← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:03]
Clay Travis
Welcome Thursday Edition Clay Travis, BUCK Sexton show We appreciate all of you hanging out with us as we are rolling into what should be another fun show with all of you. Senator Rand Paul is going to join us at 2, that is a couple of hours from now and give us the latest on how the big beautiful bill is progressing in the Senate. Remember, despite all of the attention this week on the signal chat of Pete Hex S, JD Vance and others, the big story remains that the border bill, as well as the tax bill and the overall budget priorities of President Trump for the next several years is winding its way through the Capitol process. And there is still a lot of work to be done there with the hope that sometime in May it will be officially complete. But lots of pulling to do on the House side and the Senate side. We will get the absolute latest from Senator Rand Paul there, as well as whether that new budget can help. We hope to create at least some of a clawback on the growth of the national deficit, which is at $36 trillion and continuing to expand as we all speak. Trump has been effective in getting more of the Venezuelan gang leaders arrested. We'll talk about that a little bit. Press conference earlier this morning. Um, but he had a press conference yesterday. And I want to play some of those cuts for you. As Trump took command of the national story. I will say, Buck, and I think you'll sign off on this. The signal story seems to be basically done now. It took a couple of days. Atlantic managed to drag it out as long as they could. But by and large, I think that story is now behind us. And I'm sure there will be a new emergence of a top story in the near future. But right now, what is, what is going on seems to have vanished. And I think, Buck, if it's being played at all, it's mostly being played for laughs at this point as opposed to anything else. But here is President Trump yesterday saying on a day when they were honoring the number of women involved in his administration as a part of a women's history celebration, guess what? No matter how many surgeries you have, a man is not a woman. This is cut 4.
- [02:35]
Buck Sexton
No matter how many surgeries you have or chemicals you inject, if you're born with male DNA in every cell of your body, you can never become a woman. You're not going to be a woman. And that's why last month I proudly signed a historic executive order to ban men from competing in women's sports. And it was very popular.
- [02:59]
Caller or Guest
Very.
- [03:02]
Clay Travis
So that is very popular. Buck Positive news here. I mean, to me this goes to the essence of whether truth is, is, is real or not. Is biology real or not? The World Track and Field association now says, hey, we're going to cheek swab every woman who is competing in women's track and field and confirm that they are in fact all women. And this is important because I don't know if you, if we talked about this on the show, but I, I've been doing research. You know that every women's track and field record has been broken by a 14 or 15 year old boy in the United States. That is the fastest women in the history of the world are all slower than a 14 or 15 year old male sprinter. That's how much biology matters. We're not even talking about grown men who are training full time. This testosterone stuff's pretty powerful. And about 14 or 15 years old. There is no similarity between the sexes anymore when it comes to.
- [03:59]
Senator Rand Paul
It's remarkable that Trump says this. And they still will deny it and they'll pretend that it's not true. They will talk around the issue. But the statement, if you're born with male DNA in every cell of your body, you can never become a woman. You're not going to become a woman. This should be the most straightforward incontrovertible thing. This is the sky is blue, right? This is the most straightforward statement of fact you can really come up with. And yet there will be Democrats and the left pretending that somehow this is controversial. In fact, worse than controversial, it's bigoted. Clay, if you believe this, you are a bad person. And you know, we're starting to see also the data compiled on what, what really the, the reality is for a lot of these individuals who are trans and problems with sexual, sexual deviancy, sexual assault. I mean, this stuff we're not allowed to talk about. The number of people who have been trans who were involved in recent mass shootings, for example, the most notable one in Nashville. You're supposed to forget all about this because they don't want anyone to realize that there's a huge, that this is a mental health issue essentially, and they don't want anyone to talk about that. Instead, we're supposed to believe this is a class of protected person. And if you won't go along with. And you are supposed to stand and cheer as an 18 year old man runs and sets the new track and field record for the 800 meters against a bunch of girls. Yeah, you're supposed to do that. They really believe this, or rather they really say It I can't tell you what they believe on an individual basis. So I think Trump needs to keep hammering this home because Clay, once they're in charge, who knows Democrats, they might. Biden was putting forward guidance on trans surgery for minors from the White House. Joe Biden, that was reality under a Democrat administration. So this battle is not over and this fight for sanity continues, no matter how much they say, why are you focusing on this?
- [06:05]
Clay Travis
I also think that, and this is not going to surprise any of you, we talked about how Caroline Levitt doesn't get any of the credit that she deserves, despite being the youngest White House press secretary ever who's also raising an 8 month old son right now. But Trump pointed out that his cabinet actually has more women than any Republican president in the history of the country. I haven't seen that headline anywhere. Of course you wouldn't because it's Trump and nothing positive he does. But he said this in cut 6.
- [06:37]
Buck Sexton
I'm also thrilled to say that we have more women in our cabinet than any Republican president in the history of our country. And joining us today is a woman I've known a long time. You talk about strong women. This is strong woman. Remember they were saying he doesn't like strong women. That may be true, but if that's true, I'm in deep trouble because I'm surrounded. I got the strongest women and this is a beautiful, strong, wonderful woman. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
- [07:15]
Clay Travis
Buck, you know that strong woman comment? You remember who said that in the campaign that Trump refused to surround himself with strong women and then they basically sidelined him. It was a guy, our good buddy Mark Cuban. And then like I remember now, I.
- [07:32]
Senator Rand Paul
Forgotten sounds like, honestly, it's, it's so hysterical and low t that it sounds like something that Olbermann would have said. But it is a Mark Cuban, a.
- [07:41]
Clay Travis
Mark Cubanism that is that they basically side. Remember Mark Cuban became the avatar for Kamala Harris for men. He was going around speaking everywhere about what an incredible talent she was and how phenomenal of a president she would be. And then he made those comments and they went mega viral. And they happened around the time that Joe Biden called Trump supporters trash. So this was in the closing days of the campaign in the October final sprint and they basically sidelined Mark Cuban. And I've barely seen the guy anywhere. I think he now spends a lot of time over on Blue sky, which I have no idea who. Thankfully I never have to to venture into the Blue sky streets. I think that was the, that was the Zuckerberg alternative. Right. That, that he tried to build to Twitter, where they have all sorts of protective safeguards for what can and cannot be said. And a lot of people say they're going to go there, but then nothing happens over on that site and, and nobody's really kind of paying attention there. And then they come back and. But I do think it is important to emphasize here that Trump has not only, we know he's done very well with young men, but a lot of women, many of whom are out there listening to us right now, either got on the Trump train early on in 2016, or as 2020 and 2024 have progressed, have finally ended up on board the Trump train. I had dinner with a media executive on Tuesday, a group of them here in Nashville, and one of the guys there said, you know, I was totally apolitical. He said, I didn't vote for 20 years. I was just kind of focused on my career. I wasn't really focused on politics at all. And then he was like, I looked up and I looked around and I was like, there really is no other choice, is there? Like, things have gotten so crazy. He said he was a, you know, very happy to go out and vote for Trump in 2024, and he hadn't voted hardly in the 21st century. And I think there are a lot of people like that who just get so busy with work and life that they're not really paying attention to the larger culture or certainly the day to day of politics. And it just got so crazy that finally a lot of people came in off the sidelines and said, we got to fix this.
- [09:56]
Senator Rand Paul
I know we talked about it a lot yesterday, but I think that it will become clear. It'll take some time, but the woke Snow White disaster, I think could be the beginning of a change in the creative content business occurring now. Where they start to go, it's not going to be conservative, but they're going to start being less insane because of the. I think the financial imperative is more clear now than it has been ever before. People just don't want this stuff. And even Disney can't afford to keep doing this stuff. You. No one can afford to light hundreds of millions of dollars on fire on one project.
- [10:36]
Clay Travis
Correct.
- [10:37]
Senator Rand Paul
So there's going to have to be a reckoning here with the bottom line. I don't think the individuals in charge have necessarily changed their beliefs at all, but they're going to have to stop being so crazy if they want to stay in business. And this has been a part of a long Transformation. I mean, if you had we had had this conversation 10 years ago, it would have felt like, oh, my gosh, no way will they ever abandon the, The. The tenets of the far left worship that we see in all of these different media projects. Look at cnn, look at msnbc. I mean, we are in a time of change in the narrative overall in this country, but also in the gatekeepers and the content creators. Corporations. Massive corporations. Obviously Bezos and Face and Zuckerberg showing up at the inauguration with Trump. It's not about Clay, who's a true believer now. I think the market has changed. That's. That's a difference. Right. It's not. Oh, because it was. We're going to build our own stuff and they're going to have their stuff and eventually our stuff will grow to the size where we'll have to. We talk about the parallel economy.
- [11:46]
Clay Travis
Yes.
- [11:47]
Senator Rand Paul
Increasingly, this is just the economy now where you can't get away with the fringe. 20% leftist stuff is starting to become financially toxic.
- [11:57]
Clay Travis
That's right. And it's very important that that happened. And this is why we said many of you stopped drinking Bud Light, and we've used that as an example. You shouldn't be firebombing Bud Light trucks. Right. Like, there's a difference between saying, hey, I'm going to put my money where I feel like my values are and trying to physically attack and destroy people who make decisions that are different than you. And I will give a little bit of credit to Bud Light. Like, I think they lit their brand on fire, metaphorically speaking, but they have been aggressively trying to win back the audience. Now, I think the challenge, as we said before, is their beer doesn't taste that much different than a lot of other light beers. And I'm going to get deluged, as I always do. I could tell the difference between Miller Light and Coors Light Bud Light all day, Clay, after about two beers. Trust me, you can't. But that's the challenge that they've got the brand value that they created. Buck was really just, hey, drinking a beer and hanging out with your friends is fun. Sports are good. We like girls in bikinis. Like, this was the fun element that they tried to sell with beer. And then suddenly they're telling you, hey, here's a dude. And actually you have to say, it's a girl with a Bud Light can. And guys just said, yeah, we're not doing this. And I think that the bottom line ultimately is the driver. For a long time they said, none of this works. Bud Light is basically destroyed as a brand. Now Disney's in trouble. Disney's in real trouble when a lot of parents out there can't trust taking their kids to a Disney movie because there's all sorts of crazy left wing politics in it. And if I'm Bob Iger, I am looking around and saying, hey, we're done with this. And sometimes Buck, those guys can know it's not smart. But a lot of CEOs are cowards, frankly, and they follow whatever the herd is going because they want to keep their jobs. And now Bob Iger can walk into the boardroom or the creative team and he can say, look guys, we lost $200 million on this movie. Like we can't do this ever again or the company won't exist. Let's get bite back to just telling Universal awesome stories for everyone. Example I've used for a while. How about Top Gun Maverick? Why can't we go back to the movies that were made in the 80s and the 90s that truly appealed to everyone instead of trying to check all these different identity boxes, let's just tell universally great stories that have mass appeal to everyone.
- [14:31]
Senator Rand Paul
Totally agree. We'll take calls, talk backs, all that good stuff. 800-282-2882 Warmer weather is coming. For some of you, it's already here, which means outdoor ranges. They're gonna be popping. A lot of good things going on for the gun owners out there. Look, I'm in South Florida so I can go out year round. But for a lot of you, it's going to be time to get out to the range for the first time in a while. Get yourself a new a new gun, rifles, pistols, whatever you need. Bear Creek Arsenal has a wide range of firearms at the best prices you're going to find anywhere. I've been out to the range with the folks from Bear Creek Arsenal. By the way. They're gun guys and gals. They love the second amendment, they love being out there at the range and they want their firearms to perform for you and to get you the best possible prices on them. The Bear Creek Grizzly is just $295. I've got one here at home, the 9 millimeter Grizzly. It's great. I'm accurate with it. Feels good in my hands. But you can get a lot of rifles at Bear Creek Arsenal under 400 bucks. So if you're looking for the best bang for your buck, makes sense. Firearms, right? Definitely. Go to bearcreekarsonal.com bearcreek arsenal.com. you're not going to be disappointed when you see the accuracy and the craftsmanship. When you go to bearcreekarsonal.com use my name, buck as your coupon code. Save 10% on your first order.
- [15:48]
Producer or Announcer
Want to be in the know when you're on the go the Team 47 podcast Trump highlights from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:04]
Clay Travis
Okay, so I know a lot of you are gonna say, wait a minute, Clay, we just had an election. We just had November 5th. We just celebrated, won the presidency, we won the House, we won the Senate. But the House majority is tenuous. Comes down to a few seats Tuesday. Two of the seats are being filled by guys who step down. Matt Gaetz in Florida one is going to be replaced by Jimmy Petronas. I know Jimmy. He's done really good work in the state of Florida. All of you out there in the panhandle, Florida one, you need to get out and vote. But I want to Talk about Florida 6 here. This is the seat that was relinquished by Mike Waltz when he decided to join the Trump Cabinet. The Trump administration. It is a very comfortable Trump district. But I want to hit you with these numbers. Buck, you were also just reading this. The Democrats, in an effort to try to steal this seat, have spent $9.7 million in Florida 6 compared to the $560,000 spent by Randy Fine, who is the Republican candidate. This is a very pro Trump district, you guys. I understand you just voted. You need to get back out and vote because they're concerned enough about how tenuous this House majority is that they just pulled Elise Stefanik's UN Ambassador role over being concerned about her New York congressional seat. And then you've got two different seats that are available for the remainder of the term that are up on April 1st. That's Tuesday. I think a lot of you listening to us in Florida right now may not even be aware this is going on, because so many of you right after the election, you're taking a breather, you're kicking back, you're enjoying the results of the Trump victory. But you need to turn out again, because if Democrats can whittle down and take back the House, they're not passing anything that Trump wants to get done. And this is gonna be the risk next year in the midterm when all 435 House seats are up for grabs. And we'll have to see how that goes next year. But in the meantime, we gotta preserve what we've already won. And so if you're listening to us in Florida right now, or you've got friends and family, these are very Trump districts. Trump won, Florida won by 37. He won Florida six by 30. But a lot of the people that voted for Trump may not be coming out. They may not even be aware of these special elections. So this is, I think just, hey, pay attention, keep your head on a swivel here.
- [19:06]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, I mean, it would be, it would be a disastrous state of affairs for the Trump agenda if we were to lose control of the House. Even with the very narrow control that we have, it still is effectively there. So that's something that we need to keep an eye on. And it's interesting to see how Democrats are able to funnel. I'm sure, Clay, if you looked at, it's public information, right. I'm just guessing, but the, of the almost $10 million the Democrat has raised in this district, remember a district that Trump won by 30 points, OK, $10 million for a congressional seat that you are minus 30 in the last election, which was just a few months ago, this goes to show you Democrats, they will funnel cash in. I bet a huge percentage of it is money out of the, out of the district from, you know, it's money that's coming in from New York and Los Angeles. And, you know, people are giving money to whatever they have to, to try to sneak this congressional seat into the Democrat column. So, you know, we sit here, we talk about the Democrats have no messaging, which is true. They do have a lot of money, though. They totally outspent Trump the last time around. They totally outspent Trump the first time around. And they will do things like this, which is something we have to be prepared for. So if you're listening, you know, we're, we're on in this area in the 6th district of Florida. We have a huge Florida audience. Thank you very much, Floridians. Our Florida audience has grown by, I think, overall like 25 or 30% in the last couple of years. So we have a lot of Floridians that are listening. And I know some of you in that Daytona beach area, right, That I think that's roughly, roughly what this. So if you're listening to us in Daytona beach area, you cannot let the Democrats take this one get out there. This is where also yard signs, I mean, the basic stuff, right. This is going to be a small number overall of people who are determining this congressional seat. So if you're listening to us and you're in this district. Whatever you can do makes a difference. This is not, you know. Oh, but do I really? Does the president need my vote? Randy Fine needs your vote. Get out there. Yeah.
- [21:08]
Clay Travis
And it is, I think, true, if you look at the data, that the die hard left wing crazy town base of the Democrats does better at showing up on special elections than the average Republican voter does. They're super committed for these things that a lot of people don't pay attention to. They do better at primary turnout, they do better in special elections. We do better as a party in midterms when they're actually big midterms in election. Now with presidential races, the turnout is very good. But don't get caught napping. And to your point, I mean, think about that nearly. I'm always bad at math. Live, we're talking about 20 to 1 being outspent in that Florida 6th congressional district. So they think they can steal it. And by the way, also, if you're up on the panhandle, get out and vote as well. Again, I don't think we're pressing the alarm too soon, but if, if they were super confident about their majority, Elise Stefanik wouldn't be stepping down from the UN Ambassador position.
- [22:13]
Senator Rand Paul
But I will make this, I'll make this prediction right now so we can log this as a prediction. Elise Stefanik in the, after this next cycle is going to end up getting something even more exciting in the Trump administration than a US Ambassador to the UN role, which is, which is high up there obviously. But I, I think she could be in line for something even a little more exciting because for her to obviously voluntarily say, okay, okay, I'm not going to take the, that U.S. ambassador UN role. I'm going to stay in Congress. No offense to Congress, but there's a lot of them, they're, they're, they're making some kind of a sweetheart deal for her to, to do what's right for the team. And I think she's willing to do that.
- [22:55]
Clay Travis
Again, I don't want to speculate on who. I also think, Buck, this tells us that there may be some health issues in the larger Republican caucus because it only takes. Again, we've seen this happen. Look at what happened with Dianne Feinstein at the end of her tenure as the senator from California. What's happened with Mitch McConnell and his health, the falls that he's had. When you start getting people in their 70s and 80s. This is one of the dangers of having a gerontocracy when it comes to leadership. People age differently, as many of you know, but you can go from very healthy in your 70s to really in dire straits very quickly. And there are a lot of people in their 70s and 80s who are a part of our leadership. And so when you got a margin this fine, this tiny, I think that, that everybody needs to make sure and make certain that they make rational, good decisions and get out and vote in these, in these races.
- [23:54]
Senator Rand Paul
So this also is a powerful reminder that while we sit here and it has been, there's been a little bit of political euphoria in the first 60 days of Trump's term because of the team he's assembled and the accomplishments they're racking up and the focus, the messaging. It's been, this is fantastic stuff. Ok, They've been doing everything that we want them to do and then some. But remember, from the beginning we said they really have 12 to 18 months to save the country or to make meaningful, lasting change for the United States in very positive ways. This, this midterm election is going to be, it's going to be a dogfight. It just is. That's the reality of being the party in power. And it's not like we're going into it with 15 or 20 seats of majority. So on the Senate side, I think it looks a lot better. But if Democrats were to take the House, oh my gosh, they, you know, the hearings, they would, they'll find something. They'll be having hearings on Signal Gate, you know, and it's, you know, the whole thing. They're just going to go into anything to slow down and mess up. Trump is justified and necessary. So it's, it reminds us all that there is a finite window here to get very important stuff done to fix the country. Hopefully it doesn't become an issue because we keep the majority and Trump can keep doing great stuff, but you can't, you can't plan on that. You gotta plan on getting it done now.
- [25:20]
Clay Travis
No doubt. I'm gonna be down in Florida with Buck in studio Tuesday, Wednesday. On Monday, I'm gonna be helping to raise money for Tunnel to Towers does incredible work. Some of you may remember I was their keynote, their host of their big fundraiser that they had up in New York City in October. I'm gonna be at the Trump National Course in, in the, in the West Palm area. And I can't wait to be down there and help raise money for them. Because since 9 11, the tunnel the Towers foundation has been supporting America's greatest heroes and their families. Heroes who protect our communities and our country. Heroes like firefighter James Dickman. He was passionate about fire safety, aspired to do everything in his power to keep his community and fellow firefighters safe. While responding to an apartment fire, James and his crew tried to save people who were thought to be trapped inside. And when the situation escalated, James wasn't able to escape. He perished in the blazing inferno. Cause of the fire arson. James leaves behind his loving wife Jamie and his children Paige and Grant. Tunnel the Towers gave the Dickman family the gift of a mortgage free home. Jamie's grateful to tunnel the Towers and to caring friends like you for lifting the financial burden of a mortgage off her shoulders. Donate $11 a month to Tunnel the Towers at t2t.org that's t the number.
- [26:39]
Producer or Announcer
Two t.org Making America Great Again isn't just one man, it's many. The Team 47 podcast Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:57]
Clay Travis
Welcome back in Clay. Travis Buck Sexton show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. We've been breaking down all of the absolute latest news out there from across the nation and we head now up to, I believe, where he is, Washington, D.C. senator Rand Paul of Kentucky joins us now. Senator, we got a lot to dive into with you. Appreciate you joining us. Let me just start here right off the top. How is the budget and border bill process going? How does the timeline look to you? How would you assess it at this point?
- [27:31]
Caller or Guest
Point I'm worried, I'm very worried that they're wanting to add $5 trillion to the debt ceiling. All the good news we've heard about, Elon Musk about cutting contracts and cutting foreign aid, all that has been so energizing to our base, to conservatives like me. We jump for joy. We cheer. And then they say, well, but the bill is going to increase the debt ceiling by 5 trillion. We say, well, how is that possible? We thought we were cutting spending. Why would we increase it? More than $2 trillion a year for the next two and a half years. And there's not a good explanation. And so I've told them, I won't vote for any bill that adds 5 trillion to the deficit that's not fiscally conservative. Now I'll vote for the tax cuts. I voted for them in 2017. I'll vote to make the tax cuts permanent. I'll vote for spending cuts, but I didn't vote for the spending. And I'm damn sure not voting for adding $5 trillion to the DEB national debt, I just think that's outrageous. And people are going to wake up. People who listen to your show are going to wake up in a couple of months from now and say, my gosh, I thought we voted for something conservative. I thought Doge was cutting all this spending. And yet they're still going to add 2 trillion to the debt this year. Something's not right, you know.
- [28:47]
Senator Rand Paul
Senator Paul, appreciate you being with us. We've played for the audience some sound bites from years past when people like Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and other very high profile Democrats talked about stopping fraud, waste and abuse in government spending, reining in unnecessary spending. So we know that they've said stuff like that. But to, to where we are right now, it seems like everything that Doge tries to do in terms of recommendations to the president and then everything that Trump tries to do to rein in that spending, Democrats oppose. Are there any Democrats in the Senate who do want to cut spending? In all honesty, is there anyone who actually wants to see that number go down for anything other than the military?
- [29:32]
Caller or Guest
Zero. Nada. No Democrat in the entire body of Congress will vote to cut even a dollar. So I had an amendment last week that would have cut about 16 billion out of foreign aid. Foreign aid is about 40 billion. I would have cut 16 billion. So a little less than half. And this was to represent what Doge was doing, what Elon Musk had proposed, what really Secretary Rubio has already said, he's canceling these contracts. I would just put it into law. Zero Democrats voted for that. But even worse, about half the Republicans voted against me as well. I got a little over half of the Republicans with me, about half the Republicans against me. And the reason I put it forward was to show that even low hanging fruit, even $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala, $300,000 for food justice for queer and trans farmers, crazy stuff like that. You can't even get all of the Republicans on board, but you get zero Democrats. So we still have a problem. And I'm the lonely voice crying out on this because people are going to be disappointed and they're going to be upset and they're going to be saying what happened? What happened to the Republicans? When the end of the year rolls around and there's still a $2 trillion deficit this year and the Republicans are anticipating another 2 trillion the next year, that just shows that there is not a true seriousness even on the Republican side.
- [31:05]
Clay Travis
How much of this is the embedded cost of COVID becoming standardized in budgets going forward. Because we had Senator Ron Johnson on and he's talked about this qu lot that if we just went back to budget spending 2019, that we would have a balanced budget right now. And I know inflation has risen since then and that there are other costs that continue to grow. But it does seem that the growth of the federal government has now been embedded, which is what Democrats wanted, in all future budget bills, with the idea being anything that doesn't continue to grow those rates is considered to be a massive cut.
- [31:43]
Caller or Guest
I think that's true. During pandemic, you know, the deficit went up to three and a half trillion in a year. The deficits have come down. Yes. Remember Biden was bragging he's bringing the deficit down. Yeah. Well, from three and a half trillion to two trillion. But a lot of that spending got embedded into government and still there. But realize that those pandemic programs, all those free money that was passed out, all the checks that were passed out, that was all the Democrats and most of the Republicans. That was a bipartisan screw, if you will, to lock the economy down. Just print up money. I opposed every bit of it, every bit of the CARES program, the ppp. I said, you shouldn't lock us down. We shouldn't do this. And we did. And that's part of it. But part of it is this disconnect that people will say, oh, they love Elon Musk. They love the cuts. And they're not for, you know, transgender surgery in Guatemala. They're not for all these crazy trans operas in Colombia. But when push comes to shove, there are at least 10 or 15 Republicans in the Senate who love foreign aid. They think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I think it's one of the worst and most egregious of all the spending we have in Congress. And yet if they won't cut that, you then say, well, will you cut any of the entitlements? Will you look at Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or food stamps or welfare? Oh, no, they're not looking at that either. And you start to wonder, are these Republicans really conservative at this point? And mind you, there are zero Democrats. I admit that there are zero Democrats. But we're trying to pass something this spring that will be only Republican votes. And yet we can't get Republican votes even to have the states pay more of their fair share. So Medicaid, normally it's 50. 50 states pay 50. Federal government pays 50. But when they expanded Obamacare, they expanded Medicaid, and they made it 90% federal government paid for and 10% states. If we just went back to 50, 50 saves a half a trillion dollars for the federal government and it makes it a more conservative program because the states traditionally have to balance their budgets. They don't have a Federal Reserve, and yet we've got five or ten Republicans in the Senate that won't consider any changes to having the states pay more of their fair share for Medicaid.
- [34:00]
Senator Rand Paul
Speaking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Senator, is there anything that the Trump administration you think could do or you'd like to see them do? Whether it's leading the charge to try to get something through involving the Congress or just in an executive capacity using executive orders to try to tackle some of these problems? Because on the one hand, it's great that we have an administration that's trying and you know you're trying. But on the other hand, if this doesn't work with Trump and Elon people like you in the Senate, what hope is there for it to get better in the future?
- [34:34]
Caller or Guest
Yeah. So I don't blame the administration at all. This is the best administration we've had in a lifetime. He's picked the best cabinet. They are action players. They're not waiting around. I was with Robert Kennedy for breakfast this morning. Says he's cutting 10 to 20,000 workers over there. They're consolidating programs. They are doing what you would do as a CEO to clean house. So I don't blame the executive branch at all. The one thing they could do though is, is as they're finding savings. Doge says they've saved 140 some odd billion dollars. They should send that money back to Congress. It's called rescission. It has a special name, but it can be voted on by a simple majority. And some of them say, well, we're worried that four or five of the big government Republicans in the Senate won't vote for it. That's when President Trump should use his political capital. He should come to Capitol Hill and say, I'm sending you 50 billion in cuts every month. I'm going to send you another 50 billion in cut and I need you as Republicans to pull together on it. Instead, the pressure is coming to me to say, why won't you vote for a spending bill that attaches 5 trillion in new borrowing? And it's like, really? It seems like we're at odd purposes here that on the one hand you have Elon Musk and Doge cutting. On the other hand, they're pressuring conservatives like me to vote for 5 trillion in borrowing. Something doesn't fit here.
- [35:58]
Clay Travis
You see the New York Times over the weekend, ten days ago or so, five year anniversary of COVID I know you haven't forgotten about it, said that we were misled by where Covid might have come from. And in some of our responses, we were.
- [36:14]
Caller or Guest
We were misled by the New York Times.
- [36:17]
Clay Travis
That's right. I want to give you an opportunity to tee off on that because you were one of the first people to test positive for Covid. And the way that you were treated, the way your family was treated, frankly, was unacceptable. And now, five years later, I do find it very interesting that the New York Times, like you said, comes out and says, oh, you know, we were misled. It's like the arsonist saying, boy, somebody's really lighting fires around here.
- [36:42]
Caller or Guest
Well, the next step, you know, to sort of coming clean would be to say not only were misled, but we were misled by our government and by media establishment figures who parroted every move and word of Anthony Faustin. He was wrong virtually on everything. Six foot of distance, he's now admitted, doesn't work. But actually it was bad advice. It was probably bad advice. If you were older and overweight or of any kind of sickly nature to be 30ft from somebody in a closed room during the height of the pandemic, you probably should have been told to stay home. But six feet of distance, you didn't need that for kids at all. You can put them all together because guess what? Kids got it very readily, but they got over it very readily. So the idea that kids were a danger and somehow shouldn't be in school or should be six feet apart and we should build these monstrous thousand acre schools so the kids can all be six feet apart, no science behind it. And it led to bad behavior in the form of adults who were at risk and then inappropriate separation and school closure on the other end. The masks, they told people wearing a cloth mask was a good idea. So elderly people went in to feed their elderly spouse with a cloth mask on. Guess what? That's bad medical advice. That's how you catch COVID The cloth masks don't work at all. But they went years telling people inappropriate, unhealthy behavior, and then the one thing they really failed on was once you got Covid, they should have reassured you that you didn't need a mask, you didn't have to worry about catching it again, and that the chances of you dying were basically zero. After you've Got it and recovered. The chance of getting it again and dying are virtually zero. And there were a lot of good hard working people, people working in meatpacking factories where they all got Covid early on. Instead of bundling them up in all this hot clothing, we should have been saying, the good news is when you come back from work, when you're fueled up in a week or two, guess what, you're not going to get it again. And you don't have to wear all this BS protective gear.
- [38:41]
Senator Rand Paul
Is there anything that can be done or you think will be done? You said you just had breakfast this morning with RFK Jr. Who's running HHS. I worry, Doc, that, well, you are doc as well as a senator, so. But I worry that the doctors out there and the medical establishment has not been forced to finally admit that they were wrong. And as a matter of government administrative policy, have these things changed? I mean, it should now be to me, at least HHS that have officially. Hey, guys, we looked at all the data. Masks don't work. This is on the HHS website. Just so you know. Is that coming?
- [39:20]
Caller or Guest
You know, that's a good point. And I'm going to keep fighting that battle as well. But the other way to correct it is like all the soldiers that were fired, they are giving them, you know, the Trump administration's position now. And I think it was done by executive orders to let them get their jobs back. We should do that to the doctors and nurses that were fired as well. So think about it. The doctors and nurses, if you were a doctor working in February, March of 2020, it was a pretty potent disease then and there were doctors who died. But if you risked your life to help people, you got Covid, you survived and you came back to work. And then they said, oh, you're fired because you don't have a vaccine. You're like, well, wait a minute, I got the disease. Why would I need to get vaccinated if I already got the disease? And you use common sense on them and they fired you. Those people ought to be reinstated. There's still thousands of doctors and nurses. Now, in some states, they tried to fix some of this. In Florida, they passed a law that said you cannot take a doctor's license for speech. Now, that would seem to be pretty obvious, but many states, including California, were saying, if you were to say things that I said often that children don't need to be vaccinated for Covid, they would say, oh, you can't say that. And they would try to take my license away. Nobody did. But in California, they did to other doctors who were saying similar things. There's a lot of things that need to be corrected. I think we've learned some lessons, but I fear one, we're still paying for research that could turn into this nightmare again. Gain of function research still happening in the US and outside the US Funded by taxpayers. I'm still working on getting that stopped. But also we need to make sure that the essence of medical freedom exists in our country and that people are allowed to make choices for themselves and not be bullied.
- [41:07]
Senator Rand Paul
Senator Paul, always appreciate you making the time for us. Thank you.
- [41:10]
Caller or Guest
Thanks, guys.
- [41:12]
Senator Rand Paul
Look, we were just talking about the debt. I mean, Trump's doing everything that he can. Senator Paul just said it, doing everything he can to get this thing under control, start turning things back in the direction of fiscal sanity. But it's going to take time. It's not going to be solved overnight. And there's going to be some rough seas ahead, if you know what I mean. Now's a good time for you to take action with gold. Look, if you have an old IRA or 401k for example, you can have that turned into a 401k or IRA in gold with the Birch Gold Group and that's one of the things that they do. But they can also get you gold in hand at home. I just got my gold delivery recently. It's discreet, easy shows up and you can keep that and know that you are building your own reserves of precious metals to prepare for the uncertain future with our currency and with the debt. Birchgold specializes in helping you convert that existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered IRA and physical gold for no money out of pocket. Get your free info kit on gold by texting my name, Buck to the number 989-898. There's no obligation, just useful information. A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. A plus rating from me. Connect with Birchgold. Text Buck to 989898 and let the experts at Birchgold help you secure your future today with gold news and politics.
- [42:30]
Producer or Announcer
But also a little comic relief. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
- [42:39]
Clay Travis
Welcome back in Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. We had some, by the way, a lot of you want to weigh in. You can always weigh in on the talk back. We'll play some of those. We'll also take some of your calls. 800-282-2288, 2. With things that we were already talking about. But, Buck, I wanted to come back because we talked about the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, being insulted with the Governor Hot Wheels line. And we said, hey, I loved your idea. Put some, like, flames on the wheels. Like I said, wear a Governor Hot Wheels T shirt. I don't like personally the idea, and I think you're in my camp here. 2. Buck, when people say mean things to you, I think pretending to be offended by people saying mean things is actually a weak look. I think. I don't think it looks good for Republicans to be like, oh, so and so said something mean about me. And this is like, that's what Democrats do. And I don't think we should play into that game. Right. The word policing the. My feelings are hurt. I think mockery and ridicule and humor is the way to handle things like this.
- [43:49]
Senator Rand Paul
Yes. And sometimes even mockery can be quite helpful. Like when one of you told me that I was starting to look like Mrs. Doubtfire and wasn't handsome anymore, I decided it was time to lose some weight.
- [44:01]
Clay Travis
Wow, that's a. That's a tough hit, Mrs. Doubtfire. I mean, oh, hello.
- [44:06]
Senator Rand Paul
Wow.
- [44:07]
Clay Travis
Well, now, see, there you go. Sometimes mockery and ridicule can. Can lead to good results. And honestly, now.
- [44:14]
Senator Rand Paul
Now, thanks to that mean person, I'll be grating Parmesan on my abs before long. So there we go.
- [44:19]
Clay Travis
So there you go. You insult Buck, and now you've got him back in shape. And sometimes that is the motivation, right? Like, sometimes people saying mean things to you can lead to a better result. This is. This is part of why, you know, tough love in athletic teams sometimes leads to better.
- [44:36]
Senator Rand Paul
Clearly does not apply to people with lifelong disabilities, though. So, yes, you should not be making jokes about. About Governor Greg Abbott.
- [44:43]
Clay Travis
So. But Greg Abbott has the opportunity to really kind of lean in this. Into this in a funny way. And you know what Jasmine Crockett could have said? Hey, I'm gonna say it's what I would have said. Hey, I'm gonna say, sometimes jokes you may not like, that's life. If you don't like it, don't have to vote for me. But I think my constituents are probably still gonna keep voting for me, and they understand that I'm not gonna be perfect, but my goal is to fight for them. Like, there's easy ways to handle this. Again, I can just, off the cuff, give what the answer should be. Trump certainly has levied his fair share of insults over the years. Um, and so I think When Republicans, like, try to be offended by things that people say, I just personally think it's a poor look. Okay. With that in mind, Jasmine Crockett tried to say. She didn't say, hey, I'm gonna make jokes. Sometimes they're gonna land inappropriately. That's life. Deal with it. We're all adults. Kind of what I would say. Um, she said, oh, I wasn't referring to the governor being in a wheelchair when I called him Governor Hot Wheels. But she has been calling him Governor Hot Wheels for some time now. People went back. She's done it on Facebook posts. She's done it on all sorts of different places. She tried to say, oh, this is about the deportation policies. She's been doing this for years. She's making fun of him because he's in a wheelchair and calling him Governor Hot Wheels. Here she is in yet another conversation. I think this is a couple years ago.
- [46:07]
Senator Rand Paul
Listen, so the governor called a special.
- [46:09]
Clay Travis
Session to get his voter suppression bills.
- [46:11]
Senator Rand Paul
Through and did this.
- [46:13]
Clay Travis
Yes, Hot Wheels did this. Hot Wheels. I mean, I'm sorry, that is her. That she is mocking him because he's in a wheelchair now, trying to argue and say, oh, I've. Like, this is just a reference to the. The fact that buses have wheels and we're putting people on buses and saying, no, you've been doing this for years. You've been making fun of the governor because he's in a wheelchair. And maybe this is a term that is used in Democrat circles beyond Jasmine Crockett.
- [46:43]
Caller or Guest
It.
- [46:43]
Clay Travis
Maybe it's something that's talked about privately, not usually said publicly. But I do think it's important to call people out, not necessarily for what they say, although that's important. But when you blatantly lie about what you said and try to gaslight us and convince us that what you said wasn't what you actually said, it actually is worse. Like, I think you said this yesterday. Doubling down and trying to make up an excuse on this, to me, is worse than just being like, hey, it's a joke name I have for him. I don't like his policies. And you can not like it. I mean, I could easily come up with a reason why she could. Why she could explain this.
- [47:23]
Senator Rand Paul
This. This goes along with a much broader trend in the Democrat Party, which is, it's one thing when they lie to us. It's another thing when they lie to people that they're trying to fool, but when they lie to their own side, like to their base. Right. So there's lying to Republicans that's, of course, what they do every day. There's lying to swing voters. That's called every election cycle for Democrats for all of my lifetime. And then there's lying to, like, the MSNBC watchers. Right? Biden doesn't have dementia, for example.
- [47:56]
Clay Travis
Yes.
- [47:57]
Senator Rand Paul
They made them look foolish. They made their own people look like they're. They're easy to mislead and that they're buffoons, basically, that they will not forgive so easily. When you say something like this, and it's so easily provable that you're lying, it's. It insults the intelligence of your own audience is basically what I'm. What I'm getting at. It insults the intelligence of the people that you're supposed to be on the team with. And so that's why this is not. This is not a win for Congresswoman Crockett, other than her name is getting out there a whole lot. And her name, unfortunately conflicts with America's greatest coffee company, which we're gonna have to keep on trying to just deal with. You know what I mean?
- [48:40]
Clay Travis
Unfortunate that the Crockett in Texas would end up being a crazy woman as opposed to a badass sort of legacy. Imagine if she was really like.
- [48:50]
Senator Rand Paul
Imagine if she was like a great, you know, patriot, a conservative, a constitutionalist, and was like a rising star in the Republican Party. We'd be sending her Crockett sweatshirts. It'd be fantastic.
- [49:00]
Clay Travis
But totally true.
- [49:01]
Senator Rand Paul
Unfortunately, that's not where we are.
- [49:05]
Clay Travis
You. I do. I do hope. Let me just implore upon this, because I know there are a lot of congressmen, senators, their staff, the White House people who. Listen, Please don't fall into the trap of trying to be offended by things that people say. And I would encourage all of you out there listening to us, too. Please do not fall into this circular firing squad. I. I think we're. And I think you would agree with me on this, Buck. I think we're moving out of the era of somebody sent a tweet or a Facebook post or an Instagram post or whatever it is, and they can never be employed ever again because. Oh, my goodness, can you believe what that one post said? Whether you work at Lowe's department stores or whether you work at McDonald's or whether you work in a congressional office or you're doing something like what Buck and I do, the idea of, hey, somebody screwed something up, and therefore they should never be able to be employed again because they have an opinion that's considered to be unacceptable. I just. I fundamentally reject that. On all levels. So I don't want in this era for Republicans to start to adopt the Democrat policies of, oh, somebody said something mean, Mock ridicule, satirize, use humor to point out how absurd they are and what they said. But please do not try and play the victim card. I'm so sick of the victim card. And I'm afraid. Cause I see it a little bit, I see it a little bit now kind of starting to pop up as Republicans have more cultural ascendancy where you're saying, oh, somebody said something mean about me and they should not be able to have a job anymore. I don't want us to go down that path. Does that make sense? Like, I'm afraid when you have a little bit more cultural power, start trying to play it. I've seen it start to happen just occasionally on social media with somebody says something and it's like, anyway, it's, it's, it's easy to get that sugar high of, hey, somebody said something mean about me and like, I'm a victim. Resist it, attack it, have fun with it, attack the idea. But don't. I, I don't want cancel culture to emerge on the Republican side of the equation, if that makes sense.
- [51:26]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't think it will because I think that cancel culture is inherently a, you know, for guys, it's very, very beta male activity. It's very, it's very, as I said before, very low t. Very. What are you doing with yourself here? You know, don't be, don't be such a little girl. So, yeah, I think that there's less likelihood that our, our team is going to start going down the cancel culture path. And it's been a, it's been a wild ride, I will say that because in media there has been, there was a period of time where they were going after people like me, like Clay, in a big way.
- [52:01]
Clay Travis
What Rush went through, I mean, they, they basically tried to pull every advertiser off this show, you know, six, seven years ago, as many of you listening know. But there were, they went, they were smart in the way that they went after advertisers and they found out that a lot of advertisers are very cowardly and if they even have this Astroturf fake campaign, it was over a decade.
- [52:23]
Senator Rand Paul
Ago, was what you're talking about, Justin. It was a long, yeah, it was a long time ago, but.
- [52:26]
Clay Travis
Yeah, but, but it is emblematic. That's really kind of when they started to hit their stride and it picked up for years and Years and years. And they really managed to do. Do a good job of trying to terrify advertisers and make them think that these kind of responses were real.
- [52:41]
Senator Rand Paul
Look, there were a number of people on our side of, of the political aisle who were big, big names, big voices, and they did not bend the knee. And we should always. Rush obviously, was, you know, they wanted to take Rush down for so many years, and the fact that he just kept on showing up and being the voice and the leader that he was in this country and that they couldn't stop him was so important. Right? He, he was, he was like the bulldozer running through all the barbed wire of the communists. I mean, he just would not. And they tried everything they could, but there were, there were others also. They tried to cancel. I remember they went after. Remember they went after Tucker early on when he was at Fox and. No, but early on when he was at Fox in a big. He had gone on some different radio shows.
- [53:30]
Clay Travis
Oh, then I'll never found jokes that he had made years ago. And they were.
- [53:33]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, he was on kind of a, kind of a bawdy radio show, if I may say. So it's a bit body and, you know, a little, A little bit on the salty side. And he, he went on and instead of, you know, going on his show on Fox and this was early, and they were, so, they were hoping to just tear him down so quickly. He was like, yeah, I see some people found that I said some naughty words a long time ago. Good luck with that. You know, just totally was like, not happening. And because he took that position, I actually remember I was texting with him when he did that, and I was like, I know that that's who you are. And so you didn't do it for this reason, but you actually just did all the rest of us a favor. Because by you refusing to bend the knee, it means that the rest of us coming up in the ranks behind you can also do the same.
- [54:20]
Clay Travis
I 100% agree with that. And I would just point out that I think it actually ties in a bit with the signal controversy that came out this week. I think Trump has decided, I am not going to give an inch to any of my critics and ever fire anybody, by and large, because they're coming completely without good faith and they believe that if they can get one scalp that they, it's not like they're ever going to be satisfied. Right. Let's say that Trump suddenly said, hey, this is unacceptable. I'm firing X. It's not like, they're going to say, well, we'll go easy on Trump when Y happens because he did X. Right. They. They don't have a good faith obligation. They're not trying to solve things here.
- [55:03]
Senator Rand Paul
So I've been doing this now, this is pretty astonishing when I say this out loud. I've been doing this now for fifth. This will be 15 years, which is. Which is great, especially for those of you who think I look like I'm still in college. I've been doing this for 15 years. And at the beginning, Clay, I remember there was the. There was the. In this cancel culture world. It was the apology tour thing. Yeah, right. Which I actually think in some ways is the worst. We have to go, like, I am so sorry that I used the word or that I said the thing. And you go on, like, these kind of schmaltzy daytime talk shows. They're just like, oh, are you really, like, a changed person?
- [55:40]
Clay Travis
I've learned different actors.
- [55:42]
Senator Rand Paul
I've learned incredibly.
- [55:43]
Clay Travis
Just like.
- [55:45]
Senator Rand Paul
And then you make the. You make the requisite. You know, I've become a better person. And also, I'm making a donation to some foundation that, you know, is. Is all about whatever the issue, whoever you offended, you made the donation. But then it changed, and it really changed. I would say, like, by the end of Obama term one, in my mind at least. And it started. It started to turn into, you have to apologize. You just said that. And then it was, well, now we're going to take your career. Like, now you have. Even when you apologize, we take your head, you're fired, you're done. You know, and now we finally broken out of that, where it's, no, don't bend the knee. If you bend the knee, they take your head. So it's been a. It's been a wild ride, like I said.
- [56:27]
Clay Travis
But I think we're starting to win, and we're starting to win every day in big ways, and we want you to get a little smarter in the meantime. I want to get a little smarter trying to read as much as I can, try to be as formed as I possibly can, try to learn as often as I can. Uh, and that's what Hillsdale College trying to do from the Civil War. You guys know that I am a Civil War history nerd. How about, how did the American free market economy get started? What happened in World War I, World War II? What about the Constitution itself? What is the foundational elements of the Constitution you should know about from a historical perspective? Professors at Hillsdale College will read the lead. These online courses with television production value you that will teach you an awful lot. Maybe your grandkids might like this, but certainly you and your free time. No schedule, no having to wake up for a particular class. No grades. Just learning for learning's sake. There are nearly 40 of these. You can find something that you will love. Trust me. Go check out the library. Clayandbuckforhillsdale.com no cost. Easy to get started. That's Clayand Buck f o r hillsdale.com to register one more time. Clayandbuck forhillsdale.com sometimes all you can do.
- [57:44]
Producer or Announcer
Is laugh, and they do a lot of it with the Sunday hang. Join Clay and Buck as they laugh it up in the Clay and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.