Brian Mudd (continued commentary and quotes) (3:11)
Watch the trailer on trainer games.com welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show Podcast. Well, there you go. The sounds from Sydney as they ended up bringing in 2026. Happy New Year to you as we are getting ready to count it down stateside. Always one of those oddities on New Year's Eve as we watch most of the rest of the world go before us. You know, there's a lot to celebrate and a heck of a lot more to celebrate than I think even most of Trump's biggest fans fully appreciate. Hey there, Brian Mudd in for Klein. Buck, it is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you. Always is. I am in West Palm beach broadcasting from my home station, wjno. And it's chilly here, chilly here. So I know that in most of the country, especially along the east coast, it is a lot cooler. To the north, Syracuse end up getting like two feet of snow. So, yeah, interesting for a lot of folks. But anyway, just a few miles away from El Presidente where a lot's happened, Right? One of the things that's remarkable, and it's part of the reason why 2025 has been such a successful year in ways in which many Trump supporters haven't even necessarily fully appreciated. The man never stops. The man never stops working. So while a lot of us have kind of been in holiday mode, Trump's been working. So, yeah, he's been at Mar a Lago on Sunday. He had Ukrainian President Zelensky. Then very early in the morning, he was talking to the impaler, he was talking to Putin about the progress with those peace talks. Then Monday rolls around and he's got Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in at Mar a Lago, constant. The man never stops. The rest of us do. And so on that note, it's really easy for us to take for granted so much of the success. And you have the old political question, are you better off than you were four years ago? Well, we don't have to take a look that far back to realize how much better off we are than a year ago. I mean, bottom line, are you better off than you were a year ago? Heck, yeah. If you're the average American living the typical life, you are. And even if you're sitting there going, yeah, but things are still expensive even then, if you're the average person living the typical life, you are better off financially than you were a year ago. And so part of what I'm going to break down on today's show, as I walk you through what Trump promised, you, talk about promises made, promises kept, walk you through what Trump promised and then also the receipts on that, along with a lot of the news that we've got going on right now and which includes the Minnesota fraud situation. On that particular note, coming up at the top of the second hour of the show, Congressman Byron Donalds, he is on the House Oversight Committee. The House Oversight Committee is going to be overseeing Minnesota fraud hearings, including with Governor Walz. I'd be interested to get his perspective on that and also a lot of the legislative successes and what comes next. We do also have a deadline day today for the Obamacare subsidies. We'll be talking about that as well. And the implications, again, the crisis isn't that we have Obamacare subsidies that are expiring today. The crisis is Obamacare itself. And the fix isn't to keep the broken thing going, it's to truly resolve it with a better way forward, which is what's being worked on. Again, we'll discuss we'll also check in with an attorney general to get the perspective on the way things should be handled in Minnesota as well. Florida AG James Uthmeyer will join us coming up at the bottom of the second hour of the show as well. So as we dive in, one of the things I did in reflecting on all of the success and then documenting on all the changes and things that have happened this year, I went back to my opening monologue for this year and the opening monologue that I had that I shared with my audience, the Brian Mud show, by the way, and get the Brian Mud show podcast, where wherever you get your podcasts. Also check me out socially at Brian Mudradio. I ended up sharing this message and I went back and it's like, holy cow. It's pretty incredible because a progress being made in so many of these areas. So I talked about this being our year, that this would be our time as conservatives, as Americans, and started talking about if you'd waited for much of your life hoping for fundamental changes within the way that our federal government operates, like having a heck of a lot Less of it intruding into your life that this year would be your year. So from IRS targeting to debanking and any number of other activities, government less intrusive in your life. Yeah, unless you're an illegal immigrant, no doubt. It has been. Have you been waiting for the death of political correctness and wokeness that this would be your year? Seeing any progress there? Political correctness being put out to pasture in a lot of different places? Wokeness not so cool anymore? If you've been waiting for a time in which the godless, soulless and slanderous legacy news media would become irrelevant, well, this would would be your year. We saw in the election results last year how irrelevant they had actually become. And we were going to have those huge changes this year. And you start to think about all of the massive changes that have taken place in the media landscape. Changes at CBS changes with NBC, where MSNBC is now Ms. Now. And you have the complete divorce from the NBC broadcast network and Ms. Now, even the BBC after their January 6th scandal. You've had a change in leadership there. So the impact has been felt around the world. You're able to this year realize that as hard as it is to get at the truth, you know, it is possible to get what it is that you're looking for in an AI age. It's more complicated. But the sources of information that matter to you have become more relevant during the course of this year. While the GSS legacy media far less talked about if you've wanted the rule of law to be upheld, how frustrated was that? Under the four years of Biden and Team Auto Pen, if you wanted the rule of law to be upheld, this would be your year. If you wanted equal justice under the law, then ultimately this would end up being your year. That if you wanted to seal the border and stop the migrant invasion, that this would be your year. And holy cow. I mean, even those of us who know that Trump would get the job done, did you have any idea he would be so incredibly successful so fast? And that is followed up with if he had wanted the largest deportation operation in American history to remove the record number of illegal immigrants from this country, well, that, that ultimately this would end up being your year. And on the one hand with that you go, okay, well we know that Trump had an enormous amount of success in closing the border, stopping the migrant invasion. Next to no illegal immigrants got aways that are coming over here. The CPP1 home app that was used to fly illegal immigrants into this country has been used only to send them outside of this country once again. But you might take a look at the deportation piece go. Hold on. Well, Trump administration, maybe they, they been thwarted by the courts. They haven't had as much success there as they wanted to. Not at all. Actually, we have had the largest deportation operation in American history. It's played out over 2.6 million that are gone. The difference is for every illegal immigrant that's been deported, you've had about four that have said, you know what, not really thinking that where I want to hang out is Alligator Alcatraz. Not really sure that I want to wait around and see if they're going to go ahead and nab me. So I think I'll, I'll just go ahead and pick up and go back once I came. And that is huge for any number of reasons because every time you have somebody who deports themselves, they save us a heck of a lot of money. There's so many things we can be thankful for to the Biden administration when it comes to illegal immigration. Right. And everything from housing inflation as they took up all the affordable housing jobs. But the hard cost, and aside from the hard cost of, you know, the, the people who would arrive at the southern border and go a essay this where I say asylum and you'd have a beaten down border patrol agent that would go, oh yeah, you're a magic, a word person. Where do you want to go? We can get you set up with an ngo. We'll go ahead and set you up in a five star somewhere nice and comfortable for you maybe Manhattan if you want. Whereas we had all that going on, we have been able to, to curb so much of the abuse and the asylum system by the remain in Mexico policy, by the self deportations. But every one of those self deportations saves us $17,000 as taxpayers. See, one of the many things you'd be thankful for to the Biden administration is how much they cost us every single day. Because for every illegal immigrant, to detain them, to put them in a place like Alligator Alcatraz and then ultimately to fly them elsewhere, ultimately to do all of that cost us about $17,000. So yeah, the self deportations, the most efficient and effective way for any number of reasons for people to go. If you've wanted an end to high end inflation for life to become more affordable, this year, it would be your year. That was one of the messages I had at the onset. Well, you take a look at inflation, are we better off than we were? Heck yeah, we're better off than we were. And Again, I'll break down the specifics on this, but the average person, one of the big issues with inflation, aside from the obvious, is that you just couldn't get ahead because the average wage was not keeping up with inflation, not by a long shot. The average person was consistently doing worse under the Biden years. Not the case this year. If you take a look at the inflation rate, which is lower than it was coming into this year, if you take a look at the average wage growth, well, you see that you got more money at the end of that. So things have gotten better. And of course, we've also had interest rates that have been coming down recently. That'll help for affordability and certainly the tailwind heading into next year. Talked about if you wanted to take advantage of US Energy resources as opposed to being reliant on foreign sources of energy, you know what, this was going to be your year. And what's happened. Record amount of U.S. energy production, less reliance on foreign sources of energy. A big piece of the affordability end has come on energy gas prices lower than they were this time a year ago. Straight across the board, we are seeing progress and it just continues. Talked about if you wanted American companies to return manufacturing to the US Instead of relying on countries like China, you know what, ultimately this, this would be your year. And what have we seen? Did you know that the influence of China is far less than it had been a year ago? Again, I'm going to fill in a lot of these blanks with specifics coming up later in the show. But we actually have made more progress than nothing you probably have even realized while having a whole lot more jobs here as we have had a record amount of investment into the United States. Mentioned that if you wanted lower taxes, including an end to tax on tips, overtime and Social Security, this is your year. And man, is that ever the case. Promises made, promises kept. The taxes on tips on overtime gone. Social Security, 90% plus of people on Social Security not paying any taxes on Social Security anymore that has been delivered. The big thing is a lot of people haven't even realized that benefit because they didn't adjust their withholding. Which is why I keep hearing about record refunds that'll hit by the time you file your taxes. So there is so much more benefit there that can be realized. And by the way, just starting to scratch the surface of all of the progress that has been made during the course of this year. I'll be right back with more. I'm Brian Mudd in for Clay and Buck News and politics but also a little comic relief. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.