Clay Travis (3:17)

Okay, so there you have Senator Johnson. We had him call in. So he made his case to all of you about what needs to happen here. But you know, this, this is a tough one because you have very, very smart people on different sides of an issue who also want the same things for the country. Right? They're working toward the same end. The challenge you have often with Democrats is that they'll say things like border security is perfect example. It's hard to debate them because they'll say, I want a secure border, too. And I think, here's how we get there. But they're lying. They don't want a secure border. They just don't want to admit that because then they would lose power. In this case, you're talking about Republicans who want a booming economy and want fiscal sanity. The question is, how do we get there? Or what is necessary now for us to get there? And this is why, you know, there's this back and forth that's underway. And there are smart people on both sides of this issue. There are people who are making a case that is intelligible to me in both ways. Stephen Miller, for example, is out there saying, look, this, with reconciliation, there is no way you can change the mandatory spending that would be necessary based on the kind of numbers that Elon and others want to see cuts. You cannot change the mandatory spending under the reconciliation process. So this now goes to Senate procedure. You need 60 votes to do what? What it seems they think Elon and others on his side of this issue would want to be done. Now, maybe Elon sees this differently, or clearly he sees it somewhat differently. I don't know if it's that he views the Senate procedure as self inflicted and therefore unnecessary. That's one version of this, right. Nothing in the Constitution says you need 60 votes to do anything worthwhile in the Senate. We have this filibuster and we have these self imposed mechanisms that slow down some of the changes and the legislative processes from having such a sweeping scope. Now Kaitlan Collins over at the White House decided that she was going to tangle with Caroline Levitt on this issue because what do Democrats love? They love when Republicans are at odds on something because it allows them to just engage in, you know, they want to just encourage the circular firing squad as much as as much as they can. I want you to hear how White House Press Secretary Levitt handled this. From Kaitlan Collins. This is cut for play it on.

Caroline Levitt (6:08)

The big beautiful bill. You said recently that it is, quote blatantly wrong to say that it adds to the deficit. You essentially said that an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office and other scorekeepers you believe are wrong, but Republicans like Ron Johnson and Rand Paul disagree. They are saying that it deficit that is their concern. Is the White House's position that those two Republican senators are blatantly wrong?

Senator Ron Johnson (6:28)

Ms.

Caroline Levitt (6:29)

It is those senators. It's not news that they disagree with this president on policy and the president has vocally called them out for it and for not having their facts together. I would add the Congressional Budget Office has been historically wrong. In fact, they predicted the Trump tax cuts from the President's first term in 2017. Their prediction was wrong by half a trillion dollars. Those tax cuts had nearly a half trillion dollars more of revenue than the Congressional Budget Office scored. And I would also point out, I don't think many people know this, there hasn't been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000. But guess what? There have been many staffers within the Congressional Budget Office who have contributed to Democrat candidates and politicians every single cycle since.

Clay Travis (7:19)

Sounds like the CBO is politicized trash. That's what it sounds like to me. I, I haven't spent much time over there. I haven't spent any time over there. I don't know. But I do know that results speak loudly and if the results are, they keep being wrong and keep being right. It's just like we see with the media. If you're wrong over and over again, but you're always consistently wrong in a way that helps one side politically and harms the other side politically. You're not wrong by accident, you're not wrong and it's just the way it is. Something else is guiding that decision making process and perhaps with the Congressional Budget Office. Certainly this is true of the economists, I always hate that when they, they love to do this, you know, CNN or ABC News or whatever. Like, well, economists say. What does that mean? That's like saying human beings who wear T shirts say, what? What? Which economists who. Now I sound like, what was it? Not Scaramucci, the. Not Scaramucci, the other guy, Cohen, who is Trump's lawyer, remember, with the polls? Polls? Which polls? Whose polls? Your polls. Polls. Whose polls? When he was on cnn, that was a pretty. That was a pretty epic CNN clip there. But, yes, in fact, it is the case that they pretend that there is so much more clarity on these issues.

Buck Sexton (8:45)

Yeah.

Clay Travis (8:45)

Producer Ali says they do the same thing with climate science. The same thing scientists say that is always just a version of we are pushing something as a news organization and found people who have some professional pedigree that we want to leverage, who agree with us. That's all that means. Because you can always find, you know, an economist to say this or an economist to say that. And I don't mean to be mean. I'm sure some of you have economics degrees and at some level, you know, microeconomics, supply and demand, there are things that are useful and true about economics. But if economics was a science, the way that, you know, physics is scientific or that astronomy is rooted in science and numbers, you would be able to say, well, I know what the economy is going to do, or you wouldn't be wrong all the time, which economists tend to be, because there's too many factors and too many things going on for them to be predictive. They can give you a generalized snapshot of what could happen and why, but they tend not to be right. And anyway, this is yet another example of that. So part of this is, I think they don't account for even just the revenue windfall that will come from the Trump tariffs. And Scott Bessen, who is a serious guy who understands how the economy works, was just saying on television a couple of days ago, he's a Treasury secretary, that China as a producer is going to have to eat some of a major portion of the cost of the tariffs. That's not something you're hearing from any. We're always told, oh, my gosh, the price of eggs. Price of eggs. Well, they don't cry about that anymore because price of eggs is down 60% from its high. So that's not going to work as a talking point. So what are they going to freak out about now? All the stuff you're buying from China or all the stuff with the tariffs? Trump is in an ongoing negotiation on all of this. The markets, I think, have stabilized because they have figured that out. And I think what we're going to see is that if this bill is passed, it will be even better for the economy, generate more revenue and put us on a better financial footing than some of the advocates for it who aren't deeply involved in it would currently think, or rather some of the advocates for Trumpism more broadly would think. And that is my hope, and that is honestly my belief as well. The notion that we would be able to cut, you know, that we would pay down, let's say, a trillion or $2 trillion of the national debt this year. We, we as a country, we as Republicans, just, just don't. A majority of us just don't want to do it. It's not there. We would lose to Democrats who are insane, who are doing crazy things, who are harmful to the economy. They would be in power. They will crush us in the midterms. That is a political reality. Now. People can say the hour is so late that we have to do that. We have to just, you know, just run up against that Buzzsaw and see what happens. But there is no one who knows politics in America that I am aware of at all, who thinks that we could cut a trillion or $2 trillion now this year from the debt. I'm not even talking about the deficit, the debt. And that that would not result in a huge win for Democrats and maybe the resurrection of the Democrat Party as a. As an opposition worthy of the name, which it certainly is not right now. So those are the big questions. Those are the big problems as I, as I see them. But I do think that this is going to be a bill that eventually people will look back on and say, wow, that actually did a lot of really good things for the economy. The fact that it is going to fully fund the border wall and border security measures alone gets me really excited. This is it. Trump will have the purse in place to do all of the things that he promised to do on the border. The money is there. The authorization is there. If this bill goes through, that's really meaningful. You know, maybe you could say it this way. If we fix the illegal alien crisis first, it's going to be easier to fix the debt later because it shows we can tackle the big things. We're a serious country. We believe in sovereignty. There is an argument to be made there. And this bill absolutely funds. It funds the wall. It funds the border, all of the border measures and interior enforcement measures that we need. So Very, very important stuff. Israel was forced to defend itself again yesterday after an incoming missile attack. Unfortunately, this is not new for Israeli citizens. They've been consistently under attack of one kind or another. It's a time when Israel needs friendship and support and that's where the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews or IFCJ comes in. They're building bomb shelters to protect schoolchildren from rocket attacks. They're fortifying emergency vehicles and providing flak jackets and other resources. And they're feeding elderly Holocaust survivors who have no one else. When you give a gift of $45 to the IFCJ to help provide food, shelter and more for those in desperate need, you're putting faith into action right where it's needed most. Call 888-488-IFCJ or visit ifcj.org to bless Israel today. Again, that's ifcj.org or call 888-488IFCJ. We're going to have Secretary of Transportation Duffy joining us here shortly. So we will have a convers things related to, well, transportation but notably the air traffic controller issues, flight delays. I am very hopeful he'll have some good things to tell us about how this stuff is getting fixed because the situation of just being a person who flies in this country, it is very frustrating. It is unreliable time wise for you. And it's just, it's just too much. I mean I, I feel like of the last 10 flights I've taken, I want to say eight of them have been seriously delayed. It's just the numbers are nuts. The numbers are nuts. I've definitely had a situation where I had four flights in a row over about a week or so and they were all delayed four in a row, four for four, all delay. And not like by weather in one day. I mean four different flights in four different place. It's just all the man hours that are being just lit on fire by this. It's, it's craziness. So I, I, I'm looking forward to talking to him about that. We got a talk back. Speaking of talk back, Theo from Sacramento who listens out on KFBK radio play.

Buck Sexton (15:50)

EE please, my respect for you have gone up 1000%. Even more EDM music is the absolute best.

Clay Travis (16:00)

I was not expecting to get a shout out for liking electronic dance music but here we are. I do like EDM and I will tell you this, it is the truth. I listen to more classical music than anything else. By far my number one. Well depends when you catch me. But on my playlists My number one played artist is always either Mozart or Beethoven over the course of a year.

Buck Sexton (16:25)

Just.

Clay Travis (16:25)

Just saying. It's just the way I. I grew up with classical music, so I'm a big fan. But I do listen to some electronic dance music too. So I will occasionally go from, you know, listening to Mozart or. Or Schubert or Haydn to just switch right over to Paul Oakenfold or something, you know, and that's just the way. That's just the way that it goes. But I've got to say, yeah, see, team knows that I've. I switch it up. You know, I like to keep people on their toes. I also. I don't even know what the music is that I like. Like how you would describe this. What. What do you call Rufus Du Sol and. And Bob Moses and what is that genre? I just feel like it's people my age from the. I don't know, from the east coast, like listen to this stuff. I don't know what you. Is it. Is it like new? It's not altogether. And it's not like alternative rock or something. I don't know what you even call the music I listen to. So. But I gave you a couple bands there that I like that I've been to. Actually took Carey to see both of those live before we got engaged. So I'm thinking those are the two live, last live shows that I went to for music. But yeah, I should probably go to the symphony sometime down here in Miami. But yeah, edm, electronic dance music, it's fun. It's great for working out too. It's good stuff. Rufus do soul is electronic dance. Yeah. So maybe that is EDM then. I guess it sort of falls under that category. So I like that stuff. I grew up around a lot of hip hop music in New York City, was played at all the parties and everything else. I am not a hip hop person. I do not listen to hip hop music anymore and have not for a long time. So yeah, just getting into a little bit of a music genres discussion today. I do find that it's important to set up a good place in your house where you can listen to music. And I'm just going to tell you, just listen to more classical music. I know it seems like such a. Just trust me on that one. Just put it on in the background. Listen to more classical music. You own a house, you know, it comes with regular maintenance. One of the parts of your home that will require your attention are the rain gutters. As sturdy as they might be, they constantly fill up with Debris, the kind that clog up when heavy rain pours down. Thankfully, there's leaffilter, America's number one gutter protection company. When your gutters are clogged, the eventual downpour is enough rain to clog those gutters. Causing overflow can lead to costly damage. The expense comes in the form of repairing your work walls, your foundation footing, leading to sizable renovation work. Protect your home now with leaffilter. Right now, you can save up to 30% off your entire order. Go to leaffilter.com buck and get started. Leaffilter's trusted pros will clean out, realign and seal your gutters before installing Leaffilter's award winning and patented technology trusted by over a million homeowners. Schedule your free inspection and get up to 30% off your entire order@leaffilter.com buck that's leafilter.com buck. See your representative for warranty details. We've been trying to track him down for a bit, but he's really busy. He's finally with us. We're very pleased. Transportation secretary Sean Duffy. Mr. Secretary, welcome on the program.

Buck Sexton (19:41)

Hey, man, I think this is my inaugural visit to the program. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Clay Travis (19:46)

Absolutely. We're honored to have you. Clay sends his regards. He is. Is on the golf course today. I'm hearing rumors that he hit it 340 yards from the back tees. I don't know if that's true or not, but this is what people are saying. But tell me this. Let's, let's, let's just leave the Clay.

Buck Sexton (20:03)

On the golf course on the day I show up.

Clay Travis (20:06)

Uh, let's, let's do this, though. Tell me what's going on particularly. You know, I'm a New Yorker. At least I grew up in New York, so I spent plenty of time in Newark airport. It has been a total mess. The air traffic control situation seems like it's. It's a disaster that you inherited here. And is it getting better? What is the problem? Why are we constantly having all these flight delays that aren't weather related? How does it get fixed? You got a lot of frustrated flyers out there who are hoping you're going to help clear all this nonsense up. What's going on?

Buck Sexton (20:39)

Yes. So first we have to recognize this has been a problem that's been burning for a long time. But it was coming to a head over the last four years, over the last administration. Government watchdog groups told Biden and Buttigieg, listen, you're going to have real problems. You need to fix the air traffic control system, and they didn't do anything. So they've left it to us. And what you saw in Newark is kind of a culmination of several of the problems that we have in the airspace. And they happen at the same time. So in Newark, you had three things. One, they shut down a Runway to repave it, right? They open it up 13 days before schedule grade on the Port Authority. But the two issues remaining are issues that we see throughout the whole system were 3,000 air traffic controllers short nationwide. And so you're seeing a lack of controllers in the Philly TRACON that controls the Newark airspace. And then we're having telecom issues. Our infrastructure for air traffic control still uses copper wires. Nobody uses copper wires anymore. Everyone's on fiber. So we were having telecom issues in the Philly Kray Con, and we resolved that issue on. On the. On the. On the copper wire. But Verizon moved incredibly fast, our partner there and laid brand new fiber between Philly and New York. And so it's not, by the way, we're still testing that fiber. You want to be ultra safe before you switch it over. That'll be tested through probably the end of June, early July. And then there's 22 controllers in the Philly tray. Kyle. Six of them are out right now, five for the trauma that they had because of the outages from late April, early May. One is on sicklead. We brought in 22 new controllers to train in Philly right now. Now, when I say a new controller, what I mean is this could be an air traffic controller who is certified in a different airspace, say Denver. If they come to the Philly tracon to control a different airspace, they have to get recertified on that specific airspace. And so most of these are experienced controllers, but it's going to take them time to get certified. So the problems of telecom and the problems of the Runway and the problems of the controllers, you're going to have a small role of continual improvement. But you were seeing and giving you a lot of information here, Buck, but what you saw was this. We reduced the capacity at Newark, so all these flights were scheduled, but they weren't fine because we reduced the capacity and you saw delays and cancellations, and it was a disaster. For a couple weeks. What we've done is we've got all the airlines to agree that we're going to reduce our capacity. So if you book in Newark now, you actually fly. And that's what's key. No one wants to go to the airport and wait for hours and be canceled. So because of the agreement that we have at Newark, everyone says, okay, we're not gonna have as many flights coming out of here, but the ones we do have will actually go. So we're on the path to resolving it. But all these solutions take time because you can't snap your fingers and create more controllers and you can't, you know, quickly run fiber and then, you know, quickly test it. But we're doing it, and it's gonna get better in Newark.

Clay Travis (24:08)

But give me some grace now nationwide. Mr. Secretary, there's also. It feels like. And you see a lot of people complaining about it on X, I'm sure just flight delays have. It feels like the problem is constantly getting worse, not better. So you've talked to us about Newark, but just in general across the country, how do we get it so that especially a lot of these routes where people are flying, you know, and there's a 60 or 70% delay rate. Some of these delay rates just seems unconscionable. Is that a function of airlines got to scale back the flights? Is it air traffic control? How do we get it so that people can really believe credibly if there's clear skies? Okay, I'm not talking about if there's tornadoes or crazy weather, but if the weather is fine, their plane's probably going to take off when it's supposed to, and they're probably going to get off it when they're supposed to.

Buck Sexton (25:01)

Yeah. So we are using equipment that is, you know, 25, 35 years old in whether it's the towers that are at the airports. The tray con, you know, is the next ring out from the tower. It's really old equipment and it's really old telecom. And so I'm going to need a lot of money from Congress. It should have been done, you know, a decade ago. It wasn't. And we have to basically gut and build brand new our air traffic control system with the best technology in the world. We can do it really quickly. It's going to take, you know, three years if the Congress clears the permitting process. For me, if I don't have to go through nepa, that just, you know, stacks, you know, you know, month upon month or year upon year. They clear that for me, we're going to be able to do it fast. And what you'll see is you can handle greater capacity with the new system that we're going to build. And as new technology becomes available, you can deploy it off this new system to get Even more efficiencies. Instead of having the flip phone that you can send as many updates as you want to your Razer flip phone, if that's in your genre. It wasn't mine. It's not going to update it is what it is. It's old, it's antiquated. That's what we have right now. But if I build you an iPhone 15, you can deploy a ton of technology off of it. We're going to build you the iPhone 15 that you can build technology off of. And you have to think that we're going to have more air travel, but it's going to get more complicated because we're going to deploy in the next years. You're going to see drone technology expand and services expand throughout the country, where you're going to get Amazon deliveries, you're going to get your, your Uber Eats, you're going to get a hot cup of coffee from Starbucks if you shop, if you get your coffee at Starbucks, all by a drone. And we're going to have Evitols. These are like the Ubers in the air. They're big drones that you can hold, you know, three, four people. And you're going to see those deploy in the airspace.

Clay Travis (27:03)

How far are we from that, Mr. Secretary? Because that sounds pretty cool.

Buck Sexton (27:08)

It's very cool. So they're testing these, these evitals right now. They're, they're. I think you see the technology advance. Archer, which is one of the technologies, is actually has a contract with the Olympics in 2028. And it's not just to showcase their technology. They actually have to use that technology to move people around all the different sites at the LA Olympics. So it's moving very fast. The FAA has to certify it, make sure it's safe. Eventually, you'll see, you won't have. These will not be piloted. They can be autonomous or. Right now, in certain parts of the country, like in Texas, the drone deliveries are happening in certain parts of the country right now. Really successful. People love them. And what they've done with drones is obviously the noise becomes a concern. They've done really well innovating on props to reduce the noise. You barely know what's in the sky when it's hovering over your house. Drop in product or set product down.

Clay Travis (28:11)

That's very cool. Well, that's looking forward to having that going on. But obviously, if it's tough to have air traffic control for planes, if we put thousands, tens of thousands, however many drones, and, and air taxis in the sky, that's going to, I assume that's going to result in some interesting air traffic issues as well. So hopefully that'll all get squared away. Tell us about the, the report you just released. California's high speed rail. $16 billion, 17 years, no track laid. How is that possible?

Buck Sexton (28:44)

Yeah, it's a great question. So first, I'm a conservative. I would love to have high speed rail in America. I think it would be great if we could do it. This was the first big project and like liberals seem to always deliver the same results which are not very good. This was supposed to be done years ago and it was supposed to cost a little over $20 billion. They haven't laid any track, they've spent billions. They've now told us that they can complete a truncated portion of the project by 2033. We looked at their data, they've given us 80,000 pages of documents. They just can't do it. And so they have about $4 billion of grants that have been given by the DOT and it's our philosophy that if we give them that 4, if we let that $4 billion go, that's 4 billion we don't have for other good projects around the country. And I think the taxpayer expects us to spend their money well and not to invest in boondoggles.

Clay Travis (29:47)

And so where did the money, I gotta ask Mr. Secretary, $16 billion, it's a lot of money for a state level project. What was it spent on?

Buck Sexton (29:58)

So they were, they were buying land. Right. And by the way, there's, there is an eyebrow raised from me that how is the land, who is buying land along the route of this, of this proposed high speed rail and how much money did they make and are they connected to politicians? All those questions need to be asked and looked at is, you know, was there any criminal activity? I don't know, but I think it should be looked at at the project.

Clay Travis (30:31)

Now.

Buck Sexton (30:32)

It's, it is out over 10 years and if they did the full project, it was supposed to be tens of billions. It would be $130 billion to actually build it. And they still don't know that they can do it in any specific time frame. So you have to recognize that it's a nice concept. But liberals don't spend money well and they haven't done it well on this project. And so at what point does the government cut bait and say, you know what, we're not going to do this one, but maybe there's other good projects across the country that we could invest in that would, that would serve the population.

Clay Travis (31:06)

Well, and tell us about what's in the. Assuming it gets passed more or less as, as is what is in the big beautiful bill that will go to transportation that will make a difference to the American people.

Buck Sexton (31:22)

So for us, we, there's $12 billion for this brand new air traffic control system. That's not going to be enough. You got to think about this. This is the biggest, it's nationwide infrastructure. It is the most important infrastructure that we're going to build on in the last several decades for sure because it's such a big part of our economy. People fly, whether it's business or pleasure. We move a lot of products through the air. And so we have 12 billion. We'll need more than that at a later point. They're going to have to give it to us. One of the problems, Buck, in the past is the Congress would give tranches of money to the FAA and then the priority would change or the administration changes and they never got the money. So we need to get the money up front. So 12 billion is a nice start. We can begin the project. But this year I need to get the rest of the money and then in that secondary bill we can hopefully get the, the clearing the deck of the permits. I also think it's important making sure we don't get a massive tax increase. That's big for us in the big beautiful bill. Also, there's a provision that if you buy a brand new car that was made in America, you can write off up to $10,000 of your interest payments on the vehicle. So again, incentivizing people to buy new cars. The President's doing all kinds of things to deliver on the promises that he made during the campaign. Which by the way is nice when we have presidents that, that actually do what they say or try to accomplish what they promised.

Clay Travis (32:58)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Sir, thank you so much for being with us. And please fix all the things. We appreciate it.

Buck Sexton (33:07)

And the potholes to your buck. Right on your house. I got you.

Clay Travis (33:09)

Yeah, you got me. Thank you, sir. Good to talk to you about the other. A data breach last month exposed nearly 200 million records, including login credentials for Google, Apple, Meta and more. With a number that big, the odds are that some of your own information might well be include stolen information. Contains usernames, passwords and login URLs connected to services like PayPal, Netflix and more. Criminals could use this information to commit online identity theft. It's important to understand how cybercrime and identity theft are affecting our lives. Just like it's important you know how to protect yourself with Lifelocks online identity theft protection. I've got a Lifelock membership. I've had it for almost a decade now and I renew my membership every year because it's worth it. Lifelock systems monitor millions of data points a second for risk to your identity. Lifelock detects and alerts you to potential identity threats. You may not spot on your own like loans being taken out in your name. And if you do become a victim of identity theft, a dedicated U S based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. It's easy to help protect yourself at LifeLock. Join Now Save 40 off your first year with My Name Buck as your promo code. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK or go online to LifeLock.com and use promo code Buck for 40 off terms apply. Closing up shop today on Clay and Buck. Thank you so much for hanging out as always. I'll be back with you tomorrow. Clay is traveling tomorrow and then I think actually I'll be out Friday and getting ready for a weekend. I'm going to be doing a lot of I think firearms training this weekend. So that will be fun. Oh, as always, I have some stories for you about that one I am sure. You know, trying to get good, you know what I mean? Just trying to get better all the time. I'm a student who's trying to learn more of the way of the gun and we have some, some really fun stuff actually coming in. Charles Cook, who's an old friend of mine from the real news at the Blaze days, he's over National Review. He does a really good job on this one, I think. Karine Jean Pierre has a book, the title of the book of the White House press secretary under Biden is independent A look inside a broken White House outside the party lines. And Karine Jean Pierre is now getting headlines for leaving the Democratic Party. She's not saying she's an independent. You were the White House press secretary. You like the chief propagandist of the Biden White House. I know you could say any, any press secretary. That's somewhat the job but it's. You're a propagandist if you're saying things that you really know are not true. Right. You're just going to do whatever. And Charles Cook points out that in from 2020 to 2024 green Jean Pierre's take was everything Biden was correct. Everything Biden did was correct. Everything Biden did was correct. And then 2025 he loses. Actually I'm more of an independent. Buy my book. Totally agree with Charles on this one. It is absurd. Absurd. But this is what's going on. Podcast listener Jeff, this is aa the pronunciation police have come for me. Let's hear it. Hey, Buck, that town that you were trying to pronounce is not Olath. It's Olathe. I used to live there, though. Just wanted to let you know. Have a good one. Thank you, my friend. Olathe. The thriving metropolis of Olathe. I do learn some new towns on this show, so that's always fun. There are a lot of towns in this country and some of them have some pretty funky names, but I'm sure Olathe is lovely this time of year, and that is a name that I shall remember. Got off easy. I got off with a warning from the pronunciation police this time, so that's good. Back with you tomorrow. Gonna be a rocking show. Make sure you go check out the Clay and Buck Podcast network. So many great shows there. So many great hosts. Things you can only hear on the podcast network. And we'll be back with you tomorrow. Talk to you. This is an iHeart podcast.