Hour 1 - Mental Health Flags

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Episode: Hour 1 - Mental Health Flags
Release Date: July 29, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton delve into pressing issues surrounding recent mass shootings, media bias, mental health, and cultural battles. The discussion is framed around two significant incidents: a mass shooting in New York City targeting the NFL headquarters and an attack in Cincinnati. Additionally, the hosts analyze the backlash against American Eagle’s new advertising campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, touching upon broader themes of beauty standards and political correctness.

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2. New York City Mass Shooting

The episode opens with a discussion about a tragic mass shooting that occurred near the podcast's New York City studios. The shooter, a former high school football player from Las Vegas, targeted the NFL offices but mistakenly entered the wrong floor, resulting in the deaths of four individuals, including an NYPD officer.

• Clay Travis highlights the confusion and inaccuracies in media reporting:

  "If you were watching CNN and they decided to say during the course of their coverage that the shooter was possibly white, this is cut nine. Listen to this. Was his face visible? I mean do they have any idea at this point who he is?" (03:10)

• Buck Sexton clarifies the limited information available about the shooter:

  "They do not know who he is. They know he is a male, possibly white, he's wearing sunglasses, he appears to have a mustache. And that picture has been distributed to every police officer in New York City." (03:28)

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3. Media Bias in Coverage of Mass Shootings

The hosts critique CNN's handling of the shooting, suggesting a bias in how the media portrays shooters based on race.

• Clay Travis questions the media's quickness to attribute motivations based on the shooter’s race:

  "How can you explain this in any way other than this is CNN, white people are to blame for everything... I mean is, am I drawing too much conclusion here based on the picture?" (03:28)

• Buck Sexton argues that CNN follows a playbook that quickly assigns political motives:

  "They want to jump to the conclusion. They're looking for the opportunity to jump to the conclusion... it's white guy, gun control, MAGA, Second Amendment." (04:15)

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4. Mental Health and Public Policy Implications

The conversation shifts to the role of mental health in preventing such tragedies and critiques current public policies.

• Buck Sexton emphasizes the challenges in addressing mental health issues:

  "This guy's angry at the NFL. Never played in the NFL. Has nothing to do with it." (07:48)
  "Mental health just like a whole bunch of public policy issues, runs a huge spectrum... This guy is crazy, clearly insane and a danger to himself and others." (06:13)

• Clay Travis underscores the limitations of current systems in managing individuals with severe mental health issues:

  "We have emptied out all the asylums and you get people. This guy's angry at the NFL." (06:13)

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5. Cincinnati Attack and Police Leadership Critique

Buck Sexton brings attention to an attack in Cincinnati and criticizes the local police chief's handling and public statements.

• Buck Sexton expresses skepticism about the police chief's competence:

  "The chief of police should be somebody who has some degree of gravitas, commands some respect, seems competent... this woman strikes me as a, as a huge lib." (17:00)

• Clay Travis questions the media’s portrayal and the nature of the incident:

  "What is the context that in some way would provide self-defense to allow what took place in the video that went viral to not be representative of that?" (19:32)

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6. American Eagle Ad Campaign: Sydney Sweeney Backlash

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the backlash against American Eagle's new advertising campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. The hosts analyze CNN's criticism, which likens the ad's messaging to historical eugenics propaganda.

• Clay Travis describes the absurdity of comparing a modern ad campaign to Nazi propaganda:

  "The pun, good genes, activates troubling historical associations for this country... This is real. This is what you would have heard this morning if you were drinking your morning coffee." (24:08)

• Buck Sexton mocks the overblown comparisons and defends traditional beauty standards:

  "Now we're at a place in American culture where... hot blonde chicks with boobs not allowed to be in ads anymore. This is where we are. It's Nazism. It's Nazism." (24:49)

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7. Cultural Battles and Beauty Standards

The hosts expand their critique to broader cultural shifts, arguing that the push for inclusivity has led to the erosion of traditional beauty standards and meritocracy.

• Clay Travis connects cultural battles to political outcomes, emphasizing the importance of winning cultural wars to influence politics:

  "Politics is downstream from culture, I think is 100% accurate. And so I think if you win cultural battles, you win political battles." (26:39)

• Buck Sexton draws parallels between enforced uniformity in historical regimes and current societal trends:

  "Do you know what you overwhelmingly have as well? Uniformity and a sameness, even if it's not true... It is inherently a minor rebellion against their control." (28:09)

• Clay Travis discusses the impact of diversity in advertising and consumer behavior:

  "Clothing is aspirational. You look at any model... when they try to restrain excellence and the meritocracy and drag us all down into the muck of averageness." (30:10)

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8. Situation in Gaza and Israeli Ambassador's Statement

Towards the end of the episode, the conversation shifts to international politics, specifically the situation in Gaza and comments made by the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

• Buck Sexton shares the ambassador’s defense of Israel's actions and the misinformation surrounding humanitarian aid:

  "Only 260 arrived at their destination. That means 90% was diverted by Hamas... Israel is starving a population. We will never starve a population...we are providing as much humanitarian aid as possible." (38:15)

• Clay Travis reiterates the importance of supporting Israel against misinformation:

  "Israel is fighting a war for their own survival and they're doing so with the best intentions... Go get hooked up today." (40:58)

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9. Conclusion and Upcoming Segments

The episode concludes with the hosts teasing upcoming segments, including interviews with Sean Davis from The Federalist and Mark Levin, who will further discuss topics like media bias and cultural issues.

• Clay Travis wraps up by highlighting the significance of ongoing cultural and political discussions:

  "We come back... we got a couple of awesome guests... there’s a lot to dive into." (41:50)

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Key Takeaways

• Media Bias: A critical analysis of how major media outlets, particularly CNN, portray mass shooters based on race, potentially influencing public perception and political narratives.

• Mental Health: The discussion emphasizes the gaps in current public policy regarding mental health, highlighting the challenges in preventing individuals with severe mental health issues from committing acts of violence.

• Cultural Shifts: The hosts argue that contemporary moves towards inclusivity in advertising and media are, in their view, undermining traditional beauty standards and meritocracy, which they equate to broader cultural degradation.

• International Politics: A brief but pointed discussion on the Middle East conflict, emphasizing support for Israel and countering narratives that misrepresent humanitarian efforts.

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Notable Quotes

• Clay Travis on CNN's media bias:

  "This is CNN, white people are to blame for everything." (03:28)

• Buck Sexton on mental health and public policy:

  "Mental health runs a huge spectrum... This guy is crazy, clearly insane and a danger to himself and others." (07:48)

• Clay Travis on cultural battles influencing politics:

  "Polit is downstream from culture." (26:39)

• Buck Sexton on enforced uniformity:

  "Uniformity and a sameness... is inherently a minor rebellion against their control." (28:09)

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This episode provides listeners with a critical viewpoint on media practices, societal changes, and international issues, all through the lens of Clay Travis and Buck Sexton’s perspectives. Their analysis invites reflection on how media narratives shape public opinion and the broader cultural implications of corporate and political decisions.

Transcript

[Annabe]

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[Clay Travis]

Welcome back in or welcome in. We hope you're always hanging out with us here on the Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. We have got a lot to dive into. A variety of different stories continuing to percolate out there. Sean Davis of the Federalist going to join us top of the next hour. And then Mark Levin has a brand new book out. Many of you watch him on Fox News with Sean Hannity regularly. He'll be with us in the third hour of the program. But yesterday, not far from our New York city studios for iHeart, where Buck broadcast for a very long time and where I have been and use those studios and where our crew is that you hear us talking with all the time. There was a shooting about 6:30pm Eastern. It appears that the shooter was in some way targeting the NFL according to a three page letter that was that was allegedly left on the scene. I've not seen that full letter excerpted, but a former high school player of football drove all the way from Las Vegas to New York City, went to the league offices in midtown Manhattan, that is the NFL. And reports are that he then got on the elevator and went to the wrong floor. Four innocent people killed, including a police officer who was working as a security guard and several other, um, innocent people. And then this individual shot himself in the heart with his gun and said study my brain for cte. That is the report that is out there. Now you would maybe be a little bit surprised over who exactly the shooter was if you were watching CNN and They decided to say during the course of their coverage that the shooter was possibly white. This is cut nine. Listen to this. Was his face visible? I mean do they, they have any idea at this point who he is?

[Buck Sexton]

They do not know who he is. They know he is a male, possibly white, he's wearing sunglasses, he appears to have a mustache. And that picture has been distributed to every police officer in New York City.

[Clay Travis]

OK Buck, you used to react to live incidents such as these on cnn. The picture of the guy, and we try to avoid saying the names of mass shooters because there's evidence that it encourages their behavior. Picture of the guy, he is clearly not white. So as like let's start here as a real time breaking news analyst. How can you explain this in any way other than this is cnn, white people are to blame for everything. Would you, I mean is, am I drawing too much conclusion here based on the picture? When I looked at it, I'm like, that is not a possibly white man. I will just say you have to.

[Buck Sexton]

Think what is possibly white even mean?

[Clay Travis]

Yes, right.

[Buck Sexton]

You would think either probably white or not white. I don't think that possibly white would be a phrase that would come to mind. But I think that CNN in their breaking news coverage especially there's a playbook that they run in their news coverage of any horrific mass shooting and it's either get this story out as fast, get the details about the shooter out as fast as possible and then transition rapidly into scoring political points. Right. So oh, he's white. This is, this is, this is Trump's fault. This is maga. This is white supremacy. Right, that's. And if he's white and used a gun, then it's white guy, gun control, maga, second Amendment, there's all these things that they will immediately jump even if it's going to be wrong and clearly a jump to conclusions moment for them. They want to jump to the conclusion. They're looking for the opportunity to jump to the conclusion. Whereas on the other side, if it is a non white male and does not have a motive that immediately can be ascribed to him that fits in an anti right wing, particularly a white supremacist or anti Trump rubric, then you got to just say we may never know the motive. We don't know what's going on here. Let's not rush to anything. And this is just what they do because this is really their worldview and their politics on display every time an incident like, like this happens. So I mean we can, and we can walk through the specifics of this. And I think it's worth just looking at the layers of security and what happened here. But I can tell everybody, I think the security conclusion that most people would come to for what happened here is you can't stop some maniac who has access to a gun from going in and shooting people. You can try to make it harder for that to happen. But this case you had an armed NYPD officer who unfortunately was killed in the line of duty here, tragically left behind a wife and children, but he was there.

[Clay Travis]

He was twin sons, Buck and an eight month pregnant wife. That is the New York City police officer who was shot.

[Buck Sexton]

But my understanding is he was shot in the back in the lobby. So it doesn't matter who you are. If you're in a civilian area, you're a cop and someone comes up and shoots you in the back, there's nothing, you know, there's no way that you're going to be able to stop that threat unless you get eyes on this person in advance and, and are able to draw down before they can, they can, they can hit you. So there wasn't really a lot here from a security perspective. I think the bigger conversation immediately is that this guy had a couple of mental health flags. And you know, mental health, just like a whole bunch of public policy issues, runs a huge spectrum. Right. There are tens of millions of people in America who have some mental health challenge. And I think you could argue that everybody has some level of mental health challenge at different times in their lives. Grieving with loss of a spouse or a loved one, you know, you're in a horrific accident, you got trauma. I mean there's. We're talking about somebody who's nuts, ok? This guy is crazy, clearly insane and a danger to himself and others. And we live in a country now. We live in a society where thanks to leftist maniacs like the ACLU who want to kick at the load bearing walls of our civilization and see what happens, you basically can't lock up anybody anymore for being a complete wacko who's a danger to himself and others. It is almost impossible anywhere to get that done. We have emptied out all the asylums and you get people. This guy's angry at the NFL. Never played in the NFL.

[Clay Travis]

Yeah, played high school.

[Buck Sexton]

Has nothing to do with the NFL.

[Clay Travis]

Has no connection to it at all. I also think this is significant in New York City because one of the biggest elections we're going to have this fall is the New York City mayor's race. And guess where Mamdani the lead New York City mayoral candidate for the Democrat Party, their nominee is at a Ugandan compound right now. Because he was born and raised in his youth in Uganda, he has surrounded himself in Uganda with private security. This is a guy who said that cops were basically unnecessary and that we should have counselors, domestic counselors, or social workers who are showing up at scenes of violence and trying to negotiate with the would be perpetrator, including domestic violence incidents, which unfortunately often spiral into incredible danger for the usually women who are calling to report domestic violence related incidents. And so I do think that it is yet another staggering hypocrisy that the guy who thinks, hey, social workers should be called to solve problems in New York City has his own private security detail which is very armed surrounding and protecting him on his Ugandan compound, which is where he is right now while this incident is playing out. So I think New Yorkers, again I have said that I think that Republicans and reasonable people should not necessarily save New Yorkers from the idiocy of their choices. The consequences of their selection of a nominee is real. And the fact that you pick a guy who was not an American citizen until 2018, a guy who was born in Uganda and basically a card carrying member of the Communist Party to represent the biggest city in America seems like a really poor choice. But it's the choice Democrats have made. But this guy, to me, this incident crystallizes. I would also point out this is you, you lived in this area. This is two major, I would say violent attacks that have happened in midtown Manhattan. I know Luigi Mangione, who everybody's kind of forgotten about now, executed in cold blood the, the United Healthcare CEO on the streets of Manhattan. And now you have this guy driving all the way from Las Vegas, walking in and trying to kill as many people as he possibly can. This is, gets a lot of attention, I understand, because New York City related events are covered more than shootings that happen elsewhere. But I do think this is where people sit around and say, okay, what's going on with New York City? And can we in any way keep the streets safe? Even midtown Manhattan, which is ostensibly supposed to be a very safe part of Manhattan?

[Buck Sexton]

Well, where this happened, it's in a building where the Blackstone Group, which is one of the most well known private equity firms in the world is located. The NFL headquarters obviously is there as well. And you have a lot of people, it's something of a crossroads. You have a lot of people who they think of Wall street as down on Wall Street. That's Actually, original Wall street is more of a tourist area now. There's not that much in the way of finance. Most of the big finance shops are in midtown, actually either on the west side or the east side. But right where this is, there's a number of very large financial institutions that are headquartered there. So you just have a huge number of people, Clay, in these office towers coming and going all the time. I have a cousin who was. Who missed this shooting in terms of being on that street by 10 minutes. I have another. My cousin's husband works at Blackstone. So, you know, a lot of New Yorkers know people by maybe a degree or two of separation, know people who are right there at this building. I mean, if you think of this is not an office tower like it is, you know, like a standard. This is a big, big building. A lot of people and a lot of people coming and going from this area. It's also a place where you see very little crime. There tends to be a pretty heavy police presence. And the fact there was an NYPD officer in the lobby just goes to show you that. I mean, they. They had. They had that. They had secure entry. They. They had procedures and precautions in place. But if somebody with a rifle who knows how to use it, doesn't care if they live or die and wants to go shoot a bunch of people in a civilian area, it's a soft target. It's going to be very, very difficult to. To stop that, certainly every time, or even a majority of the times. So I don't think that there's really much in the way of a security takeaway. I do think there's a bigger conversation in terms of what could have been done differently. I haven't seen anything yet. It's not like the police response was super delayed or slow. It's not that there wasn't anyone there. There was a good guy with a gun there. This guy got the drop on him and then killed a bunch of other people. Didn't kill a woman who came out of the elevator, kind of let her go on video. So this guy's a maniac. And now we'll look back and we'll see how. How known was it that he was a maniac? But I don't think, Clay, there are any. There are any takeaways from this about what would make people in New York City safer other than this is. It's like a horrible. It's just a horrible situation that took up lives for no reason. And I don't think that there's anything that we can do to prevent bad people in society from killing people. Unfortunately, you can try, I'm saying all the time. Right. I mean, yeah, yes. Have the arm, the good guy there. Yes. Have the security precautions and I'm sure that stops things. Look at the, you just, we just talked about the good guy with the gun stopping the mass stabbing Traverse City in Walmart. You couldn't save everybody from being stabbed.

[Clay Travis]

Right.

[Buck Sexton]

So it's, this situation is a very difficult one to defend against. That's, I think one of the big recognitions that we have on this. We'll talk more about this. Also. I saw Clay, they were, there's, there's been more discussion of it, including from the media. And then there's media discussion of that attack in Cincinnati. We talked about the stabbing, but there was attack, the attack in Cincinnati. The police chief has weighed in on this. We have a bit of a law and order based first hour here that we'll get into shortly. But you know, if you run a business, staying connected to your employees is critical, especially if they're spread all over the country. Now, yeah, there's zoom, there's conference calls, but what about times you need to spontaneously get a message out quickly, instantly. That's, that's a time when rapid radios are really the tool you need. Modern day walkie talkies that will keep your team connected at the push of a button. Rapid Radios connects to a nationwide LTE network. Allows you to talk to as many as 200 people at once with the push of a button. Rapid radios don't require any setup. Just pull them out of the box, press a button and talk. They're compact, lightweight and carry a five day battery charge. They're an excellent alternative to cell phone communication. Rapid radios are 100% private with no monthly fees or subscriptions. Visit rapidradios.com to save up to 60%. Get free UPS shipping from Michigan and use Code Radio for an extra 5% off. That's code radio. When you go to rapidradios.com saving America.

[Clay Travis]

One thought at a time. Clay, Travis and Buck Sexton find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Annabe]

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[J.R. Martinez]

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[Buck Sexton]

I just said to myself, I've come.

[Clay Travis]

This far to surrender to these bastards.

[Buck Sexton]

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[J.R. Martinez]

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[Buck Sexton]

All right, welcome back into Clay and Buck. Let's, let's talk about this as well. So we've had the, we had that mass shooting in New York City. We gave you the, the details of the shooter killed himself 4p. He killed four people, including an NYPD officer, ran into a building, completely senseless, insane, horrific murders. And the guy, I think you'll find out, was, I don't know what, I don't know what the diagnosis would be of somebody, you know, the proper medical diagnosis. I don't know if it's a, you know, extreme schizophrenic or something, but the guy has clearly some very serious mental, had serious mental health issues. There's also this Cincinnati attack that has gotten a lot of attention. We talked about it yesterday. And the Cincinnati chief of police, whom I have to say, just listening to her, looking at her. This shouldn't be your chief of police, Cincinnati. Ok, just gonna be honest with you about this right now. The chief of police should be somebody who has some degree of, of gravitas, commands some respect, has some, seems competent. It should not be somebody who you think would be at a loss, like in some store selling wind chimes somewhere and incense or something. I mean, this woman strikes me as a, as a huge lib. Start with that. Here she is dressing down the media for their coverage of the video that we all saw. Play 15.

[CNN Anchor]

The post that we've seen does not depict the entire incident. That is one version of what occurred. Because what happens, that social media post and your coverage of it distorts the content of what actually happened and it makes our job more difficult. The irresponsibility with social media is it just shows one side of the equation quite frequently without context, without factual context. And then people run with that and then it grows legs and it becomes something bigger that we then have to try to manage as part of the investigation. Investigation.

[Clay Travis]

Okay.

[Buck Sexton]

She also said nothing Clay to tell us. Okay, well, what else happened that we need to know about?

[Clay Travis]

Well, I mean, my question for you and for everybody out there listening is I watch the video and I agree context matters. Oftentimes in video, what could occur short of that guy deciding to run and just start to attack 10 different people, right, with a knife or a gun. That would suggest, hey, a mob of people should beat a guy and stomp him on the ground and knock out his girlfriend. Like, what could happen? Like, this is. I don't know if there was a follow up question from the media, but the question that you're asking is the right one. It is. Okay, what is the context that in some way would provide self defense to allow what took place in the video that went viral to not be representative of that? Do we think that this guy had a knife? Do we think he had a gun? Do we think he attacked 20 different people and they all felt compelled to simultaneously defend themselves? Seems unreal.

[Buck Sexton]

Comments. And if you see the comments online, this hasn't been said by any official, but there's this insinuation from commenters, some of whom are pretending maybe they have some inside knowledge that, that maybe a slur was used. And the, the whole thing here is, well, if that happened, that changes. It actually doesn't. You. Actually, it doesn't matter what word someone calls you. You're not allowed to mob stomp them into the cement when they're defenseless. This is maybe where the, the debate might go if we find out more details.

[Clay Travis]

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[Buck Sexton]

All.

[Clay Travis]

I did not think that this story would continue to have the legs or that it would be a sign of continued cultural rot inside of the Democrat party and much of the legacy media. But we talked about this last week. American Eagle, the store that had the great sense to employ a teenage Clay Travis to help ensure that they could sell as many of their clothes as possible, has been on hard times of late. It is a sort of, I would say, teen ish retail brand. People in their teens and their twenties would be, I would imagine, still the target audience that would typically wear these clothes. And so they made the decision, hey, we need to kind of cut through the noise. And so we're going to hire Sydney Sweeney as our new spokesperson. And the, the outrage over a blonde blue eyed white girl who is pretty being hired to sell tank tops and jeans has frankly staggered me this morning. If you were happening to watch Good Morning America, this is ABC's Morning News show, Disney owned. This is the. I want to play this. I think we've got the totality of it. This is the story that they aired saying the Sydney Sweeney ad is actually a direct recall for eugenics and for Nazism. This is real. This is what you would have heard this morning if you were drinking your morning coffee, getting your kids ready for the start of the day on Good Morning America. Play it.

[Annabe]

We begin with the backlash of our new ad campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.

[Buck Sexton]

Yeah, the ads are for American Eagle and the tagline is Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.

[Clay Travis]

Now, in one ad, the blonde haired.

[Buck Sexton]

Blue eyed actress talks about genes, as in DNA being passed down from her parents.

[Annabe]

The play on words is being compared to Nazi propaganda with racial undertones.

[CNN Anchor]

The pun, good genes activates troubling historical associations for this country. The American eugenics movement in its prime between like 1900 and 1940, weaponized the idea of good genes just to justify white supremacism.

[Clay Travis]

This is real.

[Buck Sexton]

Make this up. You cannot make this stuff up. Now we're at a place in American culture where this. This is actually really helpful, though, because it shows you how insane the woke left. And the good news is, you know, woke used to be a term clay that they would throw around and.

[Clay Travis]

And.

[Buck Sexton]

And they were proud of it, right? Like, yeah, I'm woke. You know, it was. It was supposed to be a good thing. We have successfully flipped this around such that woke now is a very effective pejorative for left wing maniacs who are malcontents, who have. Who have no fun, who. What. They live with a constant fear that somewhere someone else is having fun. They got to stop that right away. No joy allowed. Only what the collective tells you. That's what's. That's what you can say. That's what you can celebrate. Now we're at a point where hot chicks who are buxom are problematic. Now we're at a point where a play on words about genes. Is it really a shock to any of these anchors that beauty is overwhelmingly genetic? This is actually, you know, clay and I can sit here. I wish I was, you know, six' six with a six pack, but I am not. And some of the people who are aren't that way because they are so fastidious in their workout routines, but they have great genetics. This is just the truth. This is reality. Professional athletes want you to believe that they worked so much harder than everybody else. You know, the difference in a D3 athlete and like a, you know, professional level athlete overwhelmingly is genes. How gifted were they naturally, by God's hand, in that sport? It's not effort. Okay? This is. This is where people talk about God given talent or talent on loan from God, for example. Some people are just really good at things and they're very lucky. Some people are just very beautiful, physically appealing. And that has actually been a pretty. I know there have been variations in it, but that standard has been somewhat consistent, having to do with symmetry and health markers for a very long time. Hot blonde chicks with boobs not allowed to be in ads anymore. This is where we are. It's Nazism. It's Nazism.

[Clay Travis]

Yes. I mean, this is. I think it's important. And some of you can say, well, why should I care about something like this? Cultural battles matter, and fighting them matters. And you might Say, well, I care way more about what the corporate tax rate is than what the decisions are of major corporations when it comes to how they spend ad dollars. I get it. I would argue they're directly connected. And the phrase, you know, politics is downstream from culture, I think is 100% accurate. And so I think if you win cultural battles, you win political battles. Some of you may disagree with that. I think it's 100% true based on everything that I've seen. And I'm talking to you as a guy who started off in the world of sports, who just wanted to argue about which quarterback was better, and suddenly heard, oh, you can't make that argument because the quarterback's a different race. And the reason you're being, you know, dismissive of Jamarcus Russell is because he's a black quarterback. Maybe he just stinks. Have you. Have you considered that? Maybe you just look at the objective performance and all sports fans care about is whether somebody is a part of the meritocracy and excellent, which is the goal of sports. And when they try to restrain excellence and the meritocracy and drag us all down into the muck of averageness. To me, that is a form of communism, and I think it's intentional that. I don't think that it's a form taking away control.

[Buck Sexton]

If you want a society that you. You'll notice something in countries where the state has absolute control, and there are places today, North Korea, China, there are plenty of places where the state exercises absolute control. Do you know what you overwhelmingly have as well? Uniformity and a sameness, even if it's not true. Right. But a sameness that is enforced upon the people, even to the point of. I mean, the Soviets, for example, were. Were very into. People were dressing in a way that. That women were desexualized. They were supposed to be factory workers, too, just like the men. You know, you are cogs in a machine, a machine that the state has full control over, because the celebration of excellence, of beauty, of joy, of laughter, of any of these things that break from the control of the state is inherently a minor rebellion against. Against their control. So if you want to control people, you demoralize them, you undermine them, you make them feel or make them act as though they're all the same. There's nothing to aspire to. You take what the state gives you. You are what the state says you are. And now, Clay, look at some of the ads they were running. Yeah, with ugly fat people selling clothing. Look, you know, we're sitting Here, you and I get to do a job. I truly mean this. The fact that we make a living doing radio every day is a blessing from God and this audience and the legacy of Rush. It is incredible that we get to do this. And you and I both had jobs where people could tell us, show up at this time, wear this clothing, do what I say. So, you know, we've been on different sides of this. I don't get to be a Runway model.

[Clay Travis]

Yes, that's, you know, like, if you and I were in charge of selling male underwear, it would be the worst selling male underwear of all time. Like, if they were like, hey, we want to take you guys shirtless, posing and underwear.

[Buck Sexton]

Well, I was gonna say, I think we could sell underwear. Well, we would hire people like Sydney Sweeney to sell it. But you're saying if we were the. If they were the face of your underwear brand. Yeah.

[Clay Travis]

It would be like everybody would look at it and be like, I. I don't want to look like those guys. I mean, clothing is aspirational. You look at any model. By and large, throughout the history of retail, people want to see better looking people than them in there. But here's the interesting thing about this.

[Buck Sexton]

In ancient Greece, how many, how many people did you see walking around? I mean, rather, how many statues do you see when you go into, like, the Metropolitan Museum of Art of morbidly obese people with, like, saggy skin everywhere?

[Clay Travis]

Never.

[Buck Sexton]

Not a lot.

[Clay Travis]

Didn't exist. It didn't exist. And look, here's the other thing about that segment. And again, I do think it's important because let's just say you're a normal person. You're a normal person making breakfast in the morning. Good Morning America is not hard news. They are trying to send a message to American Eagle. You went too white. You went too pretty in the girl that you picked. That is not inclusive enough. And think about the argument that's being made when you look. First of all, it's a frigging pun, right? Good genes. Genes. J E A N S and jeans. G E N E S. Right. It is a pun, which is very common in advertising. But what they're saying is, if you take it literally, white people are not allowed to have good genes because the Nazis once existed. So I like to think maybe I'm wrong, that my boys have good Genesis because of me and their mom. They got half their mom, way better genes than me, by the way, especially in the looks department. And hopefully they look like her more than they do me. And they got Half of me.

[Buck Sexton]

Right?

[Clay Travis]

I like to think that would mean that my boys have good genes. Does that mean that I'm a Nazi sympathizer? That I would say that. Buck, you've got a baby boy. They got half you. They got half your wife. Kerry, I bet you would like to think that your son has good genes. Are you not allowed to say that? Only white people are not allowed to say that they hope their kids have good genes or that a really pretty woman has good genes. Like that's good for her mom and dad, right? I mean, like, we want there to be more beautiful people.

[Buck Sexton]

You know, I think about this. I actually watched the, the Abercrombie. And of course, now we're going to hear that Clay also worked at Abercrombie. So did my wife. So they were only. They were only hiring the hotties, apparently. Clay was a mallusion in his day.

[Clay Travis]

Very loose standard. They did make me cut my facial hair. I don't know if they still have that rule, but you were not allowed to have facial hair. Pentagon City. Pentagon City. For those of you in the D.C. area, I worked at the Pentagon City Mall, Northern Virginia. That's like.

[Buck Sexton]

That's a little bit. I'm just gonna tell you, Clay, it's a little grading on a curve there. Cause like DC area, you weren't working at like the Nashville Abercrombie. You were the DC Abercrombie. DC's Hollywood for ugly people. I'm just saying that's what they call.

[Clay Travis]

I think that's true. By the way. I'll tell you this. There's also a lot of short people on the East Coast. Every time I walk around, I get advantages. Tall, privilege. There's a lot of really short dudes. I know you took advantage of this in New York City. Every time I walk around New York City, I'm like, this is the shortest dude in America town. You ever notice this? Like, go to New York City. It is the shortest group of guys. You're six feet tall in New York City. The world is your oyster. It is. I'm telling you. Never noticed.

[Buck Sexton]

I never noticed. I never noticed this.

[Clay Travis]

Every time I go into a bar in New York City, I am the tallest guy there.

[Buck Sexton]

You wear, you wear like basically cowboy boots with six inch heels on them though. I mean like those things give you.

[Clay Travis]

Don't run. Don't run to Santa's. Me, I am 6 foot, 6 foot 185. I wear flip flops a lot of the time and flip flops. I'm taller than most of the men in New York City.

[Buck Sexton]

You know, back to the beauty standard thing here for a second. I think it's worth noting as well, people say, oh, this is about inclusivity. And I think to myself, I go, hold on a second. No, no, no. This wasn't about, hey, we need, you know, you know who's one of the biggest supermodels in the world in the 90s? Naomi Campbell, for example. Right? Naomi Campbell. A black woman, stunningly beautiful woman. Like nobody would ever, you know, in the sort of beauty assessing world, incredibly beautiful woman. It wasn't, we need more. We need more hot, Asian and black. And you know that I'd be like, look, you're appealing to different. They're all beautiful. They're all very, very good looking. It was, we need, I don't want to say fat and ugly people in general to be selling our clothing. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't inclusivity in the sense of, you know, diversity. Like, like we want different kinds of beauty. It was, we don't want beauty anymore. We want something else, which is a whole other thing.

[Clay Travis]

This is my argument that eventually everybody's going to come around to and in the meantime, they've been trying to cancel me for it for years. Do you know the most successful inclusive of cosmetic diversity business in mankind history? Strip club. I'm just saying everybody looks the same. Bucks getting nervous. Everybody looks the same in the strip club. All blonde hair, blue eyed girls. They all make less money. You got to have Asian, you got to have black, you got to have brown hair, you got to have tall, short. Every type of guy finds girls different. Attractiveness. The number one business in America where cosmetic diversity actually makes everybody more money is the strip club. There's not very many of those and I've never heard a politician make that argument. Probably just because they're not as smart as me.

[Buck Sexton]

Okay. Oh, I defer to Clay. I defer to Clay on this one entirely. And that's, that's, that was Clay Travis analysis, everybody, by the way, 100% true.

[Clay Travis]

We got guys who run strip clubs, I bet, listening right now, and they're just like, clay Travis is brilliant. I'm telling you, that's the number one cosmetic diversity place where everybody makes more money. It's the only one.

[Buck Sexton]

Let me come back. I want to talk about our sponsor a second. Let me, let's, let's come back in a minute. We're gonna do a little reset. Okay, I'll bring us back into a reset. We'll Be back here in one minute. One minute.

[Clay Travis]

Patriots Radio hosts a couple of regular guys, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Annabe]

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[J.R. Martinez]

I'm J.R. martinez and on the Medal of Honor podcast we tell stories of the service members who went beyond the call of duty and lived to tell the tale. Like Bud Day, who endured almost six years at the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison in the Vietnam War.

[Buck Sexton]

I just said to myself, I've come.

[Clay Travis]

This far to surrender to these bastards.

[Buck Sexton]

So I took off running.

[J.R. Martinez]

Or Alvin York, the most famous soldier of World War I.

[Alvin York]

It's not your creed or your high nor the color of your eyes that makes it America. It's our freedom and equality over the Constitution and our Bill of Rights that makes an American an almighty finer.

[J.R. Martinez]

These are more than battlefield stories. They're about the people who showed extraordinary courage when it mattered most. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Buck Sexton]

Want to note something because we talked about this yesterday, the situation in Gaza. The Israeli ambassador to the US went on CNN to set the record straight. I wanted you all to hear this play.

[Israeli Ambassador]

17 I would refer you and the good Rahm Emanuel. I would refer you to the UN website itself, which says that in the month of June, 21, 34 trucks were sent into Gaza. Only 260 arrived at their destination. That means 90% was diverted by Hamas. You want to blame us for that too? I mean, for crying out loud, you want to blame us for conducting a war while we're providing as much humanitarian aid as possible? Hamas is using this propaganda to score points in the international community. And like a social contagion, everybody is picking this up. Israel is starving a population. We are not starving a population we will never starve a population. We will continue to flood Gaza with humanitarian aid as we conduct the war to destroy Hamas, period.

[Buck Sexton]

It's worth noting that that that narrative about Hamas, or rather about the children of Gaza starving has taken, has taken root in a lot of places, including on the right. And as we're hearing there. Look, we need to get the facts straight. And there are, there's ample reporting that Hamas is diverting a huge portion of those shipments. So this is where I want to remind you that our friends in Israel need our help and need us to stand with them in this trying time. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is still doing all that they can day in and day out. And they are standing with the people of Israel. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has built an incredible partnership that you can be a part of by going to ifcj.org you can also show your support with a gift by calling 888-488 IFCJ. That's 888-488 IFCJ or go to ifcj.org now is your time to help Israel stand up to anti Semitism and stand with Israel. While there are scurrilous lies being told about the IDF and the Israeli government, including in our own media. They are fighting a war for their own survival and they're doing so with the, the best, the best intentions they can with regard to providing for the humanitarian needs of the population. Go to ifcj.org that's ifcj.org or call 888488 ifcj I love couldn't transition to.

[Clay Travis]

That from what you're transition in the but you were like I don't know how to go to the IFCJ from me making the very true point that the most successful cosmetic diversity of all time strip club. We come back. By the way, we got a couple of awesome guests. Sean Davis is going to be with us. He runs the Federalist. I bet he'll have a take on this Sydney Sweeney situation among others. And then Mark Levin is going to join us in the third hour. All of that still to come. But Crockett Coffee get hooked up right now. Use code book. I am drinking Crockett coffee right now. I absolutely love it. We are about to expand in a major way with Crockett Coffee and that's because of you guys and all the thousands of you that have subscribed to Crockett Coffee.com use code book. Go get hooked up today.

[Buck Sexton]

Shaun Davis. Up next with the revelations about Russia collusion you need to hear.

[Annabe]

This is an I Heart podcast.