Hour 2 - Steve Hilton Can Save CA

Summary

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Hour 2 - Steve Hilton Can Save CA

Date: March 13, 2026
Podcast Host: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this energetic Friday hour, hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton welcome Steve Hilton—political commentator, former advisor, and now a Republican candidate for California Governor—for a wide-ranging discussion. The episode pivots from light banter on beards to serious political analysis, delving into California’s political climate, the scale of political corruption and fraud, gas prices, energy policy, and the state’s legacy. The conversation also touches on terrorism in America, copycat violence, and migration trends of wealthy individuals fleeing high-tax states, all in the hosts’ signature frank, often humorous, style.

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Featured Guest

Steve Hilton

• Republican candidate for Governor of California
• Former advisor to UK Prime Minister David Cameron
• Media personality known for incisive political commentary

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Steve Hilton’s New Beard: A Symbolic Start

• Steve tells the story of his now-signature beard, which began as accidental laziness over Thanksgiving and ended up promoted by public feedback and endorsements from notable conservatives—including Donald Trump Jr. (“MAGA beard”) and James Woods.
  • [02:02] Steve Hilton:
    “James Woods, the legendary James Woods, texted me last week and said, this is it. It gives you exactly the right amount of gravitas. I really think you can win this now.”

2. California Hospice Fraud & Political Corruption

• Discussion pivots to a recent exposé on hospice and medical fraud in California, which Steve blames not on neglect, but on entrenched, systemic corruption facilitated by Democrat power structures.
• Steve’s organization, CaliFraw.com, set up a whistleblower line and “Cal Doge” for grassroots fraud detection; he notes donations from healthcare to Democrat politicians tie directly into the perpetuation of this fraud.
  • [03:49] Steve Hilton:
    “This is not neglect or incompetence. This is corruption… Gavin Newsom is the puppet of these people who are doing the fraud.”
  • [05:35] Steve Hilton:
    “We can really change this big time if we are elected this year.”

[Relevant Segment: 03:30-06:04]

3. California’s “Jungle Primary” and Hilton’s Strategy

• California’s top-two primary system (“jungle primary”) explained: Top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general.
• Steve expresses concern about Eric Swalwell’s ascent as the Democratic establishment consolidates, and the risk of splitting the Republican vote, which could lead to two Democrats in the general.
  • [06:54] Steve Hilton:
    “If we split the Republican vote, it’s not only that you’re going to get Eric Swalwell, you’re probably going to get Eric Swalwell and Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate fanatic…”

[Relevant Segment: 06:04-09:41]

4. California’s Oil & Gas Industry and Energy Policy

• California’s gas prices are dissected as a consequence of Democratic climate ideology rather than geopolitical events (such as war in Iran). Steve lambasts the state’s approach:
  • State has huge reserves, but 80% of oil is now imported.
  • Closure of in-state pipelines has led to the irony of oil being trucked to refineries “in the name of climate.”
  • Steve pledges to reverse the “war on fossil fuels,” supporting local production to bring gas prices down.
  • [10:36] Steve Hilton:
    “We are importing in California nearly 80% of the oil that we use. It used to be the opposite… As governor, I will end the war on fossil fuels.”

[Relevant Segment: 09:43-13:22]

5. Restoring the California Dream

• Hilton and the hosts reflect nostalgically on California’s lost luster; Hilton, a British immigrant, once admired the state as a global beacon of opportunity and innovation.
• Describes California’s current woes as a correction away from bureaucratic overreach, not a permanent condition.
  • [14:17] Steve Hilton:
    "California means to America what America means to the world. It represents all the great virtues and strengths and beauty of our nation. Optimism and energy… that’s been crushed by years of bureaucratic, bloated, nanny state government…"

[Relevant Segment: 13:22-15:55]

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Memorable Quotes

• Steve Hilton on Corruption:
  "It's not neglect, it's not incompetence, it's corruption. And the scale of it is just unbelievable. The brazen, shameless theft of our money..." [03:49]
• Steve Hilton on Republican Unity:
  "This is the moment for every Republican to get serious about this, get behind the leading Republican candidate. And then I will be guaranteed to be in the top two..." [08:53]
• Steve Hilton on California's Decline:
  "Who would want to [make the UK more like California] today? I mean, that's how far we've fallen..." [14:37]
• Steve Hilton’s campaign pledge:
  “We’re going to get to $3 gas in California. That’s the first pledge I made on the campaign trail.” [13:15]
• Clay Travis’ advice:
  "Steve, bring home the W in this governor’s race and don’t touch that beard." [15:55]

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• [01:19] Steve Hilton joins the show; beard banter
• [03:30] Introduction of California hospice fraud issue
• [06:04] Deep dive into California's primary system and election math
• [09:43] Transition to gas prices and state energy policy
• [13:22] Restoring the “California Dream”
• [15:55] Segment wrap-up; light closing banter

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Broader Discussion Topics (After Steve Hilton)

Terror Attacks & Media Framing

• The hosts dissect recent terror attacks by Islamic extremists in several US cities, criticizing media narratives that downplay motives or reframe attacks with racial overtones.
  • [19:12] Buck Sexton:
    “The media is so deeply, deeply indoctrinated with this stuff… They view this as, first and foremost, racial.”
• Frustration with officials releasing previously convicted terrorists and calls to review naturalization and citizenship for those convicted of terrorist offenses.
  • [31:39] Clay Travis:
    "If you are convicted of providing terroristic support... maybe we should go back and reexamine the process by which you became a citizen."

[Relevant Segment: 18:06-33:16]

Migration of Wealthy Elites from High-Tax States

• Washington State’s new “millionaire tax” prompts high-profile flights (Howard Schultz, Jeff Bezos) to Miami—ripple effects across blue states discussed.
• New York’s proposed “mansion tax” and estate taxes criticized as illogical and likely to push out investors/entrepreneurs.
  • [37:10] Buck Sexton:
    "It's incredible, actually… $500,000 in Manhattan will get you 300 square feet where you can sleep, shower, and cook without actually moving. It's like you're in a little pod."

[Relevant Segment: 33:16-38:00 (approx.)]

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, direct, and opinionated—mixing humor with urgency, especially on issues of policy and governance.
• Partisan and combative toward the political left, California’s Democratic machine, and perceived media biases.

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Conclusion

Steve Hilton’s guest segment offers both a personal and political pitch for reclaiming the California dream from what he characterizes as entrenched corruption and failed progressive governance—tying together policy, grassroots activism, and the need for Republican unity in a system stacked against conservatives. The episode also gives space to urgent concerns about terrorism, the media's framing of it, and economic migration from blue to red states, creating a fast-moving, multi-issue hour that blends insider analysis, campaign trail narrative, and talk radio energy.

Transcript

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[Clay Travis]

Second hour of clay and Buck goes. Right now we're joined by Steve Hilton. He's running for governor in California.

[Buck Sexton]

Steve, always great to have you our

[Clay Travis]

friend, but we gotta dive into something

[Buck Sexton]

before we get into all the policy and all the seriousness. It seems that you sir, are sporting

[Clay Travis]

a Clay Travis style beard and I just want to say that the people of America have spoken. They are, they are fans of your salt and pepper beard. I I'm a slightly different generation than you and Clay, so my beard doesn't quite have the gravitas of all that silver quite yet, but I think it looks very distinguished on you and Clay and so I'm a proponent.

[Steve Hilton]

Okay, so I got to tell you the story and it's got a good ending, so it's totally accidental. We were away for Thanksgiving last November and I was just lazy and I didn't shave and the first day back I had some really early TV hit like Fox and Friends or something and I thought I just didn't have the time or the energy to shave. As I went on, assuming I'd get all this feedback saying, you're so scruffy, why didn't you clean up? Quite the opposite. A bunch of nice messages about the beard, which really wasn't a beard at that point I thought I'd try it out on the road in California. I took a poll at every event that I did, overwhelmingly positive. And here. And then there are two moments that I thought, I got to stick with this. Number one, I did Don Junior's podcast. And, you know, I've known Dom for many years, and he came on with on the Zoom, and the first thing he said was, hey, man, love the maga beard. I don't know, is that a thing? The maga beard? And then here's the one that I think you'll enjoy. I just got a text from a good friend of mine who's supporting me, a legend, James woods, the legendary James woods texted me last week and said, this is it. It gives you exactly the right amount of gravitas. I really think you can win this now. So there you go. I mean, it's staying.

[Buck Sexton]

You're like the Dos Equis guy with a British accent. So I think that this is.

[Clay Travis]

This is a strong. This is a strong play for you. We support it. But now let's get into this, because we've talked about the governor thing.

[Buck Sexton]

We're going to talk to you about that more. You got to tell us what's going

[Clay Travis]

on here with the most recent fraud

[Buck Sexton]

revelations in your state. Obviously, all the Democrats in charge, obviously Newsom, asleep at the wheel, are probably, you know, doesn't even care about the fraud hospices. What do we know about the hospice fraud?

[Steve Hilton]

Well, the first thing to bear in mind, this is not neglect or incompetence. This is corruption, because the reason that all this fraud has gone on in California and our estimate. So remember, just to take a few steps back, I set up last year, in the wake of the Minnesota revelations, a whistleblower line here in California called califraw.com and we've had thousands of tips coming in. And then earlier this year, we set up Cal Doge, which is now up and running. Obviously, we're not elected yet, so it's not an official thing, but we've got many volunteers going through the books finding the fraud, and we're publishing these fraud reports. And one of the main areas that we got tips for was in this medical space because it's just huge amounts of money, and it's. And the reason it's corrupt is if you look at the donations to Democrat politicians in California and you look at the categories of. And Gavin Newsom is a useful proxy. He's been running statewide in California for 16 years. The number one category of his donors, government unions, number two, trial lawyers, number three, private sector unions, number four, health care. Health care. They're making money off of this, and they are. And Gavin Newsom is the puppet of these people who are doing the fraud. And that's why this goes on. It's not neglect, it's not incompetence, it's corruption. And the scale of it and is just unbelievable. And the brazen, shameless theft of our money to put in the pockets of these scammers that then give money, donations to Gavin Newsom and the other Democrats. It's just unbelievable. But the good news is we're now. And there's not just us. You had various people now really investigating it. You've got the federal action JD Leading that. It's really going to come to an end, especially when I'm elected in November and we're going to just stop all this in its tracks. Last point I'd make is I'm putting together a slate, a team of candidates running with me statewide in California. Never been done before. In the governor's race, a very important position is the state controller. And the state controller has the power to audit every organization receiving state money and to turn off the supply of money, literally to stop the money flowing. And there's a fantastic guy called Herb Morgan running with me. We're working very closely together. We can really change this big time if we are elected this year.

[Clay Travis]

Okay, Last hour I saw that this moron, Eric Swalwell is right now potentially going to be favored as the Democrat. I don't know what I'll have to do if you are running against Alex Eric Swalwell, but there has to be 40 IQ points at least that separate you from Eric Swalwell. I want to put out the call up and down within breadth of California right now, the election is when, when can people start voting for you? And I think again, a lot of people don't understand this. California has, I think it's called a jungle primary, right, where the top two, regardless of party advance. So explain all the rules, tell people how to vote. What do they need to know? Because we are getting close to ballots being headed out.

[Steve Hilton]

Exactly right. Clay, thank you. Listen, this top two system is ridiculous. Obviously we should get rid of it, but we got it. And so we got to play by these rules. For the last year or so, you've seen a kind of clown car situation on the Democrat side. Nine or ten candidates, all of them incredibly unimpressive machine politicians and hacks and ridiculous people, and they've been dividing up the vote. And as a result of that, in a lot of these polls I've been leading and there's one other Republican who we'll get to in a second. Often we've been the top two. But I said all along it's not going to stay that way because the Democrat machine is going to get behind one of their candidates. The unions, in particularly the government unions. They will want their puppet that they control. And that is what is happening right now. And that's why you're seeing Eric Swalwell move up and up. And I think that that will continue. The big unions are going to be endorsing in the next few weeks. The teachers, the seiu, the Nancy Pelosi machine is going to get behind him, I think. And so I think you're going to see him really advance. Now, right now, as of this morning, the Real Clear Politics average of all the polls in California, there's a bunch of these Democrats below 7%. You've got Katie Porter at 10%. You've got Tom Steyer and the other Republican, chad Bianco at 11%, Eric Swalwell at 13. And I'm on 15 and a half. So that's the good news. On the average, I'm still ahead. But you're right, there was a poll this week, first time, that showed Eric Swalwell in the lead, a real poll. It was a proper, serious poll. And so we got to take this seriously. The election is June 2nd. Ballots go out May 2nd. We're really weeks away now from this election kicking off. The most important thing to understand is that if we split the Republican vote, it's not only that you're going to get Eric Swalwell, you're probably going to get Eric Swalwell. And Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate fanatic, he has already spent $70 million just in the last few weeks, few months, and that's moving him up in the polls. And because of this top two system, you don't need a huge percentage to make it into the general election because there's so many candidates. So I can see a situation where we've got, you know, like, I don't know what to even make of that. Steyer versus Swallow. What a joke. But if you get behind one Republican candidate, and I'm the leading Republican, and there's a lot of issues with the other guy, Chad Bianco, he took a knee for blm. He says crazy things on immigration. He's basically for amnesty on immigration. You can't have him. And so this is the moment for every Republican to get serious about this, get behind the leading Republican candidate. And then I will be guaranteed to be in the top two because that's how the math will work. And then it's a whole new fight and we'll take it to whoever the Democrats put up.

[Clay Travis]

Speaking of Steve Hilton, he's running for

[Buck Sexton]

governor and he's telling us all about how this race is critical but also winnable in his estimation, in his math. And Stephen, to that end, I saw

[Clay Travis]

a lot of people are focused in

[Buck Sexton]

on gas prices right now for obvious reasons. But your state is always the punching bag.

[Clay Travis]

You know it for the rest of the country of you see how high the gas prices are there. So, yes, Iran has everyone, oh, my

[Buck Sexton]

gosh, what are gas prices going to do? I think it's going to be fine, by the way, but everyone's a little freaked out.

[Clay Travis]

And then in California, it's, well, your gas prices, it's like there's always an

[Buck Sexton]

oil embargo somewhere because California's gas prices are crazy.

[Clay Travis]

You recently said to gas execs, don't

[Buck Sexton]

give up on the state of California.

[Clay Travis]

I don't even think people realize that

[Buck Sexton]

California has a gas, an oil and gas industry.

[Clay Travis]

Can you speak to that a bit? And what you're hoping could happen if you become governor.

[Steve Hilton]

It's an amazing situation. Again, just the lunacy of these Democrat ideologues, these climate fanatics. Incredible. First of all, let's look at the numbers. So the temporary spike, and it's obviously temporary. Everyone knows that in the gas price since the Iran war, which is what, about 50 cents average nationwide, right. In California, you look at the average, it's $2 higher than the rest of the country. So it's a very simple way of putting it. Gavin Newsom of the Democrats are, are four times as destructive as war in the Middle east for Californians when it comes to gas. The point about California is that we have abundant oil and gas reserves in our state, mainly in Kern County. But now a huge reserve has been discovered offshore in California. Offshore. There's a reserve there which is considered to be the second biggest in America. The nature behind the Permian Basin. We have massive oil and gas reserves. Right now. We are importing In California nearly 80% of the oil that we use. It used to be the opposite. Most of our oil and gas we produced in state. So what are these insane Democrats now doing in the name of climate? They are shipping oil halfway around the world on giant super tankers spewing out carbon emissions because they think it's part of their war on fossil Fuels. We're not using any lessons. Fossil fuel in California. We're just importing it. It's insane. That's the reason that the refineries are closing down, because the refineries were built to refine California crude. The supply of that has been dropping year by year with their war on the industry here in California. Now, the insane situation. I'm just with a group of energy industry folks this morning and now there's even the insane situation. The small amount that we're relatively. That we're now producing. It used to go in pipelines from Kern county to the refineries in the Bay Area and near L. A. One of those refineries has now. One of those pipelines has now shut down because there's not enough oil to justify the business. So now what's happening, the remainder that we're producing is going on trucks. So they again, in the name of climate, instead of a nice clean pipeline, we're now trucking it. It's so insane. Now, as governor, I could reverse all of that because it's all being done through these bureaucratic agencies. CARB, the California Air Resources Board, the Energy Commission, CalGEM, the Geologic and Energy Management Agency. And it's very straightforward. As governor, I will end the war on fossil fuels. As long as we are using oil and gas in California, we're going to use California oil and gas. That will keep the refineries open, bring down the cost of import, and we're going to get to $3 gas in California. That's the first pledge I made on the campaign trail.

[Clay Travis]

I think this is so important and why I think again, everybody out there listening to us right now needs to go vote for you and get you into the final two. Buck and I have talked a lot about the legacy of California. You grew up in England, you grew up in New York. I grew up in Tennessee. I remember the first time I ever got to go to California. I was 21 years old. I think I had a college roommate from California. I went to go visit and I was so excited to stay step foot on soil in California because of the legacy of awesomeness that we had grown up with. Buck has talked about this in New York. California, this golden shining state on a hill. It's lost. You could help to return that. But I think your experience growing up and what California meant to you still can resonate with so many Californians.

[Steve Hilton]

100% Clay, I love the way you put that. Look, the California dream is a real thing. You know this. And it was in my Imagination too. Like even before we moved here with my wife and my sons, you know, whenever it was 2012, we moved here back in the day, I mean, people know me from Fox, obviously, but, you know, most of my career has been in business and I worked for a while in the government in the UK for David Cameron. And when I was putting together the policy plan before he became Prime Minister in 2010, one of the Spectator magazine in the UK wrote a piece about me. This is like 20 odd years ago. And, and they said, and the title of the piece was the COVID story California Dreaming. And the theme of it was Steve Hilton, David Cameron's policy guru, wants to make the. Inspired by California, wants to make the UK more like California. Well, who would want to do that today? I mean, that's how far we've fallen. But the point is that that idea of California, sometimes I put it like this. California means to America what America means to the world. It represents all the great virtues and strengths and beauty of our nation. Optimism and energy and dynamism and the kind of rebel spirit and doing your own thing that's been crushed by these years of bureaucratic, bloated, nanny state, bureaucratic government and the taxes and the spending and the bloat and the waste and the regulations crushing the soul and spirit of California. But it won't take much to really get back to that beautiful California dream because we've just got to stop the government from doing all these insane things and then people and entrepreneurs will take care of the rest of it.

[Clay Travis]

Steve, bring home the W in this governor's race and don't touch that beard.

[Steve Hilton]

All right? All right. You got it.

[Buck Sexton]

Good man, Good man. Thanks for being with us.

[Clay Travis]

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[Buck Sexton]

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[Clay Travis]

Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton show, Friday edition of the program. We'll take some of your calls, lots of your talkbacks. Buck, you knew this was going to happen. But I do want to share the way that the attack on the synagogue in Michigan is being covered. This is ABC News. Have you seen this headline yet? The mayor of Dearborn Heights said the suspect involved in the shooting and vehicle ramming attack at a Detroit area synagogue, quote, had lost several members of his own family in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon. They are justifying a terror attack based on what happened to this guy allegedly and his family in Lebanon. He decided that he was just going to randomly attack a synagogue in America. And my question for everybody out there is maybe I've missed all the people who had Jewish relatives that were murdered on October 7th and just drove cars loaded with explosives into mosques. Or maybe, maybe that's happening all the time. Obviously this is ridiculous, but understand the framing that we're going to get.

[Buck Sexton]

The media is so deeply, deeply indoctrinated with this stuff that it's really hard to get them to think about things in any other way. They view this all as ultimately, first and foremost, racial. They even view the Islam and Judaism thing as racial, not religious, because they have A that's the framework that our politics and the left in America puts things through first and foremost. And so Clay, there's no reasoning with them. It's these were brown people that did these two attacks, these two terror attacks. Actually the three. Well, one guy was black. These are brown people. Did these two terror attacks. Have to find a way to be as, as sympathetic as possible to the attacker here. That's the media's attitude about it because brown people are victims as long as they're attacking non brown people. And that's essentially the way that they view all of this.

[Clay Travis]

All right.

[Buck Sexton]

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[Clay Travis]

We had quite a good chat there

[Buck Sexton]

with our friend Steve Hilton about what's going on in California. We wanted to talk a bit here about the aftermath of these two terror attacks that happened, both of them with jihadist intent. I think that's pretty clear. Although some of the media don't know. We may never know that. We may never know the real motive. This is now beyond parody. When you have these news anchors who some guy, you know his name could be Mohamed Mohammed wearing an I heart ISIS T shirt can run into some place, start shooting, yelling Allahu Akbar. He could have written out a long confession beforehand saying I'm doing this on behalf of the Islamic State, you'll still have a CNN anchor who will pop up and be like, but can we really know? Can we really know the motive behind this?

[Clay Travis]

And if it gets too tough for

[Buck Sexton]

them, eventually what they'll start doing is running panel discussions about how the Islamic State is not Islamic. You know, that's the other thing they like to do.

[Clay Travis]

This is this has nothing to do with Islam.

[Buck Sexton]

Like.

[Clay Travis]

Well, these guys seem to think it does.

[Buck Sexton]

So there's.

[Steve Hilton]

That.

[Buck Sexton]

That's. This is a common. We went through this clay in the whole g. What era, which was really the Bush and Obama years, predominantly eight years of Bush, eight years of Obama, where we just had. This was the argument always, all the time. And you had Democrats bending over backwards, bending over backwards to make sure that no one actually thought there was any connection between Islamic terrorism and Islamic anything. Remember, the Obama administration tried to change the gwat, which is what we still call it now. Those of us who remember which was the global war on terror, which was a Bushism, they wanted to call it. I don't remember the full acronym, but it was something like overseas contingency operations against ideological extremists. And it really was something like that. It was some absurd. You know, the acronym was like ABBA kajabra or something. It was really long. And everyone was like, we're not going to do that. Remember? Also Obama wanted to call it ISIL instead of isis. Everyone calls it ISIS now. That Obama was always isil. It's isil. We went through all this kind of nonsense. We understand what's going on here. We understand why these people are attacking in terms of what their ideology is and what their worldview is. And there's going to be more of this. What we are seeing, though, is vigilance, taking security in your own hands, acting quickly, getting off the X. You know, intervening, taking action can make a huge. Can make a huge difference. And in the case of the synagogue, no good guy casualties.

[Clay Travis]

So we know five attackers so far, if I'm not mistaken, right? Five different Muslim fundamentalist terror attackers. Two in New York City, one in Austin, one in Virginia, and one in. In the Detroit area. Here's a question for you, Buck. Five have acted. What is the number of people you think that are either susceptible or willing to engage in acts of violence that are currently in this country? This is what I spend a lot of time thinking about because everything is a probabilistic analysis. Mostly these are going to be young men. Mostly these are going to be young men without families, right, that have been polluted by the idea that the best thing they can do is give up their life in a jihadist attack. There's five we know in just the last two weeks. Is it a thousand? Is it 2,000? Is it 6,000? How many people do you think in America right now are willing on some level to do this if the situation arises?

[Buck Sexton]

Having worked during a heightened time of Islamic Extremism in one of those offices, Clay, and obviously the biggest one, which was New York, you're at a minimum right now, I would assume that the FBI, elements of dhs, state police that have counterterrorism elements and fusion centers. You're talking about hundreds of cases where the people who are close to it are saying this could go off at, you know, this could be action at any moment. It could. It could become an actionable plot. And if they haven't gotten them on a criminal, on some kind of a criminal violation before, the best they can do is just keep eyes on. That's where we are, by the way. I said at least hundreds. It could be in the low thousands, but that's where we are.

[Clay Travis]

Okay, so that's interesting. Here's the second question for you. We know, unfortunately, in two different circumstances, suicides cluster because people see, this is awful for kid. People out there who have teenagers, particularly if one kid commits suicide. Unfortunately, there are often echoes of that suicidal act because it puts in people's minds the idea of following through. This is data. This is what it shows. Unfortunately, when we see school shootings, there are often cluster impacts from those school shootings because people who are of unsound mind or potentially susceptible to acting are more likely to do it. Buck, are you afraid? Similarly, now that we've had five different jihadists act out, that even people out there that are on the fringe of whether or not to do this become more likely to act because they see this having happened. Is that a thing where. When you see, like with suicide, it's

[Buck Sexton]

like copycat, is that. Yeah, basically, it's like a copycat. Yeah, of course. And also, you get people who see this, These actions, and based upon. You got to remember they're playing to a very different audience, if you will, sort of in a way, in a manner of speaking, than the rest of us, you know, they'll see and they'll be familiar with some, you know, jihadi chat rooms, things like that, signal chats. I mean, things that are. I think maybe they use telegram more.

[Clay Travis]

So I don't know where the jihadis

[Buck Sexton]

are hanging out these days.

[Clay Travis]

I'm not in that game anymore of surveilling them.

[Buck Sexton]

But they have online communications and they want to see, especially from hardliners overseas, praise for these attacks. And then that's an encouragement to them as well, because they're bought into this idea that they are. They are warriors for a righteous cause. And if they become martyrs, actually, that's the most glorious thing that can happen to them. So yeah, we're likely to see more of this. It's impossible to say how much more. And really what you're hoping for is the situations that we've seen so far and I know we saw a major loss his life, that's terrible. And you know, his family, you know, have now had that, that horrific, that horrific situation fall upon them. But these are small scale attacks. If you're looking at casualty figures, if, if you can keep it small, you're doing a pretty good job because you're not going to be able to stop them all. You're not going to be able to find them all before they act. If you can manage to prevent this from becoming an attack where, you know, dozens of people are killed, scores are maimed and wounded, and that's what we're going to be fighting against now because also any jihadi watching what's going on, knows Iran is got. Iran's got nothing to hit us back with militarily. So the only payback, if you will, from people who are sympathetic to the mullahs is going to be through some kind of a terrorist act. That's why you got this guy at Old Dominion. This is crazy, Clay.

[Clay Travis]

I don't think we mentioned this indefensible.

[Buck Sexton]

This is the Old Dominion shooter. His name was Muhammad Bylord Jalo. Guy's name is Muhammad Shock and cut number five here. Here he is rather. Here is the identification by the FBI of this guy saying that he was

[Clay Travis]

arrested in 2016 for report and plead pleaded guilty to provide material support to ISIS Play five.

[News Reporter]

The FBI is now the lead investigative agency investigating this as an act of terrorism. The shooter has been identified as Mohammed Baylor Jalo. In 2016, Jalo was arrested and pled guilty for attempting to provide material support to ISIL now known as ISIS. Jalo was sentenced to prison in October of 2017 and was released from prison in 2024.

[Buck Sexton]

Clay, this guy was released. He wanted to give. He was trying to plot a mass casualty attack years ago against Americans. And now we find out that this guy got released, apparently got released early. That's what I read at least. And you have to wonder why are these people in the country in the first place?

[Clay Travis]

Well, I'm sorry, why are we releasing people who are, are pled guilty or found guilty of terrorist sympathy in the United States early? How are we not immediately denaturalizing? And again, I am not an expert in immigration law, but maybe we need to focus more on if you're arrested for terrorism in this country and you have previously Been granted citizenship. Maybe we need to reexamine whether you should be allowed to stay in the country. I'm just. I'm just going to toss that out there and how do you.

One of these guys.

[Buck Sexton]

Sorry, just to be clear, is he out early?

[Clay Travis]

Buck.

[Buck Sexton]

One of these guys was a naturalized citizen. I don't. That was actually the other jihadi terrorist. I think this guy. I'm getting them. Let me see this guy. This guy actually served in the. Was he in the National Guard? Yeah, this guy was a. Yeah, he served time in federal prison. Early release. Member of the Virginia National Guard. Former former member of the Virginia National Guard and. Oh, no.

[Clay Travis]

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, he's a natural.

Yes.

[Buck Sexton]

Sorry, I'm right.

[Clay Travis]

He's a naturalized US citizen from Sierra Leone. The other guy is. Was born in Lebanon. So we got foreigners. It's apparently not that hard to become an American. You got these foreigners who hate America, who want to kill Americans and plot terror attacks here that we're making Americans. We're really doing that.

We need to examine how we are giving citizenship. And if you are convicted of providing terroristic support for terrorists and you were at some point naturalized, maybe we should go back and reexamine the process by which you became a citizen. Just an idea that seems very rational to me. Who is opposed to this? Uh, we'll talk about this. We'll take your calls. Your talkbacks as well. Friday edition Clay and Buck Homeowners. I know you can relate to this. There's always something to repair or purchase to keep your home updated and in good shape. Most of us can handle one thing or another. But the big stuff like roof repairs, that's when you need a qualified expert. Erie Home is that company. They start by providing you with a free roof inspection. They'll inspect your roof for any problems using a 25 point inspection they've developed over their 50 years in business. If your roof needs replacement, Erie Home offers all kinds of options, including the use of newer metal materials that are made to mimic the look of the roof you're likely to have now. These new metal materials allow your new roof to last up to two to three times longer than traditional shingle roofs with proper care and maintenance. Your new roof from Erie Home comes with a 50 year transferable warranty. So if you sell your home, you're providing even more value in the selling process. Schedule your free [e-mail] clay today and get a discount off the installation price. That's E r I e home.com Clay discount maximized $1,200 valid on new roofing installations only. Minimum purchase required. Restrictions apply. C Rep for warranty or promotional details.

[Podcast Promo Voice]

Stories of freedom, stories of America. Inspirational stories that unite us all. Each day, spend time with Clay and Buck. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Clay Travis]

Welcome in Clay Travis Buck Sexton show we arrive rolling through the Friday edition of the program and a lot of you weighing in on a variety of different topics out there. And we want to make sure you get as many talkbacks as possible. I also want to tell you Crockett Coffee, Crockett Coffee is the greatest coffee that has ever existed in the history of the universe, if you love American history. Named after Davy Crockett, legendary Tennesseean who moved to Texas and also became legendary there. And and he died at the Alamo just recently. They had the March 6 anniversary of the Alamo falling in Texas. We're going to be going to the Alamo here soon and we look forward to it. But Buck, we come back at the top of the next hour. I want to kind of set the table here for a story that I think is really supremely significant, and that is the fleeing from high tax states to low tax states from people with income who are able to do it. And I want to set the table here. Washington. This is going on across the country in blue states. Washington state is saying that they are now going to tax anyone that makes $1 million or more at 9.9%. What does that do? Buck, we mentioned this on the air, but I think it's significant. Howard Schultz, who is the founder of Starbucks, he is the coffee company you just heard me talk about Crockett, probably the most successful coffee entrepreneur in the history of the world. He's moving to Miami. You also have Jeff Bezos who left Seattle and moved to Miami, both because of the tax situation in Washington state. And Buck, do you know this story? I actually think the entrepreneurial story of Jeff Bezos is a fascinating one. One reason why Bezos decided to make Amazon based in Washington was because it was a low tax state. And that's a little bit surprising to some people because you think of the west coast and you think of California high tax, you think of Oregon as high tax. Washington was a very low tax state. And so Jeff Bezos went across the country, started Amazon in Seattle. Would you agree with me on this, Buck? The three biggest companies, maybe there's four that people think of off the top of their heads when they think of Washington state and entrepreneurial success I would say you think of Amazon, you think of Microsoft, you think of Starbucks, maybe you also think of Boeing. I would say maybe that's the four that come to mind immediately. I know there are others, but those that come to mind immediately. It feels pretty significant to me that both Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz have decided we can't live here anymore. And so they have decided to move from Washington to Miami. Also, simultaneously, Zoran Mamdani is proposing that if you live in New York City and you die, you have to pay a 50% city state estate tax buck at 750k in income. Now they're also saying that they want to have a huge mansion tax on anyone who buys a property for 500k or more in New York City. You know this better than most. What does a 500k property that is that. That sounds like a lot maybe to some people in different parts of the country. What do you get for 500k in New York City?

[Buck Sexton]

It's incredible, actually. It's like a marvel of engineering. $500,000 in Manhattan will get you 300 square feet where you can sleep, shower and cook without actually moving. It's like you're in a little pod. It's like a bed with a shower

[Clay Travis]

head above it and a toilet that

[Buck Sexton]

you roll over to. That's what $500,000 gets you in Manhattan. Unfortunately, it is rough.

[Clay Travis]

So the idea they're calling this a mansion tax. First of all, I think the average home in America now is 450k team. Will you look that up nationwide? I know it varies depending on where you live, but I think the aver cost in in America now is somewhere in the neighborhood of 550k. That's the average. I know people buy more or less, but I think the average. So even calling it a mansion tax nationwide would not reflect what reality actually is. I think there's a lot of you that live in homes that cost $400,000 and you're like $500,000. This is not a mansion New York City. What Buck just said about what what you get for 500k is basically a closet. And for them to be taxing the people that have the ability to make money in New York City, I don't understand why anybody would would stay. And we're going to hit this in earnest because I do think it's a big story and I think it is transforming much of the country as highly successful people in blue cities and states are finally done with what they see coming. Get out while you can. And I think a lot of the richest and smartest people are getting out while they can. We'll talk about that when we come back. We'll take more of your talk backs. Thank you for hanging out with us. 14 hours up, 15th hour, next of the week on Clay and Buck.