← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:00]
Clay Travis
Welcome, everybody, to the Friday edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. And we've got much to discuss with all of you across this great land of ours. America is back. We are feeling it, but we have much work to do. President Trump leading the charge. More specifics from the White House about where Elon Musk fits in with the cutting down the government situation, which is very, very important to see how that goes. So we've got a lot to look at there on the tariff situation. There's going to be a whole lot more negotiating, which is not a surprise. And I think we also are seeing something that is starting to unfold, which is Trump now pressuring both sides of the table when it comes to the Russia, Ukraine war. And Trump is threatening to hit Russia with sanctions. He wants the fighting to stop. And I think all of that is very important stuff. But Clay, I just wanted to start with a thought today and it actually ties in with what this cut 25 Treasury Secretary Bessant has talked about. This stuff that we're seeing happen here is going to require when you're talking about taking on this system, when you're talking about draining the swamp, which I don't really use that phrase anymore, but a lot of 2016, draining the swamp talk, but certainly cutting down the bureaucracy, beginning to tackle our deficit. Right. The deficit is part one of this whole thing. The debt is the accumulation of the deficit over many decades. That is our problem. That's why it's at $36 trillion. The first step is how do we, how do we get ourselves to not spend 2 trillion extra dollars a year, you know, give or take? And this is going to require a change to the system. If it was going to change on its own, if what we were doing with spending was fine, if that was going to work, it would already be working. It's clearly not fine. The math speaks very clearly on this. And if what we were doing on trade was the best that it could be, I think we wouldn't have all of these countries that are clearly sticking to the tariffs that they've had for a long time and engaging in practices that advantage some of their industries vis a vis Americans. But this, Clay, was to me a really important point made by Treasury Secretary Besant. This is cut 25. He's talking about how, look, we got to figure out some big problems here. And there's going to be a little bit of short term pain before the long term gain play it.
- [02:41]
Buck Sexton
The Biden administration created this bad equilibrium where the top 10% people in this room, probably most of the people watching this show, top 10% of Americans are 40 or 50% of consumption. And that is an unstable equilibrium. The bottom 50% of working Americans have gotten killed. We are trying to address that. We're trying to get rates down. And could we be seeing this economy, the we inherited, starting to roll a bit? Sure. And look, there's going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending. The market and the economy have just become hooked. We become addicted to this government spending.
- [03:23]
Clay Travis
And there's going to be a detox period, Clay. A detox period. Now, not that I'm all fixated on, on the personal weight loss journey, but it does remind me a little bit of the first month when you've gotten into a habit of just having that extra cookie before you go to bed. You know, I just. It's just a cookie, right. No big deal. And it's not a big deal. But if you have just that extra cookie for about 12 months, 12 months in a row, you know, speaking from experience, all of a sudden you start to realize it adds up. The first month, you stop doing it, you notice it, and it. And it kind of, you know, you. You get a little like, what's going on here? America has been having too many cookies when it comes to spending, and it's not going to be painless and easy to get us back into fighting shape. I think the Treasury Secretary has given us a little heads up here.
- [04:12]
Jennifer Say
Yeah. And look, the biggest challenge that we've got is still entitlements. Right. For all of the talk about cutting spending, if you look at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense and the interest on the debt, which has become a huge part of our overall budget, you know, we're on pace to spend more on interest than we are on defense, which historically means that a country is in decline. As soon as that happens, we're just in a really, really challenging spot. And Trump is trying to address those challenges to the best of his ability. I come back to Elon Musk. What has he said that he's trying to do? Cut the overall budget by a trillion dollars in terms of spending. And then if we can get the growth of the American economy going again, we can add a trillion dollars in revenue, and that gets us back to a balanced budget. That's the goal, in some sense. And the reality is, yes, in the short term, that creates pain. For anybody out there that's ever been ill, ever been sick. When you're in the hospital, things Often get better before they get worse. Right. If you.
- [05:30]
Clay Travis
Worse before they get better.
- [05:32]
Jennifer Say
Worse before they get better. Right. Yes. Yeah. Reversing that, like you oftentimes get to the hospital, you get sicker before you make the comeback. To your point on getting, getting back in shape, that early start is some of the most painful we're in, I think. Hey, the shock to the system element of the Trump administration, which is designed to bring the body politic back to life.
- [05:56]
Clay Travis
And this is where having that political momentum and backing that Trump has right now from the mandate is so important, because for a short while, it's not going to be popular. It's not going to look like this is awesome. If they really do the kind of cuts. Now, remember, Elon is advisory, and the White House has made this even more clear to everybody. Elon is advising on what should be done. Trump and his cabinet have to decide what will be done. That's a different thing. But when you're looking Clay, at cutting government spending, part of the issue is that our economy has become reliant on government spending for its growth and expansion. You're looking at 25% in 2023. I mean, I just pulled this up. 25% of all new jobs in 2023 were government jobs.
- [06:49]
Jennifer Say
Why?
- [06:49]
Clay Travis
Think about, we're in a country of 350 million people. Of all the new jobs created, one in four were government. Do you feel like your government has gotten that much? Has your government gotten 25% better? And I mean anywhere, you know, federal government, state government, in a red state, state government, a blue state, local government. Is your government getting how much? So the issue here is much like the diet situation, you're going to feel, or rather, the American economy is going to feel like what happened to my cookies for a little bit here? And you're going to miss them for a little bit. And I think it's important that people, if we don't do this, things just get worse and worse. Right. But doing it is going to require us to understand, and we're not even, you know, entitlements is a whole other thing. Entitlements is something that no one's even talking about touching right now. And I don't think we're going to get to touching them, but at least we can begin to make some progress on overall spend.
- [07:46]
Jennifer Say
Yeah. And I also think it's important because the story has basically vanished. Trump solved everything at the border in 40 days. I know. Think about the last four years that we've been doing this show, Buck. How Often have we circled back around to the situation at the border is untenable. In 40 days, we are at the lowest border crossings in 25 years. And I do don't mistake the fact that the media suddenly is not talking about the border at all is because if they did, they would have to acknowledge that everything Trump said is true, that Biden could have shut down the border at any point, and that leaving it wide open was a conscious choice that he made.
- [08:30]
Clay Travis
I'm having fun with analogies today. The border is a bit like we're at a house where the bathtub has flooded and been left on for a couple of days and the house now has, I don't know, a foot of water on the, on the, on the floor. Ok, the border is. The faucet is now off.
- [08:48]
Jennifer Say
Yeah.
- [08:48]
Clay Travis
But the bigger challenge is actually the foot of water that is in the entire house, which is the tens of millions of illegals. So he has, he has shut down the inflow. But the bigger challenge, really, I think, is still what do we do about those who have already come in here illegally, especially the 10 million plus that were here under Biden under the false pretense of asylum, which they are not going to get and do not deserve. Right. So. So there's still a big challenge there ahead for ice, for Homan, for Noem, for the whole crew.
- [09:19]
Jennifer Say
I think what you have to hope, and you're right about that, I think what you have to hope is that the lack of welcoming will actually mean that some people are going to start to go back. And the reality, and we told you this, the reality was the idea that Trump was going to be able to get millions of people out of the country via deportation, where we're taking control of those people and taking them out was going to be very, very difficult. And we had Tom Homan on, I think, last week, right. And he ran through and he said publicly, I was reading in the New York Times this morning, he has said publicly, look, the only way to deport more people is to arrest more people. And we've arrested a lot more than Joe Biden. And to their credit, they started with the violent felons who were here that are the biggest threats. But the ability to arrest a ton of people is not there right now without more money being spent and without more resources to be directed there. Positive, again, the border is shut down. It appears that most of the FBI and Department of justice is now focused on actual crimes as opposed to being concerned about what parents are saying at school boards. I saw the Arrest news yesterday from Cash Patel and Pam Bondi about catching people inside of our government. And we should mention too, as we continue throughout the show, one of the top criticisms of Trump so far has been what, Buck? Oh, that they've tried to resurrect the idea that he's Putin's stooge. This morning, Trump went all in on Russia over their recent attacks on Ukraine, said they're unacceptable and that we need a cease fire immediately. Direct statement, which is where Trump, I think, has been smart in terms of being able to try to stay in the middle in some way without saying Ukraine is pure innocent good and Russia is evil incarnate. He is trying to maneuver this resolution so that we can get a ceasefire and tens of thousands of people who are dying on a regular basis now on the side of Ukraine and Russia comes to a close. And if that happens, he would get the Nobel Peace Prize, any Democrat that did it. He's also obviously stepped up his rhetorical flourishes against Hamas over the hostages that they still control. So there is a lot going on. But yes, the, the, the federal government. Is the budget the number one biggest challenge, I think it's fair to say, of the Trump administration right now.
- [12:02]
Clay Travis
Well, and what you're going to see is a continuation of the media saying, why hasn't the price of eggs gone down? If they make substantial cuts, substantial cuts to government spending through Doge Advisory opinions, effectively there's going to be a little bit of economic. What's going on here for a second? You might, you know, you've already seen this is the worst week, I think, that the stock market's had since September. Now, that's just one week. My point is that you're going to see this and the other side is going to just try to, in bad faith, capitalize on it if cuts are made. But expect that, like I said, you're going, when you stop eating the extra cookies, you're going to be a little hungry at first. We, we are going to have to go through a little bit of a hungry phase here. It's not going to be a huge deal. I'm not saying, you know, we're not talking about a Great Depression or something. We're just there might be a little bit of a, of a downturn in some of what we see in the markets. I mean, I think a big problem with, with Biden's administration, rather, one of the additional big lies was the ways that they pretended the economy was always better than it was. Yeah, right. Because people will recognize that hold on prices are super high, inflation's really bad. They'd say, oh, well, look at the jobs numbers. The jobs numbers were all always dramatically wrong in favor of Biden. Every quarter dramatically wrong in favor of Biden because it was in favor of jobs that weren't actually created. When you add to that 25% of new jobs are government jobs. This whole thing, right, you've got the government printing money, you've got the government spend, you know, spending more money on more useless stuff. As the government growing, the bureaucracy growing, the expenditures increasing the debt, it all feeds into each other. People wonder why, you know, they feel like their dollars aren't going as far now as they did even 10, 15, 20 years ago. Because they're not. Yes, that's reality. And to get this under control requires people to do things that aren't necessarily in the short term going to feel like everything is, you know, because we have a, a system that is propped up by a lot of fantasy land stuff right now. And Elon saying that if you wait until the music truly stops, then things get very ugly. I think we have a moment in time here, Clay, where real stuff can be done to at least begin to turn this cruise ship around before it buries itself in the port.
- [14:23]
Jennifer Say
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- [17:32]
Buck Sexton
I don't think you're crazy. I do agree with you that he does not necessarily want to be mayor of the city of New York. Where you're 100% right, is that this is a redemption play for him. America does like a comeback, whether it's Cuomo or anybody else. So there's that angle working in his favor slightly. But this is about a redemption for Andrew Cuomo. He left on obviously unfavorable terms with sexual harassment scandals from 13 women. The state has now paid $30 million to defend him and his accomplices or co workers that covered it up. There's obviously the nursing home scandal. There's a host of other corruption scandals. His employees serve time in federal jail for the corruption under his administration. This is essentially his play of being welcomed back into polite society in the Hamptons with his friends like Billy Joel and whoever else he hangs out with all the way out east. But this is his way to try to get back into polite soc. The vehicle is the mayor of New York now I will concede, once this man is in Gracie Mansion in New York City, his sights will inevitably point to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That's without question. This is a guy whose ego is extremely large. His opinion of himself is extremely large, and he's always seen himself as President of the United States.
- [18:53]
Clay Travis
Now, Joe, great to have you with us. The sage of Staten island, the. The. The great seer of all things from sometimes the forgotten burrow, which is a shame, because Clay, I'll tell you, Staten island is Clay and Buck country, my friend.
- [19:07]
Jennifer Say
I've never been to Staten island in my entire life. No.
- [19:11]
Clay Travis
Ah, the ferry ride alone is worth the trip, but it's, It's.
- [19:13]
Jennifer Say
I've heard that the ferry ride is very cool. I've just never done it.
- [19:17]
Clay Travis
Amazing views of New. I've actually done the. Well, I've done the ferry ride to go have dinner with Joe before. And I just say if you see a fireman or a cop in Staten island, the chance of him listening to the show, I would say is like 80%, 90%. So we're among our people in Staten Island. I love it over there. Joe, tell me this. Can anyone beat Cuomo in this race? Cause Clay seems to think that it's just going to be a wipeout for the other side. Is there anyone we're not thinking of who might be able to muscle in and at least make it close, if not take the. The big job from the former governor?
- [19:51]
Buck Sexton
Well, I'm glad to hear we're going to have to see the results from a dinner on Staten island in the next couple of months, because this is going to be fun to watch and we'll have plenty of food and drink when we do that. The question really is who takes the number two polling position in the race in the Democratic primary, New York about four years ago adopted ranked choice voting. So the person who is in second place, who is the anti Cuomo, has the opportunity to pick up, you know, up to maybe in polling now, 60% of people who said they aren't voting for Andrew Cuomo. So it's going to depend on who that person is. The problem for people like me and normal people and my constituents on Staten island is that the people who are possible candidates for the number two are all radically far left, even further left than Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo will be playing the moderate lane in this race. And you have the Citicom troller named Brad Lander. You have a guy named Zorin Mamdani who, who's making a lot of headway in fairness, he's really good on the digital stuff and he's really creative with his campaign, but he is an out and avowed socialist. He is a trust fund socialist, by the way. His parents are wealthy, so he decides to become a socialist. But he's gaining ground in some of these parts of the city where these crazy messages are heated. And then you have a couple other candidates. The speaker of the City Council has decided to throw her hat in the ring. Eric Adams is sort of the variable. You know, things aren't obviously going in his direction, but there's always a chance that he can consolidate that number two spot. That's really the state of play in the mayor's race. And the problem is that Andrew Cuomo is the likeliest candidate to win. But we don't know whether we're going to get the Andrew Cuomo that was governor in 2014 who was kind of conservative, kind of moderate, or the Andrew Cuomo that began in 2018 when he got the support of the working family parties and the socialists and he became radical leftist Andrew Cuomo or the incompetent Andrew Cuomo who killed people in nursing homes and destroyed the state during COVID We don't know which one of those will get.
- [21:51]
Jennifer Say
So for people out there who are not that aware of what's going on in New York City, I said Eric Adams has historically low approval ratings. How does it feel in New York City right now? Does the city feel safer than it did? Does it feel like the city is on a comeback from Bill de Blasio's era and certainly the era of BLM and defund the police? How would you assess the safety, the vibe, the feel of life in New York City right now as it pertains and maybe compares to the past several years?
- [22:28]
Buck Sexton
Look, I said this about a year and a half ago when Eric Adams first started getting into his legal troubles, that we will be in this position where we're going to wish we still had a viable path for Eric Adams to be mayor. And that's how I genuinely feel. This is not some pandering session. Right. Eric Adams was the. I was the opposition to Eric Adams for many years. But have things made an improvement? Yeah, we have a new police commissioner who is hyper competent. Jessica Tisch. She's bringing back, to use her own words, broken window policing. This is someone who's decided she's not going to be afraid to use the term that really saved New York in the 90s and early 2000s. And you're seeing a lot of life Return to city restaurants. You're seeing a lot of life return to the streets of Manhattan. And it is a positive thing. The subways are ever so slightly safer, so there is a marked improvement. Things are finally starting to turn around. And that's why it's all the more troubling that the city might go further left. You know, just when we're starting to get our head above water. Just when Adams decided to finally make a 180 on the migrant crisis and started to shut down these shelters and cooperate with ICE and doing all the things that the conservatives and moderate Democrats have been asking them to do for years. All of those things, by the way, we were right about that because they're all happened to result in positive things for New York. And our fear is that now someone will come in who will just reverse any of the changes that Eric Adams finally made and will descend back into the chaos of Bill de Blasio.
- [23:54]
Clay Travis
Speaking to our friend Joe Borelli, who is a city councilman out in Staten island for many, many years and looking at what the situation of New York will be, tell us about how Hochul plays into all of this. And, you know, she, it looks like she just got into it with Trump over congestion pricing. Trump shut down congestion pricing and now they're saying they're going to fight us on this one. Well, where does she play into the politics of New York, present and future?
- [24:24]
Buck Sexton
Look, she is not as good at using the levers and strings of the governor's mansion that Andrew Cuomo was. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo played a dominant role in New York City politics. She has some power, obviously, as governor. She just doesn't know how to use it that well. The problem for Kathy Hochul is that she's going to face a tough reelection in two years, both from the right and from the left. You have people like Congressman Ricky Torres who are basically out there saying he's going to run a primary against her. And there are a lot of people that are just chopping at the bits, hoping he gets in the race. He is a progressive Democrat. He is a person of color. He is a gay man. He checks a lot of boxes on the progressive side, but he's also pretty rational on other issues like Israel, like policing and things like that. So there are some interesting dynamics at play on our side. We have Mike Lawler, who's emerging as the most likely candidate, who, by the way, would make an outstanding governor for New York, who, by the way, would probably save New York of its population decline, of its soaring energy crisis. Of all the problems that we face in New York today, Michael Lawler would solve that. It's a tough race for him, but it's definitely winnable. And if he does as good as Lee Zeldin did two years ago, then Lawler is going to make a really strong play for the governor. Look, I love Trump. I'm a Trump supporter. The three of us all talking now are Trump supporters. It is a more difficult race when it's a Trump midterm year. So he faces that headwind a little bit. And Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, is going to be motivated to work some of these vulnerable congressional seats in New York. But Lawler has a great chance of winning, and that's why Kathy Hoch was afraid. She's afraid every time she wakes up.
- [26:04]
Jennifer Say
I know we're talking about New York, but you can probably see New Jersey sometimes from angles of Staten Island. I'm sure the Trump team, Staten island.
- [26:13]
Clay Travis
Is, is kind of a unofficial part of New Jersey. We don't always get into that, but go ahead.
- [26:18]
Jennifer Say
So Trump, Trump believes. The Trump team believes that they would have won New Jersey. They lost by five points if they had had Kamala Harris level money to spend. There is a governor's race there as well, and it's going to be this year. Do you feel the vibe of Trump in that New Jersey region, given how often New Jersey people are coming into New York City? We know Trump historically is a popular Republican on levels that frankly haven't been seen since George H.W. bush back in 88. Do you feel the vibe in New Jersey? Do you think New Jersey is in play with the governor's race coming up this fall?
- [26:58]
Buck Sexton
Oh, yeah, And Trump is a factor. I mean, the two leading candidates on the Republican side, Bill Spadia and Jack Cittarelli, are definitely playing towards the pro Trump element. Unabashed, unapologetic. They are, you know, basically MAGA Republicans for Trump in New Jersey. There's one other candidate, John Bradnick, who's anti Trump and unsurprisingly, is not getting any steam from Republicans, from Democrats, from moderates. No one really cares to have a wishy washy candidate running against whoever the Democrats put up, whether it's Mickey Sherrill or Josh Gottheimer or Ross Baraka, the mayor of Newark. We have a real good chance of taking the governor's mansion in New Jersey. You know, I don't, I'm not making an endorsement in the race. But look, Jack Cittarelli came very close four years ago. He did a hec of a job. And it certainly seems that the New Jersey's institutional Republicans, the senators, the assembly members, it seems like Cittarelli has a lot of that backing and a lot of that access to capital and volunteers and all the stuff that goes into making a successful and strong play for governor. On the flip side, they're pushing Mickey Sherrill, who's a radical leftist, you know, Democrat from New Jersey, a member of the House who, you know, voted with Nancy Pelosi most of the time, votes against Trump on everything as a compromise. Maybe you have Josh Gottheimer, who's been a little bit more to the center on many things, but unfortunately, the Democratic Party in New Jersey is lurching ever more leftward. And it's going to be an interesting race to watch, just like the race in Virginia. It really is the next bellwether for the Trump movement nationwide.
- [28:40]
Jennifer Say
Last little bit here with you, Joe Buck. This just happened New York City, so I want to get your reaction to it, Joe. The Trump administration has announced it's immediately pulling $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University over allegations of anti Semitism. The protests that are going on there and at Barnard, how do you think that plays in New York City?
- [29:05]
Buck Sexton
I mean, to normal people, it's actually a rallying cry because the people you are seeing, normal people in the boroughs, they, they're sick of this nonsense. They are sick of seeing our streets overtaken, you know, in Buck's former neighborhood up by Columbia in that area. They're sick of these neighborhoods being taken over by these radical people. If this was, you know, this was Klan members and these were black students, the federal government would intervene, no questions asked, because it is Jewish students. There seems to have been some hesitancy from the last administration, and I am 100% happy that President Trump is using the federal government to ensure that Jewish students feel safe on these campuses.
- [29:46]
Clay Travis
Joe Borelli, everybody. Joe, we'll have you come back. We'll talk more about the mayor's race, which could turn into a presidential stepping stone based on our theories here and appreciate you as always, buddy. We'll talk soon.
- [29:58]
Buck Sexton
Thank you, guys.
- [30:01]
Clay Travis
Since 9 11, the talented towers foundation has been supporting America's greatest heroes and their families. Heroes like Mark Holbert. He was born into a military family. Mark's father served for 25 years and his grandfather fought in World War II. Mark turned his childhood dream of serving into a reality when he enlisted in the United States Army. He served multiple tours, including three in Afghanistan. On his fourth tour. He stepped on an ied. He lost two of his fingers and both of his legs. The Tonta Towers foundation provided Mark and his family with a mortgage free smart home, which enables Mark to live more independently. Mark and so many others have paid a high price to protect our country and communities. Friends like you have helped to say thank you not just with words, but through actions. Join me and clay in donating $11 a month at t2t.org help even more of America's heroes like Mark by supporting Tunnel the Towers. Join us in donating $11 a month to tunnel the towers at t2t.org that's T2T the number2t.org stories of freedom, stories.
- [31:03]
Jennifer Say
Of America, inspirational stories that unite us all. Each day, spend time with Clay and Buck. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [31:15]
Clay Travis
We've got much to discuss. Trump weighing in on the economy and talking about how things are heading and how they're, things are going in that direction. And you know, one, one thing play that I know we don't want to spend. I want to get to the economy and what Trump said about that and specifically how so much of the hiring that's gone on has been government employees. This is non productive work. You do need some government employees, to be clear. Yeah, obviously we need police and firemen. We're talking about federal. But when you're looking at federal employees in agencies that are bloated to begin with, where are all these jobs coming from? I tweeted this out and I gotta tell you, everyone that I know within the intelligence community would agree with this. At least half, maybe more like 70 or 80% of the intelligence agency personnel could be gone tomorrow and nobody would know the difference. There would be no downside to this. There would be, it wouldn't even be like when you cut the park rangers budget or something and all of a sudden they're oh, we can't unlock the parks. You're like, really? I mean, we can't figure out how to do that a little more efficiently? No, I don't think anybody would know the difference. In fact, I think that Tulsi Gabbard, she's not going to say this, but I think Tulsi Gabbard as DNI should spend four years cleaning up the intel community and then lobby for the congressional nuking of her role of her job. There should not be a Director of National Intelligence. It is superfluous. Now she has a job to do that I just laid out, which is to clean it up and to, to, you know, get rid of all the deep state nonsense and everything else. But it should be a bit like, you know, Maximus at the end of Gladiator Clay when his last act is to hand back power to the Senate. You know, instead of trying to become Maximus the dictator, he hands power. Well, I know he's. He's dying, put that aside. But he hands power back to the Senate. It's very Shakespearean, if you will, at the end. And that, I think, would be the perfect way for Tulsi Gabbard to end her tenure. Clean up the intel community for, I don't know, if she needs four years, maybe she only needs two or three, and then go to Congress and say this DNI thing should not exist anymore. And I mean, the whole office of the dni, NCTC should not exist. The Defense Intelligence Agency, sorry. This isn't just because CIA and DIA have, like a whole rivalry thing. A big part of it probably shouldn't exist. I mean, there's a lot that should just go. So that's a major aspect of this all. But to give everyone a sense of what things are really like under the Biden administration before, this story has not gotten nearly enough attention. So there. I don't know that much about space. I actually want to learn more. I feel like I'm not as up on the space race and that whole world as I need to be because this is going to become increasingly important. But there are American astronauts who are stranded at the International Space Station, and Elon has spoken about this publicly. He could have gotten them with SpaceX home many months ago. And it is not good for them to be up there as long as they are. There's problems with bone density being your zero gravity environment, all this stuff. Trump spoke about this as well. Elon had to go get the astronauts. Well, first, let's just play. Here's Trump talking about sending him because Biden didn't want to give Elon a win. Play it. We're going to get them out. We're coming up to get you. I've authorized Elon.
- [34:49]
Jennifer Say
I said, can you get them out?
- [34:51]
Clay Travis
Because, you know, they've been left up there.
- [34:53]
Buck Sexton
I hope they like each other, but they've been.
- [34:56]
Jennifer Say
Maybe they'll love each other, I don't know.
- [34:59]
Clay Travis
But they've been left up there. Think of it. And I see the woman with the wild hair, good solid head of hair. She's got. There's no kidding, there's no games with her hair. But. And you know, there's a danger up there, too. It can have some failures up there that would be very bad. You got to get them out. So I've, I've authorized Elon a week ago. I said, you know, we have two people up there that Biden and, and Kamala left up there, and he knows it very well.
- [35:31]
Buck Sexton
I said, are you equipped to get him?
- [35:32]
Clay Travis
He said, yeah, he's got a starship and they're preparing it right now. And so Elon is going to go up Clay. Elon could have gotten them. And Elon has told us this and the astronauts have confirmed this, too. Biden didn't want to bring them home sooner because he didn't want to show that Elon could do something that Biden and NASA could couldn't.
- [35:53]
Jennifer Say
I think this story hasn't gotten enough attention. My understanding is they were supposed to go for eight days and instead they've been up there for eight months. I give credit to the astronauts and the crew. You can confirm that that is accurate, but that they were supposed to be up there for just a little bit over a week and they haven't been able to get back. And they're still there right now. And Trump is right. The woman does have incredible hair, which in zero gravity, uh, it looks even better. Um, but the fact. Can you imagine, I give them credit psychologically because if you had prepared yourself to go away to space for eight days and your family and then for eight months, you had been stuck there because we didn't have the ability to get you back. And there again, the astronauts have said this is true too. The Biden team, because Elon was campaigning for Trump, decided they didn't want to give Elon a win and, or potentially help Trump, so they made them stay there. I, I would lose my mind. I, I think I would. I mean, if you've ever been stuck somewhere that you didn't want to be, it takes a great deal to say nothing of being stuck in space. Um, I mean, I. It takes a great deal of mental fortitude to be able to handle something like this. And I also think this is the complexity of where we are with our space program right now, that Elon Musk is better at sending rockets to space than NASA is, despite NASA having a 70 some odd year head start on him. And here are cut 32. The astronaut confirming that Biden didn't want to bring them home because it would have required using El. Elon Musk has said that he made the offer to bring you guys back earlier and that it was denied My first question is, is that true? And if so, what would that have looked like? Was he offering to make another flight.
- [37:52]
Clay Travis
Push seats on another flight?
- [37:54]
Buck Sexton
Could you give us some background there?
- [37:55]
Clay Travis
I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says is absolutely factual. I have no, we have no information on that, though, whatsoever. What was offered, what was, what was not not offered, who it was offered to, how that processes went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him. I don't know all those details, and I don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for.
- [38:17]
Jennifer Say
Can you imagine, Buck, if something bad happened to these astronauts and Biden's team had chosen not to bring them back because they were worried about the political implications that might arise?
- [38:30]
Clay Travis
Almost like the health bureaucracy deciding that they're not going to tell everybody that there's a vaccine for Covid, put aside how well it worked or not, not until after the election in 2020, you know. Yeah, well, this is, you know, you start to see how the truth about some of these, some of these individuals and their judgment comes out in ways that can be very ugly. And yeah, Biden, you know, it was all about whatever was going to help the Democrats. And anything that, that's the way the situation is. Anything that makes Elon Musk look good as far as Democrats are concerned, was something that needed to be stopped. Also, Elon would be under multiple federal investigations right now, maybe early stage, maybe mid stage. If Biden had actually, or, sorry, if Kamala had actually won, Ellen would be getting harassed by the whole. And he knows that.
- [39:22]
Jennifer Say
Do you think? I'm glad you brought up the. Because I do think when we talk about the 2020 election, there's a lot of discussion about the 51 intelligence agents who lied about the censorship of the Hunter Biden story and his relationship, Joe Biden's illicit business dealings. Very few people talk about what you just mentioned, which is the fact that they had, and we know now, the vaccine was not a vaccine that many of us wanted to take or were very happy with, but that they knew and were able. When did they announce it? Like six days after the election. Do you think if they had announced that they had a Covid shot before the election, when they actually had that information and they could have released it, that it was effective, that it was going to work according to them? Again, I'm not talking about what we later found out about it. Do you think Trump would have won the 2020 election? Because I Do I think that would have been such a huge October surprise, that given how close it was, and we talked about how close even 2024 was, but you're talking about just a, you know, 100,000 or so people in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin determining the outcome of the race. I think Trump would have won in 2020 if simply they had released that information about the shot. Do you?
- [40:44]
Clay Travis
Probably, yeah, I think it would have.
- [40:46]
Jennifer Say
Which is why they held it right, because they knew it was going to be beneficial for him.
- [40:50]
Clay Travis
Well, this is why when you think about the social media rigging of the election that occurred, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop, the delay of the operation, warp speed result, you know, put aside what it looked like a year later in terms of the vaccine, the fact is that was a thing at that time that people were very happy to hear about when it came out. And you can add that to a whole bunch of other things as well. Bottom line here, Clay, is, yeah, they went absolutely scorched earth in 2020 to put a dementia patient in the Oval Office. And so that's why everything that you see now with their despair, they earned it. And it's good for them. This is good for the Democrats. They, they deserve the sense of, like I said, the sense of despair. They also, I think, are becoming better people by having to suffer through the humiliations and the tribulations of their favorite media outlets crumbling and their narratives being mocked and all of this. This is good for them. So everybody, not only can we all laugh about it, but it actually makes them better people on their side. They need to suffer through this because of what they've done.
- [42:01]
Jennifer Say
I think it also ties in with, in a larger picture here, the lies that they told. But also I come back to Joy Reid, who now, Buck, is doing a substack. So she has gone from making millions of dollars a year to be on television, only having to compete with CNN and Fox News. Right? There's only three people she's competing with in any given hour to now having to compete with a hundred thousand different writers online. Do you think that Joy Reid has such unique, unique perspective and such, such unswerving intelligence that she's going to be able to compete with a hundred thousand or so Internet writers. She couldn't beat two other people on a TV program competition. And I think she's going to completely vanish because she had the rig job in her favor. It still didn't help her enough, and now she's not going to have the rig job in her favor.
- [43:02]
Clay Travis
Look, look at Your at your favorite sports commentator other than yourself, Clay, Mr. Keith Olbermann, who was basically, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if we had seen him out there with the hashtag resistance Inauguration weekend with the three ladies and the one drum. Like that would have been very funny.
- [43:21]
Jennifer Say
Yes.
- [43:21]
Clay Travis
Climate change is real. And then Keith Oldman like free Palestine, climate change, you know, you know, covered in. He could be, he could be out there wearing something that he knit himself, you know, surrounded by a bunch of cats that would be on brand.
- [43:36]
Jennifer Say
But it is true, they vanished. They had the rig jobs, they had everything set to their favor. The algorithms have collapsed and they don't know how to actually win on the Internet when the rig job is not in their favor. And I think as a result, one of the reasons why Trump is winning is not just cuz he's got better arguments and he's got a sophisticated staff and they're making good decisions. It's also because his opponents are like the Washington Generals going up against the Harlem Globetrotters back in the day. They're just incredibly incompetent on their own right. And they are constantly lighting themselves on fire such that all Trump has to do is just back away.
- [44:21]
Clay Travis
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- [45:34]
Jennifer Say
Sometimes all you can do 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. Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. We are rolling through the Friday edition of the program and the in our New York City studio right now. Jennifer say she is the former top executive at Levi's, also a top United States gymnast. She is the founder of XXXY Athletics, seven time member US Women's National Team one. Let's see. Was the US Women's all round national champion in gymnastics. You have a video up about women's sports. We'll get into that in a moment. But you lived in California for a long time. You're a friend of mine, friend of the show. Jennifer, you've been fighting this battle for hey, crazy idea. Women's athletics should only be made up of women. What did you make of California Governor Gavin Newsom's comments yesterday about men and women's sports?
- [46:49]
Joe Borelli
Hi guys. Thanks for having me back. It's been almost a year, Gavin. I've even when I was a Democrat and lived in California, I couldn't stand Gavin. He is the slimiest political creature of all political creatures. He has no principles. You know, the way I view it is one he said, obviously it's not fair. We heard that, right?
- [47:10]
Jennifer Say
Yep.
- [47:11]
Joe Borelli
And then he went on to hem and ha about how, yeah, but these guys are gonna kill themselves if we don't let them do it. That's basically what he said. So to my mind, what he was saying was, you know, I want to seem sort of reasonable and moderate because, you know, I want to run for president in 2010, 28, but I'm not going to do anything about this because these poor guys really, you know, need to compete in women so they feel good about themselves. So ladies, you're just going to have to take it. You're going to have to suck it up. That was how I kind of took the whole thing. He's had no awakening. He has no morals or principles. He is the most just, he's slimy. Look at him. I don't know how anybody takes this man seriously. Honestly.
- [47:53]
Clay Travis
Jennifer, I'm sure you saw at the joint address to Congress that President Trump gave, there was a mention of the young woman who was brain damaged, so severely injured, playing volleyball. Now, just to be clear, we all know volleyball is not considered a sport where you generally have to worry about much more than maybe, you know, a sprained ankle or, you know, it's not a sport where people get brain damage. And for a high school age or college age girl to have that risk because a biological male crushes the ball at her is something that I would think all Americans would see. How absurd and really just wrong and nasty it is for to allow something like that to happen. And yet Democrats just in the Senate voted against the changes necessary to protect women like that. What is it going to take? I mean, how much more of this do you think they can continue to pretend isn't happening before they have to finally see reality?
- [48:51]
Joe Borelli
I think it's gonna take us a while. I hate to say it. Even though 80% of Americans agree with us. I mean, the Democrats are digging in their heels. I think Gavin's little sort of, you know, foray yesterday is not an indication that they're gonna change course. I don't know what they actually believe. I don't care what they actually believe. I don't try getting inside their heads. They're not gonna admit they were wrong and they're not going to back away from this. You know, at some point something will change and there'll be like a little crack, and then all of a sudden it'll happen so slowly and then all at once. But my goal with this brand is to change the cultural conversation. Because if the 80% of people with basic common sense that agree with us stood up and said it, that's when things would change. But you know as well as I do, I mean, you guys talk to people all day that probably are very comfortable being loud and proud about this issue. But most people that agree with us aren't saying anything. They're too afraid of the names they'll be called and they're afraid of being shunned by their friends. So we need the 80%, that majority to stand up and say it. And I think our brand is and can be part of that, you know, changing the cultural conversation. But I think we have a long way to go. Look at what, you know, the Senate vote, zero Democrats, two employees in the federal government, in Congress have voted in favor of protecting women's sports. Zero Democrats stood for Peyton McNabb, the athlete you just referred to. I mean, I don't know what's wrong with these people, but we have a long way to go. And then I would just add to that. Sorry, this is a long answer. You know, even if the Protect Women in Sports act were to pass, that impacts federally funded Program, Right. Like within Title IX jurisdiction. That's in K through 12 schools and universities. It does not impact sports in the Olympic movement. Private club sports. I only competed in the Olympic movement. I never competed under Title IX governance. Two thirds, I think it's two times as many athletes are competing in the US in the Olympic movement than in Title IX governance. So that's like a whole other can of worms we have to solve for. So again, I think it's the culture that has to change. And then these governing bodies will have to, to do what the people want.
- [51:07]
Jennifer Say
What do you think would happen, Jennifer, if somebody like Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese, women's basketball players, came out and just said, this is wrong? Current women's athletes, Simone Biles, someone that has a huge following as a result of that. They all know this, right? You come from the world of women's athletics. You were a incredibly successful gymnast. The people who compete in athletics know this more than the general public does. Why do you think so many women's athletes have been afraid to speak?
- [51:41]
Joe Borelli
The same reason regular people are afraid to speak. They're, they're, they're afraid of the names they'll be called. They're be afraid of being called right wing, alt, right, fascist, Nazi. They're afraid they'll lose their endorsement deals, which for female athletes, more than prize money, is really how they make their money. They're afraid of being shunned by their friends. I mean, this is, you know, this is what happens if you have sort of professed a lefty kind of leaning publicly. You will be shunned by all of the institutions that support you. That said, if one of those women, two of those women, Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe, that one's a joke. I know. I say that as a joke. Simone Biles, if just one stood up and said it, the cascade would start. That's the cascade. That's the chink in the armor that would kind of start this whole thing. And somebody's going to eventually. But we need to hit some sort of critical mass. You know, 80% of people agree, but probably only 5% of those actually speak up. If we got to 20, 30%, it would start to feel safer and some brave, not that brave, semi brave athlete will speak up. But you're right. I mean, look, if you look at gymnastics, the events in men's aren't even the same, Right? Men do six events. Men do rings, women don't have rings. Why is that?
- [53:00]
Jennifer Say
Upper body strength for men?
- [53:02]
Joe Borelli
Yeah, exactly. I couldn't do an iron cross When I was a gymnast and I was really strong, I weighed very little and I was very strong. But men just have greater upper body strength. Pommel horses, the same thing. It's so obvious. Here's another example. The Boston Marathon, which you probably know, just qualified a man in the women's division for April's race. I don't know if you saw that. Did you know the women's qualifying time is 16% slower than the men's?
- [53:31]
Clay Travis
Sure. I mean, yeah.
- [53:33]
Jennifer Say
Makes total sense.
- [53:33]
Joe Borelli
Right? Right. So they just. They know it. They reveal themselves with, you know, with the rules and the regulations and the. All of it, but they. They. They just haven't. They're not going to make a change. I think we have a really long way to go, and I'm just going to keep hammering at the culture part of it versus the legislation. But we need federal legislation. We need state by state legislation. We're trying to get a bill on the ballot. We're trying to get something on the ballot. In Colorado, where I live. I know they're doing the same in Nebraska right now. I just went and spoke there. So we need all of it. And then we need the USOPC to change their governance. The NCAA wrote a garbage policy off of the EO that's filled with loopholes. That has to change. I think they need to light it on fire, set it in the garbage and start over. And then the Boston Marathon is governed independently. It's an independent board with corporate sponsors, funded by corporate sponsors. They get to do whatever they want. But you can bet that if the culture changed and the athletes running and all the people said, this is garbage, you can't do this anymore, that eventually it would start to change, but I think for years ahead.
- [54:38]
Clay Travis
Sorry, speaking of Jennifer. Nope. Okay, Speaking of Jennifer. Say former pro gymnast and Levi's executive founder of XXXY Athletics. In your role on the corporate side of this, trying to speak honestly about what's going on, are you coming under a lot of heat? I feel like the left knows boycotts. It really was never. They could do boycotts. They would threaten and then the. Then the corporations would cave. Right. That was the way it actually worked. It wasn't that they had to even stay organized and really have a boycott. They just said, we're gonna boycott, and they would, you know, spam someone's Facebook page for their business. Are you. Are you coming up against people that are attacking you? I mean, I know you have a lot of people like us who support you, or have you noticed a decline in that A little bit. I mean, are they a little less. Are the crazies a little less on offense now about this?
- [55:26]
Joe Borelli
I think they're more. Because they feel like they might be losing. It's gotten a little worse for me, personally, in the last few weeks in terms of the crazy. I mean, I get weird mail to my house, which is weird because then they know where you live. Although I think it's just neighbors, which is alarming. I think it's ramping up, honestly, because they're a little bit panicked that they might be losing. I don't know. What do you guys think?
- [55:53]
Jennifer Say
I think it's so interesting because for men, I think men think this is completely ridiculous. And I've never even seen hardly any man speaking out and saying, oh, I'm in favor of this. This they made. State might stay quiet.
- [56:07]
Joe Borelli
Right.
- [56:07]
Jennifer Say
I think women's empathy is being taken advantage of, and they're mobilizing women.
- [56:12]
Joe Borelli
I could not agree with you more. I say all the time, they weaponize our empathy because women want to be nice. I don't know if men. My husband doesn't really care that much about being nice.
- [56:22]
Clay Travis
I don't think. I don't think, Jennifer, you could find a guy who has normal testosterone level for his age who would make the case in person to you, to me, to Clay, that what's going on makes sense. Like, I think they only can do this in echo chambers and then have the anonymous online activist cadres come after people and affect, you know, DEI and WOKE corporate policies, things like that. But I don't think you could get a normal. Certainly if you asked a male professional athlete to come forward and explain this to people, they would look foolish. So they can't actually make the argument out in public.
- [57:03]
Jennifer Say
Even male brands like Bud Light is primarily a beer that was consumed by men. Right. I don't think there are that many women like, oh, I love Bud Light, right? I mean, I know they drink it because it's there and things like that. But men, when they did that, stupid. I don't even remember that person's name. Yeah, they did the Dylan Mulvaney beer can. Men just said, yeah, you know, I'll drink Coors Lighter. I'll drink Miller. Like now. Partly that's Bud Light's fault because the brand doesn't taste that much different than another, and people are gonna get fired up at me about this. Light beers, generally speaking, when they are mass produced, whether it's Bud Light bill or Light Coors Light, there's not some massive difference. Not like, this was a Guinness or a Heineken or something, where if you're a beer drinker, you're like, oh, that tastes substantially different. But men just said, we're not gonna stand for this. And I think, Jennifer, one, I love your brand, and I would encourage people to go check it out, because you are doing this. You're fighting back against it. But I do think women are taken advantage of in many ways over this issue in a way that men just are like, yeah, we're not doing this.
- [58:06]
Joe Borelli
No, I couldn't. I couldn't agree with you more. Women, we want to be nice. We don't want to exclude anyone. We don't want anyone to hate us. I mean, I did this for years, and this makes people mad. They think the first they think the names they call you will get you to stop talking. Then they realize you won't stop talking. And so they do it to signal strongly to others that they better keep their mouth shut, or else the same thing that happened to Jen will happen to you. You might have to move out of your city that you love. You might have to change jobs. You might have to find new friends. You know, all these things. Your family might not talk to you. And for most women, that's enough. Disincentive, you know. And while women also want to be nice and they want to be liked and they want to be inclusive, they also can be. I think women are the cancel culture leaders because they can also be really nasty, and they tend not to do it the way that men do it, which is, you know, get in your face. They do it behind your back, which is really what cancel culture is. So it's a really, you know, messed up, ugly dynamic. And to your point, women will literally advocate against their own self interest here. They'll say, oh, oh, yeah, of course this guy can compete against my daughter and he can have her trophy because I'm nice. I don't. I just. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I want to be nice. Well, you know what? Screw that. I will not advocate against my own best interest or my daughter's best interest. But almost more importantly, I will not say a lie. And the fact is, men cannot become women. Men are faster and stronger. That's why women's sports exist. It's all very simple. And I will tell you, at some point in the future, I don't know if it's two years or five years or 10, everybody will acknowledge this and pretend they never said the dumbest stuff you can imagine, right?
- [59:55]
Jennifer Say
Now I'll give you an example for people just kind of bring this home. Any woman who decides to identify as a man is never getting voted man of the year the first year that they're a man. Men would just not stand for it. There are lots of men who decide to become a woman that have been named woman of the year in the very first year that they're even claiming to be a woman. And that has become very common. Jennifer, for people who agree with you, what is your brand? Where should they go?
- [60:25]
Joe Borelli
You go to xx-xyathletics.com check it out. We are growing our product line every day. We just dropped a bunch of new stuff today. We do have a ton of men's stuff. We've got great high performance product. There's stuff with big brow, you know, loud branding. There's stuff that's more quietly branded. If you not quite ready to kind of blast to the world, check it out. We have five stars. I mean, I think on average we have thousands of reviews. I think 4.9 out of 5 stars is the average. So people love the product. They come for the mission and they stay for the product.
- [60:57]
Jennifer Say
Product's great. My wife loves it. She wears it all over the place. Jennifer, keep up the fight. Have a good weekend.
- [61:02]
Joe Borelli
Thanks you guys too.
- [61:03]
Jennifer Say
That's Jennifer, say XXXY athletics. She's fighting back against men, trying to take over women's sports. Great brand. When you're young, going off to college, maybe you didn't get up every morning for those lectures. Maybe possibly your grades weren't as good as they could have been. Maybe you didn't go to college because you needed to go make a living. Maybe you went into the military. Maybe you went into another field because you didn't have the money. You didn't want to spend the money on college. But maybe now you got a little bit of time and you want to get a little bit better educated about a variety of different subjects on your own time, on your own schedule, without grades. That's what Hillsdale College is doing. 40 roughly. Courses on everything from Mark Twain's novels to the history of ancient rome, World War I, World War II, what's the Constitution? How was it written? All of that you can learn on your own schedule. Online at clayandbuckforhillsdale.com no cost. Easy to get started. Clay and Buck F O R hillsdale.com One more time. Go get registered. Check it out yourself. Clay and buck for hillsdale.com keep up with the biggest political comeback in world history on the Team 47 podcast Clay and Buck Highlight Trump replays from the week Sundays at noon Eastern. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.