← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Normally Podcast: Trump’s Iran Ceasefire Chaos, Gilgo Beach Killer Twist & California’s $125B Rail Disaster
00:26:58
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- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:11]
B
Hey, guys. We are back on. Normally, the show is normal. It takes for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary Katherine Ham.
- [00:17]
C
I'm Carol Markowitz. Mary Katherine, the news is freaking weird.
- [00:20]
B
That's freaking weird, man.
- [00:21]
C
It's weird. As we're recording this, there's a temporary ceasefire between Iran and the United States. It's supposed to apply to allies as well. Iran is already breaking it. We have no idea what's going to happen by the time this episode airs.
- [00:41]
B
Yeah. The information we do know is that Trump sent the truth social that said a civilization will die tonight. And a lot of people flipped out. And you. And I thought, I feel like this is part of upping the ante so that he gets his negotiation on a different footing, which is usually what he's doing in these situations. I understand the part where you go, the President of the United States is tweeting this crazy stuff, and it includes possible war crimes, and that's bad, and that's not how we do things. And I'm scared that he might do it because cultivating a madman theory means, to some extent, people worry that you might do the thing.
- [01:21]
C
Right, right, right. Well, that's. That. That's what makes it effective. Yes.
- [01:25]
B
Right. So that part I understand. The part I don't understand is when he doesn't and achieves some sort of shift in negotiations and a ceasefire. The same people.
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C
Yeah.
- [01:39]
B
Saying Trump chickened out by not doing the war crimes and the genociding that they were worried about in the morning. That part I do not understand.
- [01:48]
C
Right. If you are horrified by his, you know, wiping out a civilization bluster, but then disappointed by the ceasefire, make it make sense. Like, which of these are you?
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B
I am confused. What we do know is that the deal was supposed to be a ceasefire, which, as you note, Iran has violated continually since. In the 18 hours since this went into effect, or what have you in all directions, uae, others. And so presumably they're not going to be putting up with that. We'll see what Trump says. The straight reform use is supposed to be open, but it's not. And Iran is blaming that on Israel hitting Hezbollah in Lebanon, to which Trump said they weren't part of the ceasefire.
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C
Right.
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B
And there does seem to be a lot of assumptions on the part of the media about what the ceasefire deal entails, alleging that Trump accepted on its face every one of Iran's things on a list, wish list, and I just don't buy that part of it.
- [02:52]
C
Yeah. I don't understand who does. And again, I think it's so strange that you and I are in the position of like defending Donald Trump as a person. It makes very little sense to me that you and I are understanding what he's doing. But his, like, alleged intense supporters, you know, the Tuckers of the world and those kind of people are pretending that this is all completely brand new to him. Like Tucker being offended on behalf of Muslims that Donald Trump said, you know, praise be to Allah, in a sarcastic tone on Easter, like, welcome, welcome, dude. He's been president. You know, we're into his sixth year of his presidency, four years in between where he was still in the National Conversation Daily. If any of this is surprising to you, I don't understand. And I don't know. I also think that if this, I had no illusion that the ceasefire will hold. I mean, you know, maybe it will. Maybe we go to this runs tomorrow. Maybe Iran and Trump figure out a way to really have the ceasefire hold. I kind of don't think so because again, in my reading of Donald Trump is he's not going to accept the Strait of Hormuz being blocked. And as we're recording this, Fox News is reporting that they have blocked two ships from the Strait. Kuwait was reporting they're under attack. Cluster bombs landed in Israel yesterday. So all of this says to me that this ceasefire is not going to hold. But if it were to hold, I'd be happy about that. I would feel good about that. I don't want a long war. I don't want war to go on. And I think we've achieved a lot of our objectives. So let me read you two tweets that kind of summarize what I'm thinking about this Armin Rosen tweets if this ceasefire winds up happening, the bold Iranian gambit to trade much of their senior leadership, most of their navy, at least half their missile launchers, the lives of thousands of security personnel, various bridges and rail lines, steel and petrochemical plants, their deterrence, their nuclear infrastructure, their air defenses, and the ability to use Dubai as a sanctions evasions hub for the possibility of charging tolls for merchant shipping on the Strait of Hormuz will have been a titanic failure. I don't even think they're going to get the tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. But, you know, let's say that's where we wind up. How is that not a win for us?
- [05:13]
B
And it's, it's also.
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C
Don't get it.
- [05:15]
B
It's also two weeks of Ceasefire and negotiation for a maybe. Right, right.
- [05:19]
C
Right.
- [05:19]
B
Now, I don't like the way Trump is talking about, like, yeah, we're just going to do business with them and we'll split the tolls. And it's like, okay, please don't do that.
- [05:25]
C
I can't believe any of that. I just don't feel like it's all right. It's all just words that he's saying to get what he wants. But, yeah, I don't believe it.
- [05:32]
B
I'm, I'm of two minds about this. I do think there's concern that once you have stopped that the, the political cost at home of continuing goes up. Right. So if you need to resume, as I think you do, Iran has violated that becomes a harder political question for Donald Trump. Now we can talk more broadly about our relatively low tolerance for these things and why that matters on the world scene. I think it's well earned after 20 years of war weariness.
- [06:03]
C
Understandable.
- [06:04]
B
The Afghanistan withdrawal being horrific as a sort of exclamation point on that period of time. I think the remedy for that is to decisively win a war. And this seems like one that is tactically going well. I just don't know what the strategy is from here, nor do a lot of people. Right. And that's part of what Trump does. So I am a little concerned that restarting will be difficult. That the market responding so well to the news that Hormuz will be open makes Trump go, great, except that it's not open.
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C
Right, right.
- [06:40]
B
So we'll see how he reacts to that. But I think you're right that a lot of people with, when it's Trump, they just forget. They're like, oh, we're at status quo ante. And I'm like, I don't think we're at status quo ante at all. Right. As Eli Lake puts it, in five weeks of war, the regime has lost its Navy, most of its missile launchers, and a good chunk of its defense industrial base, along with the top tier of its political and military leadership. Add to this the damage already done to its nuclear program in last June's 12 day war. There are more than 900 pounds of uranium buried under the rubble of what used to be underground enrichment facilities. A year ago, Iran was on the brink of obtaining a nuclear weapon and the ballistic missiles to deliver it to as far as Europe. Today, the regime's military has been reduced to a shell of itself. That doesn't mean a clear win, maybe in many people's minds in America, which is Something Trump needs to deal with in a messaging sense, but that's a big deal. And it makes. And also, Khamenei's dead, by the way, and it makes it much harder for them to reach outside of Iran to terrorize people.
- [07:46]
C
Absolutely. That's such a big thing. The fact that they have lost so much influence is humongous. And I was gonna read a very similar comment from David Hirsiani, who also sums up all the things that they've lost. And I just, again, you can hate Donald Trump, you can hate this war, you can hate war in general. You can hate all of it. But to say that America didn't get anything out of these last few weeks is crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And we got to, like, see what our capabilities are on. On the world stage. It's. It's been breathtaking to watch. And again, you could oppose all of this and still say, wow, we won this. I. I don't understand how you look at it in another sense.
- [08:27]
B
Well, you've also seen the Gulf states rally with both America and notably Israel. Yep. Like, that's a big deal. They have shifted those alliances against themselves. Iran has, by their behavior during this. Yeah. And then China and Russia have sort of barely lifted a finger. Now, there is a question during this ceasefire whether Russia and China start shipping stuff in to make it easier for them to learn and adapt and do new things. But I don't see it. By the way. By the way, they had a lot of time to prepare for this war. There was, like, decades where they were preparing for this, or even the months
- [09:06]
C
in advance where Trump was like, I'm going to attack you. I'm going to attack you. I don't see it. Only because Russia needs its own supplies for their ongoing war in Ukraine. China. Seems like, why did we back these losers? They really don't seem like, oh, we're on this side. They're very, very quiet. They're not blustery at all. And that's a tell. I mean, I don't know, again, how to look at it as anything, but.
- [09:33]
B
Yeah, we will see where it goes. Like, it could all change within 18 hours. But this is what we know thus far. And I'm with you. I'm with you in that people discount what has already happened. And also, I think the cost of Trump being unconventional and not clearly communicating this is what I want to achieve means that. And because he likes to declare that anything is the thing he wanted to achieve means that voters are going to be like, but what's the thing that we achieved. Right. People who don't follow this all the time are going to need to be messaged and clearly told that. And he has missed opportunities to do that. Even though he does talk about it, he doesn't talk about it in the sort of traditional presidential way.
- [10:18]
C
I agree. I think either of the tweets that you and I read sum up a lot of the success that we've had. And Donald Trump can say that to the American people and mean it because it's true. Another tweet I enjoyed from Clay Travis. He says yesterday, many experts. That's in quotes. Experts told you we were headed for nuclear war and spent the entire day losing their minds. Today, the Dow opens up up 300 points. S&P rises nearly 3% and oil has dropped to $20 a barrel. Dropped $20 a barrel. As always, it pays to be rational. Congrats to those who didn't lose their minds. This goes back to what we talk about a lot, which is we would be the same people. We are if this was Joe Biden. And if you're not the same person, you are. If you don't have the same beliefs, if you're Bill Crystal, that's a problem.
- [11:07]
B
I mean, the, the thing where you're afraid of genocide and the destruction of a civilization at 9am and by 7pm you're like, what a wuss.
- [11:18]
C
Yep. Taco.
- [11:20]
B
That's a no for me. That's a no for me. That's that. That gear shift I can't do.
- [11:25]
C
Yeah, it's crazy. Also, Adam Francisco points out that gas prices collapsed and CNN removed the gas price graphic from their homepage because of course they did. We're going to take a short break and be right back with more on Normally
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A
Support is available 247 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help because a great trip starts with the right support.
- [11:59]
C
We are back on normally where a case that has really gripped New York. I mean, it was years and years of bodies piling up near Gilgo beach on Long Island. It was. I'm not a super murdery person, but it was a huge, huge story for a long time.
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B
Sorry, I don't mean to make light. It's just a funny story.
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C
No, no, it is correct. A lot women are into the murdering. And I, I do not consider myself one of those. I mean, I enjoyed the occasional Law and Order episode, but.
- [12:29]
B
Well, there are a lot of women who are into the murdering, literally and into. Then there are a lot who are into the. The storytelling about the murdering.
- [12:35]
C
Yes, I meant the latter. Yes. So here's the story of what happened with the Gilgo murders, because I'm so fascinated by this. So a woman goes missing. And when you read the story of this woman going missing, she's like. She was, I believe, a sex worker. And she was knocking on doors. She had a driver waiting for her. She was, like, hysterical. She appeared like somebody was chasing her. Turns out that that woman might not even be involved in any of this. Like, she was ultimately found. Yeah, her body was ultimately found, but it appears that she died accidentally and is not related to this case. But as they start looking for this woman, they just find body after body after body after body after. And so far, he. The man who was arrested for Rex Herrmann, he was maintaining his innocence for a long, long time. And then today, Wednesday, he is due to plead guilty in court, which is a big shift because he's been saying the whole time he had nothing to do with it. He was previously charged with seven murders and not the woman. Again, not the woman that went missing. He's now going to admit to an eighth murder that was one of the bodies found, but wasn't tied to him originally. And now at least three more corpses are not tied to him. An Asian man, a woman and her child were found during these searches, and it appears that they are not part of his murder spree. Which leads to the question of what in the hell is going on in this sleepy Long Island? Like, the cutest little area, Gilgol Beach. You would never think, oh, oh, let's just go find bodies in the water. So, yeah, and the case of how they found this guy was very interesting. He was an architect, and they somehow tied him to the first murder and ended up finding. Finding him eating a pizza on the street of Manhattan. He dumps the pizza in a garbage can. They test the crust, they tie him to the rest of us. So it's. It's really interesting and it's. It's bizarre. And it will make every murder story look bland in comparison, especially because, again, there are at least three more unsolved murders that have not so far been tied to him. It's been a long time coming for New York to get to the end of the story. And him pleading guilty today will be at least part of the way towards that.
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B
Now, Alvin Bragg is not dealing with the plea deal, right? Cause that'll be like two and a half weeks.
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C
No, no, I don't avoid that.
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B
No, I. I am also not super murdery. I occasionally do like true crime, but I find that it's like generally too dark for me. And I never am a person who follows cases while they happen, which is a funny thing because I know that's the breaking news. Right. I don't do that in crime cases. Yeah, I only watch the documentary after the fact. Maybe because there's distance or something.
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C
Right.
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B
But yes, it's. Serial killers are, for whatever reason, endlessly fascinating. I mean many people are fascinated by them. There is good news, by the way, that active serial serial killers went from like, yeah, a high of 700 in the 80s to like 100 now. Like we've, we've really cut down on our national supply of serial killers and that's good news for us.
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C
It's just, it's much harder. Right. It's this camera's everywhere. Everything is testable. I mean again, this, this guy is just like eating his pizza on the streets of Manhattan, dumps it in a garb garbage can and now he's charged with eight murders.
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B
Like it's, I mean that's good police work right there.
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C
Yes, yes, it's excellent for those of us not committing murders. And this is why I think the murdering has, has gone down. It is. This is like a 10 year running story in New York. So a lot of New Yorkers are super invested in this to see how it turns out. There's been also in the articles about this, like he was not willing to settle this case at all. He was. And, and, and people were like, did they have the wrong guy? Like it. It was really to. Because he was so adamant that he didn't do it and now he's saying that he did do it. So we'll see what happens. There's a three part documentary. I haven't seen it, but apparently people love it. The Gilgo Beach Killer. House of Secrets. His family's on the record, his wife has left him. I mean, apparently being a serial killer is not good for your marriage, guys.
- [17:06]
B
Yeah, I will probably watch that at some point. I do also just on, on this dark subject and if you want a good serial killer story that has a lot of distance, the book, the Devil in the White City by Larson. It is about a serial killer during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair who basically kept the equivalent of an Airbnb at the time. And young women came to stay in this house that he had built into sort of a house of horrors. And it is a great historical account not only of that. Who is. It's an incredible story And I won't spoil any of it for you because it has so many twists and turns. But also, I got the sense that this guy maybe just wanted to write a story about the Chicago World's Fair and needed a hook for it because there's so much historical information about that huge event in American history. And so it's a great read. He's a great writer, and I really enjoyed it.
- [18:03]
C
This isn't about murder, but we started watching Les Mis last night as a family. I've never seen it before. Like, I had no idea what it was about. Like, the whole early prostitution scenes as, like, kids, you know, blocking their faces. I. I did not know. But anyway, my middle son, who's really into history, was like, there's no way. They pursued this, you know, bread thief for six years trying to find him after he was out on parole. He said they stopped looking for Jack the Ripper after three months. And they were just like, that's it. No, no more of this. And so he doesn't buy that they spent, you know, years and years looking for the bread thief right across the. The water in France. Do you like Les Mis?
- [18:43]
B
I do like Les Mis. I don't think I've ever seen it on stage, though I should. My husband knows a lot about Les Mis because his mom took him to see it one time and it was after like a 12 hour overnight shift and he dozed a little bit during that play. I don't think I'm speaking out of school here. So what he did was he went and learned all the lyrics and then went back with his mom so that he could make up for that incident. Isn't that sweet? So he knows it very well. Very sweet.
- [19:09]
C
Very, very sweet. My kids are not into it, like, at all. They're like, what are we watching? Why are they all singing? Make them stop.
- [19:16]
B
We'll let them know that Steve likes it.
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C
I will for sure. All right, we're going to take a short break and be right back with slightly less murder on normally. We are back on normally where California doesn't have enough money to finish the high speed rail system. And they are a little bit short. It's only supposed to connect San Francis to LA. And they just like, you know, misplaced $125 billion that they need to complete it. Let's roll this clip from some California officials talking to CBS News about this
- [19:55]
D
small, small gap as we speak right now. Are the funds there to complete L. A to San Francisco?
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E
The entire amount of money we need not there today? But do we believe we can get those funds to get the project done? Absolutely.
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D
How much do you estimate it's going to cost to connect High Speed Rail San Francisco to L A today?
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E
We estimate with the right optimization, just over $125 billion. I think $126 billion is the current estimate for that.
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D
That's more funding than Amtrak has received in its history and still leaves a shortfall of roughly $90 billion. That's a big gap to fill.
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E
It is a big gap to fill, but again, we have an understanding of how to get there and to fill that gap.
- [20:39]
C
Is it waiting for Donald Trump not to be president and getting the next Democrat to pay for it? Is that the way that they're going to fill that gap? I'll also just add that that 125 billion number is more than triple the original price tag that was approved by voters. So California is just doing super great with this.
- [20:58]
B
You know what, it's also more than. Carol, I checked this yesterday. Do you know how much the Artemis program costs from 2012 to getting to the dark side of the moon? It cost $93 billion to get to the dark side of the moon.
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C
Amazing. So getting from LA to San Francisco will cost more?
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B
That's correct.
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C
Amazing.
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B
That is correct. And probably longer.
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C
Right. Is California just a fraud? I mean, it's like the fraud capital of America. I don't think that's even. I don't think it's even debatable. But it's just a place where money goes to get completely misspent. Right. Misspent slash stolen.
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B
Yeah. This is the thing about. I mean, I, I've always been highly skeptical of government programs and they even outdo my sinister.
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C
They really do. Yeah.
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B
Ability to steal from people. And Covid, of course, accelerated all of this. There's a great piece in the City Journal called Gavin Newsom's Empire Fraud, which they estimate California's lost at least $180 billion to fraud. Obviously accelerated, as I said, by these Covid programs. There was at least one expert at the time yelling at them like, hey, this is going to be the biggest fraud in history if you take all the off of unemployment, income and or insurance and then do Covid and make it bigger. And sure enough, that's what happened. In one case, a Romanian led fraud ring orchestrated a $5 million unemployment insurance scheme and they were just taking the money and wiring it straight to Romania. Like we don't have a protection for that. And that's just a drop in the bucket. And 180 billion is something that people have trouble even picturing. And it's being taken from people's pockets every day in California. More than the program to get to the moon is being taken from the taxpayers of California, who then get what in services? Zero miles of high speed rail.
- [22:55]
C
Yep.
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B
Homeless people on many of their streets. Infrastructure that does not work for them because it's being stolen. And Newsom is going to have to reckon with this record at some point, no matter how high he is in the polls.
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C
Yeah, I don't know. Will he have to reckon with this? I saw a tweet about the same study that you're talking about, the unemployment numbers that at one point they had more people filing for unemployment than adults who live in California. So that seems like not great. As we are going through to record this, Christopher Ruffo, who was involved in breaking that incredible story, he tweets out a news story about California spending $30 billion per year paying 800,000 people to cook, clean, shop, and watch television with family members and others. This in home care program operates mostly on the honor system, which is how you know it's Great. And loses 6 to 12 billion a year to fraud. I mean, it's almost like 6 to 12 billion doesn't even seem that much when you're talking about the number the California loses.
- [24:02]
B
Well, and here's what these liberal governments do. These liberal state governments make giant promises and then they realize, oh, crap, we just have to keep raising taxes. And then they get defrauded. Because when they make these giant promises in these new programs, they don't put protections in them. I think that's partly because they like funneling money to as many people as they can possibly funnel money to. And here's the important part for normies, if you don't live in one of these states, if you live in one of these states, you're already being defrauded. If you don't live in one of these states, what's going to happen is they're going to wait for a Democratic president and Democratic Congress and then they're going to say, all of you pay for all this fraud. All of you pay for every gap in our budget. All of you who are trying to put your kids in dance classes and scrimping at the edges to buy gas, you pay for it. That's what's coming. That's the plan for Illinois, for Massachusetts, for California. That's the plan.
- [24:55]
C
Yeah. When they inevitably can't afford to pay their own bills, we're all going to be responsible for it. And the fact is that that is another thing the Republicans have to be running on. They have to be running on the fact that, yes, these frauds in these blue states, they're your problem too. And here's why. I just. Mk, can we just take over messaging for the Republican Party? Would that be too much to ask? I just. Where are they? What are they doing? It is perplexing to me that these stories are not being told in a fashion that shows the American people how responsible they're going to end up being for all of this and why it matters and who is actually responsible and who should be blamed and how to get us out of this mess.
- [25:40]
B
Yeah, a tiny bright spot. By the way, Republicans did throw in some, I believe, 9 million the other day into this Virginia redistricting. So there's life, there's life in the system. I fear that it's too little too late because we are, we are pretty close to ye olde election day right now. And there's early voting throughout that time, but at least there's some fight in them and we will see what happens.
- [26:03]
C
Yeah, I thought things were looking good for that. Or is it no longer?
- [26:06]
B
No, it was never looking good because Republicans. Republicans seated the ground for a month, which I never understood. One of the successes they've had in Virginia was framing Spanberger as this liberal once she got into office. They were helped by the facts, but they did it aggressively. And then once the redistricting happened, they were like, I guess we'll stop talking for a while. Other than, you know, myself and a handful of us. But people seem to be re engaged, so maybe this almost even fight. We could fight to a almost win or a win. I'm not super optimistic. We'll see.
- [26:39]
C
All right. We're rooting for you guys from over here and I hope that it works out. I don't know. I feel like the numbers I've seen have been good. I think I've told you I have a pollster friend who sends me stuff and he's never optimistic, but he's kind of optimistic on this. So we'll see.
- [26:56]
B
I hope that his view prevails.
- [27:00]
C
Well, we'll see about that. Thank you for joining us on Normale. Ly normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.
- [27:18]
A
This is an I heart podcast, guaranteed human.