
Loading summary
iHeart Radio Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast.
Propane Energy Advertiser
The US electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn more@propain.com this is Jim.
iHeart Radio Announcer
Hello.
Clay Travis
Jim started advertising with iHeartRadio way back in April, and now I have customers out the door. And this is Sarah.
Leon Navak
Hi.
Clay Travis
She started putting a portion of her marketing dollars in podcasting back in June. Business is booming. That's why I'm working on a Saturday. Want to be like Jim and Sarah? It's easy. All you have to do is own or manage a business and reach out to iHeart. Get started today at 8-44-iHeart or iheartadvertising.com.
Leon Navak
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked why Benghazi?
Clay Travis
The truth became a web of lies.
Leon Navak
From prologue projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.
Washable Sofas Advertiser
What difference at this point does it make?
Leon Navak
Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Clay Travis
Welcome, everybody. Friday edition of the Clay, Travis and Buck Sexton show gets going right now and we have much to discuss. You have another strike on a suspected cartel drug vessel off the coast of Venezuela and the Caribbean. This time around, there are survivors. I think this was an undersea, meaning submersible. Like it's like a submarine, but just a few feet below the surface. That's my understanding. So we will talk a bit more about what's going on with this war, a real war on drugs, not just a metaphorical war on drugs. This is real war on drug stuff. And we'll talk to our friend, former Navy SEAL Dave Rutherford, about this later on. He. Well, he knows about special operations for sure. He's also a host in the Clay and Buck Podcast network, so we'll have a conversation with him. We've also got Nicole Parker in the third hour. She's a former FBI agent and we'll talk to her about everything going on over at the Bureau, the Comey indictment and also, yes, the big news story of the day today, which is the indictment of former National Security Advisor Bolton. So this John Bolton is now facing a whole lot of charges relating to transmission of and retention of national defense information. This is going to be already, Clay, it's a case that has a lot of people speaking about the politics involved, and they're talking about this whole situation as though it is just Trump doing things that he shouldn't be doing and trying to settle scores. Ok, I read the indictment, and it primarily relates to John Bolton going home from his job as national security adviser, where you see, you can see anything with the national security advisor, meaning you're cleared for the most sensitive, compartmented stuff. Covert actions in foreign countries, very sensitive collection methods, you know, you name it, right? I mean, the, the nuclear arsenal, whatever you want to know in your nsa, you can know, and you are seeing that stuff on a daily basis. Bolton was going home, Clay, while he was serving as Trump's national security adviser and writing a diary of all of his conversations so that he could put it in a book. Now, that is bizarre behavior. And I would tell you that if I had a friend in the national security world who said, hey, I've got a plan. I'm gonna just sit in classified briefings and reclassified stuff all day, and then I'm gonna go home and I'm going to relay what I. I mean, when I was in the CIA, they said, you don't talk to your family about what we're doing here in the. Maybe.
Buck Sexton
It seems to me, by the way, not having been in the CIA, it seems like that's kind of important for.
Clay Travis
Like, when, when I would go home if I got a call from my mom when I. And I was just a lowly analyst, but if I got a call from my mom, it wasn't like, you know, mom, we're working on this, this sensitive counterterrorism platform and we're going to be able to blow up bad guys in this province because of it. And, man, I hit some bureaucracy on that one. Like, no, you don't do that. Now, they're saying in the indictment that the stuff that he was relaying, Clay, would be classified up to the top secret SCI compartmented level. So, I mean, this is. They're saying it's very sensitive stuff. And they lay out, now, this is interesting, you can't see the information, right? Because then you're there sharing classified with everybody. So there's a little bit of taking the government's word for it that has to go on here. They call this the gray mail defense, where they say, well, if people could only know that this information is what you're talking about, it's actually not that sensitive to. So that's going to be one of the ways they fight on this. The other thing is going to be I've seen reporting that there were marked classified documents in his home. But essentially the primary part of the indictment is that he was writing down stuff from his meetings that was clearly classified, emailing it to family members and preparing it in a diary every day. And that is, I think he's got some big problems here.
Buck Sexton
So this is one of those things where it's almost not that complicated of a case to prove would be my analysis. As someone who has never been involved in top secret documents. You've talked about this before, that for instance, Joe Biden taking things out as a senator that are marked top secret and storing it in his garage and bragging about it on tape with his autobiographer, that these are things that are relatively easy to to prove because they're a form of strict liability. You either did or did not do it. And so the intent matters less. I haven't seen there are, there are 18 counts brought in this indictment. Unlike we saw with Letitia James and unlike we saw with James Comey, I haven't seen the same level of oh, my goodness, this is a unbelievable act by Trump. And I think it's because one, this investigation started under Joe Biden and then I would suspect buck see if you sign off on this or co sign on this. As soon as they realized that Joe Biden had classified documents, they really started waving their arms and saying, let's just this classified. Remember initially when Mar a Lago, they took a picture of it on the ground and everybody just grabbed their pearls and fell on their fainting couc, even though Trump had been the president to talk about how this was an unbelievable jeopardy of national security and this was very serious and there's no way that Trump was going to be able to escape prosecution on it. And then you remember when they found out that Biden had all these classified documents, not just in his home garage beside the Corvette, but also in, I think in his office at University of Pennsylvania and in his office in Washington, D.C. and they just kept finding all these classified documents. The idea that classified documents and having them was a crime that was one of the greatest that could be committed by anyone in our nation, they just basically stopped. And so I think they were smart enough to recognize they couldn't prosecute John Bolton because Joe Biden has had his own classified documents. But this was an investigation that to a large extent was taking place while Joe Biden was president. And the raid, remember, even the criticism of the early morning raid, which now we know, it appears they found documents that are indicative of crimes being committed. I don't feel like everybody's lining up to argue this is a, this is Trump exceeding the bounds of presidential authority.
Clay Travis
I will tell you, the Wall Street Journal, to my surprise, went all out on Bolton's defense pretty much on their page. They did, yes. Wall Street Journal has been breaking with Trump on a number of things. I think they're a little bit bitter over there because their consensus on trade stuff has really undermined. That's a core competency, you would think, for the Wall Street Journal. And I think Trump on trade has looked a lot savvier than they gave him credit for. And a lot of their warnings have seemed like they were incorrect. So there's that. But, yeah, they went all in on defense of John Bolton on this one. They're saying this is clearly a political, effectively political payback because Bolton was such a critic of the Trump administration. Now, it's interesting because the Biden administration dropped this probe. And I think you might be able to see or argue that Biden's team dropped the probe because he was such a Trump critic. They're like, oh, well, this guy, we kind of like what he's doing. Former national security adviser is sticking his thumb in Trump's eye and, you know, let's, let's let this keep going. The defense, though, for Bolton, as I see it, is, is going to be a couple of things. One, and I see different things on this. If he had marked classified documents at home, he's going to have to take a plea deal. Unless there's going to be somebody who.
Buck Sexton
Knows there's no way to really defend. For your perspective, Trump's defense was, I'm president, so I can declassify anything. Now, people tried to argue against it, but Bolton, as his positions, does not have that as a potential defense.
Clay Travis
Correct. There's no, there's no defense of he had a skiff. This comes up in the indictment. A secure compartmented information facility, a little secure room where he was allowed to have classified in his home. And he also got hacked by the Iranians, I might add, on his, his personal email. So that comes up in this, too. This is all in the indictment. But he was allowed to have classified documents at his home, and then he wasn't. When the skiff, when he no longer had that government job, the skiff essentially goes away, as does Your right to have any classified documents at home. Ok, so what he's going to say is my recollections of meetings I did not believe to be classified information and nobody else would think it's classified information. And what I put in the book got cleared through the White House. So clearly it's not classified information in some cases or maybe in all cases because, you know, this is, this goes to what Comey did as well. Contemporaneous notes of a classified discussion can or can, you know, can be or aren't necessarily classified. Right.
Buck Sexton
So let me, let me, let me pause you there because I, this is me putting on my lawyer hat. If I can't take the actual classified documents out because it would be a crime. It doesn't make sense to me that I can take a yellow legal pad in and write down what's on the classified documents and then take it outside of my house and let me explain it for everybody out there listening. If my yellow legal pad was stolen, which recited the information that was on a classified document, the practical impact of an enemy getting the information is the same whether it's written on my yellow legal pad or shared in an email or anything else as it would be if I was in physical possession of the document itself. Right. So for me that's a distinction that should not be a difference of, of magnitude from a practical perspective.
Clay Travis
That is correct. The fundamentally the information is what is classified.
Buck Sexton
Correct.
Clay Travis
It is not the marking. And this came up with the Hillary thing too, right? Because she says, well it wasn't marked classified. Now in Hillary's case they were xeroxing classified and putting it into emails. I mean that she absolutely broke national defense law. She absolutely could have and should have been prosecuted, no question. Ok, that that was actually like open and shut case. As much as everyone at the time because they wanted her to be president, tried to defend on the Democrat side, on this side, or rather on this case, both in is going to say the things that I wrote down were not actually classified from those meetings and the things that I wrote down were the basis for a book that was cleared by the White House. Therefore nothing is act like he's just going to argue the information isn't classified. And this becomes a tough case for the government because the government has to convince people that it is classified. Now I think the jury will be able to see this.
Buck Sexton
This is the gray mail. I don't know. Some have never been involved in a classified case. But I don't understand how you could convict someone without showing what was Classified that the person had in possession. Even though to your point, that further exposes national security because 12 random people on a jury suddenly get the news about whatever classified documents that Bolton was holding, which would theoretically allow even more of a national security issue.
Clay Travis
I mean, this is where. This is a little bit like the pornography. I know it when I see it. Classified to those who have held the clearance. You know, when you see it, you know, if Bolton was going home, writing down from his meetings, which he very well could have, oh, we're going to do a strike tomorrow on Abu Jihad in this country using, you know, hellfire missiles which were launching out of this allied countries, you know, airspace that's very, very classified. Right. The fact that it's not mark classified as he writes it down does not change because to your point. Well, then I could sit there in this. I could sit there in Langley and read about all the COVID actions and then just get on a phone and call somebody and talk about it. And like, I'm not. My words aren't marked class. The information is what is classified. And it is your responsibility as somebody with access to it to know, you know, where these lines are and what you. Where you can operate.
Buck Sexton
Well, and this is where I come back to. I understand the importance of taking notes. I mean, every lawyer does. It's why I do the entire show every day on yellow legal pads. Right. That's all I have. But those notes, if they are truly classified information, should not be able to leave a secure place. Your brain should be the place where you keep extremely classified information. Right.
Clay Travis
Well, I think, again, I think that what he was doing. Clay was going home and writing a diary entry based on his meetings. Yeah. So it's not contemporaneous in the meeting notes. I think I got to. I might have to go back and check this in the indictment because, you know, I had to read the whole thing this morning. My sense is he was creating diary entries day to day, which, by the way, the notion that you would create a diary like this when you're the national security advisor so you can write a book is so gross. It's not about your book that no one's going to read. Like you're supposed to be keeping Americans safe and protecting our interests. This thing, this goes to a lot of things. And everybody listening who's had a clearance knows what I'm going to say. There's this idea. The. The, like people actually doing the work every day in the national security apparatus, military side, civilian side, they are expected to be perfect with all this stuff or their lives are ruined. But when you get to be senior enough, it's all about whatever publishing house you know, wants to give you the biggest book deal. And that matters more than the law and your oath. And I think people are sick of that. And this, this is, there's the legal aspect of his claim. There's also the, it's kind of just gross. The way that he was doing this was just gross because it was all meant to hit Trump too. So he's working for Trump, trying to undermine Trump, using national security information to do it.
Buck Sexton
Yeah, I think that's 100% correct. And so again, I will be curious to see how this plays out. But not a, not a strong position in general to, to, to break down, I mean, I think beyond a shadow of a doubt. So, John Bolton, latest. I think the question is how many more people are going to get charges brought and, and how many of these people are eventually going to get convicted versus a jury pool that is likely predisposed to not like Trump. Although, you know, Trump's approval ratings starting to, to go up. So maybe even in Northern Virginia there are people who are having their, having altered relative to what they expected beforehand because Trump 2.0 is really kind of making everything awesome, let's be honest. And so as I break down everything here, I want to tell you, you have a good cell phone service that you can rely on. If you don't, you should. And you need to make sure that you are able to get hooked up while you can. That's what we have Pure Talk for. You can switch your cell phone service right now. Company that'll support your point of view. One of the reasons they've been a sponsor here on the show from day one, over basically four and a half years now. We've always appreciated what Pure Talk stands for and the fact that they stand for your values, our values. And you can save a bundle. That's a great combo. You can switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk right now. Support a business that supports free speech. You're going to get great 5G nationwide coverage on a reliable and secure network. It is the coverage network that my sons are on. My 17 year old and my 15 year old, we rely on Pure Talk to stay in touch with them. Monthly plans can start at just 25 bucks a month. You can keep your phone and your same phone number when you make the switch. Pure Talks customer based service team, entirely US based. And you can switch right now. Keep your same phone and your same phone number, save up to $1,000 over the course of a year. By dialing£2.50 and saying clay and Buck to switch to pure talk. That's £2 5 0, say Clay and Buck. You'll save an additional 50% off your first month. That's £250, say Clay and Buck to switch to Pure Talk. Do it today. 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.
Washable Sofas Advertiser
There's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Annabe sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699, the stain resistant performance fabric, slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now@washablesofas.com Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions and may apply.
Propane Energy Advertiser
The U.S. electric grid is approaching a breaking point as demand soars from data centers and home energy use. Our aging infrastructure can't keep up and the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather.
iHeart Radio Announcer
Learn more@probane.com run a business and not thinking about radio? Think again because more people are listening to the radio and iHeart today than they were 20 years ago. And only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. And that reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for your business. Radio's here now. More than ever. And iheart's leading the way. Think radio can help your business. Think iheart streaming, podcasting, and radio where the reach is real. Let us show you@iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844. Iheart one more time. Just call 844-844-Iheart and get radio working for you.
Leon Navak
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked why.
Clay Travis
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
Leon Navak
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Buck Sexton
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Leon Navak
Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit.
David Rutherford
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
Clay Travis
You put two and two together.
Leon Navak
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Buck Sexton
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
Leon Navak
I'm Leon Naifak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.
Nicole Parker
What difference at this point does it make?
David Rutherford
Yes, that's right.
Buck Sexton
Lock her up.
Leon Navak
Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Buck Sexton
People ask us all the time how we can save the next generation.
Clay Travis
We've got our show and the info is an antidote. But we also have a couple books coming out, Clay.
Buck Sexton
That's right. And you can pre order both of them right now and be book nerds just like us.
Clay Travis
You'll laugh, you'll nod, and you'll get smarter, too.
Buck Sexton
Mine's called Balls How Trump, Young Men and Sports Saved America.
Clay Travis
And mine is Manufacturing Delusion how the Left Uses Brainwashing, Indoctrination and Propaganda against you.
Buck Sexton
Both are great reads. One might even say they would make fabulous gifts.
Clay Travis
Indeed. So do us a solid and pre order yours on Amazon today.
Buck Sexton
Welcome back in hour number two, Friday Edition. Clay and Buck. I am down on the north side of Florida on the beautiful Panhandle. Buck is down on the south side of Florida in Miami. We are covering both sides of the state and all sides of the country as we take you into the weekend. And I want to play a cut for you to kind of put a bow on the description discussion that we had surrounding the John Bolton 18 felony counts that he has been charged with, even on msnbc. When the indictment came out and they reviewed the charges against him, they said, oh, this is not Very good for. For John bolton. Here is MSNBC's guest cut 33.
Nicole Parker
Listen, it doesn't look good for him. There's no way to slice it. The details of this indictment do not look good.
Buck Sexton
Okay, that's former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews. And so if CNN and MSNBC are actually saying, oh, that is a huge mess, it probably is a huge mess for John Bolton. And we've talked about that a lot in our. One would encourage you go download the podcast. You can dive in and keep up with us, even if you happen to just be getting in your car or just turning us on wherever you may be. Across the country, whole first hour, much of the discussion about John Bolton. Now, there were two different debates last night. For those of you who have been following this closely. This is an off year and there are not a ton of races going on. But the New Jersey governor's race, the Virginia governor's race, and now the Virginia attorney general's race in conjunction with the New York City mayor's race will give you some sense maybe of the political environment in general. Now, to be fair, Kamala won New Jersey by five or six points. She won Virginia by five or six points. And obviously New York City, even though it moved in Trump's direction, these are all Democrat bases. So I'm not sure how much you can tell what the impact is going to be going forward. So all of that in mind, but within the context of these debates, I just got to be honest. Buck, you're a lifelong New York City resident who moved to Miami. What is Curtis Lewa doing? Momdani is going to win this race as long as he stays in. And I get it, if some of you say, well, Andrew Cuomo is no better, I'm going to vote for Curtis Sliwa. I get it. But whenever there is an anti momdani vote that is being split, it means mom, Donnie is going to win. And so I just, I don't understand at all what is going on here. And mom, Donnie just went aggressively after. Andrew Cuomo will play a couple of those. A couple of those cuts. But I do want to play this from Harry Enton, who just lays out the math on Mamdani is going to win. This is cut 31. Momdani leads by 18 points right now. Look at the largest polling average miss since 1989. You know what it was?
Clay Travis
It was 11 points.
Buck Sexton
You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know 11 points is less than 18 points.
Clay Travis
So if Andrew Cuomo is going to.
Buck Sexton
Come back and win. Either something like Curtis Lewis has to drop out of the race or you need a polling miss that is nearly twice as large as the largest miss on record.
Clay Travis
So you're going to probably need something.
Buck Sexton
Historically unprecedented for Andrew Cuomo to win this race if the polling average holds through election day. Okay, Buck, what am I missing here? Now, I have previously said, and I'm sorry to the WOR listeners, I'm sorry to all of you in New York City city, I have previously said, I actually think Mom Donnie win, a Mom Donnie win is beneficial to the nation because it forces a far left wing. Buck shaking his head. He's already, he's already getting rueful look on his face. You know what I mean?
David Rutherford
I thought we were all, I thought.
Clay Travis
All we conservatives were on this lifeboat together. And Clay is taking New York and the tri state area conservatives and he's saying just like, just like Jack, there was no room for him on the door with Rose. He's letting New Yorkers just slide into the icy depths after the Titanic has gone down. And I'm not okay with that. I would. I'm rowing my lifeboat over to you New Yorkers. I want you to be okay.
Buck Sexton
Water's cold. There's no room for the rest of us. Sometimes you just got to toss New York City in. Let it, much like Buck island as another island, go underneath the waves of left wing insanity and, and let the rest of us live to see a happier day. So I actually don't know that this is a bad result for the national picture as it pertains to the House of Representatives, as it pertains to all of the Senate races, governor's races in the midterms coming up in 2026. But, but there is no other result here for New Yorkers. Momdani is going to win as long as Curtis Sliwa stays in the race. Buck, you're a lifelong New York City guy. Until a couple of years ago. What's going on here? What is the calculus other than I want the attention and I want the, the. I think it's just attention. Cause you're not going to win for Curtis Sliwa, who I like. We've had him on the show a bunch. I just don't understand what he's doing.
Clay Travis
Look, I, you know, I, I appreciate where Curtis is coming from. This. I don't know him. I don't know him.
Buck Sexton
But we've had him on the show before and I like him. I mean he's a. And would he be, would he be A great mayor.
Clay Travis
Yeah, sure. He would really. He'd be so much better. But we got to look at the political reality as it is here. And you said, you know, I'm a. I'm a former New Yorker. What's the Gertrude Stein thing? America is my country, but Paris is my hometown. It feels like Florida is my state, but New York City is my hometown. You know, that's. That's. I feel like a Floridian at the state level, but I still have much more of a connection to New York City than I do to Miami specifically. That may change in time, but. So maybe I'm a New Yorker in exile in some way. I think a lot of people down here are actually. Clay, I think what you need to do is have Cuomo offer. I was going to say Mom Donnie. That's not good. Gonna have Cuomo offer Sliwa, maybe a deputy mayor role with the portfolio of public safety, which would also go toward the fact that Cuomo is the jailbreak. I mean, the problem here is Cuomo is awful, too. I'm actually not getting the fact that.
Buck Sexton
He'S considered in any way to be the savior is how bad of a position that New York City has put itself in.
Clay Travis
I am not that convinced that Cuomo would be a lot better than Mom. Do I think he'd be better than Mom Donnie? Yeah, I'm not convinced he'd be a lot better than Mom Donnie. So that's why it's very hard for me to even. I think the mentality is, oh, my gosh, I'm not gonna do what the left does with, like, a Hitler thing, but, like, oh, that Hitler guy's awful. Thank God we've got Stalin on our side. You know, like, there's a little bit of that going on here. Stalin was really bad, too. So I think that Cuomo is Stalin in this analogy. And I think that it's very hard for. For Sliwa to see this as anything other than maybe a miracle happens. But I can't let this be left to Cuomo either. But if you. If you want it to not be Mamdani, he's got to get some deal going, and he's got to drop out. And why he won't drop out, I don't know. He's not going to be mayor unless a meteor hits the world and something completely unforeseeable happens.
Buck Sexton
Now, let me give you a positive side of this. Cause Mom Donnie's gonna win. I want all of you to be prepared for this. Whatever the guy we had Call in, who was all angry at me for telling you this. This is not the polls trying to tell you a story. This is Momdani is gonna win because the Momdani opposition is going to be split between Sliwa and Cuomo. Could be beneficial. Let me give you a positive New York angle. Could be beneficial for Elise Stefanik, who is running to try to beat Kathy Hochul in 2026. In fact, this is what Elise Stefanik just put out. The New York Times was upset that Elise Stefanik said that. That Momdani is a jihadist. They said that this is Islamophobic of. Of Elise Stefanik. And this is her response, which I like. I called Zoran Mamdani a jihadist because he is. Mamdani is a raging anti Semite. Mamdani is the definition of a jihadist as he supports Hamas terrorists, which he did as recently as yesterday when he refused to call for Hamas terrorists to put down their arms. The same Hamas terrorist group that slaughtered civilians, including New Yorkers on October 7, 2023. He is Kathy Hochul's endorsed jihadist communist who she has empowered to destroy New York City. It's why the New York State Democratic Party chair refuses to support him. It's why multiple Democrat members of Congress refuse to support him. It's why Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have still not endorsed him because Zoran is a jihadist who will destroy New York. Thank you. Now that's a pretty good response from Elise Stefanik. I think that not only could it benefit her in the governor's race if Mom Donnie is in, certainly I think it's massively beneficial to her point. There's a reason Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who are also New York City guys, have not come on board with Mom Donnie. So I am circling back to. I'm going to look at this as a positive, as a glass half full situation. Yes, New York is going to drown, but the rest of us are going to be in much better position. So kiss two New Yorkers. And I'm just going to continue to float away on my life vest while you guys go under the water in the icy waters. I just think.
Clay Travis
I think there's room. I think there's room. There's room for Jack on that door. And Rose needs to just, you know, suck it in a little bit here and make some space. So, New York, I'm not. I'm not letting you just go down into the icy depths of communism without a fight. All right, Mr. Nashville over here. A little bit of a Nashville, New York rivalry. He has no problem with New York turning into something.
Buck Sexton
We're gonna be fine. Tennessee's fine. Florida's fine. Where I am right now. New York, I'm gonna be up there with you on Monday. But, yeah, you're kind of screwed.
Clay Travis
I think it's, it's all going to be okay. But maybe this is finally the, the sanity that needs to happen, unfortunately, through a degree of pain that will allow Elise Stefanik to be not just competitive, but maybe win against Kathy Hochul.
Buck Sexton
That's a positive.
Clay Travis
I do think, I think someone like Hochul, what the thing that she would have relied on in previous elections to stay in office would have been the abortion issue in New York. I think that's going to be largely off the, it's not off the table. They're going to try to make a thing of it, but people don't care that much. It doesn't move the needle the way that they would need it to. So I think at least a phonic will be very competitive on, on the economy and on public safety statewide and just also running a saner, better government in New York, which it could certainly have. As we love to, we love to say New York has fewer people than Florida and double the budget and worse public services. So someone has to explain how that's not the clearest indicator imaginable of the misappropriation or misallocation of funds that's going on in New York on a regular basis. Momdadi I also want to note play said this was cut 14 he apologized to NYPD officers. But I want you to listen very carefully closely to the, to the, the way that he says it.
Zoran Mamdani
Play 14 I apologize for the language that I use and I spoke to them about the fact that I want to work with them to deliver public safety. Because what we're seeing in the city right now is we're asking officers to do nearly everything we can think of.
Buck Sexton
Police officers that I spoke to, they.
Nicole Parker
Don'T want a behind closed doors apology.
Buck Sexton
They want a broad public apology for the things that you suggested about them.
iHeart Radio Announcer
Will you do that right now?
Zoran Mamdani
Absolutely. I'll apologize to, to police officers right here because this is the apology that I've been sharing with many rank and file officers. And I apologize because of the fact that I'm looking to work with these officers and I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the nypd, they put their lives on the line every single day.
Clay Travis
I apologize for the language I Used. I apologize because the cops are great. He's saying here. But what he's not doing is, is apologizing for jumping on the bandwagon of cops are racist and cause all of the problems in our cities because of that racism, and therefore we need to pull funding from them, which makes everybody less safe, including and specifically minority residents. Right. Like, it's a hollow apology, Clay, is my point. It feels like, yeah, apologize. It's almost like when. And you know where I'm going with this one with your wife. I'm sorry if that upset you. Oh, not good. Or rather, I'm sorry you took it that way. No. You know what I mean. Yeah.
Buck Sexton
Yeah.
Clay Travis
I'm sorry if you were offended by that. Like, that's not really what they want to hear.
Zoran Mamdani
Yeah.
Buck Sexton
The tone of your voice. Tone of your. It's not what you said. It's the tone of your voice. Why are you yelling? I'm not yelling. This is how I talk. Every husband out there slowly nodding.
Clay Travis
I'm having flashbacks right now. I'm a little traumatized just hearing you say this.
Buck Sexton
This is. Let's play a little bit more of these. Let me play this as we go to break, and then let's talk about this, because Public transit producer Ali. I think some of the other crew rides public transit in New York, and they now are going to try to make public transit free for everybody. Here's the problem. The issue is safety and cleanliness. It's not cost cut. And making it free for everybody, to me, is not going to make safety better, and it's not going to make the. The cleanliness of the experience better. Cut 11. Just going to raise tax rates and everything's going to be free. This is what he's going to do. It's, again, New York, you're going to sink underneath the waters. But the rest of us, we're going to be great. We got nice life rafts. Cut 11.
Clay Travis
The question is how you'll make them free.
Zoran Mamdani
We will fund the revenue that would have otherwise been brought in from fares. And that's something that we would do in partnership with Albany. And I put forward two proposals. The first is to raise taxes on the top 1% of New Yorkers by 2%. That would raise $4 billion. The second is to raise the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey, which would raise $5 billion.
Buck Sexton
There you go. Just going to tax everybody. It's buses. But how many people out there think to themselves, hey, what buses need? The cost is too high. We just need to have cheaper busing maybe. I really think that it's safety and it's cleanliness. That's what everybody wants.
Clay Travis
You know, there are some real possibilities in the stock market these days, but you got to know where to go. You got to have good research and good ideas before it's on the front page of the big newspapers out there. So I've been collaborating with some incredible researchers and stock analysts for a weekly e Newsletter and you should check this out. It's called Money and Power and I'm, like I said, with a great research team. And this venture is already showing phenomenal, phenomenal work. It's a one of a kind opportunity designed to help ordinary people capitalize on the huge wealth explosion by what I'm calling Manhattan Project too. So this is about pulling together the political with the economic, with market forecasting all in one. Incredibly readable and insightful E newsletter. I don't want you or anyone to miss out. All the details can be found@insider2025.com right now. Join our movement today. Get 82% off. You're gonna love this. Insider2025.com paid for by Paradigm Press.
Buck Sexton
Stories of freedom, stories 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 podcast. Welcome back in Clay. Travis Buck Sexton Show David Rutherford, part of the Clay and Buck Podcast Network. We're going to get in to the situation in Venezuela with him momentarily. Just updating you on the news in the last couple of moments, Zelinsky of Ukraine has arrived at the White House for a meeting with President With President Trump, question yelled out does he believe he can convince Putin to end the world war in Ukraine? Trump nods yes as he is welcoming Zelensky clad in a black suit. For those of you who are sartorially inclined, not in his green fatigues and T shirt, just FYI. So they have begun that meeting. We will see what news, if any, emerges from that discussion. We bring in now David Rutherford, excited to have him as a part of the Clay and Buck Podcast Network. He's doing fabulous work. You should go subscribe to his podcast. Make sure that you're on top of everything in sort of military and door kicking bad ass worldview and he is with us now. Okay, we've seen all of the blown up boats that are happening off the coast, in the Caribbean area, off the coast of Venezuela. There has been talk, Trump has talked about it. CIA may be Covertly attempting to attack the regime of Maduro there, the person who stole power according to most analysis of the election there. What should we know about Venezuela? Where do you think it's headed? Are we gonna have boots on the ground? Is the Maduro regime in your mind in danger? David Rutherford.
David Rutherford
Hey, thank you guys so much for having me on. That was a hell of an intro. I appreciate that. I believe what we need to do to is look at the nexuses of power that are emerging through the Venezuelan developments, right? You've got China, who's invested over $60 billion into loans, infrastructure, everything you can think of. You've got coordinated relationships potentially with Mexican cartels. Just recently we had a Mexican cartels issue basically head hunting fees on certain border patrols. And then I also think you have probably a large portion of the population after the last election fiasco with Machado that is probably primed and wants a change. So all of these things converging into, I think the posture that we're representing right now, I mean, what three B52s? We've got 10,000 troops, we've got soft guys. There's definitely agency folks working down there. So what happens next I think is going to be dependent upon Maduro's actions. I mean, the funniest thing I saw in the last few hours was one of their naval ships ran aground and sunk. So I'm not sure anybody's not good, right? So all of that, you know, I think we're, we're. Things are heating up for sure.
Zoran Mamdani
Yeah.
Clay Travis
Venezuela's Maduro regime has just ordered military exercises, by the way. Which I got to say, I guess if you are the, you're the tin pot dictator of Venezuela now, Rut, you gotta make it seem like you got muscles to flex. But if I were this guy, if I were Maduro, I might. Well, I'm sure he already has stash cash in where, where are the places people do it? Like the Cook Islands or the Channel Islands or whatever. But if I were him, I would have my, I, if I were Maduro, I would have my go bag ready and an exit plan.
David Rutherford
Maybe he could go get an apartment next door to Assad playing video games over in Russia, you know?
Clay Travis
Wait, can I just jump in there? When I read that, Rut, all I wanted to know in that article, just so everyone understands the longtime dictator of Syria, there was a report that came out that he's just hanging out in a luxury Moscow apartment playing video games all day. Is it Call of Duty? Like I want to know what the Video game is FIFA, maybe.
Buck Sexton
Yeah.
David Rutherford
Roadblocks.
Propane Energy Advertiser
Yeah.
Zoran Mamdani
I don't know.
David Rutherford
You know, I think what's interesting is you have people that capture power in the way they did. And, you know, I don't know if either of you saw the deposition from the gentleman relative. Tina Peters was putting it out, relative to his work at smartmatic and the specific development of that operating system to capture the elections 30 years ago or whatever it was. And. And, you know, I think when you have somebody that drives a country into the ground, eventually what happens, the people begin to rise up. And we certainly saw that in the last election and then the crackdown that came over, you know.
Clay Travis
Yes.
David Rutherford
This idea of citizen warfare. We saw the. What was a couple months ago, they were showing some promo stuff of, you know, tractor Bob and, you know, and the little lady holding the AK learning how to fight. And that's absurd. I just don't believe that this country is willing to endure any more of what's been taking place because, you know, look at their inflation, look at their production, look at their output. The only thing that saves them, obviously, is illegal drug traffic and probably some human trafficking as well as, you know, probably some arms traffic. And. But it's oil. And so, you know, before putting boots on the ground, I'd love to see maybe a blockade or something a little bit more giving them time to negotiate or alter or come out with a position before we start sending, you know, young American women into fight in Venezuela.
Clay Travis
We're speaking to David Rutherford, former Navy seal, host of the David Rutherford show on the Clay and Buck podcast network, which you should all be catching up on listening to this weekend. If you. If you missed this week's episode. And Rut, you mentioned the cartels and how they've put out bounties on members of U.S. border Patrol. We've had multiple strikes now on. On narco terrorist boats in the Caribbean. Lethal strikes. Right. Kinetic strike missiles, basically blowing up ships. And we're moving more military assets into the region to do this. When. When Joint Special Operations gets involved here, when our operators are doing more against these cartels, do you think the likelihood is they're gonna go on, go. Go to ground and try to ride it out, or are they gonna try to escalate the violence in response to change the political calculation here at home?
David Rutherford
You know, that's the great question, right? Ironclad has had. There's a woman who's a Mexican reporter who's talking about. She's doing on the ground interviews, blacked out faces, and they're saying we're just gonna wait it out. But think about the magnitude of the impact of shutting that border down. What does it cause?
Nicole Parker
Right.
David Rutherford
It's a lot of people. There's a guy named Oscar Ramirez that's been reporting that there's a small civil war amongst the cartels grouping building. So, you know, I think everybody's looking for, you know, how do we recapture those revenue streams that we lost from human trafficking and probably a significant portion of trafficking across the border. And so what do they have to lose other than going kinetic? So as a result of that. Yeah, there's a distinct possibility that jsoc, I don't know about typical soft units as lower tier 3 units, but I definitely think JSOC combined with maybe some of the agency's assets or some of the counter narco assets within Homeland. Yeah, they're going to be ramping up their mission profiles for sure.
Buck Sexton
Where does this go? All right, so we're, and I know you're trying to analyze this in general, but what do you think the true end goal? Marco Rubio is very, very well informed with what's been going on in Venezuela. Former senator, obviously, now he's Secretary of State. So I would imagine that he's driving a large degree of this inside of the White House. If the Trump team had their, their ability to sort of wave their magic wand, what would they like to see happen in Venezuela? We know they have unbelievable. I think it's Chevron, primarily oil and gas assets that used to be American owned. There have been reports that Maduro basically is bending the knee and saying, whatever you guys need, I'll give back to you. In terms of oil and gas assets, is it any kind of negotiation with him or do you think he has to be gone in order for there to be any sort of reconciliation between the United States and Venezuela Play?
David Rutherford
That is the thousand dollar question right there.
Buck Sexton
Right.
David Rutherford
And I think Mark Rubio is a great guy to be doing this. You know, he's been so integrated into the Central South American political landscape, as you know, his Cuban ancestry and just where he positions himself and has been for years. So I think he's a great guy. I think they're riding this incredible high of negotiations right now. Obviously the Ukraine, Russia one is the one that escapes them. But I think there might be a real willingness to come in and try and negotiate some type of deal to put the fires out, so to speak. And that would be relative to regaining some considerable leverage on the oil industry, because that's the heartbeat of their whole country. However, you've got a very staunch influence coming from China. Again, you know, I was looking up the numbers just, you know, this morning, and it's pretty staggering what they've been doing. So if they feel like they, their exports can be maintained through their China relationship or the BRICS relationship or whatever that might be, I think they're, you know, Maduro might be willing to stave off any of the economic pressures that he's already been doing so far. But I just think there's such a momentum, I mean, that, that peace deal in Israel, I mean, that is more significant than anything I think we've seen in a long, long time. And the fact that, you know, Machado wanted to give her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, you know, there's this unique relationship that's been formed there. So I think it's some kind of either deal with, like you said, with the oil industry or some of those. But it's also, I would imagine, pressure to hold new elections with some, perhaps some UN oversight. That, that would be something that would be truly a monumental feat for Rubio and his team of, you know, the newly found ability to have diplomacy in our State Department, which is a pretty awesome thing to see.
Clay Travis
Rud, just promise me that you're not going to do a air quotes guy weekend in air quotes Colombia or like, don't get any ideas, buddy. Okay. We need you to keep doing the podcast.
David Rutherford
Buck, you saw what happened the last time the Green Beret guy went down there and tried to do it, right? And you know what was kind of funny, which is kind of this hidden story a lot of people don't talk about, is, you know, they, the last administration tried to pin that on a bunch of Trump loyalists, right? FBI investigations. They tried to really connect some true Trump loyalists, people that are, you know, involved in the government now, to participating and kind of that, you know, random, like, kamikaze we're going to take down. It was almost like a Bush League Bay of Pigs fiasco for, for the group.
Clay Travis
It was like an 80s action movie plot, but it was real.
David Rutherford
It was totally real. And I have a lot of friends that had to go talk to the bureau as a result of that. And so, I don't know. I mean, I, I think the population is ripe for some influence, but I don't know, man, it seemed like the military really coalesced around him to go after the opposition or whatever you want to call it after those elections. And we saw Brazil was able to do that. A lot of these other kind of Socialist countries were able to do that. And so what I think it is is how are they so confident that they can, you know, repress those uprisings? And I think it's about a money issue. So where is Venezuela getting the money to pay for their soldiers at scale in support of knocking down these, you know, organic uprisings? Internal and organic with quotations.
Clay Travis
Obviously, you're just getting a little. A little taste here, everybody, of the David Rutherford show. So go check it out of the Clay and Buck podcast network this weekend, Rut. I'm shooting tomorrow so that when I finally get you back out on the range, you'll be. You'll be proud of your students. So thank you for joining us here and we'll hang out soon.
David Rutherford
I'm always proud of you guys. Keep it up.
Clay Travis
Thank you.
Buck Sexton
Keep up the good work.
Clay Travis
You take care. Birch Gold Group knows that you need a real incentive to consider purchasing gold as part of an IRA or 401k. And if you have been motivated by the near constant increase in the value of gold recently, like it's up 60% year to date, there must be something else to compel you to stop. And just think about the value that gold, silver, precious metals could have in your portfolio. Birch Gold Group is the company you want to rely on. It's a company I've been buying my gold from for a long time now. And you'll also get, by the way, when you make a Birch Gold Group purchase, qualifying purchase, you get free silver. Silver is also up in value about 78% this year for every $5,000 purchased from Birch Gold Group. This month, in advance of Veterans Day, they'll send you a free patriotic silver round that includes the American and Gadsden flags on it. You know Gadsden flag that don't tread on me. You know that one. Birch Gold can help you own it and convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in actual physical gold. So you want to go with Birch Gold Group. My friends, they do absolutely the best anywhere out there. And I'm just a big believer in gold in general. I'm somebody who thinks that gold is a very important thing in the future and it's going to continue to be. So please text my name Buck to 98 98. 98. Text B u c k B u c k to 989898 and get started with Birch Gold Group.
Buck Sexton
Stories of freedom, stories 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 podcast.
Washable Sofas Advertiser
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Anabe, you never have to stress about Messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Annabe Sofas the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
Propane Energy Advertiser
The U.S. electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up, and the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather.
iHeart Radio Announcer
Learn more@probane.com run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers are into true crime, sports, comedy, culture, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. And all this reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for you. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart streaming radio and podcasting. Let us show you at iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844 iHeart one more time, call 844-844-IHEART and get podcasting working for you.
Leon Navak
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked why Benghazi?
Clay Travis
The truth became a web of lies.
Leon Navak
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
David Rutherford
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Leon Navak
Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit.
David Rutherford
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
Clay Travis
You put two and two together.
Leon Navak
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Buck Sexton
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
Leon Navak
I'm Leon Navak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.
Nicole Parker
What difference at this point does it make?
Buck Sexton
Yeah, that's right. Lock her up.
Leon Navak
Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Clay Travis
Welcome back in, everybody, to the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. We are joined now by former FBI agent Nicole Parker. She's got a new book out. The two FBI's the bravery and Betrayal I Saw in My Time at the Bureau. So you can go check out your copy of that one, Nicole. Let's start with this one. You've looked at the national security side of what the Bureau does before many times. What's your first read of former Ambassador Bolton with this indictment on the classified information in his home?
Nicole Parker
I think it's a solid indictment. I think that this is something that the FBI has likely been looking into it for a very long period of time. But as we know, having worked at the FBI, they pretty much put the brakes on a lot of cases and investigations that should have been indicted a long time ago under the Biden administration. And so now we've got a fair doj, right? We've got Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and they're getting in there and they're actually enforcing the law equally and fairly. And that's something very foreign to us, especially at the FBI. We didn't see a lot of that equal enforcement of the law. And so let's see what happens. I mean, you know, they always say that you can indict a ham sandwich, which is true. You know, the threshold that you have to meet is just probable cause, you know, as opposed to proving beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. But based on my understanding and what I've read, it's a very solid indictment.
Buck Sexton
How optimistic are you that things are starting to get back on the right foot? Thanks for coming on with us. You've got a book. You've spent time in the FBI. You've told your story about why you went there on the show before. Are you optimistic that things are changing as it pertains to the culture that Cash and Dan Bongino are trying to bring to bear. And what have you seen, if that is true, to suggest to you that it's happening?
Nicole Parker
Okay, that's a great question. And I wish that my book had come out a year ago before the election, but, you know, we're a year late, basically, in my opinion. But that's okay. It's perfect timing because I think what it does is it details a lot of the frustration that I had working at the FBI. And I basically represent the voice of FBI1, the solid FBI agents who are just trying to do the good work as opposed to FBI 2, the politically and socially weaponized agents. And I detail, step by step, things that I personally was highly disturbed by. And writing this book and seeing the new administration come in, it's very. I have to say, I have hope because there are a lot of things in that book that just drove us. We were so frustrated. We were ticked off, we were angry. There was literally like a civil war going on within the FBI, you know, the two opposing sides, FBI 1 versus FBI 2. And as I've watched what Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino and others have done, slowly but surely it's going to take time, but I am seeing things check. You know, the diversity initiative that was going on at the bureau, it was off the charts. I mean, I started feeling like I work for Social Justice Warrior club rather than the number one law enforcement agency in the world. And they have completely obliterated those programs. That in and of itself is a huge plus for the Bureau. And seeing these indictments coming out, you know, I'm kind of sick and tired of people on the left saying, you know, this is political retribution. Actually, what this is is this is accountability and it's equal enforcement of the law, and it's very long overdue. And so, no, this is not political retribution. This is what should have been happening all along. And so these are examples, you know, seeing Jim Comey get indicted, you know, watching John Bolton people that they were untouchable under the last administration. And frankly, since all of this occurred, I'd say for the last at least 10 years, those are the steps that they're taking. And then I think another really important thing is I think slowly but surely they're rooting out the deep state from the FBI. And that's a daunting task. I mean, this, this didn't happen overnight. This, this what, what they've created and the mess that they're being asked to clean up. This has been going on for over a decade. And so I am hopeful and I think my book will be interesting to American people because I worked under Obama, Trump and Biden, and I worked under multiple FBI directors and to see the progress that they have made in such a short period of time, I mean, they've captured four people off of the FBI's most wanted list since January. That's as many as Biden captured in four years. I mean, it's pretty awesome, but it's going to take time. And it's just the reality of it. They've got a lot to do, but they're working tirelessly. So I do feel a sense of hope. But I do think my book is kind of something that they can even use and say, look, how are we doing on this? How are we doing on that? But I do think that they're making significant progress.
Clay Travis
And one thing that I remember hearing, Nicole, when Comey was the, really, at one point in time, the chief of the resistance against Donald Trump, right? He was this big figure of admiration for MSNBC and the New York Times was that when he got fired.
Buck Sexton
There.
Clay Travis
Was this story that was always being circulated by the Democrat media of, oh my gosh, all the agents are just crying in the hallways because Comey is gone. What's the truth of that? Yes or no or what can you tell us?
Nicole Parker
Excellent question. And I'll tell you right now, that's what my book's about. FBI one. We were cheering, celebrating, because he single handedly was the one that destroyed the FBI and frankly, it's never recovered. FBI one agents like myself were like, thank goodness. Thank you, President Trump. This is absolutely justified. Get him out of here. FBI too. They were the ones that were crying and so upset and this is not fair. And they literally had mugs and T shirts and all this paraphernalia that said, comeies, homies. That's how you could tell at the bureau. And it is, it literally is like you're either on one side or you're on the other. So I would say it's a mix, right? I'd say if the FBI was probably 50, 50, but it really did feel like an internal civil war. Like you would think that you were working for two different agencies based on what side of the spectrum you are. And it really wasn't always based on politics either. I mean, I worked with some outstanding agents who I don't share political views with. The key is, can you put aside your political persuasions and do a fair and unbiased investigation? And frankly, many of these agents of FBI too, were incapable of doing that. I mean, look at Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, James Comey. The list goes on and on and on. And you'll read in my book, cases where I worked to protect Democrats. I didn't say, oh, you know, I'm not going to protect you because we don't share political views. That's not the way it works. That's not the way the law works. But unfortunately, that's how FBI2 worked and that's how they destroyed the agency.
Buck Sexton
How much should we be concerned, Nicole? Let's say that somehow the Democrats win back. And again, this is kind of goes to the culture. Are we in a world now where the FBI culture swings wildly based on who the President is, or do you think the culture can be fixed? Fixed where the President doesn't matter. In other words, right now, everything's Great. Trump's president. January 2029. A Democrat comes in. Kamala Harris, AOC, Gavin Newsom, insert name here. How much should we be concerned that the culture just flips right back to what it was when it was broken?
Nicole Parker
That's a genuine concern. That's a concern that I personally have. Bringing back all of these social justice warrior clubs, the things that literally destroyed the law enforcement agency work. Then they're going to say, okay, well, now we're going to go after these people. But that's why I think it's important that under this administration that these indictments is made perfectly clear. These are not political retribution indictments. These are what we call equal enforcement of the law. And that's what it has to be. It cannot be this ping pong, oh, you know, a Democrat, this is going to happen. A Republican's in charge. No, it literally has to be apolitical and lady justice must be blind. That's the goal. Let's see what happens. Because I'm telling you right now, the Democrats, they're just thinking, oh, they're just going after all of Trump's opponents. That's not what's happening at all. They're finally enforcing laws that should have been enforced a long time ago. And that's what Americans want to see. It should be fair and it should be unbiased. And for anyone to say that it was fair and unbiased under the Biden administration is completely. That's just ridiculous. I mean, they went after President Trump like he was on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list. I couldn't believe what I was experiencing. Again, I detailed things that I heard with my own two ears. The raid at Mar A Lago was an FBI in Miami's jurisdiction, which is where I was located. Hearing some of the conversations, I'm like, I can't believe that this is happening. This is not what we. When we raised our hand and took an oath, it was not to this. We are sworn to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. And again, FBI one, they did it beautifully. They're out there working violent crimes, stopping human traffickers. And I, do. I talk about some of the harrowing cases. My best friend, the FBI, was killed protecting children. Those are heroes. There are good people there. But the other half, FBI 2, political nonsense. And it was.
Clay Travis
What did they tell people? If it was, what were they telling the agents who had to put on the famous or infamous windbreakers that we all think of? We think of FBI raids that they were going to, essentially, the president's residence at Mar a Lago to grab some dusty folders. How did they sell that one to the FBI agents in your office?
Nicole Parker
Okay, so first of all, the ray jackets. Yeah, it's on the COVID of my book. I was not involved at the rate of Mar A Lago. But they. There wasn't like a big open discussion that it was going to be happening. Okay. For instance, Roger Stone. When the Roger Stone incident happened, they actually sent out what we call a canvas, and it was an email asking people to volunteer for an arrest in Fort Lauderdale. But they didn't specify who it was or what it was. Something in my gut was like, and that's off. I'm not doing that. Because, you know, when they have these big operations, did you think.
Clay Travis
Did you think that someone in the Bureau tipped off the FBI to the. I'm sorry, Tipped off the CNN to that raid, by the way?
Nicole Parker
100%. How else?
Clay Travis
I just wanted to get an FBI person on, you know, to say this because we all said it at the time. There's no way CNN just happened to be there at 5am no, no.
Nicole Parker
You. You read in my book, that's not a coincidence. You don't just suddenly get information about that, like no one knows where we are, what we're doing. Mar A Lago, that's not something that they put a canvas out for. They handpicked very carefully. And it was WFO from D.C. that came down. They worked with FBI Miami. Certain people were selected. Obviously. It was up in our Palm beach office out of the Palm Beach Residents Agency, which is part of FBI Miami.
Clay Travis
Did you hear of anyone refusing. Sorry, sorry, but we have limited Time. Did you hear of anyone refusing to go or at least raising the issue of like, I don't want to be a part of this?
Nicole Parker
Yes, I did. Yep, I did. Yeah. There were said, no, I don't want to be a part of that. And again, FBI one, they want nothing to do with it. They just want to do. So, yeah, there are people within the agency that said no. I personally was one that said, I'm not doing January 6th. I don't care. And I made a vow to my best friend the day before she's killed. We're like, we're not doing that, no matter what. I am not doing that because that is not fair. It is there. My friend, right before she died, literally, some of her last words. And it's very, very powerful. She's like, this looks like political intimidation. I'm not going to be a part of this. And I said, I'm not going to be a part of it either. And we made a vow to each other. And then she was killed, you know, 18 hours later. So these are the kinds of honorable people that we don't hear about at the FBI. The FBI one, they are strong. I mean, she lost her life protecting children. On the other hand, there were people salivating at the chance.
Clay Travis
What happened to your friend? You've mentioned this a few times. I assume it's in the book.
Nicole Parker
It's in the book and it's very. It is. It is disgusting. They didn't send the SWAT team for her operation when they were going to take down a child predator for a search warrant. A child, you know, child porn guy. No SWAT for her. And this is February 2nd of 2021. But in the meantime, they were liberally sending SWAT resources nationwide for January 6th misdemeanors. People that walked into the Capitol and took a photo. They got the full force of the federal government on them with SWAT and everything. But when it came to the real work and people protecting children, like my best friend. No swat. Two agents dead, three agents shot. And you will read about that in the book. And that's something no one knows about. So I think this book will be very interesting to people. And by the way, the FBI didn't even pay for her funeral. They didn't have the money to pay for her funeral, but they had the money to pay for diversity programs. So I recommend that people pick up the book because they're little facts and details that only an insider, like, I lived it. And it's. It's so frustrating because you're. When you're on the inside. You can't say a word.
Clay Travis
You can't say, I'm get my copy. I'm sold. I'm going to get my copy right now. And I recommend everyone else, the two FBI's Nicole Parker is the author. Nicole, thanks for being here. We'll talk to you again soon.
Nicole Parker
All right, I love you all. Have a great weekend. And God bless. Take care.
Propane Energy Advertiser
Thank you.
Buck Sexton
Thank you.
Clay Travis
The Preborn Network of Clinics stands out as a nonprofit that does so much to save the lives of unborn children. They welcome and work with hundreds of pregnant mothers every day nationwide. Mothers like Linda, who is contemplating life or abortion for her baby. When Linda learned she was pregnant, she knew that abortion was wrong. But fear led her to dark places, and she found herself eventually with nowhere else to turn at a Preborn Network clinic. There she was met with prayer, compassion, and love. And that love won out. Linda chose life for her baby. Linda got truthful answers about matters related to her unborn child at that preborn clinic because when a mother hears it, lives are saved. Just $28 provides a free ultrasound to women like Linda. That gift, that experience of meeting her unborn child, makes all the difference. This is your chance to make a difference, too. Pick up your phone, dial £250 and say baby. That's 250. Say baby. Or donate securely@preborn.com Buck preborn.com B U C K sponsored by Preborn.
Buck Sexton
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.
Clay Travis
You know what your customers are doing right this second? The exact same thing. You are listening to me, which, let's.
Buck Sexton
Be honest, is kind of flattering.
Clay Travis
But my point Is, ads on iHeartRadio.
Buck Sexton
Actually get heard in the car, at.
Clay Travis
The gym, on the couch, while people are walking their dogs. Who's agreeing?
Buck Sexton
Good boy.
Clay Travis
Who's a good boy?
Buck Sexton
You're a good boy.
Clay Travis
That's right, dude.
Buck Sexton
You're a good.
Clay Travis
So why not make the next ad about you?
Buck Sexton
Get started today.
Clay Travis
Call 844-844-IHEART or go to iheartadvertising.com that's 844-844-iheart or iheartadvertising.com When I told people.
Leon Navak
I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or.
Buck Sexton
Just asked, why Benghazi?
Clay Travis
The truth became a web of Lies.
Leon Navak
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.
Washable Sofas Advertiser
What difference at this point does it make?
Leon Navak
Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
iHeart Radio Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast.
Daily Review with Clay and Buck – October 17, 2025
Hosts: Clay Travis, Buck Sexton (iHeartPodcasts)
This Friday edition dives deep into current headlines shaping American politics and national security, with particular focus on:
Expect a lively, opinionated mix with calls to action, notable analysis, and input from guests with high-level government experience.
(Main segment: 01:35–16:29 & revisited at 23:06–24:01 and 58:17–63:05)
Summary:
Legal and Political Analysis:
Media & Institutional Response:
Notable Quotes:
(Main segment: 24:01–38:24)
Summary:
Analysis:
Notable Moments:
Mamdani’s Stance on Police:
Policy Debate:
(Main segment: 39:25–53:05, interview with David Rutherford)
Summary:
Military/Intelligence Analysis:
Notable Quote:
(Main segment: 58:17–71:23, interview with Nicole Parker)
Summary:
Major Themes:
Key Insights:
The show blends sharp political analysis with humor, relatable analogies, and pointed criticism of political and media elites, maintaining a brisk conversational flow. There’s a clear ideological slant toward conservative perspectives, underscored by concern for national security, critique of perceived double standards in accountability, and advocacy for "restoring sanity" to major institutions.
Listeners gain not just a summary of the week's headlines but an inside look at the interplay between politics, law, and national security, colored by behind-the-scenes anecdotes and professional expertise.