← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:00]
iHeart Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
Riley Herbst
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- [01:05]
Clay Travis
Hey, it's Karen and Georgia from My favorite Murder. Thanks to Hyundai, we got to take a post show drive in the Ionic five.
- [01:11]
iHeart Podcast Host
We had snacks, laughs, and we even recorded a special episode featuring some unforgettable car themed stories.
- [01:17]
Clay Travis
Take a listen. I'm going to tell you a story today, Karen. It's about a pivotal role that cars played in none other than the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- [01:30]
iHeart Podcast Host
Okay, well, yes, it's right there in the title, right? This episode is brought to you by the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Trump country is booming.
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Riley Herbst
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- [02:42]
Georgia Hardstark
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show Podcast. Welcome in Thursday edition Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you rolling with us as we are diving into the biggest stories of the day and beyond, probably, but also gonna have a lot of fun with you as we break down everything going on in the larger universe. And right off the top here, we had a big conversation about this yesterday. The fact that there was a leak to CNN and the New York Times that suggested the attack on Saturday evening here in the United States on Tehran was not actually effective, and that has been pushed back on aggressively. And it started really early this morning at 8:00am Eastern, when Pete Hegseth came out and just went to town on the press and the reporting surrounding this. Now, I want to play some of these cuts because it was a pretty intense press conference. But I'll start with a conversation that we had yesterday, which was about the challenge, the difficulty of finding out who leaked this information, particularly as it appears that it may well not have been accurate. So, Buck, you worked in the intelligence community. When you saw this report was leaked, did you think initially, hey, this is kind of unheard of. Did it totally seem maybe not a positive thing, but not an unexpected thing? And I know we talked about this some yesterday, but what are the difficulties that would be inherent in figuring out who actually leaked to this, because it is certainly classified information.
- [04:33]
Riley Herbst
Well, the fact that somebody would take this to the press so early on in the process and that it was already known to be a low confidence assessment, just means somebody wanted to blunt the narrative of Trump is just kicking ass and making excellent decisions as commander in chief. And this war, those who said, it's not even a war, it's a military strike, okay, you know, think of all the countries that we have had military operations in, that we would not consider ourselves to be at war in the midst of a war. But, Clay, this was meant to have a political ramification, because if you wanted this to have. Have US national security in mind, if you wanted to be somebody who said, hey, guys, hey, I'm worried about the reactors. I'm worried that there could still be a lot more here. We didn't get enough. What you would want is to wait until you pull together all of the best sources, get it rock solid, and then work its way up the chain through the CIA director or the DIA director in this case. And then at that point, you know, you would have done your due diligence. This wasn't a due diligence moment. This was somebody who decided, I'm going to be the one who reigns on Trump's parade here. This was an individual. This was a deep stater. This is someone who did not have the interests of the United States in mind, but the interests of a very bitter and weak and feckless looking Democrat machine in mind and hope to take away some of the sense of, of, of a bullion and some of the congratulations that have been going around, not just for Trump's decision, but for the men and women who flew the airstrikes themselves for the Pentagon pulling this off the intelligence community for having these sites mapped out. Clay, it's a big win. But this would, to me, this is a bit like saying somebody from within the intelligence community after the bin Laden raid is raising, raising concerns that there was really, you know, no, no document exploitation that, that came out of that raid or maybe that we didn't even get bin Laden. Why would you do that? You would only do that if you were trying to hurt. Now, of course, that didn't happen because somehow our team doesn't do those kinds of leaks. That's always a Democrat left wing thing when there's a leak of classified to hurt a commander in chief. But that's what this was. It's very clear. There's no way that this person could have had the level of visibility necessary to. With a. Remember, it's a low confidence assessment. Clay, I was in the room many times with people from dia, CIA, nsa, go down the list, all of them, and there were squabbling over who's right about very important. And we were at war, right? We were in the midst of a war. And you know, things like, hey, could a surge in Baghdad work to stabilize things? Let me tell you something. A lot of fighting and dissenting voices over that. The notion that one person has the keys to the kingdom on the, on the damage assessment is absurd. It's just a political hit and that's why they should go after the leaker.
- [07:42]
Georgia Hardstark
All right, so let me play some of these cuts. This was from the Pentagon earlier today. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. I do give a lot of credit. We've talked about this on the program. They made everybody get there early. 8:00am Eastern Time. Start for this to dominate the news cycle for the day. Here's Hegseth blasting the press, in particular for these leaks. This is cut to because you, and.
- [08:10]
Buck Sexton
I mean specifically you, the press, specifically you, the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad. You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. You have to hope maybe they weren't effective. Maybe the way the Trump administration is represented them isn't true. So let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public mind, over whether or not our brave pilots were successful. How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story as Fox? Have we done the story, how hard that is? Have we done it two or three times so that American people understand how about how difficult it is to shoot a drone from an F15 or 16 or F22 or F35, or what it's like to man a Patriot battery, or how hard it is to refuel midair, giving the American people an understanding of how complex and sophisticated this mission really was. There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that because of the hatred of this press corps are undermined because people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful.
- [09:38]
Riley Herbst
It's your response.
- [09:39]
Georgia Hardstark
Okay, so that's one. Let's continue. This sounds a little bit like Fox and Friends or a hit that Pete Hegseth is doing on Fox News. And it's one reason, I think, that Trump wanted him in this position, because he is a very talented communicator. And that matters in this world where you are really having to lace on the gloves and go head to head with the press every single day. Here's cut three more on Hegseth saying the classified information, as you said, buck, is leaked to try and harm Trump. Cut 3.
- [10:14]
Buck Sexton
Time and time again, classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad. And what's really happening is you're undermining the success of incredible B2 pilots and incredible F35 pilots and incredible refuelers and incredible air defenders who accomplish their mission, set back a nuclear program in ways that other presidents would have dreamed. How about we celebrate that? How about we talk about how special America is, that we only we have these capabilities? I think it's too much to ask, unfortunately, for the fake news, so we're used to that. But we also have an opportunity to stand at the podium and read the truth of what's really happening. And the reality is, you want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated. Choose your word. This was an historically successful attack, and we should celebrate it as Americans, and it gives us a chance to have peace, chance to have a deal and an opportunity to prevent a nuclear Iran, which is something President Trump talked about for 20 years.
- [11:15]
Georgia Hardstark
I mean, guns blazing here. I don't think we mentioned the New York Times getting upset about the fact that Hegseth praised our boys. And so he was actually asked, do you. We have this cut? And I couldn't believe it. He was actually asked, why not acknowledge female pilots that participated instead of congratulating the boys. This is cut for why not acknowledge.
- [11:40]
Riley Herbst
The female pilots that also participated in this mission.
- [11:43]
iHeart Podcast Host
The early messages that you sent out.
- [11:45]
Riley Herbst
Only congratulated the boys.
- [11:47]
Buck Sexton
So when I say something like our boys and bombers. See, this is the kind of thing the press does, right? Of course. The chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot. That's fantastic. She's fantastic. She's a hero. I want more female bomber pilots. I hope the men and women of our country sign up to do such brave and audacious things. But when you spin it as. Because I say our boys and bombers is a common phrase, I'll keep saying things like that, whether they're men or women. Very proud of that female pilot, just like I'm very proud of those male pilots. And I don't care if it's a male or a female in that cockpit. And the American people don't care. But it's the obsession with race and gender in this department that's changed priorities. We don't do that anymore. We don't play your little games.
- [12:27]
Georgia Hardstark
I love this. I mean, I can't believe that's a real question he got asked.
- [12:30]
Riley Herbst
I know, but it's good that we see that this is what the press still pretends is their job, right. Is to push. They're just asking questions. We'll get to Jake Tapper's latest on that. Really, they're always pushing an agenda. No one thinks that Pete Hegseth was undermining any woman who. This is a bit like saying, hey, when you, when you were talking, you said, hey, you guys, great job. Why didn't you say you guys and girls? I mean, it's absurd. It's. It's childish. It's. It's focused on nothing. But I also think that what this shows you, Clay, is in these, you know, the media, the non Fox media, the Democrat media, the non aligned leftist media, they have been making a lot of jokes about how Fox News essentially has staffed this Trump administration. And what's interesting is, yeah, guess what? Now you've got people who are both qualified to do the job. People like Dan Bongino, and hegseth and others who are also really good at media and comms themselves.
- [13:29]
Georgia Hardstark
Yes.
- [13:29]
Riley Herbst
And so if you think back to other times, we've had people who are running, you know, Department of Defense and we've had people who were in these kinds of cabinet level positions. Secretary of State. Look, look at Secretary of State Rubio. I mean, that guy might as well have been a Fox contributor for the last decade he's been on Fox. You know, as much as anybody, they're good at this. And so the ability that the media has to attack them, trip them up, undermine them and then focus on that instead of what's actually happening is, is vastly diminished. I mean, it's almost nonexistent at this point.
- [14:01]
Georgia Hardstark
Can you imagine being a Pentagon news reporter and we just had the strike that we did on Iran and you get a limited amount of time to ask questions and a limited amount of things that you can even ask about because they're only going to be whatever it is, five, six, seven people called on that. That would be the thing that you went in as a Pentagon reporter to focus on was the fact that one female was there and said when the, when he said the boys in the planes or whatever the heck it used to be, that that would be your focus. It even is stunning to me.
- [14:35]
Riley Herbst
Still, this, all, this all makes sense though, because their job, if you work for the Washington Post and you're in the Pentagon briefing room, or if you work for the New York Times and you're in the White House, the only way you're going to get any attention and that your readership, which is hyper partisan, is going to like your reporting is if you manage to attack successfully, get them to stumble, get to pull some sound bite. They don't actually care about the information. They don't, they're not there to ask relevant, reasonable questions and get back objective data for the American people. They are there to be partisan attack dogs. And so if they don't do that, they're not actually serving the purposes of their paper.
- [15:21]
Georgia Hardstark
I get the part is an attack dog thing, but to think that your audience is obsessed because he used the word boys. And did you see, did you see.
- [15:32]
Riley Herbst
Who asked that question? Did you see who asked that question? She's been wagging her finger at people for saying you guys for the last 20 years. I guarantee you, I, I just, I.
- [15:44]
Georgia Hardstark
Can'T believe that that is real. And by the way, the New York Times got savaged in their live chat because they had a male reporter who said in real time, hey, well actually you know, there was a girl. First of all, when the idea that boys and girls, or guys, or we all understand the concept, I mean I, I imagine it comes from the boys and the bombers is also a phrase, boys in the boat, which was one of the best selling books, a great book by the way. But I. Is there, are there any women that were actually offended by that? I just the fact that that would be a question that's asked of the secretary of defense in a limited public availability situation where he doesn't answer a lot of questions is actually, even for left wing media, I think a huge embarrassment for them. Uh, look, heads up everybody. Another massive data breach has happened. 16 billion. 16 billion login credentials have been leaked. Apple, Google, Facebook. Passwords stolen using malware. 16 billion of them. Eventually they're gonna end up on the dark web. Important to understand how cybercrime and identity theft are affecting our lives. Lots of places can accidentally expose your personal info. That's why lifelock monitors millions of data points a second for risk to your identity. And remember, when you're a lifelock member, you can become a victim of identity theft, but you will immediately have a dedicated U. S based lifelock restoration specialist to fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Join now say 40% off your first year with my name clay as the promo code. That's 1-800-lifelock to go online to lifelock.com promo code clay for 40% off. That's lifelock.com promo code Clay.
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Georgia Hardstark
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- [19:53]
Clay Travis
And Georgia from My favorite Murder thanks to Hyundai we got to take a post show drive in the Ionic five.
- [19:58]
iHeart Podcast Host
We had snacks, laughs and we even recorded a special episode episode featuring some unforgettable car themed stories.
- [20:05]
Clay Travis
Take a listen. The Montgomery Bus Boycott Success was dependent on the action and dedication of many individuals of course. But today we're going to focus on the work of one of those people in particular. A woman in her 30s and yes, I love her name. It's Georgia Gilmore.
- [20:23]
iHeart Podcast Host
Oh yes. Today's story is centered on a group of courageous women dedicated on taking down Hitler during World War II. They banded together to form an all female ambulance corps which became the first unit of its kind to join an official combat division on the Western front. This is the story of the Rochambeau Group best known by their nickname the Rochambelles.
- [20:50]
Clay Travis
Oh my God.
- [20:51]
iHeart Podcast Host
Right? This episode is brought to you by the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5.
- [20:59]
Tom Homan
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- [22:58]
Georgia Hardstark
Hey, Buck. One of my kids called me an unk the other day.
- [23:01]
Riley Herbst
An unk?
- [23:02]
Georgia Hardstark
Yep. Slaying, evidently. For not being hip, being an old dude.
- [23:05]
Riley Herbst
So how do we un unk you?
- [23:07]
Georgia Hardstark
Get more people to subscribe to our YouTube channel. At least that's what my kids tell me.
- [23:12]
Riley Herbst
That's simple enough. Just search the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show and hit the subscribe button.
- [23:17]
Georgia Hardstark
Takes less than five seconds to help. Un unk me.
- [23:20]
Riley Herbst
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 Mama Donnie Mania. Sweeping the Democrats all across this land of ours. And we all know from yesterday that this guy, Zoran Moore Mamadani is the Democrat nominee for the mayor of New York City. Now that's not a done deal. There are some long bomb in the end zone hopes that maybe Eric Adams could pull this off, or maybe there's some Cuomo deal. Although I think Cuomo now is just considered a loser. Right? The comeback, Clay. The comeback has. Has not worked out the way that Cuomo wanted. These. The spaghetti and meatballs was not as good as he was hoping for. It's gonna.
- [24:18]
Georgia Hardstark
This was a total whiff by me, Buck. I mean, I really thought that they had rolled out the red carpet for him. I thought he was going to win the mayoral race and would then use it as the jumping off point to be a candidate in 2028. Instead, I think his political career is over. I think. I think he gave up the political ghost, so to speak, in that loss, in the way that he lost.
- [24:39]
Riley Herbst
So now here's. Again, I have to. I bring this to your attention because so go with New York City. So go with a lot of other Democrat cities. I think this is going to be viewed. So if you live in Texas, you're like, well, that's New York's problem. Yeah, but, you know, you live in a city like Houston or Dallas, which is Democrat majority, unfortunately, this might affect you. You know, obviously, if you live in California, you're in a Democrat enclave statewide, you know, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that. That will filter out from this. And I think it's an interesting test case because you already have national level Dem. You had Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, I don't even know. He was on Twitter. He was like, hey, I hear you're a socialist. You love those pretty ladies. I like pretty ladies, too. We should talk. You know, Bill Clinton all of a sudden giving his congratulations. Khomeini himself. Just kidding. Khomeini didn't congratulate him, but it would have been funny if he had. Khomeini did say that they've won the war, though. That is. I do have that one here. We'll get to that later. Bill Clinton, congratulations to Zoron on your victory. Wishing you success. Yeah, yeah. Nothing really interesting there, but Bill Clinton weighed in AOC and Bernie, there's really a. There's really a decision that's being made with AOC within the Democrat Party. There's the aoc, Bernie pathway, and then there's the, you know, somebody who's the Democrat in charge of Kentucky. What's that guy I'm forgetting blanking on?
- [26:07]
Georgia Hardstark
Andy Bashir.
- [26:08]
Riley Herbst
You know, there's like the Bashir or the governor of Maryland or the, you know, there's that, like, I'm a Democrat, but I'm not like one of those crazy Democrats. They'll do whatever Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tell them, but they pretend not to be right. Right now, you've just had a big win. Go up on the board for the crazy AOC wing of the Democrat Party. And I understand you might say, buck, they'll never be able to win a national election. Kamala lost by in the Electoral College, which is what matters. A couple hundred thousand votes, really. Right. Meaning, I understand she lost by a lot more. She lost the popular vote. I'm not taking away from Trump's enormous victory. It was fantastic. But if you were able to shift a couple hundred thousand votes in half a dozen states, really less than half a dozen states, Kamala Harris would have been president. So don't. Let's not get complacent about the fact that the worst presidential candidate in my lifetime is somebody who wasn't that far. It was not like a, you know, Mondale absolute thrashing. Okay? This was something that was closer than it should have been. Now, let's just. Just because of why. I don't want you to think, oh, this is just New York City's problem. This is. That's like saying Soros prosecutors were New York's problem. Oh, wait, hold on a second. They were in every major city in the country for a while. There were soros Prosecutors in St. Louis and in. And in Philly and in LA and in Atlanta. You get on the list. Right. Chicago, Soros money all over the country. So you have to watch these trends. Clay, let's get into some of the crazy stuff here. Socialist Democrat Zoran Mamdani, something that he says he wants to do. This is cut nine. This guy says he wants to 800% increase hate, hate crime prevention. Play this.
- [27:58]
J.R. Martinez
I know that Jewish New Yorkers, like Jewish Americans, are fearful in this moment of anti Semitism. And ultimately, it's through the conversations I've had with Jewish New Yorkers that I have developed a proposal for the Department of Community Safety that would include an 800% increase in funding for hate crime prevention programs. Because ultimately, we cannot simply say that anti Semitism has no home in this city or no place in this country. We have to do more than talk about it. We have to tackle it. And that's what we will do. Through this funding and through this commitment, we will root out bigotry across the five boroughs.
- [28:32]
Riley Herbst
Let me just throw this out there, Clay. This is going to absolutely not work at all to stop any bigotry, but it will be a way to fund left wing indoctrination programs in community centers, schools, and etc. All the rest of it.
- [28:46]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah. And look, I think what you're saying is so important because a lot of people think, oh, New York City, that doesn't really impact my life in a substantial way. I think who the mayor of New York City is impacts all of our lives. Even if you live in the smallest town in Alabama or the most remote part of Utah. The decisions made in New York City, given its primacy as the financial capital of the world, have a major resonance. And the idea that New York City is going to potentially elect a guy like Mom Donnie should be a clarion call for sanity to ring forth. And I think maybe some of these parents that are subsidizing all their kids to live in New York City. Producer Ali made a good point yesterday. But I do think it's true that a lot of Mom Donnie's voters are young, under 30s, who otherwise wouldn't be living in New York City, but for the fact that their parents are helping to pay their rent and they have decided they like socialism, the parents like capitalism, because that's how they can afford to. To take care of their kids. But I do think that there's a generational divide here. And I think as you break all of this down, unfortunately, look, I don't know that the Democrat Party, this is a good question for you, Buck, is still in a powerful enough position that they would be able to knock out a Bernie Sanders candidacy now, that they would be able to knock out an AOC candidacy now. I think the party is so fractured and so broken, and you might say, okay, well, that's good. The problem is they could win. I don't think it's a. A crazy idea that Bernie Sanders could, if he weren't 83 or 84 or whatever the heck he is, that he could catch fire, someone like him could catch fire and end up as the President. I don't think it's a crazy, ridiculous idea.
- [30:53]
Riley Herbst
I'm going to tell you something. I watched a lot of these Momdani videos, and the guy is. The guy is very slick. He understands social media. He comes across as just objectively, he comes across as affable and pretty humble and a guy who just wants to talk to people. He did this whole video. It's now gone pretty viral, Clay, where he goes around talking to like, you know, people call them like halal carts, like the meat. Meat and rice carts that are in New York City, asking them, like, why is it so expensive? Like, why is it 10 or $12 now for this? Wouldn't. Couldn't be less. And he has these guys, he goes right in and they're saying, oh, it's because of city permitting. The city permitting process is corrupt and takes too long and it's too expensive. And he goes, oh, we're going to fix that. You know, say what you will about the Fact that he, you know, freezing. There's a whole bill Ackman has a whole takedown of this guy freezing rent prices is just going to make the housing shortage worse. Worse because it means that, you know, there are expenses that are already baked in and people have to build more, and they don't want to build more if they can't actually charge the market rate anyway. So he's an economic illiterate, but he understands. Mamdani understands story, and he understands social media and how to connect with an audience. I, you know, don't, don't sleep on this guy. Everybody, you know, we have this thing, you know, and I know we've done this with AOC too. Oh, you know, jeez. This guy doesn't strike me as dumb. Wrong, yes. Dumb, no. He doesn't strike me as dumb. And, you know, horrible ideas, certainly. But this is the other, you know, the option the Democrats have is not. Is to say we're not going to go toward the center and try to reform our crazy. We're going to double down on crazy. We're just going to package it better.
- [32:43]
Georgia Hardstark
Oh, I think AOC sees this and says, I'm running for president now in 2028.
- [32:47]
Riley Herbst
Absolutely. I've said that so long. You asked me right after this election who's going to be the leader of Democrat Party. I said, well, I said AOC at one point. And then I've also mentioned Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland. But those are the pathways. There's the aoc, hard left, socialist. Just say the stuff that you want to say. As, as. And then there's the, oh, I'm not like them. I'm more normal. And then you get the AOC policies, but you get somebody who pretends to be something else during the election cycle. And that's the sure approach.
- [33:17]
Georgia Hardstark
The Democrat Party has the ability to slap down someone like Bernie Sanders if he were running today, which, if I'm looking at aoc, I'm saying Mamdani just ran through. What did Momdani do? Well, he's pretty good on social media, you may think, and I certainly think that AOC is economically illiterate and a moron. There's a huge audience for what she puts out on social media, and she's skilled at that. Now, I don't. I hope that her overall policies are so crazy and she would do such a poor job even of defending those policies that she would not be capable of winning an election. But I think you're starting to see that the Democrat Party had two pathways. They could wake up and be somewhat more sane, or at least pretend to be more sane and take the more moderate path as they move towards 2026 and 2028. Or they could double, triple and quadruple down on crazy. And it seems to me that the early returns, based on what we saw in New York City, are that they're going to double, triple, quadruple down on crazy. And, you know, now we're in a situation where Eric Adams is the savior of New York City. And that's only if they can get Cuomo to officially drop out, if they can find a way to kind of corral this strange coalition that potentially he would be able to bring to bear. And that would require black voters, interestingly, deciding that they had to show up in a monster number for Eric Adams in order to offset a lot of these young white voters that have fallen in love with socialism.
- [35:02]
Riley Herbst
So you've got Mamdani Talking about the 800% increase in the anti bigotry forces, not police. Like, I don't know what they're going to be bigotry prevention programs. Also, as we know in New York, talking about if you're talking about anti Semitic or anti Asian bigotry. Yeah, probably not gonna. If you're a leftist, you're not gonna like the demographics that are disproportionately targeting those groups. This is just a matter of fact, a matter of numbers and data. But put that aside for a moment. Here is really at the heart of it, Mamdani saying that our criminal justice system, this is cut 8, is just straight up racist.
- [35:41]
J.R. Martinez
The alternatives are things that we must look to immediately, both with regards to neighborhood groups who do anti violence work and are shown to be more effective than the police. But also asking, you know, if we have an understanding that our criminal justice system is racist, which is a quite a general understanding now it seems to be shared by many, many people, then how can we simultaneously be investing in it as the way we both judge and determine the futures of so many people in our state?
- [36:13]
Riley Herbst
Now, that was 2020, granted. But the criminal justice system in this country is actually not racist. It is not racist. I know that this is something Democrats love to say, but the laws are the laws.
- [36:24]
Georgia Hardstark
And we have talked about this before. And to me, the way that this gets destroyed is if you just push back. Anybody who says this, just nod and say, super sexist too. Why are men charged with crimes really unfair?
- [36:40]
Riley Herbst
Those murder laws? Men do all the murders. This is my favorite argument, Clay. We've been making it here for A long time. Because they don't know what to say. Because they have to admit, yeah, men commit more murders. We just do. Sorry, guys. We're the ones who kill people. Does that mean we should change the murder laws? Does that mean that murder laws are sexist? It does not. It's pretty strong argument.
- [37:00]
Georgia Hardstark
It's good one to use on your kids or grandkids. If they bring that home with you sometime instead of immediately combating them there. Say, you know what? I've been thinking about this a lot. Why are men in prison at such higher rates than women? I think maybe we need to go back and look at all of our laws. They're very sexist and see how your kids respond.
- [37:18]
Riley Herbst
By the time this day ends, another American family farm is going to be forced to close. Not because they stop working hard and doing their best, but because a lot of grocery stores aren't buying their meat anymore. Over 85% of the grass fed beef sold in the US is imported and most Americans have no idea. But that's where Good Ranchers comes in. That's why Clay and I get our meat from goodranchers.com Good Ranchers doesn't just sell super tasty meat. I mean it is delicious. They bring you back to the source. All Good ranchers products are 100% born, raised and harvested in the USA from local family farms. This summer you can subscribe to any Good Ranchers box and get your pick of free meat for life. That's free Wagyu burgers, hot dogs, bacon or chicken wings in every box for the lifetime of your subscription. Get an extra $40 off your first box when you use my name Buck as your promo code at checkout. Once again, visit goodranchers.com use promo code BUCK. Get your free meat for life plus $40 off goodranchers.com American meat delivered.
- [38:30]
Georgia Hardstark
White House Press secretary, our friend Caroline Levitt taking questions right now on the intel leaks surrounding the Iran operation. We have been talking about the big decision that New York City is going to have. What do you think Cuomo does? I'm. I was totally wrong. I thought I. I did think he would run for mayor. I look like a genius up till about a month.
- [38:55]
Riley Herbst
Put this one in the. In the Forget file, Clay. Okay, You've made some great calls. This one, this one didn't quite work out as we thought, but it's okay.
- [39:03]
Georgia Hardstark
What's the best. Let's pretend that you were giving advice to Andrew Cuomo. Is it to now get behind mom Donnie and just kind of step off to the side. Or is it to try to run as an independent and maybe have a secret deal behind the scenes? Because if he runs as an independent and Eric Adams runs, then Mom Donnie's definitely going to win because they will split the Mom Donnie opposition vote.
- [39:33]
Riley Herbst
I think he's a two time loser and that means the best thing that he can do is to get an agent and find his way onto an episode of Law and Order where he plays a probably elderly mobster or something along those lines. Maybe a corrupt politician. I do not think that he has a future in New York politics anymore after this. I don't see it. Because, you know, you can't win the. No, he'll just be playing spoiler at that point. If I'm a New Yorker and I'm New York adjacent in my heart. Right? I mean, if I'm a New Yorker still, though, voting, you know, I talk to my family about this all the time and I want what's best for New York, not just for all of our fantastic WOR listeners and podcast listeners in the New York area. We want the best for all of you. But also my own family is there. So when we talk about safe streets in New York, I'm thinking about my mom, my dad, my sister. You know, I'm thinking about people who I love and mean a lot to me. So that means that I want what's best. Now, in what way is Andrew Cuomo an improvement over Eric Adams? I have to say, I don't think he is. And so that's where the pro. You've got a guy who's already mayor already in the job. Not horrible. Okay. He's not good. You know, I think Eric Adams. And let me know WOR listeners if you want, if you think this is a fair grade. I think he's a. You know, if de Blasio was an F, I think Mayor Eric Adams is probably a C minus, maybe a C. You know, I think that's, that's a fair. You know, he's not intentionally maliciously destroying New York. He's just not a very good manager. He was good on the issue. Let's take a few things. He tried to help on the crime issue. Brought in somebody good here with Jesse Tisch to run the NYPD as commissioner. He spoke out in a way that I think was really important for the Trump campaign. Actually, he didn't speak on behalf of them, but when he said, guys, we're flooded with all these migrants, this is crazy, he was honest about that and said he didn't want any more. Right. So he did do some things that are. There's nothing I can. De Blasio did nothing that is good. Everything de Blasio did was in my, in my mind. Every decision he made was against the interests of New Yorkers and we can just forget about him. But, you know, didn't he run for president, by the way? Did he run for president for a second? I think he did. Wasn't he one of those guys was like, I'm also on the stage. Everyone was like, get out of here. So, Clay, I think that Eric Adams is the non mom Downey hope of New York now. And is that enough? And people who are going to tell me, buck, you can get behind Curtis Sliwa, you can get behind Curtis Lewa, obviously I agree with Curtis. I like Curtis.
- [42:12]
Georgia Hardstark
We've had him on the show several times.
- [42:14]
Riley Herbst
We've had him on the show. You know, He's. It's an 80, 20 Democrat city, guys. It's not. It's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. I wish, you know, that that wasn't the case. But you just had the most radical leftist win the Democrat primary. You're not about to win over a lot of Democrats to be a Republican. That's not going to happen to vote for a Republican.
- [42:36]
Georgia Hardstark
A part of me wonders whether there might be such a panic setting in among the Wall street universe that somebody with hundreds of millions of dollars, a lot of Bloomberg decides Ackman is by.
- [42:49]
Riley Herbst
Saying he's going to spend huge money. Bill Ackman, who's the.
- [42:52]
Georgia Hardstark
Who's kind of we need to get him on the show because I think that would be an interesting conversation. But he is, he has been tweeting that, that there are people out there that he thinks he could help to persuade. The challenge is whoever is opposed to Mamdani. Everybody else has to drop out. And there has to be one focal point of hey, this is the guy or the gal, as the case may be, who is going to go head to head against mom Donnie and everybody has to get behind this person. My concern is I think Cuomo's ego is involved here now Eric Adams, I don't think there's any way he's going to drop out. And then Curtis Sliwa, you, you start getting all these different groups and it's hard to get 50% plus one when you've got this many different splintered individuals running de Blasio's presidential campaign. By the way, good research by Ali. He ran from May 16, 2019 to September 20, 2019, spent $1.4 million. And everybody just kind of laughed him out of the arena because even New Yorkers were like, this is one of the craziest things you have ever seen that a guy who's. This. Didn't. Didn't the guy, this unpopular would decide to run. Did it. Bill de Blasio make news most recently Buck, because he and his wife announced that they were going to basically have an open marriage. Am I wrong about this?
- [44:23]
Riley Herbst
I think I know this and tried to forget it because I don't really need to know this stuff, but I believe there's something like that that has occurred.
- [44:31]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah, they made a public statement that they were staying married, but they were going to be with other people. I mean, what a ridiculous guy that dude was. The fact that he could get elected actually makes me terrified, because, Mom. Donnie, to your point, Buck is actually a super articulate, smart, charismatic guy who's just wrong about everything, but he's not an unlikable person, if that makes sense. He's wrong about everything, but not unlikable and also smart and savvy when it comes to trying to understand how to make arguments on social media.
- [45:09]
Riley Herbst
Yes, I think that he's more formidable than a lot of people looking from the outside are assessing right now, and that's something to keep in mind as we go forward. So, look, I'm totally. I hope. I hope I'm wrong on this one, and I hope that this is something that, you know, that does not come to pass. But here is, let me see, we've got Tom Homan laying down the law here. You know, there's this whole separation of powers thing. And here is Tom Homan saying, look, you can't kick ice out of New York, buddy. It's called federal law. Play 16.
- [45:48]
Georgia Hardstark
He's vowed to kick the, quote, fascist ice out of New York City. Okay, so how do you intend to deal with that? Because I would guess there are going to be a of lot, lot of criminals and Iranian cells and whatnot in New York City. The job's not done there. What do you say to this guy?
- [46:03]
Riley Herbst
Good luck with that, Governor. Law trumps him every, every, every, every day, every hour of every minute. We're going to be in New York City. Matter of fact, this is a sanctuary city. President Trump made it clear a week and a half ago. We're going, we're going to double down and triple down sanctuary cities. If we can't arrest a bad guy in a county jail, one agent, rest in one bad guy, they release him in the street like New York does every day. We got to send whole teams. This guy, yeah, that, that's going to be a showdown that I don't think is going to go well for Momdani, by the way. I don't think that he, he wants to be on the other side of Tom Homan on the immigration issue, because first of all, legally, Homan's right. And second of all, if there's anything that looks like a showdown, this Mamdani guy is going to shrink away from that fight very quickly.
- [46:50]
Georgia Hardstark
I'm not sure anybody in the entire Trump team is working harder right now than Tom Homan is. I mean, if you look at that.
- [46:57]
Riley Herbst
Stephen Miller, I mean, when we saw him, Stephen Miller looks like, he looks like he lives on a cot on the White House floor right now. I mean, he's, he's going through a lot.
- [47:06]
Georgia Hardstark
There are a lot of guys who are working unbelievable hours because they see this as the 18 months when Trump is able to be his most effective and efficient version of himself. But the amount of media that is out there that Tom Holman is doing on a day to day basis and the amount of success that he is having is frankly unparalleled. And I know we talk about this on this program and try to make sure that we reference it often. I'm not sure in our lives that there has ever been anything that government has fixed faster and more effectively than the border under Trump, when you consider historic failure under Biden. And it was as if a light switch just got flipped or got turned off, whichever direction you want to go. And overnight everything changed and it became flawless. And, you know, that's the case because it suddenly isn't talked about anywhere. But my goodness, this is the number one thing Trump said he would fix and they don't want to give him any credit for it. But Tom Holman and the team and Stephen Miller is a part of this, too. They've just been unbelievable on this front.
- [48:19]
Riley Herbst
Also want to bring this to your attention again, because I know, you know, we talk about this and it's like, oh, we're so New York focused and bucks from New York. And maybe that's why a lot of people are focused in on this all over the country right now, because it's a playbook that I think you're going to see replicated elsewhere and you could even see replicated in the 2028 election cycle, which I know feels like an eternity away, but it's not. I'll be Here before you know it. And Socialist Mamdani Kami Mamdani. This is cut 10 is saying, yeah, what I did. This should be the playbook. This absolutely will work in other cities, in other states across America. Play it. You're a proud democratic socialist. Do you think that is a platform that would work for other candidates running in other parts of the country?
- [49:04]
J.R. Martinez
Absolutely. I think ultimately this is a campaign about inequality and you don't have to live in the most expensive city in the country to have experienced that inequality because it's a national issue. And what Americans coast to coast are looking for are people who will fight for them. And part of how we got to this point was through the endorsements of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, who've been leading this fight against oligarchy across the country. And I think that in focusing on working people and their struggles, we also return back to what makes so many of us proud to be Democrats in the first place.
- [49:40]
Riley Herbst
Not shying away from it at all. Clay, I think you will see more people try to play this. Remember the whole thing about socialism is that all you have to do, you find as many people as possible who are unhappy with some aspect of their day to day life and you tell them it's not your fault, there's nothing that you can do to change this. Other people are the reason for this. I'm going to hurt those other people, usually financially, sometimes more than that, but I'm going to hurt those other people and take their stuff and give it to you and make your problems go away. It's very appealing. It works for a reason. And so we have not seen the end of this. On the right, we yell socialism and act like it's some kind of argument ender. A lot of people, a lot of you, especially Gen X and Gen Z, they love their socialism. They don't know what it is, but sounds good to them.
- [50:31]
Georgia Hardstark
The biggest flaw of capitalism is it provides the wealth and luxury to think you don't need capitalism anymore.
- [50:39]
Riley Herbst
I.
- [50:40]
Georgia Hardstark
It's just the lesson out there is you have to have the freedom and the time and the wealth in order to make these arguments. And I look at those Mom Donnie celebration partners, those aren't poor kids celebrating Mom Donnie winning. That is not people struggling to put food in their mouths.
- [50:58]
Riley Herbst
I know who they are. I know who they are. I used to socialize in New York with a lot of people that would fall into the Mom Donnie category. But Clay, you know I often mentioned Naval Ravikant. Did you see this? I just thought this was a perfect one liner on this whole situation. He wrote, socialism is the suicide pact of mediocrity. It is absolutely true. And that really gets the psychology of it. It's there are people that have more than me. People work, you know, that are doing more than me, people that are happier and enjoying more than me. I want a system of power that will pull them down and promises to pull me up. And even if it doesn't pull me up, as long as it pulls them down, I'll be happy.
- [51:44]
Georgia Hardstark
This is why I thought sports was such an important battleground. Because sports is the ultimate meritocracy. Best man or best woman wins. And as soon as they can start to create the idea that there's something wrong with that or that a boy can be a girl's champ and all this other stuff, they destroy the underbelly of much of success in the meritocracy in the country which is embedded in sports. You know, I made this argument something fun for you guys to think about. Is there anything more trusted in America today than the scoreboard? Think about that for a minute as and where everybody sits around and argues about everything. The scoreboard in a game, if it's a little bit off, everybody's standing up like, hey, that bucket was just made. Now you may be upset with officials every now and then, but I would argue that the scoreboard might be the most trusted symbol in America today. That we trust it to be able to tell us who's winning and who's losing. And at the end of a game, everybody says, you know what, that team won or that team lost. Think about it for a minute. I, I really think it might be number one. Look, I want to tell you about James Kerry. He 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 when he lost consciousness and nearly drowned. The incident resulted in a brain injury that left James blind and unable to use his body, susceptible to memory loss. And it even brought on dementia. Tunnel 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 Carey and so many other service members and first responders have paid a high price to keep our country and our community safe. Through Tunnel to Towers, friends like you have said thank you not only through words, but 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 at t2t.org that's tthenumber2t.org.
- [54:00]
Riley Herbst
President Trump was right when he said Obamacare sucks. President Trump also said he didn't want to terminate Obamacare, but he wants to replace it with much better health care.
- [54:09]
Georgia Hardstark
Now you can replace your overpriced Obamacare with Ease for Everyone, the only group plan that any adult in the US Is now eligible to join. With a monthly cost as low as $262, you get free unlimited prescriptions. With 93% of all drugs covered available at no extra cost, including insulin and with huge savings on brand names, there's.
- [54:32]
Riley Herbst
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- [54:43]
Georgia Hardstark
You can have affordable health care for as low as $262 a month. Today visit ease for everyone.com clay that's ease forever.com forward/clay paid for by Affordable Benefit Choices hey it's Karen and Georgia.
- [55:02]
Clay Travis
From my favorite Murder. Thanks to Hyundai we got to take a post show drive in the Ionic five.
- [55:07]
iHeart Podcast Host
We had snacks, laughs and we even recorded a special episode featuring some unforgettable car themed stories.
- [55:13]
Clay Travis
Take a listen. The Montgomery Bus Boycott Success was dependent on the action and dedication of many individuals of course. But today we're going to focus on the way work of one of those people in particular. A woman in her 30s and yes, I love her name, it's Georgia Gilmore.
- [55:31]
iHeart Podcast Host
Oh yes. Today's story is centered on a group of courageous women dedicated on taking down Hitler during World War II. They banded together to form an all female ambulance corps which became the first unit of its kind to join an official combat division on the Western front. This is the story of the Rochambeau Group best known by their nickname the Rochambells.
- [55:58]
Clay Travis
Oh my God.
- [55:59]
iHeart Podcast Host
Right? This episode is brought to you by the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5.
- [56:06]
Tom Homan
We see what's happening with Israel. They are at war for their survival. At war with Iran. Now in a necessary act of self defense, Israel finally has had enough with the hundreds of thousands of rockets being fired into their country and rightly they have struck Iranian nuclear facilities military targets. Top leadership Right now the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground preparing large scale distributions of life saving food, first aid emergency kits, especially to Israel's most vulnerable people, the sick, the elderly, children, families in great great need now the fellowship is also making sure that hospitals, emergency room shelters are fully stocked with critical and life saving medical supplies. But the Fellowship needs your most generous gift today. Now is the time to stand with Israel's most vulnerable. Please call as soon as possible 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888488 IFCJ online is ifcj.org that's ifcj.org today.
- [57:07]
Dennis Black
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- [58:07]
Karen Kilgariff
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.
- [58:18]
Riley Herbst
This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.
- [58:25]
Karen Kilgariff
I'm J.R. martinez. I'm a U.S. army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these HEAT heroes on the new season of Medal of Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and I Heart Podcast from Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [59:11]
Georgia Hardstark
I really Want to say thanks. I've met a ton of you up here in Northern Michigan. I know a lot of you say, please don't say positive things about it up here because it's getting so crowded. But it is amazing in the summer up here. We've been all over the place. Traverse City News Talk 580 has been taking care of us every single day here this week. And I appreciate all of you. Buck's been down in Miami, I'm sitting here in a jacket cause it's only like 65 degrees today. But new affiliate that we have up here in Traverse City, Michigan, WTCM580, they've had me all week. They have been fantastic couple of cuts that I want to play for you because I think they kind of get at the, the failures that CNN in general has been having. First of all, every evening they just have sort of the Star wars universe of crazy left wing peddler arguments. And Jamal Bowman, who lost his Democrat primary and no longer has a job, was on. He is the guy who pulled the fire alarm and was defeated in the New York City area district which he was representing. Here he is saying, and I want to get Buck's reaction to this, that he was confronted on the street and heckled and this is what he has to deal with on a regular basis. Listen, I don't want to fight. I just want to chill. I just want to not. I was in, I was walking down the street the other day, some white dude, ball head, he looked me, called me a piece of to my face, said I'm going to get what's coming to me. Why not deal with that dog in Yonkers, New York?
- [60:56]
Riley Herbst
Well, can I tell you something?
- [60:57]
Georgia Hardstark
I'm not making that up. Do you buy it, Buck? Do you think Jamal Bowman.
- [61:02]
Riley Herbst
I think he's making it up. I think he's making it up. Jamal Bowman, I've seen him bench three plates on each side.
- [61:09]
Georgia Hardstark
He's a big dude.
- [61:11]
Riley Herbst
Yeah, I mean, so I just, I don't buy this story. And it's one of these things you can never prove or disprove. But I don't, I don't believe that somebody went up to him in Yonkers and you know, I'm just glad he didn't say that. You know, the guy yelled like this is MAGA country or whatever. Like this just sounds fake to me.
- [61:27]
Georgia Hardstark
I just don't buy very often big dudes being confronted by probably small. If. If the guy who confronted Jamal Bowman would have to be a heavyweight boxer or an NFL defensive lineman to be appreciably bigger than Jamal Moen. First of all, I don't think most people know who Jamal Bowman is, and I don't mean that to be. To insult him. I just. I don't think most people in New York City have any idea who he is. So the percentage of people that would hate him enough to taunt him face to face and know him is what, like, 1% of New York?
- [62:07]
Riley Herbst
Also, the way he tells the story, did he. Did he do something like rude to somebody and then they responded? Because you're supposed to think, I guess, that someone came after him because he's Jamal Bowman. I don't know. Maybe he was. Maybe he was having a loud speakerphone conversation or doing something that sets people off that may. You know, I gave somebody on my plane ride over to France Clay an extra set of headphones.
- [62:31]
Georgia Hardstark
Oh, no.
- [62:32]
Riley Herbst
Because I turned around, I said, I have a spare. I have a spare. He was. It was a guy. I'm just gonna say it's a white guy in his 50s, okay? Very well dressed, like, very, you know, hoity toity. Had, like, Louis Vuitton baggage, and. And he thought he could watch his iPad like he's a little kid with no headphones on. So I actually had a spare. I had the wired set in my bag, and I said, here you go. Here's a wired set of headphones. And he kind of stared me down for a second and realized, like, so now what's your excuse? So he put them on. Now I have to watch them, though.
- [63:09]
Georgia Hardstark
That is really, really. So he gave back to you at the end of the day.
- [63:12]
Riley Herbst
He rolled them up. Rolled them up nicely and gave them back to me at the end. So now this is my new move. I'm going to carry an extra set of headphones in public places and offer headphones to people who are on the side of barbarism and think that we want to hear your cell phone conversation or your iPad noises or whatever it is.
- [63:32]
Georgia Hardstark
This is funny because on my flight up to Michigan with the Travis boys, my oldest son wanted to watch Trump's address about the bombing of Iran. Did not have wireless phones or his. Or a plug to put in. And my wife, who was in the row in front of us, turned around and complained about our oldest son making too much noise while he was watching Trump's address. So she would have certainly appreciated if. If you had had an extra pair of headphones for my son. All right, that is Jamal Bowman claiming that he's. This also always Reminds me, there are people who behave awfully towards famous people, but the idea that the Jussie Smollett. This is MAGA country. The number of Trump voters who knew who Jussie Smollett is or was in that era was zero. I mean, there was nobody watching. What was the show? Empire. The number of Trump voters watching Empire frequently enough that they knew who Jussie Smollett was that they would feel compelled to not only know who he was, but know his politics and taunt him in Chicago at 2am so one of the craziest stories on a freezing cold.
- [64:49]
Riley Herbst
Winter night to lie in wait with a noose. Yes. And some kind of thing to spray on him because you're that angry about Jussie Smollett, who. Nobody who voted for Trump had any idea whom he was. Yes, that would be. That was a strange one.
- [65:05]
Georgia Hardstark
And you would think that the media might have actually questioned some of that, particularly because our good friend Jake Tapper wants all of you to know what the role of the media really is. So you got cnn, Jamal Bowman saying he's getting taunted because of who he is. Here is Jake Tapper lecturing everyone about what it is the job of the media really is. Asking questions is literally our job. Demanding facts and answers instead of just.
- [65:34]
Riley Herbst
Taking a president's word for it. No, that's actually. That's actually not their job, though. This is the. This is where I have a really. I have a big bone to pick with, with all these people who call themselves journalists. We have seen what their job is depending on where they work. The job of a CNN employee is to tell Democrats in the audience what they want to hear and to hurt Republicans in terms of public perception in every way that they can. That is the job. That's actually the job. If you don't do that, you will be fired. So that's what the job is. This. It's to ask questions and get the truth to the people. That is a lie. That is meant to cover for the actual job, which is to tell Democrats what they want to hear and attack Republicans in every way you can.
- [66:21]
Georgia Hardstark
What do you think? Let's pretend that suddenly you or I were in charge of CNN and they said, hey, we've been listening to your radio show. It's phenomenal.
- [66:31]
Riley Herbst
They should do it smart. We would shake that place up. It'd be amazing.
- [66:35]
Georgia Hardstark
Okay, so is it salvageable? Like, let me just give you a hypothetical. If Megyn Kelly, who obviously had a very successful show on Fox News.
- [66:45]
Riley Herbst
Look at you. Look at you. Always giving me, I mean, look, Megan' great. She was always great to me in my career and everything else, but she's always number one on your list for who's gonna either top.
- [66:53]
Georgia Hardstark
I think she's the smartest, most talented person in digital space that I don't work with. Does that make sense? So, wow, who would you put up.
- [67:03]
Riley Herbst
The top of this and send this to? Megan?
- [67:05]
Georgia Hardstark
Well, I, I think she is. I think she asked really smart questions. I think she gets to the heart of issues. If I were running. So. But the question here is, let's pretend that I am running cnn and I say, hey, I want to change. We got to get away from the Jake Tapper world. We can't have this stenographer for the Democrat powerful anymore. We're going to shake things up. Could Megyn Kelly, who I think, I'm just telling you, I think is the most talented independent voice in media today.
- [67:35]
Riley Herbst
All right, all right. I mean, I think Megan's great, too, but yes. Okay.
- [67:38]
Georgia Hardstark
Could she alone, would she be able to produce an audience or CNN's brand so broken that even if you put somebody who's good at television and good at doing a show, people wouldn't respond to it because their brand is broken. In other words, how salvageable do you think it is?
- [67:56]
Riley Herbst
Right. You would have to accept that during the change process from being a Democrat propaganda outlet, you would lose a lot of audience and then have to rebuild. Audience.
- [68:10]
Georgia Hardstark
Yeah.
- [68:11]
Riley Herbst
The audience of CNN right now does not want anything to be told to them that is outside of what the DNC would approve and send themselves. They don't want to hear it. And so you would have to accept there'd be that painful ratings transition period. And then I think you could build into something else. But that's, you know, that's a risk that executives at these places are very rarely willing to take any risks. I think CNN's brand is in terminal decline. I think CNN will exist in kind of the way that ABC News and some of these places, yeah, sure, they'll have some audience, but a shadow of their former. Now, ABC News still has a pretty big TV audience, but it's a shadow of what it was 20 or 30 or 30 years ago. So I think that that's where I don't think CNN's going to be able to turn this thing around.
- [69:04]
Georgia Hardstark
I just look at it purely from a business market perspective. If Fox News has around 70% of the news audience on cable, and it does, and it's got an incredibly loyal brand, what is CNN'S angle because that leaves 30% MSNBC, whatever you think about them, has the left wing angle covered. Why would you not go after some of the 70?
- [69:32]
Riley Herbst
This is why. And I was there and observe this when it happens. CNN under Jeff Zucker's leadership, if you can call it that, ignominiously ended in scandal. CNN decided to become MSNBC with different letters. Anti Trumpism, completely crazy. Treat all the actual conservatives who would have come on your air like trash. You know, this, this is what they did. And so that space that they were at least theoretically occupying of somewhere in between Fox and msnbc, that just became untenable. They were just another version. There were MSNBC with less honesty. And that is not a tenable brand. That's not a place where you can really be. And so that's what ended up happening to them. But I'm, I'm happy. I mean, if you had told me, if you had told me when the Tea Party was getting their thing going, don't worry. One day, not only will Trump call CNN fake news to their faces, but he'll essentially destroy the death star of propaganda that is cnn. I would have said, that sounds amazing. And we're pretty much there.
- [70:40]
Georgia Hardstark
Oh, totally. And again, they only have about 10 or 15% of the overall news marketplace. And you know what? When it really comes through, it used to be when big news happened, people would turn on CNN because they trusted them to get big news. Right. I still think about CNN back in the day of Bernard Shaw and the Scud stud, whatever that guy's name was during the first Gulf War, when that really made CNN's brand as somebody that could, you could trust. Now they don't even get turned on when big news happens. Fox News, I think, had 4.9 million viewers when the Iran attacks. Nobody else was even close to them. And it just feels like CNN is in a terminal decline. And I wonder at this point if there's anything they could do to change the trajectory that they're on. And I, I don't know that they could, but I would be trying to undertake radical change, I think, if I were in charge of cnn.
- [71:39]
Riley Herbst
Yeah, I mean, it would have to be, you know, when you're doing a. You're doing some housing construction stuff, but when you're doing a renovation and people say, I'm gonna tear it down to the studs, CNN really needs to be torn down to the studs. You need to get all the way, you know, get all the way into the drywall and really pull things apart in there to rebuild. You can't just do a little coat of paint and call it a day.
- [72:03]
Georgia Hardstark
That's totally what's, by the way, happening with the intelligence agencies right now, too. Yeah, let's see how that's going.
- [72:10]
Riley Herbst
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- [73:23]
Clay Travis
Hey, it's Karen and Georgia from My favorite Murder. Thanks to Hyundai, we got to take a post show drive in the Ionic five.
- [73:28]
iHeart Podcast Host
We had snacks, laughs and we even recorded a special episode featuring some unique, unforgettable car themed stories.
- [73:35]
Clay Travis
Take a listen. I'm going to tell you a story today, Karen. It's about a pivotal role that cars played in none other than the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- [73:48]
iHeart Podcast Host
Okay, well, yes, it's right there in the title, right? This episode is brought to you by the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5.
- [74:00]
Karen Kilgariff
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.
- [74:13]
Riley Herbst
This medal is for the men who.
- [74:15]
Karen Kilgariff
Went down that day On Medal of Stories of Courage. You'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [74:29]
iHeart Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.