← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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Clay Travis
This is an iHeart podcast. Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show podcast. Welcome in Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show. Buck is out. We'll be back together in D.C. next week. I am told that I have a tan. You may have seen me on such programs as Jesse Watters on Fox News where I was described as looking like, I believe, bacon with a beard, which was a heck of a line by him. Some of you are watching right now on video. I think my tan is amazing. I think it somewhat resembles John F. Kennedy back in the 1960s. Not me, but the tan before he was assassinated. So I'm hoping that my beautiful tan will not be followed by an assassination. I'm not going to be riding around in any convertibles without rooftops anytime soon in Dealey Plaza. But we have got all sorts of chaos to dive into with you. And as I know Buck was addressing yesterday right in the final hour when the Donald Trump versus Elon Musk fireworks started. I have got deep dive psychological analysis, also some humor that I hope to pepper with all of you as we roll through the Friday edition of the program here and head you into the weekend. Little bit of housekeeping. Newt Gingrich will be with us in the third hour and Outkick reporter Dan Zachesky is scheduled to join us in second hour. And certainly we will take your calls and your reactions to everything that is going on. I met a lot of you. I have been out. My kids got out of school on Tuesday and so I was on the road with them as a result doing dad related travel. Someone told me, and I think do think there's a lot of truth to it, that once you have kids you no longer take vacations, you take family trips. And that is a very different thing, particularly when your kids are young, although my kids are now 17, 14 and 10 and so they are aging up there. And so we went to amusement parks. I think you guys played my Tom Cruise Mission Impossible analysis last week with, with Buck, which was as usual, Buck doesn't like fun things. He would have been miserable. It's a super crowded, hot amusement park. But we went to the new Universal Studios Amusement park that opened in Orlando, took the boys there, met many of you all over the place. And then I'd never been to Atlantis in the Bahamas. We'll have some fun talking about that maybe a little bit later in the program. But I met a lot of you all over the place and I appreciate everybody who comes up and says hi. When you were also on your vacations often with your own families. I was also with Buck. We had an amazing iHeart event in West Palm beach for all of our advertisers. I got to meet Buck's brand new baby James for the first time. I think there are pictures. Ali's more on top of these things than I am on social media. I'm not very good at taking photos. I can send messages but I am not a photo guy. But I believe there are pictures up of the baby. We had an awesome time. We met with a lot of our great advertisers over the past several days. I am now back at home in Nashville and looking forward. By the way, next week just texting, we are set up to to be meeting a lot of people in D.C. next week. We're going to be at the Pentagon with Pete Hegseth. We're going to be at the White House with Donald Trump. We are hopefully going to be able to meet up with Marco Rubio and and many others. We will have quite a few senators in and representatives in our D.C. studios next week. So we literally as I sat down, we are texting to get a bunch of those details ironed out with you for all of next week when we should have a lot of in person guests and should be pretty fantastic. So all that coming on the horizon. But the fallout from yesterday's Elon Musk, Donald Trump big breakup over the big beautiful bill is what is continuing to resonate all over the political universe, all over the business universe. Basically the number one can't miss story conflict between Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world. What's my take? First we told you that this would likely happen because Elon Musk I'm going to psychoanalyze these guys and explain why this is likely to happen. Why I think it also is not indicative of a long term breach but is I think been building for some time and I think there were a lot of sort of signposts that you could point to. So let's start with on the side of Elon Musk because it seems to me that he is by far the angriest over the over the situation right now. Elon is used to having complete and total control. He is a dictator at every company that he runs and he has been a very benevolent, benevolent and successful dictator at all of those companies. They are wildly successful. I believe that Elon Musk is the most successful capitalist who has ever existed in the history of capitalism. I don't think that's hyperbole. When you consider what he has done with Tesla, when you consider what he has done with SpaceX, what he has done with Twitter X now with Xai, what he has done with the boring company, what he has done with. I was on the golf course with the LifeLock, so CEO and founder Todd Davis and he was talking about how impressed he is with Neuralink and what Musk has done there. And it is receiving a small amount of attention, I think. Elon Musk is the CEO basically of five different public companies simultaneously, all of which are fabulously successful. We truly have never seen anything like what he has been able to do. And these companies are are doing things that many other people believed were impossible. No one thought that you could replace the internal combustion engine with electric vehicles. No one thought, by and large, hey, it's possible to be better at designing spaceships than NASA, even though NASA has a 70 year head start. What Elon Musk has done is amazing. Here's the problem. It requires a skill set that is massively risk taking, moves rapidly and breaks things. It is entrepreneurial in nature. It is by and large not a management job. Founders think and behave differently than people who are in management. That's oftentimes why the number of founders that can transition from creating a company to, to building it into a huge vibrant entity is rare. Because the skill set to create something new and then the skill set to manage something new is oftentimes very different. And so I have said and Buck has said on this program, we told you this was coming, that Elon Musk was going to get hyper frustrated over how slow government moves. I am a pin prick as successful as Elon Musk. The reason I didn't want to practice lawful time was it moved way too slow for me. I'm a young litigator. You pinpoint the issues at play. You say, hey, this is what what needs to be resolved. This is what needs to be fixed. This is the answer to the question. And then, and many of you are lawyers listening right now. It is basically a procedural battle as a litigator for years, and to me it was boring plotting. It didn't move fast enough. I was frustrated. I am somewhat impatient. Government is that times a thousand. So you have this uniquely talented builder of businesses the likes of which we have never seen, who is coming into the government, looks around, says, man, this is being run in a shabby, unsuccessful fashion. These are the things that need to be done. I'm going to bring in my brilliant financial engineers we're going to dive into the federal government books. We're going to recognize all of these different things that are inefficient, outdated, where the taxpayer is not getting best value for his dollars. And even though we recognize all these things, government is going to move slowly to. To address them. And in the meantime, I'm going to get ripped to the high heavens because I am disrupting government. And all of the businesses that I have created, I'm talking for Elon, are going to suddenly become Persona non grata. I mean, we had left wingers firebombing electric vehicles because they were angry that Elon Musk was trying to bring more financial discipline to the government. And so I think Elon was terribly frustrated. Remember, he said he wanted to erase around $2 trillion in spending. It looks like the number's going to end up being around $160 billion. I don't think he was able to accomplish what he wanted to and what he probably should have been able to accomplish if he had the same power that he has as the leader of all his companies. And so I think his anger had been building for some time. And then Trump yesterday in the Oval Office said, hey, I basically, I'm paraphrasing, appreciate what Elon was gonna do, but we would have won the election even without his involvement. Argue that or not. And Elon decided that that was ungrateful. And you combine it with the fact that Trump had not decided to elevate the guy that he wanted to be in charge, Ellen, of NASA. And you also add up that he was frustrated over some of the AI decisions that were being made by Trump. And all of those compounding frustrations led to Elon Musk going off yesterday on Twitter. And my thoughts on social media in general are it can be both the best and the worst thing, because what it does give you is a direct view into the emotions of the moment. But the emotions of the moment aren't always the healthiest. And I'm going to go old school here legitimately and tell you an example. Abraham Lincoln, when he was president, would get so frustrated that he would write entire angry letters to subordinates. He would then wait 24 hours before he would send the letter. Now, letter by mail is very different than tweets, but Lincoln understood that the passions of the moment and the way he felt as he wrote the article, as he wrote his letter might not exist 24 hours from now. It's a brilliant strategy. Put it in your desk, wait 24 hours, reread it. He would Then decide oftentimes whether he wanted that letter sent to his subordinates. Most of the time, he said he did not. The cathartic nature of writing the letter allowed for his anger to be expressed and for it to then diminish. I have said for some time imagine what tweets would be sent if there were 24 hour waiting period before the tweet could be sent. Same thing could be said for you if you don't tweet for the text that you send. What if you could only send 10 texts in a week? You would make sure that they were really, really well crafted. You would also make sure that they weren't particularly emotional. My wife says that I don't have to worry about any of this because the reason why I will never need any form of therapy is because I have the unique job where I get to sit down on live radio every single day, tell you guys every single word I think, and then when I'm done after three hours, I have no weight on my shoulders at all. I just step right out of the radio studio. My therapy is I said exactly what I wanted to say for three hours. Everybody out there could hear it. You could like it, you could not like it. I got no weight on my shoulders. There's a lot of truth to that. I think this had been building for a long time with Elon. I think it was a mountain of frustration. I think that yesterday that was the tipping point. It wasn't any one thing, as most issues are when people lose their temperature. It was a, hey, this happened, then this happened, then this happened. And if you are a founder, if you are an entrepreneur, you know that feeling where you wake up and you don't control your day. And basically people just put, if you're a small business owner, 20 different things pile up, all of which you have to manage because it's your responsibility. Elon has been able to bear an immense amount of weight. I think the NASA, NASA decision by Trump, I think the AI machinations, I think all of the pressure that has been brought to bear by the media, I think it finally just exploded. And I think he does not have Elon great impulse control. This is one reason perhaps he might have 14 different children by seven different women. There are goods and bads of many different aspects of life. Elon Musk, as I said, the greatest capitalist who's ever existed may not have the greatest impulse control ever. And so he got angry and he decided to fire away at Trump. I actually think Trump has been remarkably fairly restrained in his response to Elon, because I think Elon is more emotional than Trump is. I think Elon is more frustrated. We come back, I'll give you my thesis here on Trump, because these guys overlap and have a lot in common, and I think it's why they got along. But really, even though Trump is also an entrepreneur, Trump is a different kind of entrepreneur. Elon is a founder. You go out and you create something that never existed before. Trump is a builder in order to get buildings built. As any of you out there that have ever been involved in real estate know, it is a monster of an issue. Zoning regulations, political pressures. Getting a building built in a city is more like being a politician than it is a founder. You got to shake hands, you got to deal with unions, you have to deal with local government, you might have to deal with state government, you might even have to deal with federal government, depending on the size of your project. That is a different skill set, and it's more similar to what a politician does. Trump is uniquely skilled at making everyone that he meets feel like they are the most important person in the room. That is not Elon's skill set. So this implosion, which I think was built up by the anger that Elon felt over not having the same control over the government that he has over his companies, felt to me like it was inevitable. The fact that Elon and Trump worked together for as long as they could is important, and it was a tremendous success. I hope that they can continue to work together in the future. But remember, Elon voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. He voted for Joe Biden in 2020. He did not endorse Trump until July of 2024. I think Elon is the most fabulously successful capitalist of all time. I'm not sure that his political instincts are as finely tuned, and I don't say that as an insult. I think he's worked his way towards a smart position. I think his buying X was probably the most important thing for the full flourishment of the marketplace of ideas. But that maybe has happened in my entire life. But I also think he's susceptible to anger. Twitter is an emotional medium and yesterday Elon just snapped. I think today he probably thinks, hey, maybe I wish I hadn't sent some of the things that I sent yesterday. 8. We will take your calls. By the way you guys can react. Tell me whether or not you buy into this, but I'll break down this a little bit more because I do think it's consequential. I think it's significant a lot of people focused on the Epstein sudden tweet. I'll tell you why I don't buy that and why I think that is totally a sham that idea in general. But I also want to tell you in the meantime, maybe you do like to communicate through cell phones. We all pretty much do. I'm reading from a cell phone right now. Thanks to Pure Talk. I'm able to communicate with my 17 year old and my 14 year old sons all the time because they have Pure Talk phones and they save an absolute bundle for you. But they also stand up for what's right 81 years since the D Day invasion turned the tide of World War II. This month our sponsor Pure Talk, founded by a veteran giving away a thousand American flags to military veterans to thank them for their service to show gratitude version of the flag made here in America by Allegiance Flags. Pure Talk believes every service member who's faithfully served this country deserves to proudly fly an American flag one made in America. You can participate too. If you switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk this month, a portion of your monthly rate will go to providing high quality flags to deserving veterans. Plus you'll save a bundle plan starting at just 25 bucks a month. Unlimited talk text, plenty of data. You can enjoy America's most dependable 5G network while cutting your cell phone bill in half. Average family will save over $1,000 a year. All you have to do, you can keep the same phone even. Keep the same phone number. Just dial pound two five zero, say Clay and Buck. Pure Talks US Customer service will get you switched in as little as 10 minutes. Again, that's £2 5 0, say Clay and Buck to support veterans and to switch to America's wireless company Pure Talk. That's £250, say clay and Buck fired up about the Trump Musk blow up yesterday afternoon. That happened. That obviously is the talk of the town. You can weigh in 800-282-2882 if you would like to weigh in on your thoughts on this ridiculousness. But I laid out why I anticipated that Musk would get upset at some point at the slow pace of government based on his history as a founder and as a CEO who is able to move fast and break things, which many people out there who found businesses have that mindset. I discovered that I am not a very good employee for long term process. I'm pretty good here because I have a fabulous boss, Julie Talbot and she just says hey, you and Buck go have the best radio show possible. She doesn't micromanage us. She has our back. That's fabulous. Actually rare. A lot of you probably have had some good bosses. Some of you probably have had awful bosses. I think Musk wants to be the boss in everything. And I don't think that he is happy when he's not able to make decisions that he sees as in the best interest of his company. And I think he treated the United States government like a company that he was in charge of. The problem is there's a lot of stakeholders in the United States government, and Musk could not do for the United States government what he believed was necessary in order to create the best version of the US Government as he could do with the companies that he has founded now. And as a result, I think he just had a temper tantrum. I think he lashed out. Now, I also think there are elements of this probably, this is me psychoanalyzing where Musk is putting so much responsibility on himself that he probably isn't sleeping very much. He probably isn't eating consistently healthy meals. He is working all the time at all hours. And so what otherwise might have been a road bump, something that irritated him somewhat, built to the point where he felt compelled to lash out as extensively as he did on social media, which I believe Musk is using Twitter in many ways as his therapy, as his opportunity to vent and release rage that otherwise has built up inside him. I think Trump sometimes does that. But again, I think because Trump has built buildings, his entrepreneurial mindset is much different. In order to build something that is actually a physical structure, you can't be at the same kind. I don't think of dictator that Elon Musk has been for his companies, just based on the regulations, based on the unions, based on all of the different things that you have to go through to get approval to be able to do that. Now, all that in mind, I think Musk crossed the line when suddenly he said the reason the Epstein files haven't been released, and I'm paraphrasing, is because Trump is named in them. I don't believe this to be remotely true, and I just don't think it adds up. Logically. He might be named in him because Epstein lived in New York City and he knew everybody who's rich and famous in the entire city. Do you really believe that if Trump had done something that was considered to be criminal in nature by the United States in any way, that Democrats wouldn't have used that against Trump at any point in the last decade? It just doesn't add up. They've tried to bankrupt him, they've tried to imprison him for life, they've tried to kill him. They have done everything in their power to stop Trump from being able to be President of the United States. And you think they had a scarlet letter that connected Trump to Epstein and was criminal in nature based on what Trump did, and they just decided to argue that he mishandled classified documents. Instead of that, they had, pardon the pun, the ultimate trump card that would put Trump away forever, and they didn't use it. Instead, they manufactured the Steele dossier and claimed, falsely that Trump was engaged in Russia collusion and they had a smoking gun, a trump card, as it were, inside of the Epstein files for the last decade, that all they had to do to put Donald Trump in prison was pull out and play on the, on the, on the, out of the deck. And you think they just decided, hey, we're not going to do that. It doesn't add up. I think it's not true. And I think the sad reality is that much of the Epstein evidence, this is my opinion, vanished. Okay? I think that Epstein was probably a intelligence agent. I think that he caught a lot of men. It's a high percentage of men that are interested in young, pretty girls and having access to young, pretty girls. And I think he used that sometimes to manipulate business relationships. Epstein did in his favor, and I think that's why he got the preferential treatment that he did. But there have been many men named, many of them, who basically did nothing, it appears, other than fly on Epstein's private jet or even engage in business transactions with him for their association to Epstein. And you're telling me that if Trump had substantial connections to Epstein, that they were hidden? And Democrats said, no, no, no, we're not going to focus on Trump and Epstein. Instead, we're going to argue that he kept classified documents at Mar a Lago, and we're going to argue that he got too favorable of loan treatments for the properties that he owned in New York and the big investment bank negotiations that he did. And also we're going to argue that he had sex with a porn star and paid her money and that somehow rigged the 2016 election and that he's buddies with Vladimir Putin. You think that Democrats drew the line at associating Trump with Epstein? I just don't think that makes sense. I think Elon knows that that is among the most savage accusations that he could make to a segment of the MAGA base that is obsessed with Epstein and keeps thinking, oh, we're going to get some amazing revelation from the Epstein files, and instead, when they've given new information about the Epstein related files, it's mostly blown up in the Trump administration's face. I mean, Pam Bondi had a bunch of people in for a White House meeting, gave them new information, and it basically was not that valuable. Now, look, I trust Dan Bongino, I trust Cash Patel. I think if they're at the FBI, if there is some sort of major revelation that still is out there about the Epstein files, I think they'll put it out. I just don't buy that it exists in a substantial way, and I certainly don't buy that somehow it implicates Trump. I just don't. I think that Elon knows that that's catnip and impossible to avoid, and among the most salacious accusations that he could make, and that's the reason that he went in that direction. I think that Trump has actually responded in the Elon fracas as the adult in the room, candidly, which is not always what you anticipate Trump doing, but I think he has a great deal of, of. Of like for Elon. And I'm gonna be honest with you. I think Trump sees Elon as childlike and a kid. And we have talked about this with you, Buck, and I have. I. Every time I've met Trump and I've interviewed Trump 11 times now, I am basically the same age as his kids. I'm telling you, Trump is almost 80 years old. I think he just had a 79th birthday. He sees people around my age as his kids. Trump has always. And, and, and, and as a grandfatherly and fatherly type figure. I think he sees Trump as a kid, thinks that there is a childlike glee in Elon, which Trump likes.
- [27:16]
Buck Sexton
And.
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Clay Travis
Respects, but also recognizes that in pushing himself so far as Elon has, that there are consequences with that behavior. And I think Elon would even say it, you don't decide that you're better at sending rockets to the moon than NASA and that you're going to redesign the internal combustion engine. The effort and energy that that takes, there's consequences elsewhere. I think, again, Elon is an autistic genius. It allows him to focus in a way that regular humans cannot, but it also allows him to miss social cues that regular humans would not. And it is very rare in my experience, that when someone has great talent in one particular arena, it is spread evenly everywhere. And this is kind of the way you think about, from athletes, right? How often in your high school was the best athlete, also the best student and also the best looking and also the kindest, right? In baseball, they talk about five tool players because it's so rare to be excellent at everything. You don't have to be an expert in Silicon Valley geopolitics to analyze Elon Musk. Just go to your own high school. How often was the smartest person also the best athlete and also the kindest, the most honest, the most reliable? Usually extreme talents in any one particular area are not accompanied with extreme talents in other places. Some as they are. Yeah, the prom king is also the kindest person on the planet and the greatest athlete, but usually that talent is not evenly distributed. Elon is off the charts, I think, when it comes to intelligence and building companies. As I said, I think he's the greatest capitalist who has ever lived in the history of capitalism. If you look at his accomplishments, I don't think that he's emotionally a savant. I think he still in many ways behaves in a childlike fashion. I think that's why he lashed out with the temper tantrum. I think Trump sees that. I think he wants to marshal the talents that Elon has in the direction of making the country better. And I actually think Trump has handled this again as the adult in the room. And I think Elon regrets his temper tantrum. Even by last evening he was sharing Bill Ackman's comments like, hey, it's better for the country if we don't feud. This morning he's been sharing again the big beautiful Bill. I'll talk a little bit about that where I think it's gone, but I think all of that is rooted together. And I think Elon is ultimately frustrated that he wasn't able to have the same level of success making the country's finances strong as he has been in making his own businesses and their finances strong. I'll take some of your calls, by the way, at the end of this hour, 800-282-2882. You can analyze this also. And I hope that Trump and Elon on some level can make up, because I do think that Elon is a force for good, given his resources, given his purchase of Twitter, and just merely being open to the marketplace of ideas and seeing the best possible argument, I think, and creating a business that is based on that is a profound gift that Elon has given to the country. And I hope that he can use those gifts going forward in an effective way with Trump and his administration. So that's my big take on what we saw yesterday and where I think it came from. If you purchased gold five years ago, smart investment price of gold then just over $2,000 an ounce. Today your gold now worth more than 33 gold hundred dollars. That is a 65% increase in value. Buying gold can still be a great investment, particularly if you think, as many of us do, that the overall value of currency is continuing to be driven down based on the decisions being made by many people in terms of devaluing the dollar, which we certainly saw during the Biden administration. Gold has been the best possible hedge against inflation for much of its history. That is why as it exists, that's why it's existed and and diversification is the strength of many different portfolios out there. You could stand to benefit by having gold in your portfolio as well. And at a minimum you can do the research to find out whether it makes sense for you. And it's really easy. All you have to do is text my Name Clay to 989898 and you'll receive your free no obligation info kit on gold. That's my name Clay 9898 98. You'll learn how to hold gold and silver in a tax sheltered account. Birch Gold can even help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a gold IRA. No money out of pocket stock market over 6000 in the S P earlier today. Maybe you've got some money that you want to pull out as stocks are nearing, believe it or not, record all time highs. A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. Thousands of thankful customers. Again my name Clay 989898 to find out whether gold might be right for you and if you want to go online instead. Birchgold.com Clay that's birchgold.com Clay Hey Buck. One of my kids called me an unk the other day. An unknown. Yep. Slaying evidently for not being hip. Being an old dude. So how do we un unk you? Get more people to subscribe to our YouTube channel. At least that's what my kids tell me. That's simple enough. Just search the Clay, Travis and Buck Sexton show and hit the subscribe button. Takes less than five seconds to help un unk me. Do it for Clay. Do it for freedom and get great content while you're there. The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show YouTube channel Buck will be back with me Tuesday, eagerly awaiting my astrology reading. Also a little bit nervous. Ianthe working on it up in Rochester, New York. She got more info about my birth or she's going to steal My identity, one of these two things. She's. She maybe is just the greatest con artist of all time because she asked a lot of details about how I was born. We bring in. Probably did not expect this introduction. We bring in now. Dan Zachesky does fantastic work for Outkick, reporting on a variety of different stories. And I wanted to shine some light on this because I thought it was super interesting. Many of you out there will remember a story went viral when the Indiana Fever fans were accused of racial slurs in the direction of Angel Reese in a WNBA game. Um, and they did an investigation. They determined that absolutely nothing inappropriate or racist had been said. They couldn't find any evidence of it. Go figure. Um, and the WNBA at that time said, and I'm paraphrasing them, but basically, we have no place in this league for racism or mistreatment of others based on their. Their race, their gender, ethnicity, any of those things. And then within like, a day and a half, Brittney Griner, who is a women's basketball player that was traded for the merchant of death. That seems like not very fair trade. We got a black lesbian basketball player in the wnba. Russia got back the Merchant of Death to help them theoretically create more death. Again, I think that's a very unbalanced trade, like Herschel Walker, for those of you who are old school, when the Dallas Cowboys, sorry, Vikings fans. Got all of the assets for no cost. But recently, Deshaun Watson to the Cleveland Browns, probably the worst trade of all time. Houston Texans get insanely fortunate. This was worse than those, I would argue. But Brittney Griner on the sideline appears to insult white women in a phrase that went mega viral. She has said nothing. The WNBA has said nothing. Now, I would submit to you that if Caitlin Clark were on the sideline insulting black girls, that Caitlin Clark's entire career would probably be over. Everyone would be talking about it. So what did Brittney Griner say? Has the WNBA investigated at all? Outkick is like, the only place that would be even covered this. And so Dan Zachesky is a reporter at Outkick. And, Dan, appreciate you making the time for us. I wanted to give a background. I think I laid out everything there. You've been trying to go cover Brittney Griner and just ask the questions of her. What has happened? What has the WNBA done?
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Dan Zachesky
Well, first of all, Clay, let me say that I don't know, that the Sean Watson trades pretty bad. It might be close for worst trade.
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Clay Travis
Which is the worst trade of all. Time. Brittney Griner for the Merchant of death or DeSean Watson for all the first round picks. The Cleveland Browns. A good debate.
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Dan Zachesky
Yeah, I think you need to put up a poll on your, on your Twitter account anyway, so. Exactly. You laid it out perfectly. It's pretty simple, Clay. Some people say Brittney Griner said effing white girl. Some people think she said effing whack call. There's a pretty easy way to figure out what she said. Ask her. It's not that hard. Ask her the question. Brittney Griner. There's a viral moment. You know it, you've seen it, you said it. What did you say? Not one person has asked Brittney Griner that question since it happened two weeks ago. I mean, Griner has played several WNBA games since then. I mean, I know Al Kick has reached out to the wnba, to Grinders management team. They aren't responding. But I mean, this is really incumbent upon the so called journalists and reporters who cover this league to ask. It blows my mind that no one has even asked the question. So we requested a credential for the game where Griner was playing in Los Angeles. Now Griner didn't actually end up playing in that game, but we were denied that credential request. We put in a request for the game tonight against the Connecticut Sun. I have covered several Connecticut sun games over the past year. I was even allowed to, I'm sorry, granted a credential for a playoff game against the Connecticut sun against Caitlin Clark in the Indiana Fever. Now you want to talk about whether or not there's enough space? Because that was their response. We don't have enough space to accommodate you.
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Buck Sexton
Really?
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Dan Zachesky
You had enough space for me to go to a playoff game that featured Caitlin Clark playing at the Mohegan sun arena, which by the way, is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There are not a lot of people that cover this team regularly because, I mean, why would you? The Connecticut sun have one win and they're telling us they don't have enough space for me to cover the game. I call BS on that. They don't want us asking Brittney Griner the question that frankly should have already been asked.
- [38:13]
Clay Travis
Okay, so this is interesting to me. We have requested throughout Kick. I say we because I sold out Kick. Fox owns it, but I still do work for Outkick and I founded it. You have asked to cover Brittney Griner's team in a game in la, and now you have asked to cover Brittney Griner's team on the east coast in Connecticut. And both of those NWMBA teams have said, no, we don't have space. We can't handle one more journalist.
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Dan Zachesky
That's my understanding. It was not me who requested the credential in la because I live in Connecticut. That would have been quite the trek for me. I believe that Los Angeles claimed that we requested the credential. Too late. You know, late. Whatever. Fine.
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Clay Travis
So let me ask you that I will, I will speak to this because I've been involved in this for a long time out. Kick is credentialed for the Super Bowl. You're a sports guy. Super bowl, pretty difficult to get a credential for. Kind of a big deal.
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Dan Zachesky
Yes, I would say so.
- [39:11]
Clay Travis
Outkick has been credentialed for any NFL game, any NBA game, any NHL game, and any major conference. What Big Ten, sec, all of these different sporting events, to my knowledge. I'm just. But you, I'll ask you is, are all of those sports that I just named, for instance, would an Alabama, Auburn game in general receive a little bit more coverage than the, than any WNBA game that's ever existed? But certainly a random WNBA game in the regular season, is that fair? Super Bowl, Alabama, Auburn, Ohio State, Michigan. These are things where there is a great deal of sports media demand and yet we've gotten credentials. Would you agree? Probably a little more popular than the WNBA.
- [40:01]
Dan Zachesky
Well, it's like the DeSean Watson trade versus Griner trade debate. But Clay. Yes. I do think you are correct that there's a little bit more interest in those events that you mentioned in general.
- [40:10]
Clay Travis
Super bowl, more people interested in it than women's professional basketball. I know that's going to really drive the left wingers crazy, but it is, it is the case that super bowl featuring only men, at least so far, is more popular than a basketball game featuring only women. Okay, so what do you attribute this to? Because I'll tell you as the founder of Outkick, I think that the WNBA has decided that they will not credential Outkick for anything. And this is a top down decision. Every team has talked about it. They have decided they don't like the way we're covering their league and therefore they won't credential us. Do you buy that as a thesis? In other words, do you think wnba, maybe they get enough pressure from this and they change. But right now, do you think that's their calculus?
- [40:54]
Dan Zachesky
Yeah, I think that's 100% true. And you know what, Clay? We're going to Find out. I requested a credential for the Atlanta Dream versus the New York Liberty next week. I requested a credential for the Atlanta Dream versus the Washington Mystics two days after that. Let's see. Let's see if they let us in because we're. We're not going to stop asking. That's what we do at Outkick, right? We have questions, we want answers. We're not going to stop asking.
- [41:14]
Clay Travis
Okay. I also think this is important. Ostensibly, the only reason for sports journalism to exist as it pertains to games is for journalists, that is reporters, however you want to classify it, to go and ask athletes, coaches, owners, anyone affiliated with teams questions about their performance in the game. Right. That's the only reason why anyone should be credentialed to a game, particularly in this day and age, because everybody can sit and watch the actual game. It used to be that you had to have journalists at games because you would wake up the next morning and you wanted to get the newspaper and otherwise you wouldn't know what happened in the game. But now every game streams, every game's available, every fan knows the score of any team they care about. The only reason why these jobs should exist is for questions to be asked of the people involved in them. Right?
- [42:10]
Dan Zachesky
I would agree with that, yes.
- [42:12]
Clay Travis
Okay, so if we believe that is the presumption, then how in the world is it possible take outkick off the table? Because I agree with you. We would ask Brittney Griner this question. How in the world, from a media perspective, from a journalistic perspective, from a big J journalism role, can the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times just had a big profile of Brittney Griner, ironically, that I read over the weekend. How can they justify going and covering these games and not asking Brittney Griner about the mega viral clip of her in the wake of the investigation of the Indiana Fever over inappropriate comments, I mean, it seems like the biggest, most glistening orb in the sky. How could they possibly justify, from a journalistic perspective, not asking that question?
- [43:02]
Dan Zachesky
It's pretty easy, Clay. And we're finding out right now because when you ask those questions, you don't get invited back. See, the WNBA has put this, has put this in place where it's like, hey, you cover our league the way we want you to cover it, or we're not giving you a credential. I mean, look at Christine Brennan, one of the most radical left wing, progressive, liberal sports writers on the planet, dared to ask Dijonay Carrington if she poked Caitlin Clark in the eye on purpose last year and had the WNBA Players association calling for her credentials to be revoked. I mean, if Christine Brennan is not immune from the WNBA considering revoking credentials, who is immune? The answer is no one. So, Clay, I think it comes down to a simple calculus like, hey, we want to continue to be allowed to cover games the WNBA doesn't want. Look, Clay, there's no such thing as a WNBA reporter or WNBA journalist. People might have it in their LinkedIn bios or on their social media profiles, but they're not telling the truth. The WNBA has a group of people who act as essentially a PR firm or a cheerleader for the league. And that's all it is, and that's all they want. The media is here to promote our product, talk about us only in a positive light. And it drives me insane because the players talk about, oh, we deserve equal pay, equal coverage to the men's game and this and that. But they're not telling the truth either. They don't want equal. They want equal but special. They want everything that comes along with the positive, which is more money, more advertisements, all of that. But they don't want the criticism.
- [44:29]
Clay Travis
Let me ask you one more question here. I appreciate the time, Dan. Zach Shesky at Outkick on the news. The WNBA is refusing to credential out kick for any Brittney Griner game. You've also been covering Nike. Nike appears to have funded a study of trans minors to see, and I'm just trying to paraphrase it here to see what the impact of puberty related treatment, so called gender affirming care, might be on athletics. What is going on here and what is happening such that Nike is not in any way responding to questions that arose out of a New York Times expose of all things relating to gender treatments.
- [45:11]
Dan Zachesky
Yeah, so. Well, we don't know because Nike won't tell us. We've only received one comment from Nike that was on background. It was from, you know, quote unquote, anonymous source. I spoke to a Nike executive who did not want to be named and said the study is not moving forward essentially. Now we don't know when that happened. We don't know if it's. The speculation, of course, is that this was made public by our reporting and they were like, oh crap, we got to stop doing this. And the best way to handle it is to just not say anything. So I actually, Clay, went to Boston because I also haven't been able to speak with the researchers, the researchers who were doing this study who are not affiliated with Nike but were receiving money from Nike, allegedly. They also were not responding to any inquiries. I sent dozens of emails to Dr. Kathryn Ackerman, the lead researcher on the study, and couldn't get a response. So Ackerman hosts a biannual female athlete conference this year. It was in Boston. So Outkick sent me up to Boston to go find Kathryn Ackerman, ask her to her face what is going on? And she basically would not say anything. She knew right away who I was. After she asked my name, I was like, hey, my name's Dan. She's like, oh, I know who you are, and I know what you want to talk about. And I was like, okay, well, do you want to talk about it? And she was like, no, I do not. I also spoke with Joanna Harper, the secondary researcher who you mentioned in that New York Times article. That's who said it. Harper said it to the New York Times. Also told me I'm not supposed to talk about that. Okay, not supposed to talk about it. Well, who told you not to talk about it? I mean, the obvious answer would be Nike, but again, we don't know because Nike won't tell us. They could clear this up with one email, one phone call. They're choosing not to, which only makes them look more and more guilty in this situation.
- [46:47]
Clay Travis
Thank you for filling in. And for people out there, I mean, this is way worse than Bud Light giving a random beer cans to a trans influencer. This, in theory, would be Nike paying for minors to be treated to see what the impact is in athletics, which is crazy. Crazy. Dan, appreciate the work. Keep us updated on WNBA propagandists and and more anytime play.
- [47:12]
Dan Zachesky
Thank you.
- [47:13]
Clay Travis
Dan does really good work. I do think that's important. And some people say, okay, well, you know, it's sports. Why does it matter? The only reason why anyone should be credentialed to go to a sporting event in 2025 is to ask questions of athletes and of coaches and of owners, other people affiliated with the game, because everybody knows the outcome of the game. The WNBA doesn't have reporters. They have propagandists. And they won't even ask Brittney Griner whether she gave a racial slur to white people on the sideline in a mega viral clip that's been watched over 10 million times on Twitter alone. It's shameful. Also predictable. Look, we just came back. I was down in Palm Beach. We met with the IFCJ face to face and help them raise money because the Attacks on Jewish people continue to grow, including unfortunately, what just happened in Boulder this past week. Chilling attack that antisemitism is on the march. One of the eight people injured, 88 year old who had been through the Holocaust era to have survived something like that. And then at 88 years old, deal with Molotov cocktails being thrown at you. And Boulder, we also know what happened in our Nation's capital, Washington, D.C. globalizing the intifada has consequences. But also you can push back against this awfulness by supporting the ifcj. They build bomb shelters, fortify ambulances, they provide donations, flak jackets, other essential items. I saw it for myself in December when I traveled to Israel. They also feed elderly Holocaust survivors. When you give a gift of $45 to the IFCJ, you're putting faith into action right where it's needed most. It stands for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. You can stand up to antisemitism and show your support@ifcj.org that's ifcj.org you can also call 888-488ifcj again, ifcj.org or 88848. We are joined now by former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He has got a brand new book out, Trump's Triumph, America's Greatest Comeback. We'll get into the Elon thing in a sec, but, but Speaker Gingrich, appreciate you coming on with us. You've been on with us several times. You are a student of history. Is there any doubt that Trump coming back to win the election is the greatest American political comeback of all time? Can you even think of a compari in the historical record based on your knowledge?
- [50:02]
Buck Sexton
No. Both because he was in office, lost office, got back into office, which is tied only by GROVER Cleveland in 1892. But even deeper, he had built such a strong following that Trump defeated Biden and then pivoted and a couple months later defeated Harris. No other candidate has defeated two major opponents in one year. And the very fact that he's still standing. This is part of why I wrote Trump's Triumph, which I began writing back in October, because I was convinced he was going to win. You think about everything they threw at him now since he walked down the elevator or the escalator in 2015. 10 years pounding away at him and he's still standing. And now he's once again president. So it's a remarkable achievement.
- [50:56]
Clay Travis
Is there anybody that you even think about historically outside of the United States? You mentioned Grover Cleveland, because I One of the great things about history is one you can learn about everybody that came before you, but you can also try to extrapolate how people that we don't know hundreds of years from now will look back. This is really a pretty incredible era. From the moment Trump came down the escalator, people are going to be grappling with his legacy for the next several hundred years.
- [51:26]
Buck Sexton
Oh, I think that's right. I think particularly if he can win the election next year and retain the Republican control of the House, he will, I think, enact so much reform and change the old order so decisively that he will rival everybody except Washington and Lincoln as the greatest, one of the greatest change agents in American history. And it's truly astonishing to watch him work to realize how many different things he's doing at the same time and how determined he is to literally make America great again.
- [52:03]
Clay Travis
Trump is the most powerful person, I think it's fair to say, in the world. Elon Musk is the richest. Yesterday, Elon had basically what felt to me like a temper tantrum on Twitter. He seems to have dialed it back today. I imagine you have met Elon at some point in time. I know you know Trump well. What is your take over what happened yesterday, the relationship between the two and where it goes from here?
- [52:28]
Buck Sexton
Look, you have two very powerful personalities who are also very powerful in real sources. I mean, President Trump is the most powerful man in the world and Elon Musk is the richest. So it's pretty interesting. I think Elon sort of had a temper tantrum and melted down. When you do 40 tweets in one day, you are sort of undermining yourself because it's hard for anyone to take you seriously when you do that many. And I think he was just, he was angry, upset, didn't know what to do and acted it all out in public, which I don't think in the long run was to Elon Musk's advantage because he's, you know, he is a brilliant guy. What he's done with SpaceX, for example, has single handedly put America back in the lead in space. So he's a remarkable person, but at the same time, he's not the President. He didn't have 77 million people vote for him. He's not in a position to wield the kind of power that the Constitution gives only to the President of the United States. And I think somehow hanging out at Mar? A Largo and then hanging out at the White House, Elon forgot that he was a supporter to the incumbent president, he wasn't an alternative.
- [53:50]
Clay Travis
You said you think Trump's term in office can be truly transformative if he's able to retain control of the House. Republicans are in the midterms next year. What do you think now about the squabble surrounding the so called big beautiful bill? Speaker Johnson got it through on the House side. Senate, there are obstacles. What would your take be based on what you have seen of this bill? What should happen? What will happen?
- [54:15]
Buck Sexton
Well, I think it should pass and I think it will pass. It'll change form a little bit, and that's the way it's supposed to be. Look, the founding fathers did not want to build a machine that you could make work so easily that a dictator could make it work. So they designed a machine that is so hard that we can barely get it to work voluntarily. And they would be very happy with that. They'd say, yeah, the price of freedom is that you've dispersed power, so you got to get a lot of people to sign off. Well, that's frustrating. It's difficult. Mike Johnson has done a great job as speaker of the House and frankly, Senator Thune, the majority leader in the Senate, is doing a terrific job. And I think that between them, they seem to have a very good understanding. The Senate will change the bill. Some, some of it will actually be an improvement and it has to be done carefully. And if they do it just right, I think they'll bring the bill straight from the Senate without a conference and end up having, I would guess, a vote in the House. And it'll be close. But my hunch is that it will win. This is the heart of the Trump project. He has to have this bill for the economy to boom. And I think if they get this bill through by next June or July, we'll be in what will be called the Trump boom. And we'll be creating jobs at an unbelievable rate. And take home pay will be going up and affordability will be increasing. And people are going to think, you know, this was worth the effort.
- [55:52]
Clay Travis
How durable is Trump is in post Trump?
- [55:56]
Buck Sexton
Well, I think one of the reasons he picked J.D. vance to be his vice president, Vance was a year younger than Nixon was when Eisenhower picked him. And I think one of the reasons he did it is he wanted somebody who could carry on the basic core messages. And he thought that JD Sort of had that in his head. So I think guys are pretty good. I mean, one of the points of my book, Trump's Triumph the Greatest the American People's Greatest Comeback, is that you really had a message, a machine, a movement and a messenger come together. That going all the way back to Goldwater in 64, there had been a gradual, steady increase in the desire to replace the Washington establishment. And that Trump came along and really focused and gave voice to the movement. And I think that's now real. I think you're not going to see a reversion to a traditional Republican winning the presidency in 2028. It's going to be somebody who shares Trump's values. And the most likely person, frankly, is J.D. vance.
- [57:04]
Clay Travis
For people who are interested in reading the book, what motivated you? You said you thought Trump was going to win, but you're a history. Gu were you partly writing this book to contextualize the history in real time? What motivated you? You've written a lot over the years.
- [57:19]
Buck Sexton
Well, so much has been going on. I wanted to put it all in historic context. And the book both takes you back to how Trump got here, but it also projects forward where I think it's going to go. And I have to say, even though we began writing in October and finished in early February, when we went back and reviewed the book just before its publication, the only two things we missed were the Gulf of America and the desire to annex Canada in Greenmond. Other than that, the book really did a pretty good job of capturing where the MAGA movement was going and where Trump was going.
- [57:55]
Clay Travis
Speaker Newt Gingrich, we appreciate the time. Have a good weekend. The book Trump's America's Greatest Comeback, and we hope you're having a lot of fun on the road promoting it. And thanks for the time today.
- [58:06]
Buck Sexton
Thank you. Take care.
- [58:08]
Clay Travis
Speaker NEWT Gingrich James come James Kerry, that's a very big difference. Joined the United States Marine Corps after being inspired by his grandfather who also served our nation. I also want to mention right off the top, I know I mentioned it earlier. I don't think I mentioned it this hour. So 81st anniversary of D Day, and I hope you'll take a little bit of time, as I know so many people at Tunnel to Towers will. I hope you'll take a little bit of time to think about the legacy of all the bravery that we saw on June 6, 1944, as all of those men stepped out into the face of the Nazi guns all over Normandy 81 years ago today. I guarantee you Frank Siller, who started Tunnel to Towers, is thinking about it. I know him well. I guarantee you he's spending part of his day thinking about the sacrifices those guys made and about people like James Kerry, who joined the United States Marine Corps after being inspired by his grandfather who also served our nation. James loved being a Marine, but his life would change forever. During a training exercise, he lost consciousness, nearly drowned. The incident resulted in a brain injury that left him blind and unable to use, his body, susceptible to memory loss, and it even brought on dementia. The Tunnel of the Towers foundation built James a specially adapted smart home to enable him to live more independently. Thanks to the generosity of friends like you, the lives of America's heroes and their families are being improved. James Kerry and so many others offer service members, first responders. So many people offering the ultimate sacrifice have paid a high price to keep our company, keep our country and our community safe. Through Tunnel the Towers, friends like you have said thank you not only through words, but also through actions. America's heroes need your help now more than ever. Help heroes like James and their families. Donate $11 a month to tunnel the towers. @t2t.org that's t the number 2t.org this is an I Heart podcast.