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Clay Travis
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Clay Travis
Thursday edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show kicks off right now. We got Jack Smith hearings on Capitol Hill bringing some highlights of that. I'm not expecting much to come of it, but it's causing fireworks in our nation's capital, sort of. So we will get into it in a little bit. Trump on the Greenland deal, very interesting stuff happening there. He's talking golden dome, mineral rights, all kinds of goodies that he believes he has lined up for us via Greenland. And Trump speaking with Maria Bartiromo this morning. Some highlights from that. J.D. vance is in Toledo, Ohio. Gavin Newsom, we'll talk to our friend Katie Zachariah, California political and legal analyst about Newsom. He got a little bit of a womp womp because they canceled his Davos speech at the last minute. He's saying it's pressure from Trump world. We shall see more and more on all of that. In the meantime, my friends, the big, big news today coming out of yes, you guessed it, Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota. We have the following from Attorney General Pam Bondi this on Twitter or X. Minutes ago, at my direction, FBI agents executed an arrest in Minnesota. So far we have arrested Nikima Levi Armstrong, who allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on city's church in St. Paul, Minnesota. We will share more updates as they become available. Listen loud and clear. All caps now. Clay, we do not tolerate attacks on places of worship. This, I think, is what many of you have been calling for. And this is a pretty quick turnaround for, for doj, at least on this kind of an arrest. I have to say they wanted to make sure they get all this lined up. And this is now, I think the beginning of more arrests like this. Although Clay, now there's going to be a lot of rewriting of history. It was peaceful protests. We were just hanging out in the church. We were asking for directions. You know, it was no big deal. Anti ice church protester organizer Levi Armstrong was on CNN last night. This is cut one. Here's her claim. This is pre arrest by the way. Hit it.
Announcer
We did not rush into that church. We actually went and sat down and participated in the service. And after the pastor prayed, that is when I stood up and asked him a question in response to his prayer. And then he responded to me. And then I proceeded to ask him about Pastor David Easterwood and how is it possible for him to serve as both the pastor and the director of ICE from Minnesota. And instead of responding to me as soon as I said the name David Easterwood, the pastor says, shame, shame. And that is when I let us enchant justice for Renee.
Clay Travis
Good.
Announcer
And hands up. Don't shoot. So I want to clarify that we didn't rush in. We didn't bust in.
Clay Travis
Okay, Clay, now it's. The big, mean pastor was the one who caused the problem in his church, by the way, trying to celebrate with his congregants and. And enjoy their connection with God. These lunatics show up once again, whether it's BLM with the cops or it's just the leftist agitators with ICE their main enemy. Video footage. Video footage. We saw.
Buck Sexton
We've all seen what happened, you know, and, yes. So credit to the Department of Justice for getting these arrests done in Minneapolis, I've actually seen, which I think speaks to even Democrats being like, yeah, this is probably inappropriate. I've actually seen so far a fairly muted response from Democrats in terms of being opposed to these arrests going on. I mean, I'm sure that there's gonna be the usual suspects lining up, but it doesn't feel to me like this is. This is some sort of cross the Rubicon moment for them. And you knew that these activists were aware that they had potentially created an issue because they very rapidly started trying to recharacterize what actually happened, even though we could all see it on video ourselves. And for those of you out there that are not familiar with the Face act, for instance, you know, it was actually designed to stop. If you. If you're wondering where did this law having to do with protecting church services come from, you know, what it was actually designed to do for churches, Buck. It was designed to stop white supremacists. This is their thesis when they passed it. It was designed to stop white supremacists, they said, from interrupting black churches. So, oh, you got to be careful sometimes with the laws that you put on the books, because the precedent that is applied for them can shift as the world changes. Because Democrats today, Buck, we all know, would never pass a law that prohibited protests from taking place in churches. In fact, they would probably pass a law saying, we need more protests inside of churches if you had to ask them to make a choice now. But this law is on the books. And Attorney General Pam Bondi traveled to Minneapolis, and this is what we somewhat talked about yesterday. It's one thing to say arrest people, but you have to tangibly connect the arrest to a crime and the work that has been done here, I think it's kind of an open and shut case. Pretty clearly demonstrates that these individuals broke the law. And now we'll see whether a jury is willing to convict them in Minneapolis, which I think is an entirely different process. But these warrants, these arrests were signed off on probable cause based on the evidence. And it's pretty significant, I think that we've already seen a result. I think Pam Bondi deserves credit. I think the Minnesota lawyers deserve credit in the Department of Justice Overall.
Clay Travis
Now here's J.D. vance, by the way, speaking to this. This was this morning. He's in Ohio, but he was talking about the situation in Minneapolis and just how he's making the point, Clay, that we've been hammering here for days, which is this could all be made so much easier. This could be, this could be unnecessary. It is necessary because of the decisions the Democrats have made. But if they were willing to just give the slightest assistance to federal law enforcement on these issues by just allowing access into their jails, for example, by just giving a heads up, a phone call, an email, hey, you know that, you know, three time violent felon that's supposed, that has an order of deportation. We got them, we just picked them up on something. They could do that and this wouldn't be necessary. They refuse. Here's JD this is cut 17 and he is speaking the truth about what's really going on here.
Guest or Correspondent
I'm headed from here to Minneapolis where we're going to talk with some of our ICE agents, talk with local officials about how we can turn down the chaos. And my simple piece of advice to them is going to be, look, if you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country. It's not that hard. If you look all across our country, what's happened in Minneapolis is happening almost nowhere else in the United States of America. And that's because whether it's in Texas or Tennessee, it's in red states, it's in blue cities. Even within our country, most people are cooperating with the simple principle that we ought to be able to enforce our immigration laws and get illegal criminals the hell out of the United States of America. It's really not that complicated.
Clay Travis
I think it's very important that he puts it into that context. Claude. It's a very big country. People in Minneapolis, including the mayor and the governor and the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota, they have decided the law does not count in their city, they've decided they're going to stop people from enforcing the law. They don't have that right. They're wrong. And the rest of the country isn't going through this. The people are saying, oh, that's the thuggish tactics. And it's. So the, all this stuff, the checkpoints and all of this. Do they have those in, in Nashville? Like, are, are there checkpoints in Franklin? I mean, you know, you sit here, I'm seeing none of this in Miami because they don't have the same processes of obstruction in place. They've made. They're making this happen, is the point.
Buck Sexton
No, I think that's a really important. Because if you're in a state like you are Florida or a state like I am Tennessee, by and large there is not this obstruction constantly that is occurring of ice's ability to do their jobs. And I would say this is one thing you could look at and maybe Pam Bondi and her team are looking at it in Minneapolis and in Minnesota writ large right now. If there is tangible evidence of Mayor Fry saying in some way, or Tim Walls providing instruction in some way to state or city employees to obstruct ICE's ability to do their jobs, potentially you could have an obstruction charge that could be brought against Mayor Fry or Governor Walls. This, to me is, is, is one of the great questions that is out there in general, which is to what extent is there direct evidence of, of a behavior that would constitute a crime on behalf of these individuals who are obstructing ICE in particular, as I said yesterday, I still think it's one of the great unexamined aspects of the entirety of the, of the immigration era. How in the world have we allowed the possibility of a sanctuary city to exist at all? Federal law is supreme. So when the President of the United States, on immigration related issues, when the President of the United States says the law of the land is this on immigration, it is undisputedly in his province of authority. And Buck, do you remember how frustrating this was? We talked about it a lot when Biden had the open borders and Governor Greg Abbott in Texas and so many other individuals in Texas said, we've got to have the power to control ingress and egress in our state. And they kept getting slapped down by judges who said, well, it's really more of a federal than a state issue. If that principle applies, which it does for Biden and for Trump. Sanctuary cities are not permissible under federal law. And anyone who is allowing them to occur, in theory is violating federal law and their state and local laws are covered by the Supremacy clause. And so you could bring charges in that aspect, which would be applicable whether it's California, Minnesota, New York, anywhere in the country.
Clay Travis
And this is where we got into the discussion yesterday. I'm sure we still have some talkbacks about it from those who just want charges to be filed versus the hey, let's know why we're bringing the charge approach to these things, which I think is good, because if you bring a charge that is frivolous, especially in a place like Minnesota, they're just going to show, they're going to have lawyers show up in a court and the judge is going to dismiss it. Guys, this notion, the process is the punishment, Let me tell you something about this. If you, if you're really being grasping and you're on enemy territory politically, there really is no process. You're going to show up to court and a judge is going to say, yeah, these are garbage. See you later. And then if you try it again, you might get a judge who says, ok, you're, you're doing something here. I might file, you might get a contempt order. So it's not as simple as just prosecute them. That's not a thing. Ok? You have to have some basis for it if you want. Now, Britain, to Clay's point about this yesterday, you get an indictment, okay? Now there's a process. Now someone's got to go through discovery and a trial and all these different things. But just bringing a charge, bringing a charge. I mean, if, let's say we brought a charge against Don. Now Don Lemon's a bad example in the sense that I think he actually could be in trouble for the same reason this organizer is. But you bring a charge against someone like Don Lemon and he shows up with his high priced lawyers, guy's got millions of dollars and he gets a judge to slap away the charge. Literally just throw it out. So it's over. Well, what, what process do you think that is other than Don Lemon walking out of the courthouse saying, I'm a hero, I'm a martyr for, you know, ICE and you know, the, or, you know, anti ICE and all the illegals and everything else. So this is what, this is what we're trying to say yesterday, what Pam Bondi is doing is the right way. Here is the charge, here's the evidence of violation. That's why we have arrested. Now, you have a reasonable chance of a judge seeing this and at least allowing this to go to an indictment phase instead of Just it's going to get. Now it might get tossed out, but I mean you're ensuring it's going to get tossed out. If you're showing up with like, we just arrested this person because we don't like them. Which by the way, we actually don't want that happening. I understand that this is where there's a little bit of you. You don't want to be in a country where you just get arrested because people don't like you. I know the other side has done this with Trump to some extent, but it failed. It failed. And if you want any more proof of that, you can see the mug shot which. Did you ever get a mug shot T shirt? Was that you that got that or there were some.
Buck Sexton
I got a mug shot T shirt autographed by President Trump. It is in my house as a, I mean I think that is an all timer, maybe the greatest mug shots ever been taken by the way.
Clay Travis
Point here is, as far as I see it, Pam Bondi is making the right move. This arrest, this charging of this organizer, violation of law. It's there, it's real, it's clear. Let's go. If you find out that buffoon Walls was doing something illegal, great. But we have to find that there's a thing that we can, we can credibly say he was doing that's illegal. You just arrest people. I don't know. I think that's a pretty self evident truth. All right, this is the month that many of us cut back on expenses because look, things got a little crazy in December, but I think it's time you should save some money with the easiest thing I can think of. Switch to PureTalk and over the course of a year because it's going to be a monthly savings, but over the course of a year you could save 600 to $1,000. PureTalk saves you 50% or more off your existing cell phone bill without sacrificing any quality of service. That's because Pure Chalk operates on the same cell towers and network as one of the bigger cell phone companies. But without all the overhead expenses. The cost can be as low as $20 a month for unlimited talk text and 3 gigs of high speed data on Pure Talks super fast 5G network. Dial pound 250, say Clay and Buck. Pure Talks US customer service team will help you switch in minutes again, talk, text and data for just $20 a month. Dial pound two five zero, say clay and buck. You'll save an additional 50% off your first month. Pure talk America's wireless company Making America.
Buck Sexton
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.
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra, SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures these days it.
Seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agents identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent, Secure any agent. Octa secures AI Want to score when.
Buck Sexton
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Clay Travis
Jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply.
Buck Sexton
Better Picks Sports just got better. Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton show the United States Buck in addition to everything else going on the Minneapolis arrest, by the way 800-282-2882 we've got a bunch of stories. Murder rate may have hit the new newest low since 1900. The FCC has taken aim at late night television and the View. But I didn't want this to fly under the radar. Buck. The United States has officially left the World Health Organization today. And if you remember, for those of us out there who were constantly dealing with the awful comments that, that were ultimately untrue and the failed investigations into Covid when it came out of the Chinese lab and all those different things, a lot of people said, hey, what are the consequences going to be because we give so much money to the, to the who? I do think sometimes things like that can slide under the radar and people may not necessarily notice that they have ended up happening. So I thought that was fairly significant. And it's officially becomes the law of the land today that we are no longer a part of, of that group. And I don't think we're going to lose out very much. But they were wrong on so much relating to Covid, Buck. And it became incredibly frustrating. You would think that there'd be, I.
Clay Travis
Think more people upset at both the WHO and the cdc, but a lot of people would rather live in the fantasy that because they obeyed these institutions which were wrong on everything, that they did not completely disgrace themselves. And therefore everyone who was double masking and believed in the Fouch and all the rest of it, they just want to play along. So this is still a very. If you look at partisan perceptions of things like the WHO and the cdc, you have people on the right, WHO by and large recognize that these places were abject, in fact worse than failures because they made things worse. And then you still have a lot of Democrats. These are great institutions. They are not great institutions, no doubt.
Buck Sexton
And so we just wanted to mention that. Take some of your calls, continue to react to the news coming out of Minneapolis. But I wanted to tell you that one of the groups doing the best job out there right now. Tunnel the tower. You can honor the courage and sacrifice of our nation's greatest military heroes and first responders like United States Army Lieutenant Christy Ravitz. Christy served our country with unwavering dedication for 20 years. As a combat nurse, she provided life saving care to wounded soldiers including at Walter Reed National Military Medical center during the height of the global war on terror. Christy was also a devoted wife, mother and mentor whose life was rooted in compassion and integrity. After six years of courageously battling service related cancer, Christie's life was tragically cut short. She leaves behind her husband Steven and their two children. Tunnel the towers honored Christie's service and sacrifice by paying off her mortgage on the family's home help more families like Christie's. Join us in donating $11 a month to tunnel the towers at t2t.org that's t the number two t dot org.
Clay Travis
Welcome back in here to Clay and Buck. We're going to talk a little bit more about what's going on with Minneapolis and the ice crackdown there. And it is absolutely essential the Trump administration continue its focus on this. Something else, though, Clay. Democrats are really just out there saying crazy, crazy stuff. You know, they're going all in on, say whatever, get people upset. Jasmine Crockett, Jasmine Crockett, she looks like she's not going to win that Senate primary, probably, right? Is that where we are right now?
Buck Sexton
That is it would be an upset. I want her. First of all, I encourage all of you to go support Jasmine Crockett because I think she has great takes in the Democrat Senate, Texas primary. I think she deserves to be a face of the midterms. But unfortunately, it appears even Texas Democrats are saying, yeah, no, we're not going to support Jasmine Crockett.
Clay Travis
So Jasmine Crockett is out there getting a lot of media attention for herself by saying things like, well, this honestly.
Jasmine Crockett
They'Re about to outlaw the idea of white supremacy and white hate. Like, they are about to be like, oh, that's not a thing. Forget the fact that you're talking about getting rid of like the classification for nooses in a time in which we have seen these random black bodies be strung up down south. What you do is you embolden the hate. You embolden everybody to take off their hoods. That is what he has done. He is the one that is producing this violence.
Clay Travis
I mean, this is crazy. Yeah, she's saying, she's saying that there's like random lynching going on. Unless I'm missing something. This is, this is happening now. This is the claim that she's. Yes, this is what she's saying. I mean, I'm just, you heard the clip. We could blame for you again, you hear what she's saying. And I know we got into this discussion the other day and many of you were saying, well, hold on a second. And you were checking the numbers. It's actually very interesting. Some of you might even wonder, you're like, well, where does the term lynch come from? Because it is generally used like she uses, she says white hoods and a noose. Lynch's to lynch rather comes from the Revolutionary War period. And it was used against loyalists by a Charles lynch is named for a guy, white guy, Charles lynch, who was using this. And then it was used all throughout the 19th century. So as I said, it was all true, by the way, what I had said about the numbers. It was used throughout the 19th century, referring again to a lynch mob, which was also frontier justice. It was essentially going outside the established parameters of a legal system, whatever it was, and taking matters into your own hands later on in a kind of, you know, there was a much bigger focus on the post antebellum lynching of mostly, but not entirely, as we discussed, blacks in the South. But the term has been around for a couple way before then and actually goes back to the Revolutionary War period. So a lot of people were being lynched before the Civil War and it was used initially against British loyalists by Charles lynch in, I think it was Virginia. Yeah, Virginia planter and militia colonel. So, Clay, some interesting history. So when people say lynch now, everybody knows that the term is much broader and has a much longer history than many of us realize. Ok, with that, Jasmine Crockett, can she just say anything like, does anyone in the Democrat party ever pull her aside and say, you know, you're actually kind of hurting us here because you look like a crazy person when you say that there are lynchings happening in America today?
Buck Sexton
I think what she's trying to do, and we didn't talk about it because it was a totally made up story, but I was googling it because I was trying to even see what tentacles of truth there might be wed into her, you know, larger context of lies there. Back In September of 2025, a 21 year old student at Delta State University hung himself on campus. All of the evidence, an awful story, was that he committed suicide. But because he hung himself on a black campus, there was an attempt to argue, oh, this must have been some sort of lynching. And so they tried to turn this into a huge story. So what she is referencing is something that may in black Democrat voting circles kind of pique your your attention because the follow up of they did a huge complete investigation, including obviously the university itself, because this was a student and it was, it was a suicide. But they were saying, oh, he was lynched because he was hung on a campus. I think that's probably the kernel under which she's claiming that they're still lynching people and trying to somehow tie it to President Trump. But what she is selling is being so significantly rejected that what I said when she announced Buck, I think is true. She's going to get a MSNBC contributorship. She's going to get A CNN contributorship. She wants to be out of politics now because she has a congressional seat, but she feels like she deserves more attention. And so I think she just got tired of making 175k a year as a congressman. She kind of throws the Hail Mary out, knowing that even if she won the Texas Senate primary on the Democrat side, she would be a big underdog in the race for statewide office in Texas. And so I think this is her play for larger cultural significance, recognizing that it's likely that she will be kicked from the curb. What I resent is I'm sitting in a Crockett T shirt right now and built a great American brand called Crockett Coffee, which is based on American hero Davy Crockett, who went down to Texas to fight in the Alamo. And now Jasmine Crockett may be the more prominent Crockett in the state of Texas. And we're going to be. I think we can say this now publicly. We're going to be going down to Texas for several days in March surrounding that very primary when the Texans can give their verdict on Jasmine Crockett's campaign. And we're also going to go to the Alamo. So we'll give you more of those details. But March 3, I believe, is the official Texas primary date. It is very, very soon. It's the earliest primary, I think, in the Nation. Tuesday, March 3rd. And we will be down in Texas. We'll be in San Antonio, Austin and Houston and all of our great affiliates there surrounding that event. But in the meantime, go sign up for Crockett Coffee. We desperately dislike Jasmine Crockett, and we want to say no.
Clay Travis
No affiliation with Jasmine Crockett.
Buck Sexton
Zero connection there.
Clay Travis
Zero connection. It is a great name, but we do not. We do not agree with her politics. And so I think that there's that clay. Now, I also want to go back to, because I mentioned this about the granting of access to the jails in Minneapolis. This is a big thing. This is a big reason. And remember, this is not like, hey, we want cops to set up checkpoints with ICE at the Home Depot parking lot. This is in a. In a jail facility where people are brought because they have allegedly broken the law having nothing to do with immigration. The people of Minneapolis, at least the leadership of Minneapolis, are saying, we will not allow ICE if we know we have a criminal who has a deportation order against them. We won't let them in. We will not grant them access to our local prison facility. Here is the Mayor Fry again, a top five bad mayor which is steep competition. But he's in the top five. This is cut 23. He's just saying they will not cooperate.
Buck Sexton
You don't believe that the federal government.
Guest or Correspondent
Is right, that the state of Minnesota.
Buck Sexton
Of course, through the governor's office, refuses to give them access to the jails and prisons to collect people that they.
Guest or Correspondent
Say are criminal and not supposed to.
Buck Sexton
Be in the country? I won't speak for the state. I will let them speak for themselves. But certainly that is what they have relayed in Minneapolis. We will not cooperate with ICE or any federal agency around immigration enforcement work.
Clay Travis
We will not just nullifying immigration law. Clay, it's important everyone understands he does not believe in immigration enforcement, period. Because there's no danger to the public. There's no risk from allowing access to your prisons. The only danger is caused by releasing these, detain, you know, these illegals who have detainers on them to then go and prey upon the public or break more laws again. So he wants. If you live in Minneapolis, Mayor Fry wants you to be at risk, and he wants these problems to be happening.
Buck Sexton
Breaking news. Buck, CBS News, Minnesota Federal Magistrate Judge. This ties in with what you're saying. Refused to sign a complaint to bring charges against Don Lemon. So this ties in Mary Margaret Olahan, who does really good work. Daily Wire is going to be on with us tomorrow. She says, in response to this breaking news, source familiar with the proceedings tells real Daily Wire Attorney General Bondi is, quote, enraged and at the magistrate judge's refusal to sign the complaint bringing charges against Don Lemon. That is breaking news right now, Buck. So there were. There was a criminal complaint brought against Don Lemon relating to this church incident. And it was presented to this judge. The judge refused to sign and allow Don Lemon to be arrested. So they're going balls to the wall here. We'll come back. We'll talk about this in a little bit more detail as more of this evidence comes out that literally just reported by CBS News and then confirmed by Daily Wire in the last three minutes on social media. So we will dive into that here momentarily. In the meantime, I want to tell you we've got a colossal winter storm that is coming across the entire United States. Fuck. I have been following this thing maniacally. I am. I am monitoring the situation. I am. You down in Miami don't have to worry about this at all. But huge percentages of our listenership on the eastern part of the United States, from Arkansas, Texas, all the way up to New York City. Major storm coming through, unfortunately, a lot of people are going to get hit in a big way, particularly in the south with ice and not the Immigration Customs Enforcement, the, the actual ice. And it is going to render unfortunately a lot of people's power. It's going to get knocked out. I was telling my wife, I don't know how much she cared, but I was like, hey, you know, back in 1994, Nashville had the worst ice storm ever. We lost power for eight days. And I'm a little bit afraid that we may be on that ice line right now. And so we're talking all about generators. We've got one. Is it going to work? How are we going to keep the house warm? And communication. We've got rapid radios and they are charged and they are ready and they will work for five straight days without needing a new charge. If you don't have this in your home, whether it could be hurricanes, whether it could be ice and snowstorms, whether it could be tornadoes, things that can knock you out of communicating with your family, you need to put it into your repertoire and right now you can get an incredible offer. These guys do phenomenal work. If you go to rapidradios.com right now, use code radio, you will get a great phenomenal offer. No contracts, whole year of service included. We've got all of them charged in our house as we get ready for this big winter storm. You can get yours taken care of today@rapidradios.com elevate your connection, your experience. They work nationwide. Rapidradios.com get ready for the awful weather. The storm is coming. Make sure you're prepared. Rapid Radios.com sometimes all you can do is laugh and they do a lot of it with the Sunday hang. Join clay and vodka as they laugh it up in the Clay and buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Buck Sexton
Okay, breaking news again. Let me hit you with those details. We'll take some of your calls as we move into to the second hour of the program. But there is a report from CBS News which does seem to be a little bit better at actually doing the news since the new ownership group has has come in there with the Ellisons. And this is from Jennifer Jacobs. Minnesota Federal magistrate judge refused to sign a complaint bringing charges against Don Lemon in connection with the church protest, sources tell CBS News. And then a report from Mary Margaret Olahan saying that Pam Bondi was furious Attorney General that this judge would not sign the arrest document. Now, some of you may be better experts on this than me because I've never done Minnesota criminal law. So I'm not sure exactly how this works. Sometimes Buck, you can go to another judge. So the federal government has brought charges here, but a judge refused to sign off on the complaint to allow Don Lemon to be arrested. I don't know what the quote unquote appellate process would be. If one judge says no, do you get the opportunity to go to another, how would you go through the process? We also don't know what that judge's issues with the complaint might have been. Sometimes you could go back and redraft a complaint that that judge might find to be acceptable, but the fact that this is coming out. The Department of Justice charged Don Lemon, former CNN anchor, but so far, the judge has not been willing to sign the complaint, which would allow him to be arrested. It's kind of a. A weird legal gray area from my perspective.
Clay Travis
These are the challenges you have when you have such a highly politicized judiciary and legal system in general. And this is why they brought the case against Trump in New York that they did, because they could count on a crazy DA and a crazy judge and all the rest of it. And this is, unfortunately, how the rule of law is disintegrating slowly but surely across the country. I mean, Clay, there are so many levels of this, but the mayor of Minneapolis is just like, I don't believe in federal immigration law, and I don't think that it should exist in my city. Now, he has no right to do that, but he's doing everything that he can to make sure that federal immigration law is not enforced in his city, and that is lawlessness. What he's doing is wrong, and it is an affront to all of our laws when somebody like this decides that this doesn't count. I mean, imagine if you just said, oh, well, you know, I don't believe. I don't believe that trespassing in the context of January 6th, federal trespass, it's just not a law anymore. This is. They would have got. They were mobilizing the FBI. 30% of FBI agents. I don't know. The FBI is really salvageable as an institution, honestly, given what was done to it under the Biden years. But all this going on, and they want to talk to us about rule of law. They want to talk to us about how there needs to be accountability when people do bad things. What the heck is going on in Minneapolis? It's totally inexcusable. But you know what the mistake was, Clay? They went after a church. They can't. They know they can't win on this one.
Buck Sexton
Well, that's what I want to talk about when we come back. And just. This is going to get messy. You're going to see a bunch of different stuff stories. Politico is now reporting Justice Department charges Don Lemon along with seven others over church protest aimed at ICE agent. ICE agents. Okay, so they charge, but the complaint hasn't been signed. It's kind of messy. When we come back, we'll talk about that more. But Buck, what I'm already seeing is nobody's defending these guys because I think they recognized how, to your point, politically bad of a look this was. And so they have put out the, you know, don't go to the streets over this one. It's really very fascinating. We will talk about it when we come back. So far, very little response over these charges and the latest on on the Jack Smith testimony as well, which is taking place place next These days it.
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Clay Travis
Guaranteed Human.
Date: January 22, 2026
Podcast Host: iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Clay Travis & Buck Sexton
This episode centered on breaking legal and political developments following the arrest of Nikima Levi Armstrong and intensified Department of Justice (DOJ) action against activists accused of storming a Minneapolis church in protest of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Clay and Buck connect these events to broader themes of law enforcement, federal and local political tensions, and Democratic resistance to immigration law. Notably, breaking news about the refusal to bring charges against Don Lemon in connection with the event, the apparent lack of Democratic defense for the activists, and the United States' exit from the World Health Organization are explored.
Background:
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced DOJ arrests related to a coordinated protest and disruption inside a St. Paul, Minnesota church. Nikima Levi Armstrong was a key organizer and among the first arrested.
Hosts’ Reaction:
Quote:
“It's causing fireworks in our nation's capital... We do not tolerate attacks on places of worship. This, I think, is what many of you have been calling for.”
— Clay Travis (04:00)
About the Protest:
Quote:
“Now it's the big, mean pastor was the one who caused the problem in his church...”
— Clay Travis (06:06)
The FACE Act, initially enacted to protect Black churches from white supremacist violence, is now being employed to target left-wing protests disrupting services.
Hosts highlight how legal precedents are double-edged swords and criticize Democrats for potentially obstructing federal law on immigration.
Discussion of possible obstruction charges against Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey or Governor Tim Walz for impeding ICE enforcement (11:32).
Quote:
“The precedent that is applied for them can shift as the world changes... This law is on the books.”
— Buck Sexton (07:15)
Senator JD Vance, speaking from Ohio, criticized Minneapolis officials for fighting federal enforcement and drew contrasts to cooperation in red states (09:05, 10:01).
Quote:
“If you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country. It's not that hard.”
— JD Vance (10:01)
Clay and Buck emphasize that sanctuary policies are “making this happen,” contrasting Minneapolis to other cities that cooperate with ICE (10:46, 11:32).
Clay raises the need for “tangible basis” when bringing charges, warning against frivolous politically-motivated lawsuits that will be dismissed and only create martyrs out of alleged offenders (13:57).
Buck shares an anecdote about possessing a Trump mug shot T-shirt, symbolizing how such prosecutions can backfire and embolden political figures (16:23).
Quote:
“You don't want to be in a country where you just get arrested because people don't like you.”
— Clay Travis (15:53)
CBS News and the Daily Wire report a federal magistrate judge refused to sign the complaint bringing charges against Don Lemon in connection with the church protest; AG Bondi is reportedly “enraged” (33:05, 39:04).
The hosts analyze legal nuances: is there an "appellate" path, can DOJ find another judge, is the complaint rewriteable? (39:04–41:02)
Quote:
“The Department of Justice charged Don Lemon, former CNN anchor, but so far, the judge has not been willing to sign the complaint, which would allow him to be arrested. It's kind of a weird legal gray area from my perspective.”
— Buck Sexton (39:04)
Clay and Buck stress the dangers of a highly politicized judiciary and question the actions of local officials defying federal law, framing the Minneapolis mayor’s stance as lawless (41:02).
Clay briefly highlights that the US has officially left the World Health Organization, citing the institution’s failed Covid-19 response, and dismisses Democratic trust in such organizations (20:09).
Quote:
“The United States has officially left the World Health Organization today... And I don't think we're going to lose out very much. But they were wrong on so much relating to Covid.”
— Clay Travis (20:09)
Discussion shifts to Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett, who made controversial comments about “random black bodies being strung up” and accused Republicans of emboldening hate and violence (24:43).
Hosts debunk Crockett’s lynching claims, provide historical context, and suggest she seeks media attention ahead of a likely defeat in the Texas Senate primary (25:13–27:22).
Quote:
“They’re about to outlaw the idea of white supremacy and white hate... Forget the fact that you’re talking about getting rid of like the classification for nooses in a time in which we have seen these random black bodies be strung up down south.”
— Jasmine Crockett (24:43)
Buck critiques how unsubstantiated claims can still have political impact:
“So what she is referencing is something that may in black Democrat voting circles kind of pique your attention... but it was, it was a suicide.” (27:22)
The episode’s tone is combative but conversational, blending legal and political analysis with pointed humor. Both hosts are openly critical of Democratic policies on immigration, sanctuary cities, and pandemic institutions. They emphasize the rule of law and due process, even as they excoriate “frivolous” or politically-motivated prosecutions on both sides of the aisle.
The episode offers a timely, detailed look at how national debates over church protests, law enforcement, and immigration are playing out in Minneapolis and beyond. The hosts argue for principled application of the law, drawing broader lessons about political double standards and the risks of both over- and under-enforcement. The breaking legal maneuvering around Don Lemon and the church protest arrests provide a case study in the complexities and tensions at the intersection of activism, prosecution, and federal authority.