is true.

[Clay Travis]

That is an incredible flex to be able to put that out there. And, and so in a minute here, Buck, Marco Rubio sat down and laid out what's going on. And in essence, it is that Zelensky has been saying publicly different things than what he's been saying privately.

[Marco Rubio]

Yes.

[Clay Travis]

And if you are involved in a negotiation on any subject out there and someone says something different face to face with you, then they say, then publicly you can understand where the anger would come from from Trump. And initially, Zelensky has been dishonest with American negotiators, either face to face or publicly. His story is not adding up. And so the United States is finally saying publicly, hey, you don't have a blank check forever. And also, hey, honesty actually matters when it comes to trying to negotiate a settlement of some form.

[Marco Rubio]

What do the people who oppose Trump on this want for Ukraine for the next two years? What is the, the end goal that they are putting forward? I mean, that, that's where I think the conversation becomes much more clear. There's a lot of rhetoric about, oh, but democracy and, and standing with Ukraine and Russia's the aggressor and all this stuff, all of that is and may be or may be and is true. Whatever. Point is, do you want the war to end? If you don't want the war to end, why? And what do you think is better than that? And what you really have to have is somebody come forward to say, I think if we just keep, if we give the Ukrainians another $200 billion of US taxpayer funding and money, or, you know, weapons and money and all the rest of it, then I think that they'll be able to defeat the Russian Federation and kick them out of Ukraine entirely and have all of their sovereignty back. That's the only. Really. Otherwise, what they're saying is nonsense and really pretty immoral, which is that they don't want the conflict. And the problem, Clay, with coming out and saying that is anybody who understands the order of battle of these two sides, what they can bring to bear, men, men, materiel, munitions, understands that that's just fantasyland stuff. It's just not going to happen. It would have been a lot closer to happening over the last two years if it could happen. And we're getting to the point now where the war of attrition component of this, as in military age males and beyond, because in Ukraine, they're taking guys who are far older than what we usually think of as a military age male. They've been losing so many people and so many taken, so many dead and casualties and wounded and everything that if someone's going to run out, it's going to be Ukraine first. The even scarier thought that maybe some have, but won't say out loud in this country is, well, if we just keep backing them, eventually we're going to have to just step in and help them hold the line ourselves. And that's where people really lose their minds. I think rightly so, on our side, because hold on a second. We've been promised the whole time that would never, ever, ever happen. But we've been worried about it happening nonetheless because of mission creep. So Trump is trying to bring this to an end. Zelensky seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. You know, I saw that Ukrainian soldier tear the American flag off his helmet. And I just pointed this out. I think it's true. Without American taxpayers, he probably wouldn't have that helmet or that Kevlar to tear anything off of in the first place. So there's not. I understand they're fighting a war. It's a very, you know, it's a very horrific thing. But America has been more than generous to help a country that I still think, if you're looking at what is in our strategic interest, who's in control of the Donbas region of Ukraine really doesn't matter to us very much. And that is just the cold, hard reality of it.

[Clay Travis]

And what Trump is trying to do now is there is an expectation that Ukraine has substantial mineral rights. And you're going to hear this from Marco Rubio in a moment. And given the fact that we have given Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars in American aid, our taxpayer dollars, Trump is saying, if you want us to help in this conflict, we should get some of these mineral rights. And then the United States is incentivized in some way to help protect Ukraine going forward because we're partners on a business relationship. And that would theoretically dissuade Russia from deciding to invade again. Because the real concern, Buck, is let's say you solve this now, and then Putin decides, hey, you know what? I need more territory. You're trying to resolve this so that it doesn't continue forever. And remember, this all started with Crimea, with the way that Barack Obama responded when Russia decided they wanted to take some of Ukraine's territory. So I think Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, does a really good job of laying out exactly what is going on right now. This was an interview he did today.

[Elon Musk]

Listen, frankly, I was personally very upset because we had a conversation with President Zelensky, you, the vice president, and I, the three of us, and we discussed this issue about the mineral rights. And we explained to them, look, we want to be in a joint venture with you, not because we're trying to steal from your country, but because we think that's actually a security guarantee. If we're your partner in an important economic endeavor, we get to get paid back some of the money. The taxpayers have given close to $200 billion. And it also now we have a vested interest in the security of Ukraine. And he said, sure, we want to do this deal. It makes all the sense in the world. The only thing is, I need to run it through my legislative process. They have to approve it. I read two days later that Zelensky is out there saying, I rejected the deal. I told him, no way that we're not doing that. Well, that's not what happened in that meeting. So you start to get upset by somebody. We're trying to help these guys.

[Clay Travis]

Okay? So I think that's a pretty good explanation of what's going on. And when you have people saying things to you privately that are different than what they're saying publicly, you can understand why it would be hard to work with them. And that's really kind of where Trump is. And look, Marco Rubio took you into the room. It's he, J.D. vance, and Zelensky sitting down, trying to figure out how to hammer out this deal. Zelensky agrees to it in private, rips it in public, and then Trump decides, hey, I can't work with this guy. I'm going to tee off.

[Marco Rubio]

You know, it's interesting as well that the expectation somehow on all this is that America is supposed to back Ukraine because it's the right thing to do. Well, you know, you know, I, I've got a number of friends who are lawyers. You're a friend, you're a lawyer. I've got a lawyer in my family, and I've heard from lawyers before Clay that the most. Some of the, their favorite words to hear as litigators is when someone says, it's the principle.

[Clay Travis]

Yeah, it's a great gig.

[Marco Rubio]

It's the principle of the thing. When you're suing somebody and you're going through the legal process gets very expensive very quickly. And because you're not actually looking at the cold, hard reality of what you're supposed to, what you're supposed to get from this situation, you're just, I want this thing because of the way I feel about it. And we're not supposed to run foreign policy that way, actually. And this is where Trump differs from a lot of the foreign policy consensus out of D.C. in recent decades, particularly with Democrats. Democrats only seem to like US Military intervention when there's no interest of the United States at stake. You know, it's, you know, we're going to, oh, bad things are happening in Libya. So Hillary's like, yeah, we came, we saw, he died. Remember that? Like, they like to do things where there's some humanitarian impulse or there's some defensive democracy impulse or whatever. That's actually not the way we should run our foreign policy. It should be what is good for America and for the American people. And that's there's a big fight. And it's still, even among Republicans, some of them are a little more quiet about it, but they have the more neocon tendency to get more. To do more intervention and get more involved. You know, I mean, how many people even know. You see, there were 70 Christians were beheaded. I saw this in a church this week in the Congo. Should we, should we land the 82nd Airborne and just start, you know, getting it, getting down to business and protecting people and everything else. You can make a humanitarian argument that, oh my gosh, 72 people were beheaded in a church. Like, we have to go. It's a horrible thing. We have to go right away. Well, the question you have to ask is, before we put Americans in harm way or we start writing huge checks from the American people, what does this do for America? And in Ukraine, when I start to hear people talk about what that response would be, I go, that's not, you know, defensive democracy is very vague. You know, defense. Defensive democracy was Vietnam, everybody. I mean, defensive democracy is a little bit like the principle of the thing when you're suing somebody, which is you're losing sight of the actual interests of the individual and deciding that how you feel about it is more important than the realities on the ground. And I think that's led to a lot of big foreign policy mishaps. And in Ukraine, it's why the war has grinded on for two years instead of it should have gone to. Within six months, they should have been trying to negotiate this thing. No if, ands or buts from the Biden administration and bring it to a conclusion. No, they thought that if we just gave them more stuff, eventually they would start to. They would win. That was what that was. The New York Times is writing, was writing whole pieces, Clay, every time the fighting season, which is when it's not as cold there and there's, you know, not as much snow and ice in the ground. Fighting season was started, was all, you know, Ukraine. This time around, they're going to really kick their Russians butts. And then within a few weeks, it was actually, no, that didn't happen.

[Clay Travis]

And the question now is, how do you end it? How do you end it? Do we want for American taxpayers to continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars as Russia slowly but inevitably inches forward on Ukraine? I think the hard reality is Ukraine cannot win this war. And it is self evident to anyone who has looked at the way this war has gone over the last really two years. And so there has to be a negotiated peace in some way. What Trump is offering seems imminently rational. Hey, we will help you develop mineral rights so that the United States taxpayer is getting some benefit for all of the money that we have spent. And as a result of that, based on that alliance, as opposed to allowing you into NATO, which Russia would see as a direct provocation, we are then going to have a security relationship predicated on this business relationship. And the Ukrainians will have a successful extraction of mineral rights, and the United States taxpayer will get back some of the money that we invested here. That seems imminently rational to me at this point.

[Marco Rubio]

And you look at the casualty figures, I would note the official Ukrainian casualty figures are 31,000 killed in this conflict. How many we lost. How many in Vietnam?

[Clay Travis]

50,000, I think.

[Marco Rubio]

Yeah. So. And that went on a lot longer than this has gone on. But the Wall Street Journal's reporting on an internal assessment from Ukraine that they didn't. That's not the official, but that's actually closer to what they. What we think is the reality is 80,000 killed and 400,000 wounded. 80,000 killed. 400,000 wounded in three years of this fight. And. Or two. Three years. Right.

[Clay Travis]

They invaded in 22.

[Marco Rubio]

Yeah, yeah. So. So it's been three years. So this is. I just feel like it's so clear that the sooner you can stop the carnage, the better, because this is really about terror. You know, this is about a territorial dispute. Russia is not going. The people that say Russia is going to run over the rest of Europe, that's. I know Zelensky says it, but that's just insane. So why not end this thing and end it as soon as possible? And I'm not somebody. Some people get to the place where they say, you know, Zelensky's a crook and he's lied, he's taken billions of dollars, and I just want the war to stop.

[Clay Travis]

I agree. I'll also point out those numbers that you just shared. 400,000 wounded. A lot of people survive now that would have otherwise died because of our advances in medical technology.

[Marco Rubio]

They've lost an arm or they've lost both legs and they didn't bleed, it.

[Clay Travis]

Is devastating the rest of the life that they're going to have. It's fortunate that their lives were saved. But we're not talking about guys who took a piece of shrapnel and you'd never know they were wounded. A lot of these individuals are disabilitated on a level that you would never have survived in past years. And so it's going to be very hard for them to recover. We'll take some of your calls. By the way, it's Friday, 800-282-2882. But I want to tell you, we're talking about how the war in Ukraine ends. But if you're interested in how World War I happened or World War II, or maybe you're out there and you're like, hey, you Know what? I never really read Shakespeare like I wish I had. Or man, Mark Twain. I kind of. Maybe I got the Cliff Notes out back in the day and I didn't really read Huckleberry Finn and some of the other incredible works out there. Hey, we're talking about the Constitution all the time. Maybe you aren't as well versed in the Founding Fathers as you wish you were. Maybe you didn't spend that much time in history class or literature class or the history of the world and you want to know more about ancient Rome. That's what Hillsdale's for. You can learn for learning sake on your timeline. You don't have to be up super early in the morning. Maybe you're a late night owl. Maybe you do get up super early in the morning and that's your free time. It's all what's best for you. You can go to clay&buck4hillsdale.com no cost easy to get started Clay and Buck f o r hillsdale.com to register. You can check out all of these great college level courses to make you more intelligent than you otherwise would, to expand your depth of knowledge. If you're intellectually curious at all, why not check it out and see clayandbuck4hillsdale.com to register 40 plus courses on your time. No grades. You're gonna love it. It's learning for learning sake. Clayand buck4hillsdale.com One more time Clay and buck4hillsdale.com we are joined now by our friend, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, and we're going to dive into the latest on the budget and the priorities of 2025 in the Senate with him in a moment. But I actually want to start with you because I know the conversation about Ukraine has been very detailed of late and you have met with Zelensky before and I'm curious what your experience has been like with him and what your thoughts are on the attempt to bring peace to the region after almost three years of war Now.

[Buck Sexton]

Yeah, I was the chairman of the European Subcommittee when he became President of Ukraine, so I was the only member of Congress in his inauguration in May of 2019. Then I went back with Senator Chris Murphy in September. At that point in time, President Zelensky told us that he knew he could not dislodge Russia from the Donbas or from Crimea and that he had to do a peace deal with them. He knew it wouldn't be popular in Ukraine, but he said that's what he had to do. So obviously things changed and he was encouraged by the Biden administration to resist Putin. And now we've got this three year bloody stalemate. And I'm completely on board with what President Trump wants to do, which is to end the war. There's no way that Putin is going to lose that war. You have to face that reality. You know, none of us like that reality, but it's just true. So the door has to end.

[Clay Travis]

I think it's fair to say that Zelensky was invaded by Russia partly because Biden was there and Putin didn't trust Biden's toughness. Do you think also there would have been peace sooner if Biden and his administration had been open to it, as opposed to what now looks like the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, both Ukrainian and Russian?

[Buck Sexton]

Yeah, yeah. I was not in Istanbul, but you hear stories of the fact that they were very close to a peace deal. If not had a peace deal, then Biden sent Boris Johnson in there to kind of blow that thing up. So, sure, first of all, the war never should have started. We should have told Russia, no, we're not going to offer Ukraine NATO membership. I think that probably would have prevented it right there. We could have probably done more in terms of arming Ukraine early to deter Putin. But again, they had a peace agreement, as we're told, and that got blown up by Boris Johnson at the behest of Biden. So, no, this thing never should have started, never should have gone on this long.

[Marco Rubio]

Do you think Senator Johnson appreciate you being with us? It's Buck. Do you think that this is something that President Trump will be able to bring at least to a ceasefire, relatively quickly? Do you think that we could see it by the summer? I know I'm asking you to project out a little bit, but just based on your sense of Trump and his team and Secretary Rubio's capabilities and the realities on the ground here, and, you know, the. The strategic realities on top of all of that, what kind of a timeline are you hopeful Trump can achieve as soon as possible?

[Buck Sexton]

Again, I'm not going to like the deal. I don't think anybody's going to like the deal. You know, maybe Putin will like the deal. You know, again, this is. This is awful. But every day that goes by, the deal gets worse because more Ukrainians, more Russian conscripts die, more Ukraine gets destroyed. So, again, I've just been focusing. Got to end this war. I've been saying that for a couple of years now.

[Clay Travis]

Let's go into the budget situation. Long night in the Senate. A lot of things that are going to be occurring. What should the our listeners know about where we are headed with the budget process here in 2025?

[Buck Sexton]

You have to know the numbers. You know, in Washington, D.C. they don't really like talking numbers much, but the facts are in 2019, we spent $4.4 trillion. Then we had Covid went on a massive bipartisan spending spree, spend almost 6.6 trillion. And I've said this in the past, no family, if they had an illness, had to borrow $50,000, pay medical bills. If that family member got well, you wouldn't keep borrowing $50,000 and spend at that level. That would be insane. But that's exactly what the federal government has done. The last five years we've averaged $6.5 trillion. Last year we spent 6.9. This year we're on a path to spend $7.3 trillion. So 4.4 to $7.3 trillion. That's a 63% increase. Our population has grown 2.6%. So what we need to do is we need to return like a family would to some kind of pre pandemic spending level. I've laid out four options. What happened is Chairman Graham of the Budget Committee took my option where I said use President Trump's own budget for 2025. Back before he left office, he projected out his budget for 2025. If you use his numbers, plus day Social Security, Medicare and interest, you'd be spending about $6,061,000,000,000. That is what we used in the budget we passed last night in the U.S. senate. I've laid out other options too. If you use Clinton's spending from 1998 and you increase it by population growth and inflation, plus this year's Social Security, Medicare and interest, that'd be $5.5 trillion. And we'd virtually have balanced budget. In other words, using Clinton's spending priorities, inflate it, you'd have a balanced budget. If you use Obama's spending priorities from 2014, it'd be $6.2 trillion. So I've laid out, I tell my colleagues, you all campaign on zero based budgeting, right? We'll never do it, but this is the next best thing. How about a 5.5 for a $6.1 trillion based budget? Let's do that. What the House is doing is they're basically starting at $7.3 trillion and they're suffering death by a thousand cuts because everybody can't cut that, can't cut that, can't cut that. And so the House budget You know, listen, I appreciate the difficult nature of this, appreciate what they're trying to do, but they're basically going from $7.3 trillion and at most they'll cut 200 billion from that and end up at 7.1 trillion. That's totally inadequate. It sounds like a big number. We're going to demand, we're going to cut $1.5 trillion over 10 years and we. So my message to President Trump, I told this to Vice President Vance when he's in lunch this week. I said, you know, I don't think anybody that voted for you either, or President Trump expect you to be spending at President Biden's levels. But that in fact is what we're doing here. That's what the House budget does.

[Marco Rubio]

Speaking to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Senator, there's been a lot of noise from Democrats, Senator, Senate colleagues of yours, various Democrat appointee, judges from the federal bench, trying to prevent access to, to these kinds of numbers about spending, whether it's at the Treasury Department. I know the IRS has gotten a visit from Doge. Do you think that that's all being worked out and that Trump's, you know, stamp of approval on Ellen and the Doge team to go in and do this is going to be respected or because. Because to a lot of people it just seems like Democrats are obstructing something that should be truly bipartisan, which is, let's see if they can find fraud, waste and abuse. And where they find it, they should be able to, you know, the government should deal with it.

[Buck Sexton]

Well, Democrats use government to fund their radical left ideology and they don't want the public to see it. And so they are resisting it. You know, the good news is the courts are actually supporting President Trump. I completely support what Elon Musk is doing. I mean, the narrative is always unelected. All the bureaucrats that refused to turn over information to members of Congress and American public, they are unelected. I have a far greater faith in a representative from a duly elected president elected to do just this, going in there and uncovering this. Now the trick's going to be just because Elon Musk and Doge uncovers the waste, fraud and abuse, doesn't make it go away. We have to do that through the legislative process. And again, that's why I've been supporting a keep it simple process, what the Senate is doing. Okay, let's first start by giving Trump the resources he needs to secure the border, defend this nation. I would actually do a three step process next I come back using that same budget, by the way, in passing that, we use current policy on taxes, which means all we have to do is come back a second reconciliation, say we're going to extend the current tax code. As complex, as awful as it is, we by doing that, we prevent a massive automatic tax increase that occurred in 2026. Then we come back in the third round with the fiscal 2026 budget. And that's where we do all the other stuff. I mean, that's where you simplify, rationalize the tax code. That's where we take a look at Trump's tax proposals. That's when we do the pre pandemic spending level. Not going to be easy. But as you're seeing the House, the one big beautiful bill is one really complex bill, which I think is probably one really impossible to pass bill right off the bat. And President Trump needs the border funding.

[Clay Travis]

Now we're talking to Senator Ron Johnson. You made the analogy, and I think it's a good one. In 2019, we had a $4.4 trillion budget. Democrats, but also Republicans signed on to blow up that bill, that budget, during COVID money just flew out. We ratcheted up the national debt by a massive degree. Isn't there also a pretty good historical analogy here? Look, we responded, you know, and you've been on the show a lot. Much of the government and much of society failed in responding to Covid. But if you go back historically, During World War II, we ratcheted up spending massively for the federal government. But as soon as World War II was over, we, we dialed that back down and came back to some form of sanity because we weren't fighting the war anymore. Isn't it kind of crazy that there's almost no debate about the budgetary policies that were put in place during COVID being retracted at all? Like, I don't think most people even contemplate or discuss this.

[Buck Sexton]

Well, one of the devious things the unit party has done is they've transferred discretionary spending into the mandatory accounts. So we've increased other mandatory, not Social Security, Medicare, or even Medicaid. We've increased from 642 billion to 1.3 trillion since 2019. One thing this is three omnibuses ago, I asked my Senate colleagues, Republican colleges say, hey, anybody know how much in total the federal government spent last year? I asked the Washington press corps that nobody knew because we never talk about it. One of the press guys said, well, I think it was over a trillion dollars. Now that's discretionary spending. That's less than 30% of our budget. So we put so much of a federal budget on automatic pilot. We're supposedly the 535 member board of directors of the largest financial entity in the world and we don't even know in total what we spend now because I raised that issue three years ago. People are aware, but they're looking at, again, if you start it $7.3 trillion and try and cut your way through pre pandemic level, you'll never get there. You have to start at some pre pandemic level baseline again. I've laid out Clinton 1998, Obama 2014. I mean, even Trump's 2019. If you inflate that, you'd only be at 6.5 trillion. I still think that's too high. But it's $800 billion below where we are right now and it's over half a trillion below where, where the House is trying to struggle passing a budget.

[Marco Rubio]

Thanks so much for being with us, Senator Ron Johnson.

[Buck Sexton]

I'm not saying the Senate's going to have a good easy time getting down that level, but at least our budget says 6,061,000,000,000. Okay.

[Marco Rubio]

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, thanks for being with us, sir.

[Buck Sexton]

Have a great day.

[Marco Rubio]

Three buses exploded on the southern edge of Tel Aviv last night in what Israeli police say is a suspected terror attack. Thankfully, they were empty and no one was killed. But it's a reminder of the constant threat of terror that Israeli citizens are living under. Understandably, it's left a mark on the psyche of so many in that country. Case in point, the Israeli Health Ministry put out a report identifying 3 million Israelis who have experienced anxiety, depression and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder since the Hamas attacks in October of 2023. That's no surprise to anyone following the events overseas, the International Fellowship of Christian Christians and Jews has continued to support those in the Holy Land still facing the lingering horrors of war and those who are in desperate need right now. Your ongoing monthly gift of $45 will provide critically needed aid to communities in the north and south parts of Israel devastated by the ongoing war. Your generous donation each month will help deliver to those in need, help deliver aid rather to those in need. You can provide hope during a time of great uncertainty with your gift. Bless Israel and her people by visiting support ifcj.org that's one word. Supportifcj.org or call 888-488. IFCJ.

[Clay Travis]

News coming fast and furious, as it sometimes does on Friday. Buckleby, back with me. He's on his way to Colorado. Speak to many of you out there. I just played for you. Trump going head to head with the Democrat governor of Maine over whether men should be allowed to play in women's sports. I can't believe that that is the policy that has been adopted by the Democrat Party. But as we were in break, more breaking news. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, we talked about her earlier this week for being virtually absent with the wildfires. In fact, we played a clip for you where she said they were doing an investigation into why she decided to be in Ghana as opposed to in Los Angeles when there was deadly wildfires potentially on the horizon. Well, now she is trying to shift the blame. This just happened in the last few minutes. Karen Bass announced she has fired the Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristen Crowley, effective immediately. And she's going to hold a press conference soon. Rick Caruso, who ran against Karen Bass for mayor of Los Angeles, has weighed in already. This is what he said on Twitter Slash X. It's very disappointing. Mayor Bass has decided to fire Chief Kristen Crowley. Chief Crowley served Los Angeles well and spoke honestly about the severe and profoundly ill conceived budget cuts the Bass administration made to the LA Fire Department. That courage to speak the truth was brave and I admire her honesty in a high city official should not be a firing offense. The mayor's decision to ignore the warnings and leave the city was hers alone. This is a time for city leaders to take responsibility for their actions and their decisions. We need real leadership, not more blame passing. That is Rick Caruso who was in the runoff with Karen Bass. And you'll remember Elon Musk came out and said, I think thousands more people would still have their homes if Rick Caruso had been in charge instead of Karen Bass. And the evidence for that is that Rick Caruso was able to keep his shopping centers in the Pacific Palisades area from burning down because he had private support to try to ensure that the flames didn't spread to his buildings. And the expectation is that he wouldn't have been in Ghana and he might have had the entire LA Fire Department mobilized in a way to allow them to fight these fires. He may not have made the cuts and this is important and maybe our team can go back and find the audio because there was a viral story suggesting that Karen Bass had fired this fire department chief beforehand because the fire department chief said publicly we didn't have the resources to be able to fight this. And so this is again major breaking news as the fallout from the LA wildfires continues. Karen Bass, Mayor of Los Angeles trying to find someone to blame for the failure of the city of Los Angeles to respond and protect its citizens homes. And so she is now saying, the fire chief is fired. We'll pull that clip because I think this is ultimately going to come down to an argument over who's to blame. Was it the fire chief or was it the mayor who, who was more culpable in what I think almost everyone out there, Democrat, Republican, independent in the LA area and beyond, acknowledges was a completely failed response to those awful wildfires that came through recently. Bunch of you want to weigh in? We'll take some of your calls to close up the Friday edition of the show. Chris, in Sanford, Maine, I just played the clip of the Democrat governor of Maine arguing with Donald Trump about whether men should be able to play women's sports. What do you think? What's your read on the ground there in Maine for how this is going to play Trump versus the governor over this issue?

[Caller]

First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for living the dream that Rush knew you guys could.

[Clay Travis]

Well, thank you so much. We're honored every single day to sit in front of these microphones and it's a tremendous privilege to talk with all of you. So thank you for saying that.

[Caller]

So one thing I just wanted to touch base on is this, this whole thing about the, the girls and, you know, being totally overrun by these, these guys.

[Ron Johnson]

Right.

[Caller]

It's girls and guys. There's only two in the world and the two in science only shows there's only two genders.

[Clay Travis]

We agree, by the way. And most of the audience out there, I would imagine, does as well. There's boys and girls. Yes, continue.

[Caller]

And I moved to Maine out of Massachusetts to get away from the nanny state. I came to Maine because, believe it or not, there's a lot more of what I would consider closet Trump supporters up here than you would like to realize. I've surrounded myself, but it's been very easy to surround myself, that people believe in not taking this away from the girls that try so hard.

[Buck Sexton]

Yes.

[Caller]

They get up four or five, six, seven in the morning to get to these practices, the meats, and they turn around and they see this guy with a ball sack beating them. They're out of the water first. It's not fair. It's just not fair. A friend of mine, I kind of like to say so, but I've been supporting a guy called Stuart Sheller for several years now. Him and I have had this conversation. We knew it was going to come to this right. And Janet Mills, I hope she does exactly what Trump says and has a good time trying to find a job when she finishes.

[Clay Travis]

Thank you for the call. We'll open up if other people from Maine want to weigh in. What I would say in general about this is it is insane to me that it has become Democrat Party orthodoxy to support men identifying as women, being able to win women's championships. And I would implore the Senate to take up this bill that passed the House. Only two Democrat representatives in the entire country signed on to a bill that said you should be competing in all sports based on the gender on your birth certificate. The fact that the governor of Maine would be going to war and saying, bragging, I'll see you in court because she's refusing to follow a federal directive is political suicide to me. Now, I will say this. The reason the Senate needs to act is the force of Donald Trump's pen and executive order is strong and powerful. But you also need to undergird it with the support of Congress, because when you pass a bill that codifies what Trump is saying, to the credit of the ncaa, they have followed this rule. Many states have. But until the federal legislation is passed, there's going to be an argument about whether Trump has the executive authority to undertake this action. I think he does from a legal perspective. But that's what the governor of Maine is saying when she's saying, I'll see you in court without Congress having stepped in and taken this act. She's going to argue that Trump unilaterally, by executive order, doesn't have the authority to mandate what he is. And again, the Senate, John Thune, bring this up on the Senate floor. And I give credit to Trump. To me, this is a brilliant, rhetorical, tactical move. He said as the governor of Maine here, and he called her out directly to her face. Let me. I think we still have that audio, but if you haven't heard it, it's extraordinary because it crystallized can be hard to ignore. It crystallizes Trump's perspective and the Democrat perspective in one sound bite that is going to be reverberating everywhere. Let me play this one more time, and then we'll take some calls to close up the Friday edition of the program.

[Ron Johnson]

But.

[Clay Travis]

But this just happened in the White House. Trump versus the Democrat governor of Maine over the question of can Maine continue to allow men who identify as women to compete in athletics in their state? The governor says they can. Trump says they can't.

[Caller]

Listen, the NCAA has complied immediately, by the way, that's good. But I understand Maine. Is Maine here. The governor of Maine. Are you not going to comply with it?

[Marco Rubio]

I'm confined with the state and federal laws.

[Caller]

Well, I'm. We are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better come, you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any, any federal funding.

[Clay Travis]

See you in court.

[Caller]

Every state. Good. I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after Governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.

[Marco Rubio]

Amazing.

[Clay Travis]

This is so incredible. Trump set this up. He knew the governor of Maine was there. He knew that she was defying him in the White House. That couldn't have gone any better for him. He just took an 80, moving towards 90% issue that all sorts of rational people, guys, 66% roughly of Democrats agree with Trump on this issue. It's like 94, 95, 5 for Republicans. Two thirds of Democrats agree with him. This, according to New York Times poll. It's not me just like tossing out things. 80% nationwide, including roughly 2/3 of Democrats. And Maine, to Trump's point, is not a state that he lost by 20 some odd points. Maine could vote Republican in 2028. It's up there with New Jersey, Virginia states, New Mexico that were not that far away from flipping. Red. 5, 6 points kind of there in the margin. You talk to the Trump team, they say, man, if we had had the money that Kamala had, if we'd had the one and a half billion dollars that Kamala raised, we could have won New Jersey, we could have won Virginia. We would have been able to be more aggressive in the way that we spent money. Right now, look at what's going on. They're trying to flip the New Jersey governor's race to Red. Scott Pressler did all the work to try to flip Pennsylvania back. Red. He get. He did, but he's now got a major project underway to register as many people in New Jersey as possible to flip this back. How do you flip it back? By being on the right side of an 80, 20 issue. By being on the right side of an issue that 2/3 of Democrats actually agree with you on, that isn't even remotely political. Trump actually has taken advantage of the Democrat Trump derangement syndrome, that they have decided whatever Trump says they oppose. And think about the things that they're opposing now, men in men's sports, women and women's sports, they're opposed to that. Wasting fraud in the federal government, shutting down the southern border, deporting violent criminals. Trump is choosing things that substantial majorities of the American public agree with him on, that aren't even historically political in nature, being on the right side of them. And Democrats are crazily lining up to oppose him. And we just got it crystallized directly from the White House. It has now become Democrat Party orthodoxy that men pretending to be women are able to win women's championships. It's crazy. And speaking of championships, unfortunately we lost to Canada yesterday, 3, 2 in overtime. A lot of you watched that match last night. Didn't end till nearly midnight on the East Coast. But whatever sport you like, Prize Picks can hook you up, whether it's Major League Baseball about to come back, whether it's nascar, whether it is the NBA, college basketball, whatever sport you love, Price Picks has an opportunity for you to play. I'm down here in Florida right now. You can play in Florida, you can play in California, you can play in Texas, you can play in Georgia. 40 states, 13 million people playing. Download the app today and you can have a lot of fun and get hooked up with $50 when you play $5. All you have to do is go to prizepix.com use my name Clay. That's prizepix.com my name Clay. $50 instantly when you play your first $5 lineup. Again, that's my name, Clay. $50 instantly when you sign up. You can play it all over the station, all over the nation, 40 roughly states out there including California, Texas, Georgia. If you've been feeling left behind. Prizepix.com My name Clay. That is prizepix.com My Name Clay. For 50 bucks. We are joined by Anson Freirex, former president at Anheuser Busch, co founder Strive Asset Management. His new book, last Call for Bud Light, the Fall and Future of America's Favorite Beer. And Anson, I appreciate you joining us here. I would submit that the failed Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light deal, the fact that they sent her the Bud Light cans him whatever you want to say right around the March Madness tournament, I believe two years ago, Bud Light sales, you can update me on them, I believe are still down 40%. Is this the most destructive ad endorsement product relationship that has ever existed in modern American capitalism? Can you think of a worse one? Or is this the worst?

[Ron Johnson]

I mean, Clay, I think this is the worst one. I mean, maybe you could say that when there was New Coke and New Coke came out in the 1980s and that plummeted, everybody hated New Coke. The good thing about the Coke executive, they actually learned their lesson. They say, hey, we screwed up. We apologize, and they went back to the old formula, and Coke's doing fine. But that's one of the big problems here, is that this company lost 30% of its sales two years ago. It lost another 10% of its sales last year with Bud Light. It's still declining this year. And one of the reasons is that still, no one's taking accountability for this. I mean, the CEO is still there. There's been no apology. And that's why customers really haven't returned here, which is crazy.

[Clay Travis]

What would you do? Let's pretend that they came to you and they said, okay, Bud Light is your business. You have to in some way make it relevant again for the audience that has abandoned it. Is there anything they could do that would, as you point out, they're continuing to decline down 40%. Is the brand dead no matter what? Or is there a way to bring it back to life?

[Marco Rubio]

No.

[Ron Johnson]

I mean, I should think there's a way to bring this back to life. And I get into this in my book, Last Call for Bud Light, which you mentioned about. But I think one of the fundamental problems is that this company, Anheuser Busch, it's no longer American owned. It was actually purchased by a European company called InBev about 15 years ago. And lots of mistakes were made over that time period. The InBev company moved the corporate headquarters from St. Louis to New York City, brought in a lot of foreign executives that really didn't understand the US Consumer. They adopted a lot of device apology policies of ESG and dei. So a lot of those problems happen. I think a lot of those go away. If they actually sell Anheuser Busch here in the U.S. back to U.S. citizens. I mean, sell it to Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. Sell it to a consortium of firms I know, Blackstone and Steve Schwarzman's group. Sell it to one of those. I think the first thing they can do, which I think would be good for this European business that hasn't been able to really understand the US and it'd be good for the business here. They could focus more here in the US they could bring in American executives. They could bring back, I don't know, a lot of the commercials that we all Love, I think even most importantly is that they could tell their customers that we were sorry we screwed up. And that was this old regime. We got rid of it, and now we're moving forward with, you know, kind of American regime, American values focused on our customer. We're not going to. We're not going to get involved in any political silliness that we got involved with over the last couple years. I think that's the first step.

[Clay Travis]

Why do you think so many brands have ad buyers and marketing people who have no idea who actually consumes their product? Isn't that really kind of the essence of how you make a mistake like this? As you mentioned, you moved from St. Louis to New York City. I knew that Bud Light was in real trouble, and I said this, and it's remained the case. You go around the tailgates now, basically no guy who throws a tailgate at a football game is buying Bud Light anymore because their buddies are going to make fun of him in the wake of the destruction of the brand. But isn't this emblematic of larger issues? Whether it's with Target, whether it's with Disney, whether it's with espn, the NBA, there are just a lot of brands out there that have no idea who their actual consumer is. And as a result, they're completely alienating them.

[Ron Johnson]

Yeah, Clay, I mean, you're 100% right about that. This is not just an Anheuser Busch problem. I mean, Anheuser Busch was the one that was holding the pin when this whole ESG DEI bubble pop two years ago. And they were the first time that you saw that millions of consumers ditched a brand that led to billions of dollars of loss of shareholder value. And this, for the first time, I think, actually was a wake up call to a lot of the broader corporations. I mean, you don't get the big rollback and ESG and DEI that you're seeing right now without the whole Bud Light example, where you all sudden, this is the least sustainable thing that a company could do was to pander to a group that wasn't necessarily their customer base. And they got a brand involved in something that wasn't authentically Bud Light. You know, Bud Light used to be about sports and music and bringing folks together. Never got involved in controversial political issues. They lost sight of that because they had marketing people based in New York, and they used marketing based New York firms based in New York City. And then that was like one of the bigger issues that we saw really across corporate America. A lot of these firms that were based in St. Louis or in Arkansas or Texas. All of a sudden they were moving a lot of their headquarters in New York, hiring New York firms, taking in advice from a lot of New York based asset management companies. BlackRock is a good example who is foisting an ESG and DEI agenda on them. And so this led to a lot of problems. And you saw a lot of companies that lost their way over the last couple years. I'm actually pleased to say that there's companies like Disney that are at least making the right steps back in the right direction. They fired their CEO Bob Chapek, they brought back Bob Iger. Bob Iger said, we're getting out of politics. We're not doing it anymore. They've rolled back a lot of their DEI policies in recent weeks. Are they perfect? No. But at least they've acknowledged that there was a problem. I hope we're seeing that more across corporate America. I think Anheuser Bush is just a little bit behind the eight ball. On, on getting there, a lot of.

[Clay Travis]

People said, we're talking to Anson Frerics from Bud Light, former president there. He's got a book out. Last call for Bud Light. Usually people say, oh, this is not going to last. Two years later, basically we're still dealing with the continued fallout for Bud Light. Do you think they've been stunned by how toxic their brand has become? Do you think they ever expected it to go on this long? Is that why they didn't apologize? They just kept hoping, oh, this is going to go away. Oh, this is going to go away. And in the process their brand just vanished?

[Ron Johnson]

Yeah, I mean, 100% that's what I thought because there really hadn't been a very successful, I'll call it consumer boycott previous to this. You know, of course people were upset when in the NFL, people were kneeling in the NFL, but what are you going to do? There's no other alternative on Sundays in the NFL. Yeah, people were upset at Disney when Disney got involved in parental rights issues in Florida. But you know, if your kids want to go to Disney World, not a lot of alternatives. Bud Light was uniquely susceptible to this massive boycott really for two reasons is one is that they have a commoditized brand where everywhere there's Bud Light. There's also Miller Lite and Coors Light at the exact same price. And then secondarily people could actually see the impact of this boycott. Every single week there's sales data from retailers like Walmart and Kroger and 711 that gets reported. So every week you were seeing in real time that Bud Light sales were down 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%. And then with the effect of social media, you had everybody that was posting photos and videos online of, like, the Bud Light line at a baseball game empty and a coors light line 30 deep. And so that has just had this big impact on the business that they didn't realize how susceptible they were, because for 95% of the American population, they can't tell the difference between Bud Light, Miller Light, Coors Light. The only thing that differentiates them is their brand. And Bud Light used to be that fun sports music, backyard barbecue, and kind of like Americana brand that you're talking about. All the guys used to drink at tailgates as the most acceptable brand of the biggest beer brand. And then when they lost that identity and all of a sudden it became this almost like, brand, like Ben and Jerry's. Where are they advocating for certain social issues and more progressive causes by getting involved with Dylan Mulvaney and not even being able to articulate to the customer what the brand stands for moving forward. I mean, you. You remember that right after this happened, their CEO had multiple botched attempts of trying to talk about Bud Light, never apologize their loyal customer base that was called Friday out of touch. Nor talk their more progressive customer base and said, you know, hey, we're going to be more like Ben and Jerry's. And I don't know, when you walk in the middle of a cultural battlefield, they ended up getting shot at from both side.

[Clay Travis]

No. And I think that's a really important part here about the commoditized brand nature. Chick Fil? A got ripped to the high heavens. And even people out there that are super left wing or like, you know, I might not agree with Chick Fil A on whatever LGBTQI issue there is, but they got a great chicken sandwich, and so I'm going to keep showing up. I love their waffle fries. I'm not trying to give a free advertisement for Chick Fil A, but I love the brand, and it's hard for me to think of something they could do that would make me change my decision. But to your point, for a lot of people who go into a grocery store or go into a gas station and are going to grab a 12 or a 24 pack of a beer, there isn't a lot of difference between Miller Light, Bud Light, Coors Light. I know I'm going to get blown up by guys out there. Like, I can tell a tremendous difference. I disagree. Like Guinness. Right. You know, when you're drinking a Guinness, you know, when you're drinking a certain type of beer that has a different flavor and taste, I think for most people, light beer is relatively easily replaceable. Let me ask you this question, and I think that's an important part about why the boycott works so well. It was an easy change for people to make Target. Smart guy. I really like him. James Earthmeyer, now the Attorney General in the state of Florida. One of the first things he's done is file a lawsuit against Target. Going after them for burning up a great deal of shareholder value, he says by basically going all in with the Tuck bathing suits. Everything else, what you do now I think is important, but in some way is that the effective method to get businesses back to just saying, hey, can you just serve everybody? Democrat, Republican, independent, you don't need to go after this woke agenda. Is there a lawsuit mechanism in your mind that could be pursued and should be pursued?

[Ron Johnson]

I mean there is a lawsuit mechanism. If you, you know, if you go back, really the lawsuits that are coming out right now goes back to really the Civil Rights act of 1964, which essentially says that you cannot discriminate based off of race, sex, gender, national origin, etc. And a lot of retailers, I mean Target was one of these and in the post George Floyd era that they came out with a lot of essentially racist policies against certain people. They said that you we are going to hire a certain quota of people that look this way. Target was allocating shelf space at their stores based off of race, sex, color. That just doesn't make any sense in the society we're living in. I mean, we live in a meritocracy. You should be able to put the products on the shelf that sell. That's the right thing for the customer. That's the right thing for your shareholder value as well. I think that's the bigger issue that Target's facing is like why are you pushing forward with a certain really social type agenda as opposed to putting what sells? And I think that the bigger issue with Target was when you walk into a Target store, their most valuable real estate is that first big display area right when you walk in. And when they're putting tuck friendly bathing suits across every single Target across America. Well, that's not what the majority of their customer base wants. And that's not good for shareholders. Not good for shareholder value.

[Buck Sexton]

Yes.

[Ron Johnson]

I think the lawsuits will make sure that they're abiding by sort of the Civil Rights act and making sure that they're not discriminating against people. I think even more importantly, I think that the American consumer has gone to Walmart, has gone to other areas, and Target stock price has been in the tank over the last year or two since this controversy. I think what's going to turn around is again, Target recommitting this fundamental principles of serving their customers, bringing customers back by giving more of the products of what they want. I think that's the more effective way to get this thing turned around. And consumers, again, just vote with your wallets. That's the more effective way to get back to serving all customers.

[Clay Travis]

The book is the last call for Bud Light. Anson for Eric's former president Anheuser Busch speaking with us. Last question for you. On a positive side, is every major brand in America now having meetings on a regular basis where they say, whatever we do, let's make sure we're not their next Bud Light? Have. Does the American consumer sent a huge and important message to corporate America by not buying Bud Light?

[Ron Johnson]

I think they have. And most importantly, I think most brands right now are having a conversation about just how do you build trust with the consumer? And you do it by being authentic. I mean, you mentioned Chick Fil? A earlier. Like, I know on Sundays Chick Fil? A is going to be closed. That's like, you know, I can trust that it's going to be closed. And I also know that it's because the family who owns it, I mean, they're like, you know, Seventh Day Adventist. That's their right. They can be closed. They can do what they want to do. They can advocate for policies they want. That's Chick Fil? A. Let Chick Fil? A be Chick Fil? A. That's what makes it unique, interesting and different. And the same thing with Bud Light. Like, one of the things that was just authentic and true about Bud Light is that it was this funny, bratty, you know, kind of, kind of inside humor type of brand. Let Bud Light be Bud Light. It didn't need to be Ben and Jerry's by getting involved in every single social issue. And I think that's more the conversation that's being had. That's what my book talks a lot about, is about that authenticity, getting back to trust with brands, building that back in corporate America. And I think that we're starting to see the pendulum swing. I'm optimistic that it will continue to happen. That'll be good for, I think, American businesses, American shareholder capitalism. I think it'll be better for democracy as well, for keeping businesses out of. Out of politics.

[Clay Travis]

Check it out. Last call for Bud Light. Anson Freirex. Appreciate the time. Have a good weekend.

[Ron Johnson]

Thanks, Clay.

[Clay Travis]

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