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Clay Travis
Welcome in. Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us as we are rolling in on a Thursday edition of the program. All right, we got a lot of breaking news, many of you wondering and we are still waiting for the biggest breaking news on the show, which is Buck and Carrie Sexton and the baby update. Last night they said, hey, actually we don't want you coming in tonight to deliver the baby. They have gone in today texting with Buck last night. I'm trying to stay out of, out of the line of fire here because I know having been through three deliveries, it's a little bit crazy. We will update you as news arrives. But I told Buck last night when they got the pass, like, hey, we might as well watch Gladiator tonight. You don't have to go in for the. I'm sure Carrie couldn't be any more excited. She's got another night at home, nine months pregnant. You guys should definitely crank up Gladiator maybe, maybe Braveheart. Maybe you can double down. So we will update you on Baby Watch 2025 as we get updates here. But the result is I am with you solo at least for today and tomorrow. Don't know how long Buck will stay out with the baby coming, but that is that update. All right, a lot of different news stories going on right now. Let me hit you with the absolute latest. Positive inflation is softening. It has hit the lowest rate 2.4% since COVID Basically, it has actually turned negative, which is very positive. We will break all that down. That is this morning's news. A budget resolution has passed the House which will allow us to theoretically get one big beautiful bill from the, from the House and the Senate. They will now move into reconciliation. It passed 2:16 to 2:14 after it was held over last night. And so we are going to get the tax cut. All of that. The details need to be hammered out. That is on its way. Also, we have further an addition of the tariffs coming down on China. 145% is now the tariff level that Trump has put onto China. Yesterday, the stock market had an absolute record day after a 90 day pause was put into place on the tariffs for every other country. But Trump now continues to escalate the China trade war. He has isolated China and the tariff is now up to 145% onto China. Stocks have begun to backtrack as Trump is saying that China is the worst trade abuser in history. So all of that is underway. Many different aspects of breaking news associated with it. And so all of those right now underway again, stock market has turned negative. It has been a absolute roller coaster for everybody paying attention to the trade. Yesterday was the best day that we have seen percentage wise nearly in the history of the stock market. But as I am talking to you right now, to the extent that I am now also a financial news analyst, the s and P500 down about four and a half percent after raising, rising itself nearly 10% yesterday. So all of that going on right, right now. We do have some audio clips to put into context. Let me put that all into context for you. First, cut one. This was Stuart Varney saying inflation softening. It's now at 2.4%. That is lower than the expected rate. Let's take a big deep breath. There's a whirlwind coming at you and your money. We'll start with inflation. Last month consumer prices went down 0.1%. In the last year, they're up only 2.4%. Those are favorable numbers. Inflation is softening. Okay, so inflation softening, hitting a four year low. And also this was CNN pointing out, as you heard Stuart Varney say, there actually prices have actually gone down. This is cut 24, which is an updated version of what CNN is saying. Listen to this. Consumer prices month over month. So this was actually a drop of 0 point percent, negative 0.1%. That's the first time we've seen that since COVID year over year. The annual inflation rate was at 2.4%. This was also better than expected and a six month low moving in the right direction. As far as why this happened, there's a few drivers. One thing that really played a role here, as you can see the trend here, the inflation rate dipping a little bit. One of the drivers was energy. The fact that gasoline prices did not move up like they usually do in the month of March, that really helped. Okay, so that is the updated inflation numbers. Why does this matter? Well, certainly inflation got to 9% under Joe Biden. Remember it started off at 1.8% when he came into office in January of 2021 rapidly skyrocketed to 9%. And we have been fighting the inflation battle since to bring it all the way back down to now 2.4%. Trump is arguing, and I think there is some basis in truth for this, that the overall interest rates set by the Fed need to be dropped as well. Obviously that is why we're dealing with 7% still ish 30 year mortgage rates that many of you have got in your lives that have locked you up and are keeping you from moving into a new house or maybe even putting your house on the market because you don't want to give up the number that you got. Okay, all of this is complicated. Let's go back into the tariff universe here. Trump was asked about why he decided to put a 90 day pause in place. This is something that we told you on the show we thought made a lot of sense. And Trump is saying, hey, we are rewarding the countries that have not retaliated with higher rates of tariffs. And Here is Trump, cut 4, speaking to the press, saying he was watching the bond market and he was concerned about how the bond market was moving. Listen to cut 4.
Donald Trump
I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. But yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy. I think everything had, well, the big move wasn't what I did today. The big move was what I did on Liberation Day. We had Liberation Day in America. We're liberated from all of the horror, terrible deals that were made.
Clay Travis
Ok, so that is Trump. Here is Trump as well. He is asked, well, let's first see. Trump has asked why Democrats wanted tariffs in the past. If you've seen Nancy Pelosi, if you've seen all of these other Democrats, Chuck Schumer, talk about the necessity for tariffs. Here is cut six. Trump is praising a reporter who asks why Democrats wanted tariffs back then. Now they hate them. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, they've been talking about tariffs for decades. How come when these Democrat elites want.
Buck Sexton
Tariffs, everything's hunky dory, but when President.
Clay Travis
Trump wants tariffs, all hell breaks loose. Do you see this double standard?
Donald Trump
I love this guy, whoever the hell that is. That's really nice. I appreciate that question. No, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelo, everybody knew you had to do it, but they never had the guts to do it. It does take guts. It even takes guts for our country to go through it. That's why I say be cool. They were saying about, see, just be cool. It's going to work out. It's going to work out. And it's, it's working out. I can tell you working out maybe faster than I thought. But I said it's, you know, it's, it's going to take a little conditioning. It's a transition to, it's really, I think it's a transition to greatness. It's going to be greatness. Our country is going to be. There'll be nothing like it. And people investing in our country, they're going to do better than they've ever done before.
Clay Travis
Okay, so let's talk about where we are right now. Effectively, Trump has isolated China. The tariff rate on China, as I said, has now been elevated to 145%. Every other country out there effectively is in a tariff pause. They are negotiating. I think you will see in the near future, Trump start to announce trade agreements with England, with Japan, with South Korea, Australia, countries that we have strong relationships with. I don't think it will take very long for those new deals to go into place. In the meantime, what he has now done is effectively announce, hey, this is the United States versus China. And he has isolated China so that they are standing alone in terms of how this battle is playing out. And he has elevated tariffs to now 145% on Chinese goods. This handcuffs China in a substantial degree because China relies on exports to the United States for a massive part of its overall economic growth. And if China is not able to move those exports to the United States, I believe Trump is right here, that China is going to have to sue for peace. And we will get at some form or fashion, in theory, a trade agreement that is fairer for America, helps to protect American jobs and helps to allow American business to more fairly compete with China. What Trump has smartly done is he has recognized now that every other country is coming to the table and that we now are going to be in a position to negotiate better deals there, too, as well. And here's what I would also just continue to tell all of you. I'm gonna give you stock market updates here and there. I understand this is not cnbc, this is not Fox Business, but what I would encourage all of you to do is recognize you don't buy and sell stocks, or at least most of you should not on a day to day basis. You shouldn't make emotional decisions when it comes to your investments. And the analogy that I have made that I think is a really good one, is your house. If you are fortunate enough to own a home, your home has a fluctuating value. Any given day. It can be up or down depending on whether someone is interested in buying your house or not. You don't day trade homes because you know that the home is the foundation. You're not only owning an asset. It's also where your family lives. It's where you put your head down at night. You're not typically going to be selling your home and worried about the cost on a day to day basis, week to week basis, even month to month basis. In an ideal scenario, there are substantial costs associated with selling homes. As a result, most people, the best investment they ever make is buying a home, living in that home and being able one day to profit on the increased value of that home. If you treat your stocks like you treat your home, then you are going to be in a far better position. And I'm not telling you to do something different than what I do. I buy s and P500 index funds. I put them in basically my bank accounts, my investment accounts, and I don't really touch them. And over time, you are going to make 8 or 9% a year on that and every 10 years your money's going to double. If you do that, you are betting on American growth and the exceptionalism and the capitalistic dynamism of the entire United States. And you don't have to worry about day to day market fluctuations in price. That's what I would encourage you to do. Because emotion often leads you to make poor choices. And if you make poor choices, then ultimately you and your family end up bearing the brunt of those poor choices. What do I mean by poor choices? I mean by and large, what often happens is people sell at the absolute bottom of the market and they buy at the absolute top of the market. If you just keep your assets. And by the way, people say, oh, Clay, you've got more. So what? I'm doing the same thing now as I did a decade ago when I had a negative net worth, when I still had a lot of school loans that I was paying off. It doesn't matter whether you have $500 to invest or $500 million to invest. What I would be telling you is the exact same advice. We'll take your calls. We got a couple of great guests coming your way. Stephen Moore, we're trying to get economic experts on the program. Yesterday we had Dr. Art Laffer of the Laffer Curve, one of the foremost American economists in the entire country, come on and talk to all of you today. Stephen Moore, one of Trump's top economic advisors, will be with us. Historically, Stephen Moore has been at 130, one of the smartest guys on the right in all of the world. Douglas Murray is going to be on to talk about his brand new book. And those are our two guests that are coming during the course of the day. And as I said, we will continue to update you on Buck and Carrie Sexton. Baby, watch. If there is more news to share with you there. But in the meantime, I've got you. I'll have you today and tomorrow at a minimum. We'll see when Buck comes back as a new dad. But we appreciate all of you hanging out with us in what is a dynamic and rapidly evolving media environment. With so much news going on. Again, biggest news story I would say right now is that the budget resolution has passed the House, which is going to allow the big beautiful bill that Trump favors to actually become law. And that is going to preserve the tax cuts, among other things as that continues to play itself out. But I want to tell you, everybody's got a fire extinguisher, fire alarms case there's a fire, no brainer. You might even have done some fire drills before with your family, especially if you have young kids. But what about if you have a home intruder? 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Sabre has safeguarded hundreds of thousands of Americans and you can get hooked up right now with sabre radio.com that's s a b r e radio.com dozens of products at saberradio.com save 15% there today. That's s a b r e radio dot com 844-824 safe 844-824 safe sabre radio dot com 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. Welcome back in CL Clay Travis BUCK Sexton show. We will take some of your calls on the backside. We'll Also, talk about the rapid situation in which everyone has been reacting to one of the greatest days in the history of the stock market. And some of them, not surprisingly, have responded to this by accusing Trump of insider trading. And you really need to hear what the ladies of the View had to say because every time you think they can't get dumber, guess what? They actually get dumber. I'll play some of those for you when we come back. 800-282-2882. Also, take some of your calls. But I want to tell you right now, we had a situation with tornadoes coming through in Tennessee over the weekend and many people had their power out. Tens of thousands of people had their power out, including for a very short period of time, power went out at my house. And I was glad that we had our Rapid radios charged. We have them for five days. If you've got them fully charged without needing to recharge them. My wife and my son have been using these because my youngest doesn't have a cell phone and it allows them to connect anywhere and be able to have conversation. They're great. Also, if you have older family members maybe that don't love cell phones or like I said, you got a young kid like I do in the fourth grade who doesn't have a cell phone yet, but you want to let him run around some but be able to stay in touch with him. Kids love them. They're great. 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Sunny Hostin
Trump tweeted out before this little pause, he said this is a great time to buy. And that's really a whistle to those billionaires that can or people that have money that can buy low and then the stock market prices go up. That's generally called insider trading. And that would ordinarily trigger an investigation by the securities and Exchange Commission. We know now that that's not probably going to happen because all of these government agencies have been, you know, destroyed and dismantled. But someone with knowledge of an economic policy change that would cause the markets to shoot back up right before posting about how great a time it is to buy right before the policy change happened would certainly be guilty of insider trading.
Clay Travis
I mean, first of all, he's the President of the United States. Everything that he says moves markets. Secondly, you have to prove, and we probably have a bunch of insider trading experts, you have to prove that someone benefited in some way from insider trading. In other words, my understanding is the president, unlike Hunter Biden, actually has frozen all of his assets for some time. One of the ways that presidents handle these sorts of situations is by and large, they say, hey, I'm not managing my stocks on a day to day basis. They're outside of my control. They invest in index funds. I mean, it's absolutely bonkers. But yes, Sunny Hostin, if it can be proven that Trump was given kickbacks in order to change the, to give the 90 day pause on tariffs, then yes, you're right, this is a drastic insider trading. But crazily, Sunny Hostin is not even the dumbest person on the View. The Views. Joy Behar says that Trump is intentionally tanking the economy for his billionaire buddies so that he can make himself a dictator. Uh, this is her theory. This is what you're listening to. And you might say, okay, well, why does this matter? There are millions of people that are listening to this show on a daily basis. Here is cut 13, Joy Behar with her theory about what's going on.
Sunny Hostin
He's trying to destroy the country. Now why is he doing that? So there's a couple of theories. First of all, if he tanks the entire stock market, then all his billionaire friends can swoop in and buy everything low. That's not an original idea. That's Hakeem Jeffrey said that. And in fact, today on Truth Social, Trump wrote a great time to buy. The other theory is from James Carville, which I think is interesting, that he wants to soak such instability and chaos to consolidate power for himself so that people start to really go nuts. People are starting to get mad. How mad will people get and how broke will people get and how many jobs will be lost? And then he can say, well, there's too much chaos and now we're going to have martial law in this country and he becomes a dictator.
Clay Travis
Okay, this is bonkers. First of all, Trump has been saying It's a great time to buy in America for a long time. He's a pro American leader. But the billionaire buddies thing doesn't even make sense. Okay, do you know where most billionaires have their assets? The stock market. Whatever losses are occurring on paper are drastically higher for billionaires than they are for people who are not billionaires. It doesn't make sense that Trump would allow his billionaire buddies to make way more money by driving down the prices of their assets. It again, these are crazy town talks. And that James Carville says, hey, what they're trying to do is actually create dictator opportunities for Trump. Again, this is crazy town talk. And I've said this before, but I do think it bears repeating. If Trump truly wanted to be a dictator, let's pretend that he called me and he said, clay, what should I do to become a dictator? The time when Trump had the most dictatorial powers, basically, of any president in our lives, except for George W. Bush, right after 9 11. Do you know when it was? When Covid happened, do you know what Trump did? He allowed governors to make decisions in their states.
Buck Sexton
And.
Clay Travis
And he allowed individual mayors to make decisions in their cities. If anything, if you were going to criticize Trump, it would actually be for during COVID not taking more executive authority and giving too much power back to the states because the governors of California and New York, for instance, made disastrous decisions for most of their citizens because Trump deferred to the principles of federalism. Do you know who then took over massive amounts of power and tried to regulate you to the ends of the earth? Joe Biden. When he said if you didn't get the COVID shot, that you could be fired from your job. Do you all remember that? I bet most of you do. The only reason that didn't become law was because the Supreme Court said that Joe Biden didn't have the power to do it. Biden is the one who actually took advantage of COVID to implement dictatorial powers. Remember, we're going to have a winter of death. Remember when Joe Biden said his patience was running thin if you weren't getting the COVID shot? I do. And. And again, this is why the argument that Trump wants to be a dictator and authoritarian is absolutely bonkers. Okay, some of you guys want to weigh in? I told you I'd take some calls. 800, you can give us a call. 282-2882. Sam in Milwaukee, what you got for us?
Buck Sexton
All right, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to say I actually support Trump's tariffs And I say this as somebody who's lucky to be well off. My portfolio went down, you know, by six figures over the last few days. But I think it's, it's good for the country and it's good for blue collar working people. And it's the people who have a lot of money in the stock market and who profited from outsourcing who are complaining. The other thing I wanted to ask about is another way to bring jobs back to the U.S. what do you guys think about replacing minimum wage with the earned income tax credit? Because, you know, China has an unfair advantage. They treat their people like slaves. They don't have to adhere to the same safety and environmental regulations. Allowing free market to dictate wage and then redistributing as much or as little wealth as you want with earned income tax credit would avoid that as well as encourage people to work. Thanks.
Clay Travis
Thank you for the call. We're coming up on April 15th. We have a situation where less than half of Americans actually pay income taxes. Now, to the caller's point, a lot of people pay payroll taxes if you have a job. And the biggest challenge that we have on a structural level with China is what he just referenced. The average Chinese worker makes a fraction of what the average American worker makes. And by the way, people in China make more money than people in Vietnam or Cambodia. And so if you're producing a product, you can have wages that would be considered below slave wages in the United States to produce products. I mean, Nike is a good example. This is why I went after the guys in the NBA so aggressively, because they're very happy to rip America to shreds. They never point out that China, for instance, was making Nike shoes back in the day with legitimate Chinese slave labor. So the modern day slave masters were actually NBA athletes who were profiting, making tens of millions of dollars off of Nike shoes being produced by, at least in Xinjiang province, people who were effectively slaves. And China was bragging about the fact that the cotton to make many of these shoes was coming from basically slave labor production. Now, Nike has since pulled some of its production out of China. They moved it to the Philippines. They didn't do that because they're amazingly great human rights advocates. They did it because it was way cheaper to make shoes in the Philippines because wages went up in China as China became a more industrialized country and it was cheaper to go elsewhere. And this is one of the biggest challenges in general, right, about production of goods is that it is quite a lot cheaper to make goods in Foreign countries where they basically have what we would consider in the United States to be slave labor wages in places like Vietnam and Cambodia. And what China has done is they have recognized that their overall cheating on the world trade stage, even in China, has been caught on some level, but they now have moved production to other countries, which is why figuring out how to rectify all of their cheating when it comes to global trade is so complicated. James in Roanoke, Virginia, what you got for us?
Buck Sexton
Mr. Travis, thank you for taking my call. Longtime listener since the mid-80s. I have a question that I'm really struggling with, and I get frustrated when, when I hear people say that these illegals that are being deported have a right to a trial. And I've always thought that illegals don't have any rights just based on being illegals. And so I was wondering if you can help me with that, sir.
Clay Travis
Well, I mean, yes, that's an argument that's going on right now, for instance, with the deportation of Venezuelan illegals. And honestly, it's been a huge debate that has gone to the Supreme Court several different times. And I don't want to sound like a lawyer nerd, but this is one reason why Guantanamo exists. Because if you don't bring prisoners into the United States, and Guantanamo initially was created for 9, 11 prisoners, their rights as enemy combatants are different than the rights of someone who is being prosecuted in American court. And again, this gets really far down into the weeds on exactly what due process rights exist. The argument here is that because they are here illegally, they have violated American law, and therefore they are not subject to the same due process rights that you or me or any other American citizen would be. And on the enemy combatant front, which is another angle where they are trying to, to analyze this, if you were seized in a foreign country, the question of who exactly is an enemy combatant is actually one that is very complicated inside the law. So the long way around the question is I think that the Trump administration is behaving appropriately when it comes to these individuals. The courts are going to determine exactly how to classify someone who is here in the United States, physically present, but does not have the legal right to be here. And so I am of the opinion that the Trump administration has behaved lawfully. I think the Supreme Court will agree Trump is on a winning streak. I think he's won five straight cases in front of the Supreme Court. But that is the complication that is associated with it. Thank you for listening for a long time and thank you for calling Carol in Montana. You wanted to Weigh in on the view. By the way, public information is not insider trading. Another important aspect here when you say something public. Insider information typically has to be something that others do not know. Trump saying now is a good time to buy is immediately public. Therefore everyone can act upon it. Insider trading would require that Trump called friends and said, hey, I'm about to pause the 90 day issue here. I'm about to issue a 90 day tariff pause. You should all go by right now. That did not seem to occur, at least based on my watching of the market, because the market did not pop until Trump officially made the statement on Truth Social that he was pausing the 90 days. So public comments by their very nature are not insider trading because they are immediately public for everyone but Carol in Montana. I'll get to Carol in Montana. We come back pause for that. Cause I need to do this read. But we'll get to Carol in Montana. I'll get to Greg in Sioux Falls and Jesse in Aurora, Colorado. A lot of you lining up. If you're a good gun owner, you need to know about the United States Concealed Carry Association. They're all about protecting your rights to allowing you to defend yourself. Look, I'm a member, but I have done, and this is important, I have done a lot of criminal defense cases over the years. In fact, I've even gone and gotten my continuing legal education on what is the difference between a good shoot that is one that is legal and a bad shoot that is one that is illegal. And often it can come down to very minuscule factual analysis. You just heard me talking about, for instance, what is and what is not an illegal alien, what due process rights are in play. The law can be very complicated if you are defending yourself from someone who is trying to do you harm, but somehow you end up being prosecuted, you want to know that you've got somebody who can have your back. You want to be a member of the uscca? They're the newest sponsor to this program. They do many things. They have great guides on concealed carry, family defense guides, but also they'll give you mental prep, legal insights, step by step training. If you own a gun, you can go and sign up with them and you can ensure that if you one day need a lawyer to defend you when you use that gun, this is one of the things that they do. They provide incredible legal analysis. They also provide you with all the background you need to be able to defend yourself legally. Go online to uscca.comclay to get a free guide and see all the fabulous things they do. That is uscca.com clay one more time I want you to go check out all the work that they do. I think it's important if you own firearms for you to know exactly what your rights are and be able to protect you and your family in the event that you need legal protection. Uscca.com clay sometimes all you can do is laugh and they do a lot of it with the Sunday hang. Join Clay and Buck as they laugh it up in the Clay and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, welcome back in. I said I'd take a bunch of your calls and I was trying to go to Carol in Montana before I realized I need to hit a read and make sure we got out on time. Carol, what's up? Thanks for listening.
Sunny Hostin
Thanks for taking my call.
Clay Travis
There's many stocks on the market and I think you have to have insider information on specific ones in order for it to be insider trading.
Sunny Hostin
And also this women on the View.
Clay Travis
Are very ignorant and I think they're probably pushing an agenda that they were told to push.
Sunny Hostin
I was visiting with my friends and this is my last thing and we were just saying, oh, yeah, it's low right now.
Clay Travis
This is a good time to buy. So are we in trouble for that too? You know, it's ridiculous. Thank you for the call. I told all of you that I would buy and I've been saying that on the radio for a while. I put more money into the market when the market goes down. I think it's smart to do that if you believe in Donald Trump and you believe in the long term future of America. So I appreciate the call. Jesse in Aurora, Colorado, let me hit this one. There's been a lot of talk outside of Denver about Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes there. What are you seeing on the ground? Does it feel safer to you?
Buck Sexton
It does feel safer. I think the Aurora police have done a lot recently since Trump's been appointed. Before that they were sitting on their hands and doing nothing and allowing this criminality to fester in these apartment complexes. But now I feel like Tom Holman and the government is really taking a step to end all of this craziness because people don't feel safe around these areas, no doubt.
Clay Travis
Thank you for the call. We'll continue to take some of your calls during the course of the program. We got a couple of guests, though, coming up in the next hour. Stephen Moore, absolute latest. What does he think from an economic perspective? One of Trump's top economic advisors. We will find out from him where he sees the market going. By the way, Trump in a Cabinet meeting right now will also monitor everything being said there. And Douglas Murray, one of the smartest intellectuals on the right, going to be with us next hour as well. Keep hanging.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Release Date: April 10, 2025
In the first hour of "The Big, Beautiful Bill," hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton navigate through a whirlwind of breaking news, economic updates, political analysis, and listener interactions. The episode covers significant topics such as inflation trends, legislative developments, trade policies with China, stock market volatility, and critiques of political narratives from mainstream media.
Clay Travis opens the show with a personal update about co-host Buck Sexton and his wife Carrie, who are anticipating the arrival of their baby. However, Carrie has opted not to have Buck present during the delivery, leading Clay to humorously suggest listeners enjoy a movie night instead:
“[00:01] Clay Travis: …you might as well watch Gladiator tonight. You don't have to go in for the baby.”
Clay assures listeners that more updates on the Sextons' baby will follow as news develops.
Clay discusses positive inflation data, noting that inflation has decreased to 2.4%, the lowest rate since the COVID-19 pandemic began:
“[00:01] Clay Travis: Positive inflation is softening. It has hit the lowest rate 2.4% since COVID.”
He highlights that consumer prices have dropped by 0.1% month-over-month, attributing this decline to stable gasoline prices, among other factors.
The hosts explain the passage of a budget resolution in the House, which narrowly passed 2:16 to 2:14. This resolution paves the way for the Senate to engage in reconciliation, potentially leading to the realization of "the big beautiful bill," which includes tax cuts and other economic measures:
“[00:01] Clay Travis: …the budget resolution has passed the House which will allow us theoretically get one big beautiful bill.”
Clay elaborates on the escalation of tariffs on Chinese goods, now set at 145%, marking a significant intensification of the trade war initiated by former President Trump:
“[07:02] Clay Travis: Trump has isolated China and the tariff is now up to 145% onto China.”
He discusses the implications of this move, including China's economic response and the broader impact on global trade dynamics.
Following a record-breaking day where the stock market surged due to a 90-day pause on tariffs for other countries, the market has since rebounded negatively as Trump increases tariffs on China:
“[00:01] Clay Travis: … yesterday was the best day that we have seen percentage wise nearly in the history of the stock market. But … the S&P500 down about four and a half percent after raising, rising itself nearly 10% yesterday.”
Clay incorporates audio clips, including comments from Donald Trump, to contextualize the market's fluctuations.
Clay analyzes Trump's strategic move to isolate China economically by significantly raising tariffs, effectively positioning the U.S. against China in the global trade arena:
“[07:02] Clay Travis: What Trump has smartly done is he has recognized now that every other country is coming to the table … effectively announce, hey, this is the United States versus China.”
He predicts that this isolation will pressure China into negotiating more favorable trade terms for the U.S., potentially leading to new trade agreements with allied nations.
Donald Trump provides insights into his tariff strategy:
“[07:02] Donald Trump: … we're liberated from all of the horror, terrible deals that were made.”
And regarding critics questioning the move:
“[08:44] Donald Trump: … Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, everybody knew you had to do it, but they never had the guts to do it.”
Clay offers listeners guidance on navigating stock market investments, advocating for a long-term, stable approach similar to home ownership:
“[08:44] Clay Travis: … your home has a fluctuating value. … If you treat your stocks like you treat your home, then you are going to be in a far better position.”
He recommends investing in S&P 500 index funds and avoiding emotional, day-to-day trading decisions to achieve consistent growth over time.
A significant portion of the episode addresses allegations from cast members of the television show "The View," who accuse President Trump of insider trading.
Sunny Hostin claims that Trump's public statements about the stock market constitute insider trading:
“[19:04] Sunny Hostin: … Trump tweeted out before this little pause, he said this is a great time to buy. … that's generally called insider trading.”
Joy Behar theorizes that Trump is intentionally destabilizing the economy to benefit wealthy friends and potentially consolidate power:
“[21:24] Joy Behar: He is trying to destroy the country. … so there's a couple of theories. … he can say, well, there's too much chaos and now we're going to have martial law in this country and he becomes a dictator.”
Clay and Buck counter these accusations by highlighting the lack of evidence and questioning the logic behind the claims:
“[22:08] Clay Travis: … public comments by their very nature are not insider trading because they are immediately public for everyone.”
Clay emphasizes that insider trading requires non-public information and that Trump's investments in index funds demonstrate his commitment to long-term economic growth rather than personal gain.
A caller from Milwaukee expresses support for Trump's tariffs despite personal financial losses, believing they benefit the country and blue-collar workers:
“[25:04] Buck Sexton: … somebody who’s lucky to be well off. My portfolio went down, you know, by six figures … but I think it's good for the country and it's good for blue-collar working people.”
He also inquires about replacing the minimum wage with an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to address wage disparities and economic fairness.
Another listener from Roanoke, Virginia, questions the legal rights of illegal immigrants, seeking clarification on their due process protections:
“[28:34] Buck Sexton: … illegals that are being deported have a right to a trial. … I was wondering if you can help me with that, sir.”
Clay discusses the complexities of immigration law, referencing the potential classification of individuals as enemy combatants and the role of the Supreme Court in determining legal statuses.
A caller from Aurora shares positive observations about improved safety and effective policing under local government leadership:
“[35:37] Buck Sexton: … Aurora police have done a lot recently since Trump's been appointed. … people don't feel safe around these areas, no doubt.”
Clay acknowledges these improvements and praises local governance efforts to enhance community safety.
Clay and Buck wrap up the hour by previewing upcoming guests, including Stephen Moore, a top economic advisor to Trump, and Douglas Murray, a renowned right-wing intellectual. They emphasize the importance of staying informed and engaged in a rapidly changing media landscape.
This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened. Notable quotes are attributed with accurate timestamps to highlight significant points made by speakers.