← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:00]
Buck Sexton
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Public Ad Read
Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It's IT screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures have.
- [01:14]
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- [01:44]
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- [02:13]
Clay Travis
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- [02:34]
Buck Sexton
Just go to PureTalk.com buck and save 50% off your first month. That's PureTalk.com buck to switch to Pure Talk. Welcome in third hour of play and Buck kicks off right now. We got a lot to dive into.
- [02:50]
Clay Travis
With all of you.
- [02:50]
Buck Sexton
Want to get some of your talkbacks and calls this hour for sure. So line them up, light them up, get them going. You all know the phone number. The talkback is on the Iheart Apple. Go to the Clay and Buck page, which you should subscribe to for the Clay and Buck podcast network. And also you can press the little microphone, send us those talkbacks. Play something interesting, some breaking news that you have responded to or you have brought up here. We can get into a little bit more, but it looks like there's some action going on in Fulton County.
- [03:25]
Clay Travis
Yeah, let's get into that here in a sec, Buck. But first, Fed no change on interest rates. That just happened in the last two minutes or so. For those of you out there, stock market not moving very much. You mentioned The S&P 500 hit a new high today and it did. It's down a little bit, but just.
- [03:42]
Buck Sexton
It'S kind of a no news, breaking news situation with that one. Like, yeah, status quo, nothing changed.
- [03:50]
Clay Travis
That's the expectation. But yes, I just want to put that out there. To the extent somebody's sitting around, they're like, what's going to happen with the Fed rates? Why didn't Clay and Buck tell us? Well, there you go. All right now, Atlanta.
- [03:59]
Buck Sexton
Yeah. Every Clay, believe it or not, not, not everyone on this in this audience is at a Bloomberg terminal doing the buy sell thing like Gordon Gekko back.
- [04:08]
Clay Travis
In the 80s with what the interest rates are, because I think it's actually the most important thing when it comes to unfreezing our housing market. And until we get back down to reasonable 5% rates on mortgages, I don't think things are going to change a lot. But we do have this major FBI raid going on right now.
- [04:28]
Buck Sexton
And you, I think some of you will find this more exciting news. But that depends, depends on whether or not you're making magic happen on Wall Street. Here we have FBI agents seen carrying out a search warrant at an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia. And this is obviously related based on the reporting to 2020. It is now 2026 and we're doing some going to look into the 2020 situation. It is not immediately clear for sure what they're looking at, but Fox News and others are reporting that it's probably having to do with the 2020 election I think that's a safe bet. I don't think they're just going into a Fulton County. Of all the possible election places to be sending the FBI right now, the one that was more at the center of the 2020 Stop the Steal conversations than any other. Oh, wow. I guess you're allowed to say these things now. Remember when you were actually banned from even talking? I truly mean this. You were banned on YouTube. I can't even remember all the rules. Facebook, too. If you talked about stolen election, you could get kicked off of social media. And that's very interesting because they did that for Covid stuff, and we found out they were wrong. So people like me were getting booted and shut down by YouTube and others for saying things like masks don't work to stop the spread, which of course, they don't, and all this stuff. Now we may have an interesting situation where more facts will come out about 2020 based on the investigation, and we will once again have to revisit what is disinformation and just what is the powerful using their power to shut down dissent, conversation, questions, all of that. Clay, we don't have anything on this right now. The DOJ did not comment on it directly, but stuff's gonna heat up in Fulton County, Georgia. I don't think they'd send the FBI in there unless they were. At least they had some idea of what they were looking for.
- [06:32]
Clay Travis
Yeah, look, I think that increasingly, even for people that wanted to pretend nothing happened, the 2020 election is like a steroids in baseball era, where you look at the number and 81 million votes for Joe Biden makes a lot of people say, hmm. Because you go look at what happened with Trump in 2016. 2020, 2024. Every one of those elections, his support grew. And then you go back and you look and you say, wait a minute. Joe Biden got way more votes than Hillary in 2016 and Kamala in 2024. What's actually going on here? Now? Here is the challenge, Buck. We are sitting at, what is it, over five years since the 2020 election. And I understand a lot of people out there want there to be some consequences for this. The statutes of limitation are becoming huge barriers to bringing charges in cases such as these. And I think as we go forward, that's going to become even more and more the case. And so I don't know what they're looking at in particular here. I would love to know. Maybe there's some involvement relating to the Fannie Willis investigation. Remember the charges that were brought In Georgia. Trump won Georgia in 2016. Trump won Georgia in 2024. And I think a lot of people look at 2020 and say what happened in that election? And so we'll see if anything comes out of this. All we know is again, reports that the FBI is conducting a raid in Fulton county. And we don't know anything beyond that.
- [08:25]
Buck Sexton
I get you the following voter fraud, five year statute, campaign finance violations, five year statute. You know, there's a mail fraud. I think there's a whole bunch of these things that, that would not be eligible based on being time barred. But maybe there's, you know, by the way, there's a whole lot of stuff and we saw this used against Trump. Maybe there's, you know, conspiracy to deprive rights. And you get into some civil rights thing. And there's a lot of ways, there's a lot of ways that if the people making the decisions about charging want to get you, they can get you. So we'll see where this goes. I honestly, I have low, I'm just going to tell you, I have low expectations and this is also where I get into trouble. But I'm right, because just like in other things like this, where I've said, oh, the JFK files, they're going to release the JFK files and we're going to find out all the truth. All the like, guys, I was in the CIA, ok? Trust me, if there was really cool stuff in the JFK files, someone would have left the CIA and written a book about it and gotten rich. Ok? We don't. There's nothing, there's nothing that fascinating. There might be a little thing here, a little thing there, but if it's that juicy a secret, it doesn't stay secret that long.
- [09:41]
Clay Travis
It's really hard to do.
- [09:44]
Buck Sexton
And especially when you got all these different people that are like, have all.
- [09:46]
Clay Travis
These theories and conspiracies.
- [09:48]
Buck Sexton
I know people are going to yell at me for this. I like it. Yell at me. Clay's not the only one who likes when you yell at him. I like it, too. But on this one, Clay. Oh, what, they just kept the, they kept the, the microfilm or they kept the videotape? Microfilm, Spy stuff. They kept the videotape that has the poll workers, like, stuffing the ballots in some. Come on, it's been six years. They've had plenty of time to clean this up. This is my concern, this is always my concern about the Epstein stuff too, by the way. It doesn't just stick around. They don't just keep the Smoking gun list listed and bagged up as smoking gun.
- [10:24]
Clay Travis
I do think on Atlanta in particular, something, something is, look, we've got a big election that's coming up, a Senate race that's going to happen in Georgia, and Atlanta is, it seems to me, a place where a lot of untoward aspects of elections have been allowed to take place. I think that's fair to say. And again, I just come back to poor Brady Anderson. Maybe he's out there listening. Buck. Brady Anderson was a guy who hit 50 home runs out of nowhere, and suddenly, you know, he looked like Popeye when he was in the batter's box. And everybody said, yeah, you know, maybe something's going on here. I think the 81 million is increasingly difficult to justify, even for reasonable, rational people. Will there be consequences, though? This is where you and I agree. I think we're over five years from that election. I think the consequences, frankly, were Trump came back in, won the popular vote, swept to a commanding victory in 2024. I think you have to accept that as the ultimate consequence, because everything that he's been able to implement since is far more impactful. And I will say Trump in 2024, winning that election is more powerful than Trump would have been. If Trump had won in 2020 now, the border wouldn't have been wide open, they wouldn't have gotten 10 million illegals. I don't think we ever would have hit 9%, inflation, all those things. But I think Trump this term is far more powerful than he would have been if he had won in 2020. And so ultimately, that's the revenge that I think is the most satisfying is that victory. And, and we'll see how that goes.
- [12:13]
Buck Sexton
I mean, to me, the, the biggest thing when you're talking about elections and election integrity is making sure that they're secure going forward. And I haven't seen a lot of action on that. One of the challenges, of course, is that in Democrat controlled states, they, they don't want voter ID and they don't want any accountability, and they want to make it as wide open and easy as, you know, they want to treat voting like they treated the border. A total, massive lawlessness where there's no accountability and no one can know what's going on or, except they know what's going on, which is the destruction of the whole system. So I think on this one, like I said, I wouldn't, I wouldn't hold your, hold your hopes. Hold your hopes out or up? Do you hold them out or up?
- [12:56]
Clay Travis
I want your hopes, your Hopes up, Up.
- [12:58]
Buck Sexton
I don't know.
- [12:58]
Clay Travis
Yeah, I think.
- [12:59]
Buck Sexton
Hold out your hopes.
- [13:00]
Clay Travis
What do you do with your hopes?
- [13:01]
Buck Sexton
Point is, I wouldn't get too excited about this one. Based on what we've seen so far, they have some reason for this. They're going to look and see what they might find, some interesting information. But I'll tell you, this doesn't matter what they find. They could have a video that they find of Democrat operatives sitting around laughing as they twirl their mustaches about how they stole the election in Georgia for Joe Biden. Not a single Democrat will believe it as it happens under this administration. Not one. So just, just get ready for that. Doesn't matter what you want to talk. Smoking gun. They could find an actual smoking gun and they could find video that says like, this is exactly what happened. And they still. Clay, do you disagree? The Democrats would say 40% of Democrats thought that Trump actually hacked voting machines.
- [13:49]
Clay Travis
With Russia's help in 2016.
- [13:52]
Buck Sexton
Yeah.
- [13:53]
Clay Travis
I actually think what it might create is maybe we'll get more honest reporting from a variety of sources because in order to get the warrant, you have to have provided some form of probable cause that a crime might have occurred. I would like to. Everything gets leaked all the time, Buck. I would like to know what the warrant says and what they're searching for. Let me give you a positive news story that doesn't have anything to do with the Fed. Pam Bondi just posted that we have arrested 16 Minnesota rioters for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement. They're posting all the photos of those arrests. And she says there's more to come. I mean, I think a lot of you are with me and saying it seems like there's a lot more than 16 people that have been rioting, but that is at least a positive story. And she says we expect more riot, more riot arrests to come. And they are posting all of the mug shots of people in Minneapolis. Maybe, possibly this is part of the compromise that was put in place since Tom Homan is there, that they are able to now go and arrest people who are violating and rioting surrounding these incidents.
- [15:06]
Buck Sexton
It is. It is a step in the right direction. Do you want me to hit the womp womp button or you want me to hold off?
- [15:10]
Joe Lavornia
Oh, poor womp womp.
- [15:13]
Buck Sexton
I mean, the womp womp that happens, my friends, is they're going to be prosecuted. Guess where in Minnesota they're going to.
- [15:21]
Clay Travis
Be released and there's not going to be any serious consequences for them. I feel confident that you are Correct there.
- [15:28]
Buck Sexton
But still the right move. Still the right move. Got to do what you got to do. All right, look, speaking of right moves, owning gold is a right move. That's a smart one. It's no longer reserved for wealthy bankers twirling their mustaches, business owners, foreign governments. It's available to you and me. I just got some gold last few days. That arrived courtesy of my friends at the Birch Gold Group. I mean, I bought it, but they sent it to me. And I'm a big believer in gold. I'm a big believer in having gold. I have had it for many years. And guess what? The money that I spent on gold was well spent because it's a whole lot more valuable now than when I bought it. And that continues to be true of the long term gold over the last 20 years, up 700%. That's a 7x return for just taking some cash and converting it into gold. You can also take, by the way, an old 401k or IRA and transition that into a gold IRA or 401k and birch gold can help you roll that IRA or 401k and you'll be eligible for a rebate of up to $10,000. So it's your turn to buy some gold until February 1st. This Sunday. You're a first time gold buyer. Birch Gold is offering that rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, text my name Buck Do 9898 98. Make right now your time to buy gold. Take advantage of that rebate. Text my name b u c k to 9898. 98. Text Buck to 9898 98.
- [16:53]
Clay Travis
You know him as conservative radio hosts. Now just get to know them as guys. On the Sunday hang podcast with Clay and Buck. Find it in their podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:07]
Public Ad Read
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com, and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures nothing.
- [18:17]
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- [18:32]
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- [19:05]
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- [19:38]
Clay Travis
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. We appreciate all of you hanging out with us as we are rolling through the Wednesday edition of the program. Kevin in New York City. DD W O R Listener he's reacting to Buck not knowing Madden Summerall. Let's listen.
- [19:59]
Joe Lavornia
Oh my God.
- [20:01]
Buck Sexton
When I heard about Buck's lack of.
- [20:04]
Joe Lavornia
Knowledge of who Clay Summerall was, I.
- [20:07]
Buck Sexton
Almost met Clay's worst way to die. I almost choked to death on my chicken wing.
- [20:14]
Clay Travis
We don't want you to die reacting to Bucks lack of sports knowledge. Pat Summerall, by the way, doesn't have the same name. Clay, but that is very funny and we want you all to live forever. Nate in New Hampshire Nate, what you got for us.
- [20:32]
Nate (Caller)
Yeah. I want to say that I think we really all need to give a lot more respect to the ICE agents and police and law enforcement in general. And I have a short story that I want to share with you real quick. I'll be as brief as I can. About 20 years ago, when I was young and stupid, I made a poor choice with alcohol and I got arrested.
- [20:56]
Joe Lavornia
Okay.
- [20:57]
Nate (Caller)
You know, and it was a misdemeanor class B, which is not a very big charge. And by anyway, the police, I think they use excessive force. I mean they had about six or seven police officers tackle me. They tasered me and you know, it was. It was a. It was a. It was a terrible experience. But afterwards, like the next day, like, I really regretted my, my, my. I mean I could have been pissed off. I could have been pissed off at law enforcement or something. But I ended up. I wrote a letter, a thank you letter to the police department for doing what they did. Because I realized that they are out there protecting us and keeping our streets and cities safe. And you know, I could have had a bad attitude. I could have like, you know, not appreciated the police or been pissed off at them. But you know what? They are out there doing a difficult job.
- [21:50]
Clay Travis
Thank you for the call. Thank you for the call. I'm glad you survived the tasing. I think that's the first time we've ever had somebody call in and say thanks to the cops for tasing me. So appreciate Nate. They are calling in law enforcement does have a tough job. You ever been tased, Buck? You ever been like even like tested tased or anything like that?
- [22:09]
Buck Sexton
Clay, if one of us was going to have been tased, you know, it was probably going to be you. Let's be honest.
- [22:13]
Clay Travis
I mean, as part of training or something like that, like they.
- [22:17]
Buck Sexton
I got pepper sprayed. The agency pepper. They, they. They subjected us to pepper spray so that we would have familiarity with it.
- [22:24]
Clay Travis
How awful was that?
- [22:25]
Buck Sexton
Contained I. It's very similar to imagine if you like the hottest food you've ever sort of eaten, like the spiciest pepper, imagine eating it while simultaneously rubbing some of it in your eyes. And that's what it feels like.
- [22:37]
Clay Travis
So it's brutal. I've never been tased. I've never been arrested. But I appreciate Nate letting us know that, that it happened to him up in New Hampshire. And we're glad you have been shot.
- [22:47]
Buck Sexton
At, however, which I got shot at. Pretty impressive.
- [22:50]
Clay Travis
Pretty shot at. When. While rolling the head cheerleader's house in Nashville, Tennessee in 1997. Nothing happened to the guy. It's kind of crazy. Welcome to the 90s in Nashville. Buck, you got us to take us to break here.
- [23:07]
Buck Sexton
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- [24:32]
Joe Lavornia
Thank you. Very happy to be on with you.
- [24:34]
Buck Sexton
All right, we're talking Trump accounts. Big event today in D.C. lot of talk about economy stuff from the president and from Secretary Besant. Let's start with Trump accounts though. What's the idea here? Why does it matter so much to this administration and to the American people?
- [24:52]
Joe Lavornia
Well, it is a down payment on the future. It is a way to encourage newborns and those children that will be born over the next several years under the Trump administration to be able to partake in the capitalist system where the US has been an engine of growth and prosperity. And this is a way, a very novel approach to get families in the game of investing, building a nest egg, creating wealth, creating financial stability. And the Trump administration is going to start that with seed capital of $1,000, which then can go upwards of another $5,000. That could come through a combination of either an employer, a family member A guardian parent to really build wealth and to get over time young boys and girls understanding the powers of compound interest and how an investment today can pay huge dividends longer term.
- [25:51]
Clay Travis
Okay. This is so important. I think compound interest, basic financial literacy. And this is, Clay, appreciate you coming on the program is something that kids really desperately need to understand. And by the way, I think also a lot of adults when you talk about compound interest. So let's say that someone has an account starting at birth and they basically are just, let's say It's S&P 500 index funds on average. What is the compound value of that look like? And over time, what kind of dollars are we discussing for people out there who don't really comprehend this?
- [26:29]
Joe Lavornia
And Clay, I want to also I should add that Secretary Bessance highlighted that nearly 40% of U.S. households have no direct equity exposure.
- [26:37]
Clay Travis
Right.
- [26:37]
Joe Lavornia
This is a way really to make Americans part of the capitalist system. It's an inclusive way to build wealth and to create financial security. Regarding the compound question, if you put the government gives $1,000 in 2026, then let's say that through a combination of either employment or somebody making the maximum contribution after the, you contribute 5,000 additional every year for the next, the next 18 years. Based on historical equity returns of roughly 10%, that money, when you do the math, could be worth slightly more than $300,000. Leave it in another 10 years, the historical returns again with a maximum contribution of 5,000 per year, that money could be worth almost 1.1 million. So the power of compounding is remarkable. And people are going to intuitively, innately understand financial literacy when they go to their Trump account and they see, wow, look at how this thing is increasing in value. And I add more, I could make more. I mean it's savings in real time. And I think it's going to be a great tool that people are going to realize we need to invest in the future and they're going to probably leave their money in there and they're going to then reap the benefits from being invested in all these wonderful companies that create a lot of high paying jobs and investing in and helping make the US Economy and continue to keep the US Economy the best and brightest in the world.
- [28:09]
Clay Travis
The easiest way to understand this that I always try to explain to my kids and everybody out there, I would encourage to do your research on this. Basically, if you just buy S&P 500 index funds historically and leave them in there, every 10 years your money doubles. So you start thinking about every 10 years, a doubling and you start looking at 20, 30, 40, 50, 50 years of that. That's not even talking about putting more money in as you are, which obviously makes it even better. But every 10 years, doubling. I just don't think most Americans really understand the value of starting early and continuing to pile in.
- [28:47]
Joe Lavornia
Yes, no, that's right. In fact, Clay, I'd say it's even better than that. It's the simple rule. This, your listeners, is the rule of 72. You know, if essentially if you have 10% equity return, your money actually doubles every, every, every seven years. If it's a 7% return, then it's 10 years. So the numbers are even better if you have historical returns approaching 10% than what you even suggest. But you're exactly right. That's with just an initial investment, you get those wonders of compounding. But that's why we're hopeful, Clay. We know today President Trump announced all these wonderful US Companies across all different sorts of industries now are going to partake in the Trump accounts. And because the thing is that employers can contribute up to 2,500 per annum into a Trump account and that's not going to count as employee income. So the ability to actually to add to it to get those big, big returns is there. I think that's just a great way the program was designed.
- [29:50]
Buck Sexton
Speaking to you, Joe lavornia, Councilor, to U.S. treasury Secretary Scott Besant, a guy with decades as a very well known Wall street economist. And Joe, to that end, I want to ask you about something that's going to matter a lot to everybody listening day to day. It's also going to matter a lot to this administration and in the upcoming midterm elections has to do with affordability. Trump spoke about this recently in Iowa. This is cut 8. I wanted to have you dive into this, but first wanted to hear from the president play eight guys. It came up, you know, it's a.
- [30:22]
Clay Travis
Word that they came up with.
- [30:23]
Buck Sexton
Affordability. Every time you hear the word, remember they're the ones that caus the problem. And first time you heard about it.
- [30:30]
Clay Travis
Was like a few months ago. This election is all about affordability. Well, they're the ones that caused the.
- [30:36]
Buck Sexton
Problem, but nobody knows that. You know, people forget. So now, Joe, how can this administration, Clay and I have talked many times about, yes, you look at inflation, previous administration, worst inflation in 40 years. That's, that's established. How do we bring this situation to a best possible outcome this year for the American people and certainly for the administration, for the purposes of the referendum that's coming up in the midterm elections.
- [31:05]
Joe Lavornia
Much of it, clay, has been done through the one big beautiful bill or the Working Families Tax act, which it's also known as. And what I mean by that is that bill is encouraging significant business investment and building factories and expensing capex. We've already seen the capex come back in full force. This is helping lift productivity growth, which is output per hour. And that has also been galvanized through a lot of business friendly deregulation where companies can operate more efficiently. So you're seeing these big productivity gains. Why does that matter? Productivity gains matter because rising productivity is the lifeblood of rising living standards. When companies can produce more with their existing workforce, they can pay those workers more. So what the Trump administration's policies are going to do is they are going to allow people to take home more pay after tax. Take home pay will be going up. And because the economy is investing in the future, it could produce more, which means prices could come down. So what you have is a disinflationary boom, strong growth led by productivity and prices falling because the economy's productive capacity is increasing. Think of it this way. Energy, the drill, baby, drill. The opening of federal lands, the easing of permitting and things of that sort to invest in energy production. What's that doing? It's increasing output, but at the same time it's lowering the energy cost. Take that and multiply it across the economy. That's how you basically get affordability to massively improve, is you're allowing people to keep more of what they have and you're giving them the tools to produce more so they get paid more and that's higher living standards.
- [32:44]
Clay Travis
This is a big picture question for you. You've been involved in finance for a very long time and we're talking to Joe Lavornia. When you look, I was reading recently, Amazon went public with an initial market capitalization of around $500 million and then it has risen up to multiple trillions of dollars, which meant if you bought, you know, $1,000 in Amazon stock when it hit public markets, you've made millions and millions of dollars. Now there's talk about SpaceX. I'm sure you've seen potentially going public at a valuation of $1.5 trillion, which means a lot of the value created in that company will never have been accessible to so called average investors. The number of public companies is declining overall. Are you concerned at all about the way that the public markets are kind of being skipped and all of the value is being created now in private marketplaces, which doesn't give the average Joe investor the same access to roaring growth marketplace companies as might have existed back in the 90s or before.
- [33:51]
Joe Lavornia
I understand your point about, about public versus private markets and I think that reflects the fact that, you know, under, unfortunately many Democrat administrations, you had significant over regulation. So capital immediately went private market instead of the public market. But what we know is over the past year we've had tremendous growth in the stock market. The returns have beat most money managers because US companies, many of which, I don't need to name the names, but you know, them, have done phenomenally well. They'll continue to do well. And as the administration tries to encourage private capital to come in and to innovate and create, I'm pretty confident, Clay, that we're going to see the US Stock market continue to perform well. It is what we call the high beta on the US Economy. And President Trump knows how to get growth moving. And you know, I'm an optimist, so I'm not particularly worried about that. But as we have less regulation, you might see these public markets, and I think rightly so, improve. You're going to see more merger activity, you know, businesses back. As the President says, there's tremendous investment coming in the US and the US is indeed the hottest economy in the world. I mean, we've been growing almost 5% the last three quarters. I mean, that's incredible. And therefore the public markets are going to benefit from that. And by default, the people who are investing in these Trump accounts are going to benefit as well.
- [35:14]
Buck Sexton
Hey Joe, it's Buck. One more for you here, putting on your macro economist hat for a second. And maybe your forecaster Nostradamus side of things, the AI boom that we're in right now in terms of all the money that's going toward this stuff. Are you a believer in sort of the Elon model of this stuff is all real? It's going to change the world we live in and the productivity gains are going to be stratospheric. Or do you have concerns about a pullback? Because we might be a little cart before the horse on this stuff.
- [35:45]
Joe Lavornia
I mean, look, you have, you, you have a huge equity boom. I mean, you had a 45% or 40 something percent increase off of the April lows, one of the biggest recoveries post liberation day we've ever had following a 15% stock drawdown. And the markets are understandably optimistic about the future that the President has laid forth. That's not to say there won't be corrections along the way, but I think we have to look at the long term picture and the fact that the US Market is so innovative, so dynamic and US Companies are set to thrive. The President has set the field for those companies to thrive and he's got people in leadership positions such as the Secretary. They're going to make sure that private capital is accessed in the most efficient way. And the story is for real. I think it's very important. We're certainly seeing the productivity data and you know, is there, could there be, you know, some spending that needs to be cut back here and there? Of course, but that's, you know, that's the nature of the cycle. But I think generally speaking, you know, the optimism that we're seeing in markets is well placed, Buck, because you're seeing it in the GDP data you're seeing in strong capex, you're going to see it more on the investment side, especially for factories because that expensing is only going to last three years. So that's going to see, you're going to see a big boom there and I do think you are because inflation will continue, continue to move down. You will see interest rates come down. The Fed should be lowering rates further. That's going to use affordability, it's going to make home buying more accessible to folks. And it's all, to me, it's all good news. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but President Trump has had a, perhaps a powerful influence on that. I never want to sell the US Economy short.
- [37:22]
Clay Travis
Oh, I think the economy is going to be flying and firing on all cylinders. And like you just said, we're over 5% for the fourth quarter. And man, if we could get 5% growth in 2026, it would be transformative on so many different levels. Joe, we appreciate the time. Thanks for coming on with us.
- [37:39]
Joe Lavornia
Thanks guys. Appreciate being on.
- [37:42]
Clay Travis
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- [38:57]
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- [40:08]
Clay Travis
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Clay Travis
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- [42:10]
Clay Travis
Travis Buck Sexton show we are finishing up the Wednesday edition of the Pro program. Encourage you to go subscribe wherever you are to all of our different social media feeds. We've got a lot of awesome new additions coming in the near future including multi hours of programming you will be able to get hooked up on and that will make a substantial difference hopefully in you being able to have a little bit more fun in your day and also certainly a lot more information. Also want to encourage you. You look I'm proud of how much this company has grown. Crockett Coffee is dominating for those of you out there that actually like America and American history. And we're going to be in Texas. What is it? March 1st, 2nd and 3rd, Buck. We're going to be in Austin, Houston and San Antonio, I believe in that order at three of our big affiliates in the state of Texas. And we're going to try to do an event for Crockett Coffee at the Alamo where obviously Davy Crockett lost his life back in 1836. But we are looking forward to our tour of Texas that's going to be surrounding the primary. Believe it or not, Buck, I know everybody is focused on a lot of different stories out there right now, but we're just a little bit over a month from the first major primary of 2026 taking place in the state of Texas. We will be there to hang out with a lot of our crew there, Jesse Kelly, Michael Berry down in Houston, who we appreciate. We love our affiliates in Austin, in Houston and in San Antonio. So we will be seeing you guys there in the near future. Stock market like you said, Buck, you want some positivity to close out the show with. We started it there s P500 at record highs as we are finishing up the Wednesday trading session. And we appreciate Mark Halperin and Joe Lavornia for hopping on with us this.
- [44:08]
Buck Sexton
And you talked about Crockett Coffee. I got to tell everybody they've also got to subscribe to our YouTube channel because YouTube is going to be 2026. Some people are saying we're going to look at YouTube. We're going to look at YouTube. It's going to be big. Going to be huge playing buck YouTube expanding by leaps and bounds. It's a big, big program for us. It's going to be a big, beautiful YouTube channel with a lot of fun stuff and even some YouTube channel extras that we'll be doing all kinds of things. So go to YouTube.com and then Clay, Clay and Buck. I hope I'm saying it right. Kind of boomer of me if I get my own YouTube wrong.
- [44:42]
Clay Travis
Also a little bit of a tease. Satellite Radio A lot of you have been asking for some time. SiriusXM Rush never was on satellite radio. May have some good news coming for those of you out there, particularly our trucker audience that are on the road all the time, jumping from one time zone to another, one state to another. Stay tuned. More coming on that soon. Expansion happening in a good way. We love all of you. We'll be back with you on the Thursday edition of the program tomorrow.
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Buck Sexton
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Clay Travis
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Buck Sexton
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Clay Travis
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Buck Sexton
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Clay Travis
Anyway, it's awesome.
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Buck Sexton
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Clay Travis
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Clay Travis
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Buck Sexton
So here's the idea.
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Clay Travis
You get it now.
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Buck Sexton
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Clay Travis
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Cindy Crawford
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Buck Sexton
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